introducing my 870gal tank (pics ahead)

[laomedon]

Ralf thank you for your answers, I know what you mean by big fish in big tank will make big tank look kind of smaller, I was always fascinated by big tank hosting numbers of smaller fish and perhaps one or two peaceful big fish like Naso etc... It always amazes me when they come out from the rockwork and suddenly show they full size that's just what I would love to have in my tank.

By the way can you hear any noise that your tank makes in the living room? that is one condition I have from my other half, tank needs to be silent, as we will have it in our living room also.

Adrian

 

[jnarowe]

Just yell louder and she will realize how silent it is! :lol:

 

[RalfP]

jnarove,
thanks for your advice, I've seen an impressing video of two of them in a large, blank tank.
Ink was added to the system and besides the waves etc. one could see how fast the ink
became equally distributed through the whole tank.
The only pumps I know, which IMHO are somehow comparable are Tunze Streams, which I use in the displaytank, but I always hated the wires and size (at least there are only 24Volts in the water).

laomedon,
the tank has got a (by design) relatively quiet overflow (water is not falling very deep),
but with all the pumps in it, there is a quiet, but detectable low frequency humming.
If talking, hearing music, watching TV etc. you'll not notice.
I guess I could make it even more silent if I would decouple the external pumps from their pipes by connecting them with parts of silicone-tube.
The Streams could be made silent by putting neoprene under the mounting-magnets etc, etc, etc.
Well, I'll not do all this stuff, I'am happy with it, like it is now.
Btw.... If I am right, a Naso will grow slow, but reach a size of something near half a meter, that would be way to large for what I would like to see in my pers. tank.
But nevertheless, I share the passion for them .

Ralf

 

[adddo]

addoo,
if you ever visit Germany, feel yourself invided to having a nice swim ;-). I'll take photos then ;-)

Hehe, i might take you up on that invitation

 

[kevinpo]

Very nice tank! Thanks for sharing all your pictures, including the back and equipment. Great design and layout.

Regards,
Kevin

 

[zemuron114]

did you just drill the rocks and place acrylic rods in them? You must have cherry picked rocks for years!!!! i have all small rocks... makes aquascaping a real pain

 

[NuReef]

Updates?

Ricky

 

[md14fish]

Probably one of the top 2 or 3 set ups I have seen on reef central!
Awesome!

 

[Kevin McG]

Absolutely stunning!!!!!!

You are an inspiration, some day when I hit the lotto

 

[Putawaywet]

Well Ralf, what can I say that hasn't already been said. Simply amazing.

To everyone else...

Anyone besides me see the irony of someone from Germany scrambling to buy American equipment. I mean, who would have thunk?

Brett

 

[jnarowe]

Brett: Seems ironic doesn't it!

 

[RalfP]

Hi all,

thanks again...
I still haven't got the new pumps for the frag tank (pls. don't tell jnarowe , a German dealer promised to get them, but didn't :-(.

hmm, updates...
coral and frags all doin' fine and growing well.
I changed the hose-pump for the Ca-support. I now use a Reefdoser quaddro (tm) from AquaMedic, because the Growtech one has a max. of 2 liters dosage per day and channel.
The chemical-dosage-containers were upgraded to 60 liters each, which will do for a little more than two weeks before refill.
I added another PVC-pipe/valve to my RO/DI water pipes, to be able to fill the mentioned 60 liter containers were they stand, not having to move them around anymore (carrying 60 kilos isn't funny ;-).

Did I already mention the worm I caught?
2 am moving myself in bed direction, I had a look at the reef in its soft moonlight.
Thinking about the way to dark sand near the frontglass, I discoverd that this it's not dirt, but a 1,5 meters long worm (stretched) along the frontglass.
Lucky me, I got it in one piece out of the water, not having to disassamble the reef like Oregonreef had to.
I found a guy through a german forum, who likes to keep such critters and sent it to him.
(Strange people around in the forums ;-).

Here are some pics to show how it develops (taken one hour ago):

Have a nice day,
Ralf

 

[RalfP]

Btw.
here is the worm:

Ralf

 

[Bax]

Nice worm!

Beautiful tank as well

 

[jnarowe]

Those worms freak me out. The tank is looking so sweet.

Please heed my warning: You have to watch the Aqua Medic doser very carefully. I just had to pull mine and switch to a LiterMeter. The reason is that my Aqua Medic, even though it was installed correctly, was allowing a syphon to my kalk stirrer and several times it bombed the tank with too much FW. It really messed up my parameters to the point that I just had to remove it.

 

[RalfP]

Jannes, the guy I sent the worm to had a closer look at it and discovered, that it seems to be a actively hunting species.
Having two eyes that normally look streight forward and a (two parts) large gripper near the large mouth.
It bit him, as he put his hand into its container, to have a size comparsion on the pic .
No poison involved, but painfull for about an hour.
It eats a small (prior) frozen fish two times a week (Smelt/Osmerus)?

I am still wondering, what it ate in my tank... *hmmm*

Ralf

edit: thanks for the warning, i'll have a closer look at it.
Using 3 channels on the Grotech for NaHCO3 and another 3 for the NaCl-free salt isn't my method of choice anymore :-(.

 

[cbui2]

oh yeah ship that worm to me, got rice. oh don't forget ketchup lol, great looking pic's. keep them coming

 

[DrBegalke]

Great system!

That worm looks similar to the one Steve removed from his "oregon reef" : http://oregonreef.com/images/photos/p_067_l.jpg

 

[jnarowe]

I stare at my tank and wonder...do I have one of those??? I would soil myself.

 

[mrpet]

TOTM.... FREAKING AWESOME YOU ARE AN INSPIRATION TO US ALL.
VERY NICE TANK...