JHendu's 115 tall
- Thread starter jhendu
- Start date
cerreta
Premium Member
Things are coming along nicely, very nice job!
Couple things may need tweaked. First, I have always drilled holes in the PVC so that it will not be buoyant and it may be useful to anchor a zip tie through the hole instead of around the pipe for some applications that need more security.
Second, that rack sits very tall in the tank. Not sure what your quascape plan is, but unless you want the rock all the way to the top, it may need trimmed. Furthermore, if you plan to zip tie a rock to the top of the PVC, then you will likely need to stack another rock on top of that to hide the exposed zip tie.
You may want to draw out some aquascape plans and make sure the rack meets your requirrement. You will also find that you will not be able to keep the rack that close to the wall, because the rock shapes will be hanging over the back side of the top pipe and you will need clearance.
Play with some rock and the rack on ground and try to get a feel for how you will use it. I think you may find that you need to shorten the bottom plate by four inches and lower it by about 4-6"
Cheers
Couple things may need tweaked. First, I have always drilled holes in the PVC so that it will not be buoyant and it may be useful to anchor a zip tie through the hole instead of around the pipe for some applications that need more security.
Second, that rack sits very tall in the tank. Not sure what your quascape plan is, but unless you want the rock all the way to the top, it may need trimmed. Furthermore, if you plan to zip tie a rock to the top of the PVC, then you will likely need to stack another rock on top of that to hide the exposed zip tie.
You may want to draw out some aquascape plans and make sure the rack meets your requirrement. You will also find that you will not be able to keep the rack that close to the wall, because the rock shapes will be hanging over the back side of the top pipe and you will need clearance.
Play with some rock and the rack on ground and try to get a feel for how you will use it. I think you may find that you need to shorten the bottom plate by four inches and lower it by about 4-6"
Cheers
jhendu
Premium Member
Scott, there you are a day late and a dollar short. Could have used that insight about 13 hrs ago. While we didn't have any probs with the rack floating after we put the first rock on it, we did realize that it was a bit higher than it should have been. Of course we didn't realize that until we were well into the construction and past the point of no return for the day. We adapted and I think we overcame pretty well. We placed a few critters up there nice and high so they can get lots of light. We probably could have done a better job of ensuring there were really good spots for our livestock. We made do with what we ended up with but we really only enusred a spot for our large colony of green favites. Everything else was placed randomly around based on where we thought it would sit well. We clustered some corals closer than we would have liked simply because of the need for a good spot for the frags. I only glued a couple of items in place in case we decide that we hate this in a few weeks and want to take a mulligan. If that happens I will probably offer one of you guys a few bucks to have you do it for me. I can't even feel my fingers from all the time spent in the water and grasping sharp rocks today. But we got it done and so far we are happy with the way it came out. I built the PVC frame a few inches to high so the right side is higher than we had really planned but we don't hate it. We left some room in front of the overflow in case we find new rocks that we like with cool critters attached to them. We got everyone situated in some new spots but we'll see how they like them in a few days. Depending on all of the tudes of the critters, we may move some folks around in the days to come. I'm not sure how happy the xenia are going to be with the current from the koralia 3s. No major issues during the build except that it proved to be quite a pain in the hind quarters to cover some of the PVC frame. I like the way we were able to secure some larger pieces higher up but I'm not convinced that I would I do it that way again. This photo was just snapped so most everything is sleeping (or still stressed) so I'll get another photo tomorrow after the lights have been on for a bit so we can all get a feel for how things are really going. The biggest problem that I had today is an unpleasant odor from the sump. We can't figure out if its due to the sand that I put in there, the skimmer, or???? Hopefully it will dissipate by tomorrow or I'm going to have to go all Encyclopedia Brown/Hardy Boys on that thing. Hard to describe the odor as anything other than "Funky". We'll see, now its time to sleep.
jhendu
Premium Member
Lunchtime Update
Lunchtime Update
So it's less than 24 hours since completion and everything is doing GREAT! The water is crystal clear and everything is opened up and happy looking. The water was only about 50% new so maybe that has helped. I cleaned the collection cup on the skimmer real well before bed last night but we are still getting that funky odor. More investigation will occur this evening. I'm going to test all the params here soon and make any adjustments needed. So far so good. now onto the pics:
Lunchtime Update
So it's less than 24 hours since completion and everything is doing GREAT! The water is crystal clear and everything is opened up and happy looking. The water was only about 50% new so maybe that has helped. I cleaned the collection cup on the skimmer real well before bed last night but we are still getting that funky odor. More investigation will occur this evening. I'm going to test all the params here soon and make any adjustments needed. So far so good. now onto the pics:
cerreta
Premium Member
You have some nice coral in there. Go easy on the light cycle for the first month, or you will get a nasty algae bloom about week three.
I always struggled to observe this step myself, because everything looks good in the begining and I lack patience. So with that I say . . . good luck!
I always struggled to observe this step myself, because everything looks good in the begining and I lack patience. So with that I say . . . good luck!
cerreta
Premium Member
yes, too much. Read around RC to get a better feel for current reccomendations. I would suggest for 4 hours of halides and 6 hours of PCs, for a week. Then increase 1 hour per week until you reach the desired levels.
This is very hard to do, because you want to enjoy the tank, but well worth the discipline. If you notice algae blooms, cut back on the lighting and do some manual trimming right away to keep things under control.
Matt is the only person I know that has a tank that has never really gone through an algae bloom. He blasts his lights too, so I can only attribute it to his massive flows.
David, how about your tank? You have massive flow too, did you guys have an algae bloom after the aquascaping? What was your photoperiod during that time?
Cheers,
Scott
This is very hard to do, because you want to enjoy the tank, but well worth the discipline. If you notice algae blooms, cut back on the lighting and do some manual trimming right away to keep things under control.
Matt is the only person I know that has a tank that has never really gone through an algae bloom. He blasts his lights too, so I can only attribute it to his massive flows.
David, how about your tank? You have massive flow too, did you guys have an algae bloom after the aquascaping? What was your photoperiod during that time?
Cheers,
Scott
McCrary
Can't Stop Time
That is a good looking acropora, maybe a green slimer? If that does well in your tank then you have excellent water quality.
Scott is right about the algae bloom, you will see one if you don't reduce your lights and let the tank do its thing. I am very impatient as well and don't like to wait for the algae cycle to be completed, but I am very lucky in never having algae problems. Take your time, it can be frustrating and expensive to fix problems that are caused by impatience. Watch that acro closely it will be a better measure of the well being of the tank than test kits and such. If it starts to look poor than you know you have a problem that needs to be fixed.
Scott is right about the algae bloom, you will see one if you don't reduce your lights and let the tank do its thing. I am very impatient as well and don't like to wait for the algae cycle to be completed, but I am very lucky in never having algae problems. Take your time, it can be frustrating and expensive to fix problems that are caused by impatience. Watch that acro closely it will be a better measure of the well being of the tank than test kits and such. If it starts to look poor than you know you have a problem that needs to be fixed.
jhendu
Premium Member
Matt, trading sounds good. Not sure how long it's going to take to have it grow out that much though.
I just bought a frag pack off of eBay today that has 8 frags in it including a killer colored Purple Haze Montipora.. I can't wait to get that thing in the tank. There was some Green Apple Monti as well and 6 other frags that I am not entirely sure of. I may not keep them all and if not they will be offered to the local community, old and new alike.
I just bought a frag pack off of eBay today that has 8 frags in it including a killer colored Purple Haze Montipora.. I can't wait to get that thing in the tank. There was some Green Apple Monti as well and 6 other frags that I am not entirely sure of. I may not keep them all and if not they will be offered to the local community, old and new alike.
