Lightsluvr's 340G Upgrade

[edandsandy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15333035#post15333035 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lightsluvr
The seahorses were moved to their own Solana tank last week...

LL

THANK YOU GEORGE,
I just LOVE seahorses! How many males & females do you have?
I think I have talked Ed into letting me set up a small tank for some horses
Not to get off track here, but are they difficult to maintain????
Any secrets you want to share?????
It would break my heart to have one pass away

 

[FUA]

cat looks hungry....yikes

 

[Lightsluvr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15335226#post15335226 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by edandsandy
THANK YOU GEORGE,
I just LOVE seahorses! How many males & females do you have?
I think I have talked Ed into letting me set up a small tank for some horses
Not to get off track here, but are they difficult to maintain????
Any secrets you want to share?????
It would break my heart to have one pass away

We keep Hippocampus Reidi. H. Erectus are easy to keep as well. We have four males and four females... I recommend that you start with a M/F pair from Seahorsesource there in Florida. http://www.seahorsesource.com/index.html
All of their horses are tank bred and will be eating frozen mysis when you receive them. The biggest challenge is keeping the tank cool - horses do best between 70 and 74 degrees. I have a 1/15hp chiller for the Solana, but haven't had to hook it up yet, because we run the AC so cool to compensate for the Metal haildes. Maintain very good water quality, give them different hitching posts to explore and feed them mysis twice a day, and they'll be happy.
Just as with any fish, you will lose one from time to time - they are susceptible to disease, but we agree it is very sad to lose any of the creatures we keep...

Let me know if you have any questions about seahorses...

LL

 

[edandsandy]

Thanks George.

 

[Lightsluvr]

Aquascaping

Aquascaping

Moved the coral from the 120G into holding containers... Gave the base rock a quick fresh water dip to kill bristleworms... I'll post pictures "why" later...

Here are some quick pics of initial aquascaping...a work in progress...

More later as we add more water - draining the 120G and sump...

LL

 

[strout]

You know what amazes me, and don't get me wrong here you have a bigggg tank, but when you compare everything in you tank room to the size of the tank, it seems that with all the stuff it takes to run that tank you could have a 2000 gallon tank for all that equipment. I may not be saying this right, it just takes alot to stuff to keep a tank up and running. Tank looks good.

 

[Lytehouse]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15338146#post15338146 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by strout
You know what amazes me, and don't get me wrong here you have a bigggg tank, but when you compare everything in you tank room to the size of the tank, it seems that with all the stuff it takes to run that tank you could have a 2000 gallon tank for all that equipment. I may not be saying this right, it just takes alot to stuff to keep a tank up and running. Tank looks good.

Yep, if you do it right so there is plenty of support equipment and it isn't all crammed in a corner. One thig also that I haven't seen George put in print, but I believe one of the purposes of the large rubbermaid sump is to hold rock and sand to support the tank so the trank can have less rock and provide more room for corals and swimming area.

Getting exciting George....

Any consideration to puttong small doors on the sides of the front of the stand for even more access to the equipment, or is there even a need?

 

[strout]

I was wondering about that also, the big rubbermaid sump, and came to the same conclusion you did Lytehouse. As I am new to this SW Tanks, do you have to put lights over the sump for the LR to get good growth on them. I don't have lights over my sump under my tank and the live rock in the sump dosn't have good growth on them.

 

[Lightsluvr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15338498#post15338498 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lytehouse
Yep, if you do it right so there is plenty of support equipment and it isn't all crammed in a corner. One thig also that I haven't seen George put in print, but I believe one of the purposes of the large rubbermaid sump is to hold rock and sand to support the tank so the trank can have less rock and provide more room for corals and swimming area. You are correct, sir

Getting exciting George.... Darn right!

Any consideration to puttong small doors on the sides of the front of the stand for even more access to the equipment, or is there even a need? The entire tank will be "skinned" in red oak veneer, triimed to match the front panels... same goes for the space above the tank, to completely hide the light rack The panels are held in place to the steel stand by flush-mounted magnets.

If successful, my exterior will look like pwhitby's display (below), but without the trim piece on the end of the tank corners...

I should be so lucky...

LL

 

[Lightsluvr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15338555#post15338555 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by strout
I was wondering about that also, the big rubbermaid sump, and came to the same conclusion you did Lytehouse. As I am new to this SW Tanks, do you have to put lights over the sump for the LR to get good growth on them. I don't have lights over my sump under my tank and the live rock in the sump dosn't have good growth on them.

No lights over the sump - those lights you see are for the display tank. They are on a rail that allows me to roll the light rack back out of the way while I work on the tank... otherwise, aquascaping, cleaning and maintenance would be a nightmare...:eek2:

Lights over the LR would probably result in a kind of growth you don't want: hair algae.

I will have a small light over the acrylic sump because I am growing macroalgae in the center chamber...

LL

 

[strout]

LOL, I saw the pic of Pwhitbys tank and said to my self, George got ALOT done today, then I saw it was someones elses tank in the pic.

 

[Roll221]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15338641#post15338641 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by strout
LOL, I saw the pic of Pwhitbys tank and said to my self, George got ALOT done today, then I saw it was someones elses tank in the pic.

That's funny s*#t right there, I don't care who you are.

Ed

 

[Lightsluvr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15338641#post15338641 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by strout
LOL, I saw the pic of Pwhitbys tank and said to my self, George got ALOT done today, then I saw it was someones elses tank in the pic.

Heck, I can't even leap tall buildings in a single bound...

LL

 

[Lightsluvr]

Why I dipped for Bristleworms...

Why I dipped for Bristleworms...

In the past few months, I posted a couple threads about reducing bristleworms in my tank... they had reached epidemic stage in the heavily fed 120G and I didn't want to transfer the problem over to the new tank...

In every thread, there was the standard reply about how beneficial bristleworms are... c'mon, I read the same resources...

Here's how bad the infestation was...this is what shook out of ONE rock covered with a nice (but stressed) zoanthid colony:

What's this do for you?

Here are the worms from under ONE large piece of base rock:

And if that isn't interesting enough...look closely at the little green guy shaken out from a small polyp colony:

The above was definitely not a bristleworm... looked like something out of "Doom" and took a long time to die in RO/DI...
Take a look at the mouth parts on this dude:

Rembember this thread when you put your hands in your tank tomorrow... :eek2:

Sleep tight and thanks for reading along...

LL

 

[strout]

You said you gave your LR a fresh water dip, how long was that dip? I might need to know that info one day.

 

[Lightsluvr]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15339141#post15339141 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by strout
You said you gave your LR a fresh water dip, how long was that dip? I might need to know that info one day.

I only used the RO/DI dip on LR with no coral, or LR with zoanthids, because I experimented and determined zoas can easily tolerate a 3-4 minute RO/DI dip while vigorously swishing the rock in the water to flush off the bristles, brittle stars and other vermin...
After the dip, I return the rock/zoas to clean saltwater...there they "rest" for at least half an hour before putting them in the display...

I did not do this treatment on all of the LR - only those pieces where the infestation was obvious at feeding time.

Worked for me... I haven't seen those zoa colonies that "happy" in weeks... they were obviously being tormented by all the "helpful" worms and other critters...

JME.

LL

 

[Lytehouse]

Like anything else,

The helpful benefits are seen within some balance. You had obviously lost that battle:rollface:


Won't just be the zoanthids that thank you....

The green goblin looked half worm, half plant.

Good luck tomorrow.........

 

[kingsland]

I can see why you wanted to dip. That is a bunch of worms!

 

[OkR33Fer]

I hope I can progress at at least half your speed!

Looking good George.

 

[szwab]

Re: Why I dipped for Bristleworms...

Re: Why I dipped for Bristleworms...

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=15339117#post15339117 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Lightsluvr
In the past few months, I posted a couple threads about reducing bristleworms in my tank... they had reached epidemic stage in the heavily fed 120G and I didn't want to transfer the problem over to the new tank...

In every thread, there was the standard reply about how beneficial bristleworms are... c'mon, I read the same resources...

Here's how bad the infestation was...this is what shook out of ONE rock covered with a nice (but stressed) zoanthid colony:
http://i242.photobucket.com/albums/ff125/lightsluvr/bworm04.jpg[/IMG]
The above was definitely not a bristleworm... looked like something out of "Doom" and took a long time to die in RO/DI...
Take a look at the mouth parts on this dude:

Rembember this thread when you put your hands in your tank tomorrow... :eek2:

Sleep tight and thanks for reading along...

LL

That looks like a Eunicid worm. (but I'm no expert)