Mike's 300 Double-D

For mother's day, we worked on the reef.
I know, seems like work, but it's what mama wanted :lol:
Here's a few shots of coral placement version 1.0:

FTS:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/5700505827/" title="nt 1080 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2064/5700505827_7f10a472a8_z.jpg" width="640" height="425" alt="nt 1080"></a>

Left side:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/5701263322/" title="nt 1084 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3577/5701263322_dd22fca070_z.jpg" width="640" height="425" alt="nt 1084"></a>

Right side:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/5701261110/" title="nt 1083 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3392/5701261110_9fd1b7aefd_z.jpg" width="640" height="425" alt="nt 1083"></a>


There's a little bit of diatom bloom starting up. We suspect this will just take a couple of weeks to run it's course until the silicates from fresh glass and fresh plumbing gets consumed. We will be keeping the lighting schedule in the display a bit shorter during this time to help keep this under control. Hope you all have a wonderful mother's day.
 
it looks stunning mike
You will wonder how you ever got on without an auto cleaning head on your skimmer!
 
Yeah the rockwork definitly is a lot better than a few weeks ago! Everything looks great. I am amazed at how much color the corals still have after all they been thru!

How if the regal in the tank? any clams or feather dusters either?
I have wanted to try one, but not sure if he's do ok with any acans, clams of feather dusters i have?
 
1$R said:
nice reef setup I like it!!:bounce3::bounce2::bounce1:
Click to expand...

Thanks 1$R! And thanks for participating in our thread!


d3hree said:
it looks stunning mike
You will wonder how you ever got on without an auto cleaning head on your skimmer!
Click to expand...

Thank you! And you are so right about the neck cleaner.


launchnukes said:
The tank looks awesome!
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Thanks launchnukes! How's your cycle coming along?


john90009 said:
tanks amazing superb aqua scaping i like this one more then the other and i loved the other.
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drummereef said:
OMG! I think I like it even better than the first go around! Aquascaping is absolutely fantastic Mike. :thumbsup:
Click to expand...

110galreef said:
Yeah the rockwork definitly is a lot better than a few weeks ago! Everything looks great. I am amazed at how much color the corals still have after all they been thru!
Click to expand...


Wow! Thanks guys! The rock work is basically the same, just tweaked the angle of a couple of the shelf pieces and added a small flat rock to the top of the left tree to make it look more finished. I think we did a much better job arranging the corals this time. We're pretty happy with it for now and considering everything our corals have been thru, it is amazing they look as good as they do.


How if the regal in the tank? any clams or feather dusters either?
I have wanted to try one, but not sure if he's do ok with any acans, clams of feather dusters i have?
Click to expand...

For the most part, the Regal behaves... we found out the hard way she likes brightly colored zoa's and she decimated a very expensive Elegance Coral. Fortunately, she leaves our acans alone. We don't have any feather dusters or clams (I wouldn't trust her w/clams). She does feel the need to taste-test everything we add to the tank, but doesn't do any damage.

We had a Flame Angel for over 8 years and he never touched feather dusters. He did occasionally nip at the couple of clams we had at the time, but didn't do any harm. The Flame never bothered zoa's or Elegance coral either, just would occasionally nip at our SPS and fortunately never enough to cause damage.
 
Congrats!

Congrats!

launchnukes said:
The tank measured 0 nitrites on Saturday so the cycle is done! I have a few fish in there now. I was going to update my thread but I need to figure out the white balance on my new camera first.
Click to expand...

Congrats! I know you've gotta be happy about that. We're looking forward to seeing some pics!

:beer:
 
Hi There....

Hi There....

Mike and Terry;

Congratulations on producing a great thread; inspiring many of us enthusiasts; and for being true champions of the dedication required for greatness all around in this hobby. Youz guyz have some first class patients, and your local society is top notch as well.

I picked up this thread only a couple of days ago, and couldn't believe all of the drama endured so far.... to me the most inspiring part of the whole ordeal was how you were able to take a step back, band together, and handle all that would challenge your resolve... truly a strong couple, and perhaps that is your strongest tool of all.... many would have divorced over that kind of drama... so kudos to you both...

Anyway - enough praise:beer: I realize I kinda missed the boat on this point, but I figured it's worth mentioning anyway. When you had your last leak, I believe delhaney (sp) hit the nail right on when he spoke about the glass backup. The truth is that nothing that I'm aware of bonds glass and plastic together in a structurally sound manner. At best, silicone (like dow 795 for instance) acts like a gasket; in that it's not structural. Large composite tanks use this gasket type silicone application between panes of acrylic and some type of structural element (pvc frame; steel; concrete; etc) to prevent leaks.. the water pressure helps to hold it in place by sandwiching the pane and gasket up against the structural element. In the case of the standard DD and other aquariums that use silicone to hold a plastic weir in place; in pretty well all installations (without glass backup) the plastic overflow tower is located in a corner... In this way, the water pressure is uniformly holding it in place, and therefore the silicone is only acting like a gasket; and sandwiched into the structural (glass) corner.

In your particular custom DD configuration, with the overflow located centrally, you cannot maintain the dynamic of water pressure uniformly being applied to an unavoidable structure, as quite frankly, pressures on the sides of your overflow tower (short ends) can very easily push the plastic off the moulded silicone {
[gasket] track you've now formed. The silicone will not let go of the glass, but will most likely let go of the plastic over time.

In your particular case, I would suggest considering your stand-pipes inside the overflow as the fail-safe... i.e. if the silicone actually starts to let water in and around the plastic overflow, the water level within the overflow compartment should have no where to go but in through the top of high-standing drain pipes... in other words, I would not rely on the plastic/ silicone bond 100%.

Anyway - great build so far. Just wanted to pass on an idea for some added insurance.

Regards,

Sheldon
 
This is Terry replying...

Thanks for the kind words and advice Sheldon, we really appreciate it. :D

We attempted to contact the engineer at Perfecto/Marineland twice to get advice on how best to make the repair, but unfortunately he never responded. We also talked with one of the customer service representatives, but she really wasn't able to give advice and just took information regarding warranty. It is a bit frustrating to say the least.

Anyway, by the time we saw the post regarding glass, we were 2 days into the curing process and knew we couldn't get glass cut and schedule someone to rip out the box and re-install w/glass in the time frame we had to work with (our fish and corals were in temp vats). We now have a very thick bead of silicone on the inside as well as the outside of the box. Hopefully, that will be enough, but if it is not, we did raise the height of the drain pipes. :)
 
Tank Video

Tank Video

This is Terry again...

Mike and some of our local reefer friends have been after me to upload an updated video of the tank. So here it is:

<object width="853" height="510"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/jx3ia2V0Lgc?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/v/jx3ia2V0Lgc?fs=1&hl=en_US&rel=0&hd=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="853" height="510" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>

Disclaimer: I Haven't quite figured out the white balance and lighting on the new Panasonic HDC-TMC700 :p

 
I didn't know you guys had a file fish in your tank! Did you get him for a certain purpose, and has he bugged any of your corals?

What program do you use to edit your videos?
 
Last Version said:
That's great your video!!
Click to expand...

Thank you!

launchnukes said:
great video! i still can't get over how well your corals held their color. beautiful tank
Click to expand...

Thanks Launchnukes! Other than our green table, most of the acro's are pretty browned out. The other sps and our lps corals seem to weather PO4, alk and ph swings better. At this point, we should be stable going forward, so hopefully they will color back up.

Taqpol said:
I didn't know you guys had a file fish in your tank! Did you get him for a certain purpose, and has he bugged any of your corals?

What program do you use to edit your videos?
Click to expand...

Yes, we do have a Leather Jacket Filefish. He is our aiptasia ASSASSIN, lol. It is amazing how a fish his size can decimate an outbreak of aiptasia so quickly. For the most part, he is a model citizen and is actually better behaved than our Regal Angel. He (along with the Regal) will eat brightly colored zoa's and they devoured an Elegance Coral, sigh... but he doesn't really bother our other corals (sps or lps). We keep the zoa's in a separate tank now. ;)

He is easy to catch, so we move him to the refugium/prop tank when necessary to take care of the nuisance anemones as well.

As for the video editing software, I use Cyberlink's Media Suite. It's easy to use and you can't beat the price. Sometimes, for quick and dirty editing, I just use Windows Movie Maker as it's installed on all of our pc's and is free, but it can't read the Panasonic M2TS files.

If you are into more elaborate video editing, Sony Vegas is good. I tried Adobe Premier (as I already have several of Adobe's products) and really didn't care for it. I've also used Pinnacle in the past and it is also reasonably priced.

-Terry
 
I'm glad to see you guy's running smoothly again. Interesting choice for the aiptasia, but I like it. Keep up the grate work.
Nice Video...
 
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