I keep forgetting I'm on the east coast now, Richmond is only two hours away from me so I might actually take you up on that offer sometime in the future! I Have an uncle in Richmond and I've heard there are some really nice saltwater stores there, I'm sure I could merge everything into one visit.
Heck yeah Alex - you need to budget a couple of hours and we'd be glad to show you the setup and take you around to some of the LFS...
Love your tank set up, first class, really nice collection of animals.Color combinations really plays off of each other nicely, your eye keeps moving from one wounder to a new one. Light is such a personal thing I feel the new light on the left is too white and seems to dull the contrast between the corals and live rock,while the right side shows better for corals popping the colors. Both sides are just amazing I like how you are always tweaking to give your animals the best home. Thanks for sharing.
You're welcome, and appreciate the kind words. We love our reef and are still very much in the "constant tweaking" mode, as things settle in and we are trying to fine tune it. Glad you guys can get something from it!
Mike, congrats on a great build, your tank is really inspirational. One quick question, and sorry if this was already covered, how many pounds of rock it took to build that awesome rockscape?
Thanks, Juan. Great to have you stop by. We'll have to take a guess on your question... each "tree" probably weighs 70-90 lbs.
what's the logic on upping the lights to 400W? and everything looks great... I've got some catching up to do.
Chris, the 400w upgrade is pretty much an evolution that we had planned for. I had resisted the upgrade due to the extra heat and $$, but there are many areas of the mid-to-lower sections that were fairly shaded (some due to our aquascaping design, some due to the distance of the bulbs). In order to get better light spread, we raised the lights, and our PAR rates mid-to-low were suffering. So we'll try this and see how it goes. I really hope that targeted LEDs with 250s will eventually be what we settle on.
Beautiful tank...Lots of nice corals.
Thanks 90ct!
:fish2: :fish1:
UPDATE:
Today, we re-wired the lighting. Two things we needed to accomplish:
1) move the electronics out from under the tank and over to one of the side compartments in the stand, in order to reduce the risk of getting any of the lighting equipment wet, and
2) install the new 400w ballasts
These ballasts kick off some pretty serious heat, and we didn't want all that being trapped underneath the tank and elevating temperatures. So the little side compartment on the left side of our stand is a natural place for the ballasts, timers, switches, etc:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/4983579653/" title="fw 456 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4131/4983579653_41f730f973.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="fw 456" /></a>
Here's a closer look. You can see the pig tails we brought down from the MH mogul fixtures and the DIY timer power station screwed into place there on the right side:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/4984176176/" title="fw 457 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4129/4984176176_bf0df4754b.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="fw 457" /></a>
You'll notice there is an air intake grill for the central air on the back wall there. That'll come in handy to help keep it ventilated in the compartment. We also put in this mini desk fan here to force air over the ballasts and keep them cool:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/4984176526/" title="fw 461 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4112/4984176526_18305f5285.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="fw 461" /></a>
It's a pretty small footprint inside there, so we needed something to let us stack the ballasts and still get plenty of air around them. Lowe's has these mini milk crates in their home organization aisle. Snip out the front and the back, slide the ballast in there, and bingo! Instant modular ballast rack mounts:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/4983579915/" title="fw 458 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4087/4983579915_de6ae503b6.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="fw 458" /></a>
Here's the trio all stacked and ready to go into our compartment:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/4983580099/" title="fw 460 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4147/4983580099_753fcf8bcb.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="fw 460" /></a>
In they go... it's a great fit, and we can still get to the timer switches pretty easy for the occasional manual adjustment:
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/4983580325/" title="fw 463 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4103/4983580325_c96de92407.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="fw 463" /></a>
And this makes it really nice and clean underneath the stand now. Pretty much all that's left under there is the CL pump. You can see the Kill-a-watt meter hooked up to the DIY power station; we want to get a feel for the power consumption of the new ballasts and bulbs so we know what to expect on our next electricity bill!! :spin2: We'll tighten up that cord in a couple of days so it's not hanging down in a potential "wet zone"...
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/terryl93/4983580401/" title="fw 464 by terryl93, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4128/4983580401_04a0b08732.jpg" width="500" height="332" alt="fw 464" /></a>
We'll see if strategic coral placement will suffice.
f an aquarium, dont pass it up. Also want to say thanks again for the loner pump.
hope you can have everything up in no time. 
