Mike's 300 Double-D

[prop-frags]

Absolutely STUNNING! Thanks for the update.

You're welcome, Kris. Thanks for watching.

Your wrasse game is like no other. Beautiful pic updates.

Hah! Wayne, you're too kind. The wrasse are great to watch - their antics when interacting with each other is something to see. I need to take some video and put it up here.

Beautiful Wrasse's!

Not to mention the SPS. I'm impressed when someone cannot only keep SPS alive, but have them thrive.

Thanks Andy, coming from you it means a lot. Your setup is one to drool over!

2-3 weeks. for a refill isnt bad.
and cant you bake it like Ozone media to where it re-generates?

Good question - I don't think so, but need to look into that. It's the identical stuff that used in scuba re-breathers, so maybe there is a way to "dry" it??

Wow. The tank looks spectacular. Your photographer skills are pretty amazing as well. I'm going to have to get some tips from you sometime.

Quick question, what species of Ctenochaetus tang is that? It doesn't look like it has the standard stripes of a kole tang

Thanks Roni, hopefully we'll see you at our annual party again this year! Good eyes on the Kole Tang - it's actually Ctenochaetus truncatus (Squaretail Bristletooth tang).

 

[ca1ore]

As with many large system owners, we've been battling low pH, and trying to keep it steady. For a couple years, we were dosing Kalkwasser with our top-off. Eventually, our demand for Alk and pH was calling for us to top-off with pretty much 100% Kalk. This is in addition to running the Calcium reactor. Then a few months ago we had the Kalk overdose scare, and went to a Kalk dosing approach (separated from fresh water top-off). That was making it even harder to get the pH where we wanted it. So we decided to give the soda lime a try. If you've not seen this, it's a pelletized hygroscopic Calcium Hydroxide used in CO2 absorption applications like SCUBA rebreathers. We installed it in a TLF reactor and put it on the skimmer. After observing this for several weeks, we're convinced it works. Our pH is leveling out much better than before, and we don't see the big nightly swings we were having.

Sorry, you are using the calcium hydroxide on the air suction of the skimmer, right? To remove CO2 from the air that the skimmer pulls? I am also having a low pH problem (7.7 at night) but alk is OK. Too much A/C and sealed house. Tried pulling in air from outside, and that helped, but not enough. Was toying with using your approach.

 

[shroomer2]

loved this build

 

[iwishtofish]

Revisiting - enjoying the stunning pictures!

 

[aquaenthusiast]

pictures took my breath away, stunning , keep posting that eye candy

 

[dave.m]

I would be amazed if someone doesn't pick this one up for a book on reef aquariums.

Dave.M

 

[Mark...]

I would be amazed if someone doesn't pick this one up for a book on reef aquariums.

Dave.M

It does look like a book cover shot...

 

[prop-frags]

Sorry, you are using the calcium hydroxide on the air suction of the skimmer, right? To remove CO2 from the air that the skimmer pulls? I am also having a low pH problem (7.7 at night) but alk is OK. Too much A/C and sealed house. Tried pulling in air from outside, and that helped, but not enough. Was toying with using your approach.

Correct. We were having the same issue, and yes, our first solution was to pull fresh air from outside, but only saw marginal improvement, same as you. The scrubber works better.

loved this build

Revisiting - enjoying the stunning pictures!

pictures took my breath away, stunning , keep posting that eye candy

Thanks for the kind words!!

I would be amazed if someone doesn't pick this one up for a book on reef aquariums.

Dave.M

It does look like a book cover shot...

Hah, you guys are making us blush. We love those end-on shots. We're going to pull out the submersible camera and see if we can get some videos and still pics with that. The glass creates some distortion that we'd like to get rid of from the pics. Terry's getting better with the camera box, though. I did some mods to it to reduce light and reflections down inside the box, but it still needs work. What are you guys using to seal up the top of your camera box?

In the interim, here's a little tease:

 

[clugo]

Mike, love this thread. Amazing labor of love.

Re: your CO2 scrubber; was wondering if you just poured the media into the tlf reactor and connected to your skimmer? I was reading on the brs website and they say to add water in their reactor then the media into the canister. I know you're using the tls reactor so that may not be necessary. Just wondering how you installed your scrubber.

Thx.

 

[Mark...]

I started reading back from the beginning and learning a ton of stuff. I see you got another flame angel. Felt bad when you lost the one you had for 8 years. Looking back would you do anything different? Especially the 4 way closed loop etc?

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Teaser pics are always welcomed. They are inspirational.

 

[Taqpol]

I always knew you guys took the best photos on all of reef central, but these two just really hit me as raising the bar even higher! I am specifically compelled to ask with the coral shot, how do you get such perfect clarity over such a large area of the entire coral? Specifically, what lens, what aperture, flash or not, tripod, underwater or not, with flow or without flow?

 

[padova335i]

amazing tank and livestock

 

[Bcamp]

That time of year for low ph!
Do you mind me asking were you found the buckets of granular soda lime?

 

[clugo]

brs currently sells them.

 

[prop-frags]

Mike, love this thread. Amazing labor of love.

Re: your CO2 scrubber; was wondering if you just poured the media into the tlf reactor and connected to your skimmer? I was reading on the brs website and they say to add water in their reactor then the media into the canister. I know you're using the tls reactor so that may not be necessary. Just wondering how you installed your scrubber.

Thx.

Thanks clugo - we appreciate you checking us out. We use the media dry in our reactors (yes the TLF ones), since the air is fairly humid in our sump room. Its pretty straight forward hookup: air into reactor, through dry media, into skimmer intake. Everything is connected with vinyl hose and sealed off with fancy seal materials (duct tape).

I started reading back from the beginning and learning a ton of stuff. I see you got another flame angel. Felt bad when you lost the one you had for 8 years. Looking back would you do anything different? Especially the 4 way closed loop etc?

Hi Mark - glad you can pick up a few things along the way. Yeah, we went without a flame for a while and I just couldn't stand it anymore and we picked up a pair from LA/DD. After a long QT, the smaller of the pair (they weren't really a mated pair) died without symptoms really. But the other is doing just fine - he's a nipper for sure, but we'll put up with a lot for a hot-looker :lolspin:

As far as what we'd do different, there's a long list. Let me see if I can think of a few of the top ones:

• Leave more room on the sides of the tank for corals to grow and for maintenace. We put the rock in too close to the sides, and it is going to be a huge chore to fix that.
• Build out a separate refugium that has some size to it and allows for easy maintenance
• Plumb in a drain line so that water from the main system can be easily drained out either to the sewer, or into buckets for transfer to other tanks
• Paint the display tank canopy with industrial strength expoxy. Paint just cannot hold up to the kinds of daily abuse the canopy gets.
• Design some sort of cable organizer system for submerged pumps and airstones in the display. The way we have them run now is a messy pain.
• Design a humidity extraction system for the sump room that actually works and is dependable. The garage gets very humid and it's costly to run a stand-alone A/C unit out there.

Teaser pics are always welcomed. They are inspirational.

Thanks Wayne. We'll keep teasing.

I always knew you guys took the best photos on all of reef central, but these two just really hit me as raising the bar even higher! I am specifically compelled to ask with the coral shot, how do you get such perfect clarity over such a large area of the entire coral? Specifically, what lens, what aperture, flash or not, tripod, underwater or not, with flow or without flow?

Alex! So good to hear from you old friend - we figured you had decided to give it up, but glad to see you're contemplating keeping a smaller setup - you will be glad you keep something going. Hope you get a good price for your 220. As far as the pics go, thanks for the wonderful compliment. That shot of the kimibensis was done top down with the camera box, hand held, no flash, pumps were left running. Terry will have to check the metadata on the lens and stop and what not, but from memory we think it was Nikkor 40mm micro lens. Probably a 9 on the stop.

amazing tank and livestock

Thanks!!

That time of year for low ph!
Do you mind me asking were you found the buckets of granular soda lime?

brs currently sells them.

We've gotten the buckets from a couple of places, but where we found a good price on 40lb buckets from a medical supply place. I'll have to dig out the invoice...

Thanks for the support everyone. We do appreciate it.

 

[Bcamp]

Thanks! the small brs containers of soda lime don't last long with a big skimmer pulling air through.

 

[Mark...]

Hi Mark - glad you can pick up a few things along the way. Yeah, we went without a flame for a while and I just couldn't stand it anymore and we picked up a pair from LA/DD. After a long QT, the smaller of the pair (they weren't really a mated pair) died without symptoms really. But the other is doing just fine - he's a nipper for sure, but we'll put up with a lot for a hot-looker :lolspin:

As far as what we'd do different, there's a long list. Let me see if I can think of a few of the top ones:

• Leave more room on the sides of the tank for corals to grow and for maintenace. We put the rock in too close to the sides, and it is going to be a huge chore to fix that.
• Build out a separate refugium that has some size to it and allows for easy maintenance
• Plumb in a drain line so that water from the main system can be easily drained out either to the sewer, or into buckets for transfer to other tanks
• Paint the display tank canopy with industrial strength expoxy. Paint just cannot hold up to the kinds of daily abuse the canopy gets.
• Design some sort of cable organizer system for submerged pumps and airstones in the display. The way we have them run now is a messy pain.
• Design a humidity extraction system for the sump room that actually works and is dependable. The garage gets very humid and it's costly to run a stand-alone A/C unit out there.

Some great insight...thanks so much for sharing. Just the drain idea alone is golden...

Mark...

 

[ptreef]

Long time follower...great beauty.
Can you refresh me on current lighting and thoughts compared to the Radiums and whatnot you have ran in the past.

Beautiful all around work of art!!

 

[prop-frags]

Long time follower...great beauty.
Can you refresh me on current lighting and thoughts compared to the Radiums and whatnot you have ran in the past.

Beautiful all around work of art!!

Thanks, PT.
Ah yes, the lighting. The lighting schedule is shown back on post #625 , and remains accurate. As for the bulbs, we are currently running URI VHO actinics and the MH bulbs are Ushio 14,000K. We get many questions about the 14K vs Radium (or other 20K bulbs), and our experience is that there are advantages and disadvantages, and as you would expect, it comes down to preference. The 20K bulbs highlight some colors (particularly greens) and have more of a ultraviolet "pop" to colors that fluoresce. That said, we observe better overall coral growth and color balance with the Ushio 14K bulbs. The lower spectrum bulbs highlight lighter colors (especially red). So while many seem to prefer the "deep water" look of high spectrum bulbs, the 20K is just too blue for our preference. That coupled with the marked difference in coral growth, leads us to use the 14K bulbs.

We recently tried the Ushio 20K bulb. It was nice; a bit brighter than Radiums (seems like more PAR, but that was not a quantified observation, strictly judging by eye), but still too blue for our tastes. We did a side-by-side comparison with the Ushio 14K bulb, and still prefer the 14K. Again, overall it's about trade-offs. Some of the impressive Japanese SPS tanks we've seen have invested in spot lighting; putting high-spectrum spot bulbs on green/blue corals, and using lower-spectrum spots on yellow/reds. That is probably the ultimate solution to the problem. A way to have cake and eat it, too.