My little Gigantea garden
- Thread starter clorox
- Start date
CoralsAddiction
Active member
So you're his gig spotter
Yup. He would have had a blue one too if he had more space in the tank
clownfish123321
New member
how much does the Average blue gig cost?
OrionN
Moved on
200 before shipping
clorox
New member
Awesome nano, and bold for the number of "large" gig carpets, but still curious about your flow and light regimen, plus you "promised"...
I can only take new pics once I am back home, as I am currently out of town until the weekend.
Flow is currently provided by a Maxspect gyre 130, but I am adding a second one attempting to recreate an even more natural flow motion.
After spending a lot of time observing my gigs, I realized that according to different flow patterns they open up more or less.
Also, depending on the flow pattern, their oral disc ondulates forming the typical gigantea wavy shape.
Specifically, in my tank, the neon green is the 'happiest', because it happens to be in the sweet spot, getting just enough flow without getting pushed around. This is the reason (besides redundancy) why I am adding a second gye placed on the opposite wall, so I can recreate a gentler, but steady and slow undulating motion.
As far as lighting goes, I know from personal experience living in Asia many years, that gigs thrive in shallow waters and in many cases are exposed to low tides and intense lighting. During low tides I even saw birds pecking at gigs looking for small crustaceans hidden under the rocks.
My lighting setup is specifically targeted for gigs.
I use 3 Kessil lights, a 360N, a 160 tuna blue and a 160 tuna sun. The 360 and 160 tuna blue are connected to one channel of the kessil controller, and the 160 tuna sun and connected to the second channel.
That way I can blend the color spectrum as well as the ramp up and down time with finer control. I try to mimic as closely as possible a more natural color spectrum. That's where the 160 tuna sun comes into play. I ramp up and down the color temperature from 6500 to 9000K and back to 6500.
At noon I have the highest intensity, with all lights at full 100% and coincidentally, that is the time when all the gigs are open the fullest. Then I begin slowly ramping down from 4pm to OFF at 8.45pm, then back on at 6am.
clorox
New member
This past weekend I (knowing I would have been away from home for a week) managed to sell the XL gig to a reefer with a MUCH larger tank. I began getting more and more nervous about it touching and in many cases overlapping with the green and touching the small one.
The memory of a major distaster when a large bleached gig died in my tank during my christmas vacation, has made me paranoid. I felt sorry letting the XL go, but it was really just too big for the tank size.
I do have 2 webcams monitoring the tank, probably adding a 3rd one soon.
The following are screen caps from a few minutes ago
I need to fill the void with a nice blue gig :smurf:
The memory of a major distaster when a large bleached gig died in my tank during my christmas vacation, has made me paranoid. I felt sorry letting the XL go, but it was really just too big for the tank size.
I do have 2 webcams monitoring the tank, probably adding a 3rd one soon.
The following are screen caps from a few minutes ago
I need to fill the void with a nice blue gig :smurf:
clorox
New member
clorox
New member
Wow - three Kessil's over that is some serious light!
My closest LFS just got in two large blue gigs, and they appear to be in good shape, so I am trading my mint green Haddon's for the smaller of the two (8-10") , and I "blame" you for the idea!
It's a good thing I only have a small tank!. If I had a large tank I would end up with a dozen
That's my next build. I'm setting it up hopefully in the summer season.
CoralsAddiction
Active member
I know!! I'm waiting for my gig 'spotter' to give me a tip where I can find one
Hahahaha...
clorox
New member
Yes, my photobucket account reached the bandwidth limit while I was gone, now it should be ok
Here are a few quick cell phone pics to give a better idea of the setup.
3 kessil's might be considered overkill, but I am positive of the beneficial effects on the gigs. The addition of the 160 tuna sun spectrum made the lighting quality basically the same as using a MH fixture, with the added benefit of the well known kessil shimmer. Flow is provided by 2 gyre 130's.
The back section is where I keep a Tunze filter and a Tunze 9004 skimmer.
The collection cup of the skimmer is tiny, but I plan to mod it and fit a drain plug, so I can use a large container to collect the skimmate. Upon my return I decided to remove the chinese skimmer, because it was too unreliable and had the tendency to overflow due to a poor quality pump. The Tunze is rated at 60g, the tank is 30, so I should be ok.
The kessil controller controls the ramp up and down times, plus the color spectrum on 2 separate channels.
Considering this is a cheap frag tank I think it worked out pretty well.
For my next project, I will have a custom built frag tank with ideas matured from setting this one up. It will be at least 3X the size, but I will have the back compartment much larger so I can fit better equipment while still keeping things as simple as possible.
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