My not really a 265 gallon perfecto/432 watt t5 sps reef

[robthorn]

it actually holds roughly 224 gallons . the claims people make are crazy and I shouldn't say anymore about that. anyway my girlfriend decided she wanted a fish tank so here we go. I first bought a turn key 125 with fish and coral pretty reasonable to make sure she was interested enough to stick with it. well she sits in front of it at least as much as I do. I was on an aquarium break at the time due to multiple moves so here I am back in it. the 125 was all scratched up and I decided that if she liked it that much I would be able to do something nice with full support from her and it has worked out very well.
we decided to go with a perfecto 265 with dual corner overflows. I used to have halides and do not want the power bill so I had seen t5's and begged for them at a lfs and he got them about a month before I sold my old tank. now I knew I could do alot with t5's so I swore off halides. I put 6 5ft bulbs on the 125 with ice cap 660's and the bulbs were having negative effects on the sps after only 4 1/2 months. I decided to find a better ballast that was also more efficient. I went with 4 advance icn 2s54 ballasts and run 2 bulbs on each. a total of 4 actinic and 4 11k bulbs. it looks good to me pictures will follow in days to come.
here is the first day

cycling

still isn't finished

 

[robthorn]

everything was switched over to the new tank on april 21st 2006 and here are a few corals currently in the system.

I am trying some of the prodibio products mixed with some of the polyplab reefresh products and so far so good. 3 of thos corals were purchased as pretty complete brownouts and are slowly starting to regain some color

 

[818]

Can we get a full tank shot wih corals in it??/

thanks

Sam

 

[robthorn]

I am waiting on a couple lenses for my camera so I can get a closer wide angle shot of the whole thing. right now I have to get a shot from all the way across the room to get the whole tank and to me looks bad or generic. I also need to order the doors this week they are expensive. I finally found some trim I think will look pretty nice also but our kitchen cabinets just came in so I am starting on them tomorrow. the stand and canopy were built by my girlfriend and I but I don't have the tools to build the doors and make them really nice so I am just going to order them from the people we bought the kitchen cabinets from.

 

[robthorn]

heres a pic with my camera and it's stock lens at night with all lights turned on in the tank.

[/IMG]
got along way to go. I have 2 big rocks in the garage that will go in when I get a hand lifting the canopy. they are 38 and 43lb each.

 

[poormanisme]

uhhmm. Do you know you have red bugs? I see an interceptor treatment in your future. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news. Im surprised no ones picked up on it yet.

 

[robthorn]

yep I sure do and I let my friend use both my brute barrels to make water for his new 270 and will hopefully have at least one of them back this week so i can do the big water change. I posted I had them and noticed them in the pic for the first time. the bright purple tips have faded a little recently and was wondering what was going on. thanks for pointing it out it is always possible people don't know.

 

[aynoT79]

WOW, WOW , very very nice tank, Love the pictures they are so clear and wonderful, Nice tank keep up the nice work, cant wait to see more....

 

[Danster]

Can't wait to see what the finish product will look like. Nice Pics.

 

[robthorn]

here is the bulb configuration. the front 2 and back 2 bulbs are actinic and the other 4 are 11k. all geiesmann bulbs.

[/IMG]
I am using 4 of these ballasts made by advance.

I also added about 80 more lbs of rock in 2 pieces.

thank you everyone for the comments and for looking,
robert

 

[dgasmd]

Are those 48" T5 there?? So these ballasts will drive 2 of them? Where did you get the end caps for them? What type of reflectors are those and where did you get them? I ask because I have been toying with the idea of adding much more actinic to my tank and wanted to try T5 instead of more VHO. Very nice set up by the way.

 

[robthorn]

thank you very much dgasmd. they are 4 ft t5's and advance ballasts meant to run t5ho bulbs. they are electronic centium ballasts programmed rapid start. warm the bulb then fire not fire and damage the bulb. they are ice cap reflectors and ice cap sealed endcaps and standoffs both sold seperately. I bought all except the ballasts from a local shop in oldsmar florida called fish and other ichthy stuff. the big rocks came from the same place. 813 891 4291 and john is the owner and only one to talk to if you want something shipped. he does not have an online store but sometimes ships. the end caps were $7.99 a pair and the stand offs are 4.99 a pair I think. the reflectors are ice cap and actually hang on the bulb itself instead of being screwed in. comes with all hardware. I think they were around $23 each. he also stocks these. the ballasts I got in an ebay deal for $23 each and have like 8 more left that I am passing on at the same price. they retail for I think $49 something. I found them for $45 each so I went ahead and got the bulk deal to save money . I will be able to pass them along easy since t5's are just beginning and soon more people will be after them. I bought 2 rolls of 18g solid strand wire to put it all together. the bulbs are 20 degree's cooler than with ice cap ballasts. hopefully they will last more than 4 1/2 months with my ice cap. these ballasts run 119 watts with 2 actinics and 110 watts with 2 11k bulbs. these ballasts can run 1 or 2 bulbs.

 

[alien9168]

Tank looks great! Nice job on the lighting!

 

[robthorn]

thank you I am trying to make everything as clean and efficient as possible. I am running a tunze recirculation pump model 1073.090 which is a very marginal pump at best. it starts and stops 10 times when I turn it off for feeding then back on. sometimes I get lucky and it only takes 3-4 times for it to start. I was told it is because of the electronics that make sure it starts the right direction and it doesn't start the right direction because it's so efficient. well I clock it at 126 watts. I am thinking it's not so efficient compared to what a sequence flowing more water is but they went to mexico and I think alot made in mexico is junk so I sold the sequence and bought this thinking it would be a quality product. it was so loud when I got it I could not sleep across the house with our bedroom door closed it was really bad. then roger sent me a redesigned wet end and it is better but according to everyone that comes over it is way past acceptable. I think we got so used to it being obnoxious that we think it is ok. I still think it's too loud but I am excepting it for now. it may be for sale very soon because of the starting thing I think that makes it a piece of junk. no other pump I have ever seen starts backwards. the sad truth is I was told by roger to not turn the pump off and put in a loop and valve. so now when I feed my fish I would have to crawl under my tank 2-3 times a day and turn a valve instead of pushing the fast shortcut on my aquacontroller. not happening I will just tell the truth about the product and not recommend it to anyone. if you never shut off your pump I guess it is a good enough one but not worth the $330 or so that I over paid for it. I also have a 6000 making alot of noise and it is a couple weeks old. was making the noise since I started it in the tank with nothing else in it but the small amount of sand. as you can see in the first pic I added the sand before the water since I completly killed everything in the sand with bleach and then white vinegar to remove phosphates bound to the surface. it isn't likely that I got sand in the pump so now I have to work on that tunze also. maybe it's a mass production thing coming on. hope not though because I want 2 more 6000 streams.

 

[deansreef]

robthorn,

That leather in your tank is awesome!! What kind is it and how big is it and how long have you had it?

Awesome tank

Dean

 

[reefrubble]

Rob, YGAPM

 

[robthorn]

thanks dean that is just some sort of toadstool. white polyps and maybe 9 inches or so. I will try to get a good picture close up of it. it was a blob of brown when I got the tank. about 7 months ago my girlfriend decided she wanted a fish tank and I had sold mine to move a couple times. I was not ready to get back into the hobby yet but this 125 was posted on the refrigerator of a lfs refrigerator so it looked like a good deal so we bought it. figured it was a good enough deal she would like it or not and we could always sell it if she didn't. well she loved it and it was all nasty and scratched pretty bad so we started this one. the guy with the other tank didn't do enough to keep the tank clean so it wasn't happy. I meant to get rid of the toadstool because it took almost a month then all of a sudden a polyp came out and then another and now it is completely covered. it took me a few months before we decided it was worthy of staying now we both love it. we also have a bright green polyp one on the right. can't wait for that one to drop some babies. maybe even both since the big one has pure white polyps maybe people will want one.
can you say ramble?
thanks again

 

[dgasmd]

Thanks for the info Rob. I may hit you up for the other ballasts. I still have your number and will be giving you a call when it comes time to make the monster chiller. We'll talk when the time is getting closer.

 

[robthorn]

sure thing the ballasts will be past along without profit for $23 each. the chiller I don't know if I am allowed to talk about without being kicked off reef central. they think everything people do is for financial gain. I guess I should keep my mouth shut I would hate to turn the tables.

 

[dgasmd]

Got it. I'll give you a call when the time comes. We talked about this a while back already.