My Ultimate Multi Mantis System(s)

[TundraGuy]

I can't wait to see the sump upgrades. Lol yep still harping about that.

So showed the video as promised. All I can say is you should see a large volume of views and I will see lots of new tanks getting set up. Or rather my nav y buddys are going to have me set up a lot of new mantis tanks. I always feel bad about setting up saltwater tanks for people knowing how much money time and effert people get sucked into spending on this hobby. OK so maybe I don't feel bad maybe I feel justified in spending as much as I do.

 

[Kharn]

I can't wait to see the sump upgrades. Lol yep still harping about that.

So showed the video as promised. All I can say is you should see a large volume of views and I will see lots of new tanks getting set up. Or rather my nav y buddys are going to have me set up a lot of new mantis tanks. I always feel bad about setting up saltwater tanks for people knowing how much money time and effert people get sucked into spending on this hobby. OK so maybe I don't feel bad maybe I feel justified in spending as much as I do.

I got in contact with Jeff @ LifeReef to ask about when the Overflows he makes will be back in stock as he ran out a few months ago when I last tried to purchase them...

His response, thus the most accurate point of knowing when the sumps themselves will be up and operational...

" Probably mid February, sorry. My first priorities are for protein skimmers as I must have these for the systems I have go out every week, then last week I made a run of calcium reactors so I'm back in stock for those. The year-end and year-beginning weeks for me are not too productive with family and holiday stuff so I get a bit behind. I do need to make more of all the overflows and will do a run in February. "

A slight set back but nothing moves overnight in the aquarium world... :bounce3: patience WILL pay off with these products! I got more faith in them then anything else like skimmers, powerheads, lights etc.

 

[TundraGuy]

Grrr the waiting game. Hurry up and day some overflows already. I am during to read about the upgrade. Once you build in overflow you figure out how to build a better one. The you drill a tank and see how easy tthat is then you build internal overflows and so on till you have your full prof sighlient overflow of your dreams.

OK enough with the pressure from me. Some of my buddys are now comeing to RC checking in on your videos. Lol I told them to just get building a tank and start posting

 

[Kharn]

Grrr the waiting game. Hurry up and day some overflows already. I am during to read about the upgrade. Once you build in overflow you figure out how to build a better one. The you drill a tank and see how easy tthat is then you build internal overflows and so on till you have your full prof sighlient overflow of your dreams.

OK enough with the pressure from me. Some of my buddys are now comeing to RC checking in on your videos. Lol I told them to just get building a tank and start posting

Well in the mean time I will be making my first of these this weekend...so you can watch and read this to take your mind off the sump.

It is a brief layout design for my new DIY PVC burrows, rather then go for an overall unique and complex VISUAL structure where I place corals upon etc. I have decided to take a different approach one that is going to give me back a LOT of tank space...



One of the things that I first noticed with the smaller smashers & my DIY PVC burrow designs is that when it came to filming them with live prey, there are many places where great footage COULD be captured but is missed or so poor that its unwatchable...

To change this or rather prevent this from occurring I am creating a fake wall with the majority of everything within the compartment, within the wall itself, this includes...

- The incoming Overflows...
- The NEW DIY PVC Burrow...
- The DIY PVC Burrow Pump...
- The Compartments Flow Pump...

By having all this within the fake wall and then effectively removing it from view, I hope to create a large open area where by nothing can hide from the camera, it's frustrating to watch a little smasher chase a crab knowing the crab has it coming then it scurries behind the DIY PVC burrow and the smasher follows it, thus the camera misses.

 

[Kharn]

Rocky (G.graphurus) compartment which is the NPS/Filter Feeder Compartment, got a nice bunch of additions today, his compartment is nearly full with only the Top Half left to fill and being NPS/Filter Feeder Dominant I am a little clueless as to what would go well in a compartment/tank like this but be in a position where it receives bright light, being near the waters surface and having nothing shadowing the area...

It was a real toss up today but I think I chose the better path...

Purchases today
- 1x Orange Tubastrea (24+ Heads).
- 1x Branching Duncan (7 Heads).
- 1x Red Stem & Yellow Polyp Gorgonian.
- 1x White Stem/Trunk & Red Polyp Dendro.
- 2x Tiny Electric Fluro Green Fungia Plates (1inch dia each).
- 1x Bleeding Bi-color Scolly.

All for under $200. (Due to my large discounts, would of been closer to $400, the scolly alone was marked at $129.95 and I got it for $50).

Here is what I meant above as to why I believe I made the better purchase, even though I have the slightest bit of regret....



They had a Ricordea for sale...the FIRST Ultra Grade Fluro I have seen in over a year within the store...it wasn't tiny tiny tiny either (like most I come across, pinkie nail size...) this one was a good 2inch diameter, only 1 color, but very very bright fluro orange! The price..... $300... ='[

I just COULDN'T buy it even though I had all the cash in hand...I looked at my box FULL of corals with still a $100 left in change and just couldn't justify that Rics price ...would of been nice to of purchased...

Having said that I do have some EVEN BETTER Ric's coming in next week 2! Nicer & Rarer colors, one is a TRUE blood Red!

EDIT: Pics to come of Rockys compartment soon, most are still settling in...

 

[NanoJosh]

Been following for a while but never posted. I live vicariously through u sir. My wife hate these wonderful creatures. And may I compliment u every top down shot looks like the ocean well done on your biotopes and keep um comin. Where are u in Australia by the way I'm in Melbourne.... FL. Lol sorry I had to.

 

[NanoJosh]

Oh I can't believe the price of those rica down there. Here in FL we can go collecting, but we don't have the deep tide fluctuations.

 

[Kharn]

Been following for a while but never posted. I live vicariously through u sir. My wife hate these wonderful creatures. And may I compliment u every top down shot looks like the ocean well done on your biotopes and keep um comin. Where are u in Australia by the way I'm in Melbourne.... FL. Lol sorry I had to.

Glad you like the information and things I share, I am situated in Queensland.

Oh I can't believe the price of those rica down there. Here in FL we can go collecting, but we don't have the deep tide fluctuations.

Yes the price of Ric's downunder are very expensive and I often wonder if it was due to a MASSIVE sudden demand about half a decade ago...from what I am being told from various people / stores / fraggers, it's simply because the sellers caught on to the fact that there are serious die-hard collectors for Ric's in Australia and they will basically pay anything FOR a Ric irregardless of size (it's all about the amount of colors & brightness of the colors).

This has turned into Hidden Austions where by the seller simply states its Ric is up for sale and he who posts the largest figure $$$ will win it...and you know the seller isn't going to release it until his figure is met and then they milk for as much as they can...I came close (I thought) to a live auction for a Pink Ric a week or 2 back turns out half way through the Auction it became 'hidden' and my current public bid was the highest ($220) to which the seller responded "Highest Hidden Bid is currently more then twice the Highest Public Bid"...to which I pulled out... ='[

If you walked swiftly past a tank and saw a completely fluro bright 1 color Orange Ric sitting beside the same sized and same colored fluro bright plate fungia, you wouldn't notice the difference....aside 1 is $300 and the other is $15....

Having said that I am trying to organize some under the counter things...not sure if I should talk about it...but lets say hypothetically here ...

It isn't "illegal" to import corals into Australia, to knowledge there is no penalty for doing this, the penalty is that your live stock (coral) is withheld and destroyed, thus you loose both the money spent on the live stock (coral in this case) and the money spent on shipping...

With the current cost of Ricordea in other countries being literally 1/10th of what they are here in Australia...it kind of makes it worth attempting to try and see if someone will send them into Australia from outside of it...The cost of the Ric's & the cost of the Freight is still going to be a LOT less then what you would pay here...

I see sights online out of the country that have ric packs for $30 where you get 6 large, big multi colored rics, I will assume a freight cost of $100-$150 and that is I think being generous...? Which makes it a total cost of $130-$180...something that if purchased here in Australia would be closer to $6000, literally due to the size and colors of them online.

To me....this is worth the risk..even if 1 in 5 makes it back whatever that 1 is could gain back everything 2-3 fold...

This is a very touchy subject tho..

 

[Kharn]

To make matters worse it is a vicious cycle that will not end but get much much worse unless someone just Dominates the Ric trade in Australia and has constant supply of the best, in large quatities...

Simply put, when someone like myself purchases these Ric's you get kind of angry cause it's hard to justify so much on something so small when I can (as I did) by an entire box of coral for 2/3rd's the Ricordeas price...

The Cycle I spoke of ?

What do you think will happen when I start fragging the Ultra Grade Ric's I get...I certainly am not going to be all nice and forgiving...HELL NO...I'll do the exact thing the current sellers are doing but try to milk it even MORE!...

And so will the next and the next, until as I said someone comes along and has such good quality Ric's and in such large numbers with consistent supply that they alone can then dictate and bring down the price of Ric's...

It's like Acans down under...they go for pocket change, even the most colorful and multi colored true rainbows only go for around $100 @ 12 Heads...because all the fraggers have large supplies of them.

I'd love to break the Ric trade downunder and be the one to make them the price that they are for in the U.S. but it's impossible...

 

[Kharn]

I wish I still had the photo I took when I went down to my very good friends store down the coast...

As I just said he is a very good friend indeed and has given me massive discounts in the past, he was the one that got the Juggernaut secretly and gave me a call asking ME how much I wanted for it, I couldn't put a price so in the end he gave the gigantic O.scyllarus to me for...$60 a VERY good deal.

Point is, same store, same mate (he owns the shop) and I asked him about some certain nice Ric's that had just come out of his Frag Tank out back, they were all inside a very small critter keeper and each Ric frag no larger then a fingernail, the biggest was as large as a thumbnail...

When I asked him how much for the lot (maybe 8 all up), he said the best he can do them all for is $1650...

 

[Kharn]

My first 2 true Ultra Grade Ricordeas incoming!



I am very excited to see these incoming, it really makes me want to get a move on with the filtration upgrades...

 

[Kharn]

The picture I posted a few posts back which I will post again now, is coming to life!

The Plan - Layout


STEP 1 - Creating the frames base structure & design.



STEP 2 - Attaching the Eggcrate Plateaus to the frame.



STEP 3 - Fixing the Flyscreen mesh screen to the wall.


STEP 4 - First coat of substrate (ignoring plateaus).

(After 4 coats of substrate)


STEP 5 - First of substrate on plateaus (Flyscreen wrapped around each plateau prior).


Once the plateaus "disappear" under substrate I will begin to touch the whole thing up specifically around the burrow entry/exit holes once the PVC is in place, not having to do any of this on the PVC and on a flat surface has made it very easy and fast.

More to come!

 

[Kharn]

STEP 5 (continued) - After 4 layers of substrate on the plateaus.



STEP 6 - Attaching the burrow to the wall and filling in gaps, along with lining the inside the entry/exit holes to the burrow with substrate.


STEP 7 - The finishing point, after touching up what needs to be hidden I will drill a hole through the top corner of the wall for where the output of the small pump will be that is also hidden behind the wall.

 

[Kharn]

STEP 7 continued - Well here is the end result, I might touch up the rim of the whole frame a bit but this is what it was meant to look like all along! I am very happy with it and once I am satisfied with it I will place it into the Live Food System to 'cook' temporarily for 24hrs to allow anything that can fall off to fall off.



More to come as it makes its way into its soon to be permanent home!

 

[Kharn]

Bit off the subject of STAND A and focusing a bit on STAND B here...

I found this pair of pictures online and they detail the EXACT layout of what I want 1 of the 2, 3 foot tanks within STAND B to be like for its internal base footprint, which is to be Acan Dominated.




The only difference is that I plan to really choc fill it, basically where you see substrate in the top down view, I'll place smaller acan colonies to hide it.

 

[Calappidae]

I'd be careful with the LPS corals. When their tentacles are extended (usually at night) they have a sting to them that sometimes we'll notice and feel for quite sometime. Having a few in the tank is perfectly fine, any livestock would have to be sick to actually get caught or killed in one. Even if they touch the coral for a brief momment it shouldn't hurt them.. plus they'll avoid the coral all together, they're not stupid. However, to make an entire surface area in the tank full of them may be a little scary since there isn't really much room to avoid their sweepers as needed.

Personally my tanks have dragonets and plate corals as well as brains but nothing touches them, they all have space to avoid them and they certainly do go around the corals rather than over them.

 

[Kharn]

I use to have pictures of my past aquarium where sometimes a Stomatopod would "perch upon" either a Hammer or Acan coral, so I naturally assumed from then on that they shouldn't be a problem...

Having said this the stomatopod will have the entire rear wall to work with seeing as the burrow is built into and above the acans below.

 

[Kharn]

Just got my first super bright Ric it's a nice and bright fluro hot pink Ric small rite now (20mm diameter) but once it is more seated in its new home it should begin to open more and more then double in size it set me back $275.

pix to come once its seated!

 

[Kharn]

Well I couldn't wait lol xD here it is still getting comfy in its new home...

Its not very large maybe 1-1.5 inchs.


The resident Stomatopod Nicole is already aggressively defending it from the camera. :lmao:


It is without doubt my nicest and brightest Ricordea...for now, within the next couple of days I should get a pair that might put even this bright one to shame ...

 

[Kharn]

The latest (test/1st) DIY PVC Fake Wall Burrow...completed! (minus the hole for the compartment pump in top corner).




Whilst I have plateaus in place for Ricordeas already I do intend to "fill in wall space" by "gumming" other Ric's to the wall itself (obviously the tile/rock the rick is attached to).

Having said the above...this first test wall is going into the Rhodactid / Corallimorph compartment of Tintin, where the wall itself will become adorned with only TRUE Forest Fire Rhodactids and the base covered in Orange Corallimorphs.