Photo journal of my MCA 120

[kimoyo]

Kevin - Thanks!! I appreciate the words. I was very impressed with you when you sent out the filter without being paid. I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to test it sooner, with school starting and getting the tank together time got short.
Paul

 

[Pacific Reefs]

Keeping the tank coralline free will be a real trick as it will hitchhike on things like snails. Even the introduction of fish may promote its growth as it can be in their gut.

Wow, I never thought of that. I will be careful to check for coralline the next time I have fish for dinner.

 

[javajaws]

Is it me or is your skimmer way in the back of the stand? If so...that's gonna be a maintenance nightmare. You might want to consider relocating it to the front. Everything else looks really great! I wish I would have went acrylic with my tank...that thing is sweet!

 

[JustOneMoreTank]

I have not ever heard of being able to purchase Coraline in a Bottle! Ha that is great.

Your tank and stand look great by the way. Keep up the good work.

 

[km133688]

Paul, thanks, I was just happy to find somebody who wanted to use it. Hope you have better luck with it than I did (guess I was just too lazy to use it right). In any event, like I said, if you have any problems contact me, I'll pp your money back.

You know, getting into reefing was like expanding my family with 100,000 new relatives; so many people with a common interest to help and be helped by. wish the whole world could be filled with reefers. Haven't meet one yet who wasn't kind, generous, and genuinely concerned about their world.

It has been a please to Post with you, I'll keep watching, Kevin.

 

[ToddG.]

The only problem I see is your ballasts and chiller are in the stand man thats going to get hot in thier and your chiller going to run non stop just my opinion other than that looks nice.

 

[kimoyo]

Thanks guys!

javajaws - unfortunately, the way everything is setup the skimmer has to be there. But I have clearance and a straight line to the front to get the collection cup out, I hope it won't be too hard. And the one thing about acrylic is you have to be careful so you don't scratch it. But you can get them out though with a little work.

JustOneMoreTank - there was this one company I saw selling it, I really wish I had the link. I found it on RC but misplaced it.

ToddG. - the ballasts are electronic so they are supposed to put out low heat. Now the chiller gives off a lot of heat but luckily it's mainly in the rear direction which faces out into the room. When I finally put the doors on they will be shutters so the heat can still be vented out.

 

[kimoyo]

Coralline Species

Coralline Species

So here is a post that I made in Calfo's forum. I was going to ask Dr. Ron also but he doesn't answer on Thursday or Friday.

Hi Anthony,
I'm setting up my new tank with dry, dead, base rock from reeferrocks.com. I would like to introduce certain colors (species) of coralline algae to the rock but don't know what species to look for. I would like to get some blue and orange specifically but I have found only two websites that sell coralline cultures. I am also not sure if this will work. The one I am thinking about buying is the Coralline Algae Booster from IPSF. They say it will be "cultures of crustose pink and red Mesophyllum algae" but I don't know what Mesophyllum algae is. My questions are

• What are the different species(colors) of coralline algae? Is there a specific list?
• What are you thoughts on Mesophyllum? Is this a good type of algae to have in the tank?
• Do you know of other online vendors who sell coralline cultures specifically orange or blue? Have you heard anything about IPSF?

Thanks so much for you help.
Paul

So I found a site that sells coralline cultures but still have a lot of questions about the different coralline species.

 

[Konadog]

kimoyo, thanks for the details on the external overflow. I love this idea and don't know why more people don't go this way. It gives the tank that clean look.

 

[beemer]

Great tank and thanks for the ideas on silencing the overflow. I have an external overflow and will use this to quite it!
Jerod

 

[kimoyo]

Kondadog - no problem, I only wish that I would have done the overflow on the left side instead of the back. I would have siliconed 1/4" black acrylic on the back and left in case I wanted to remove the backing to see it on both sides.

Beemer - Thanks, just note that it won't make it totally silent but it will help a good deal. The only way to have it silent is to have it siphon and have a second backup drain.

 

[kimoyo]

Nothing to really update yet. Just re-did some plumbing. Main thing was to swap out those two 3/4" loc-line returns for a single 1" return. I put on a couple of black fittings that will be attached to a 1" black eductor (hopefully the black with blend better with the background). Unfortunately, I couldn't find a 1" black eductor because the places I know were out and only had blue. I hope that the t4 will be able to push the eductor and still keep the chiller at no less than 600gph.

I did see some animals I would like to keep in the tank. Here's some shoots of some Pictas.

I have no idea what I need to keep these guys but I want to try.

I also found a good site, WetWebMedia, that I hope will help me figure out which fish I will keep. If anyone knows of any free references (large databases) that identify marine animals please let me know, thanks. I was also thinking about getting some Diadema urchins to help clean coralline but I'm concerned about them scratching the acrylic.

 

[kimoyo]

RODI Water and Salt does a reef make?

RODI Water and Salt does a reef make?

Finally, after all this time learning and deciding, the tank is full of RODI water and salt. Filling with RODI took about 36hrs to do but I think it was worth it.



Since I was filling with RODI I needed to take apart a lot of stuff to get the regular water out of the system. So I took this time to clean the overflow and take some shots from beneath.



I know I'm whining about this but I really wish the builder would have made the opening wider. It was really hard for me to clean it out. But I guess he wanted to keep his nice MCA logo on there.

 

[kimoyo]

Indo-Pacific Sea Farms Order

Indo-Pacific Sea Farms Order

So I decided to order the coralline from IPSF. I also go their n-reducer which is pure concentrate of Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria. Apparently, because I started with clean rock I shouldn't really have a cycle, the tank is supposed to be ready to go. The order came in on Friday via Fedex and I was pleased. The packing looked great but of course this is my first live package so what do I know.




After unpacking, I realized that I got a free coral (well frag), how cool is that! My first coral, candy cane, don't know if its alive (its going white from the base up) but oh well, its the thought that counts.



And here are the coralline plates



Now these I really am worried about because it looked like some of the water dried and they were exposed a bit. So I guess time will tell. Here are some shots of the plates in the tank.




And you can see the frag in there, what do you guys think?

 

[sellout007]

Whats the coraline look like out of the package? O) What color?

 

[kimoyo]

AP600 woes

AP600 woes

Here's a shot of my Deltec AP600.



Its having some problems, here's the thread I started about it.

 

[kimoyo]

Tank Shots

Tank Shots

Finally, some tank shots with salt and RODI water.



So far my parameters are:

ammonia - 0 ppm
nitrite - 0 ppm
nitrate - 0 ppm
phosphate - 0 ppm
pH - 8.2
calcium - 340ppm
alkalinty - 10dKH (aquarium pharmaceuticals test) or 5 meq/L (seachem test)

Not sure whats up with the alkalinty tests.

 

[kimoyo]

Whats the coraline look like out of the package? O) What color?

Looks like pink and dark red coralline almost fully covering a 3" plate. The plate looks like its made up of a plastic.

 

[melev]

The candycane should look nicer today. It is an LPS coral, and the skeletal base is white. The tips are where you should see pretty soft fluffy polyps if they are happy. Here's a picture of my neon candy canes from last night. This is an extreme closeup, but the bottom left is one single (albight huge) polyp in this macro shot.

 

[kimoyo]

Thanks Marc,

I don't know much about corals yet. I decided to learn about fish first because I will be adding some next week. And I will wait a while until I add more corals. I wasn't going to add any for a bit but IPSF sent me this freebie (which I didn't even know they were going to do).

The fish I want to add are

• queen angelfish
• achilles tang
• naso tang male
• bluethroat trigger

Not sure in what order yet.