About time for an update. First off Wind the light is just a aquamedic pendant hanging over the tank (attached with a hanging kit) see
http://www.aqua-medic.com/Spacelight_EX.shtml but I will post some stuff before.
In general, been fighting algae, even though I'm getting good numbers. Last of the "wild" indo pieces from that shipment have gone, but the aussie SPS, and most others are doing great. I have something going on weird with one frag I need to figure out think it may be to much flow I'm going to pop it off the rock dip, and inspect it tonight.
I picked up some amazing LPS, and a couple frags from DFS. The other week. Not sure what it is, but it's gotta be one of the coolest pieces I've owned/seen.
I also got a ORA belnia, a Leprechaun beard frag.
I went out of town for 4 days, and when I came back I tested my water. I finally hit 0/0 on nitrates and phosphates but came back to a poorly operating skimmer and a tank just covered in aglea, both good, and bad. Starting to see wide spread bits of Coraline aglea showing up all over the tank, but also patches of cyano.
I'm really over fighting with my skimmers, I had to set up a QT temp holding tank and I tossed my stock solana skimmer back it.. It was skimmer right from the get go, not great but working. With the tunzee I can't seem to get anything but either overflow into that tunze or at best collection in the neck. With the Solana it skims..but nothing to write home about.
Either way it may be the end of the Solana for me.
During my trip down south (outside of my need to get out of town). I stopped to take a look at a used tank setup. It was to close to what I want, and I couldn't pass it up and the price included all the equipment (which some I will be tossing in the equipment forum shortly as I won't need).
The tank is a 65 gallon low-iron (starphire) internally euro, rimless setup, with a external overflow and a metal stand/facade. It's 36x24x18. Which is pretty much the exact footprint of my all time favorite tank 36x24x24..with a few less gallons and a little more friendly to reach in and use.
I'm currently plumbing it, and mixing up some water. I still had some left over rock curing from back when I first setup this tank. The Tank setup came complete, new light pendant, chiller, heater, powerheads, sump, even a skimmer that I actually saw SKIMMING and pulling out gunk. It's a octo something or other. The downside is I don't like the sump. It's a simple 40 gallon, it's to tall, but it will work for now hopefully i can replace it with something that has a 30x20x12 foot print down the road to make it easier to dig around in.
Now, here comes the problem. I need to decide what to do with the Solana. I've got this love hate relationship with it. When I'm working on it, or need to change things the all in one feature drives me nuts and ****es me off, I also hate the fact that I have a ton of crap hanging off the sides and back really killing that "rimless" look. When I'm not messing with the tank. I love it. I'm really happy with the rock wall ect ect.
For now I'm going to keep both running until I'm ready to move all the SPS over to the 65, but after that I need to decide what to do. My GF likes puffer fish, softies, anenomes, and I want to try to keep my tank pretty much dedicated to Mussidae, and Acroporidae.
I however don't like the idea of keeping 2 separate systems (again), without a common sump to much work, to much money ect ect. I hate to toss out all the hard work we put in the rock wall, but I don't feel like making a new one either for this new tank...decisions.
Anyways the trip down south was great, there was some other coral/reef related things that happened but I'm not going to go into to much detail on RC until I figure out where I'm going in terms of the long term possibility of making reefing more then a hobby again for me. I visited some old friends/contacts and checked out the "status" of things first hand. I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the quality that is coming in at this time...of course I couldn't leave empty handed. ^_^ I just need to take some serious time to think about where things are headed and the long term viability of going down that route again.
With that said here are some updated photos.
Here is the new tank getting setup (facade is out of the picture). You can also see the current hanging system (wind). I used a 1.5 piece of foam between the stand and tank to raise it up, as well as help smooth things out.
Here is the new for me, but dirty as all heck tank.
This is my plumbing system, I'm setting up manifolds for the reactor, and I put in 2 extra ports if I ever need to run the chiller, or any other additional things
Here is the external durso around the back. I need to build some sort of overflow box inside just small enough to skim the surface. I don't really like how far the pipe sticks out from the back, but I only had one bulk head and didn't want to risk shaving it, or the pipe to save maybe 1-2". In the end I always find when I put the tank to close to the wall for some reason there is something I need to do in the back and I end up ****ed that I can't reach behind. At least this removes that potential for frustration even if it's a little less sightly when looking from the side.
I also got my hands on my second Melv photobox. Unfortunetly it didn't last to long as I was cutting a piece of pvc for the new tank, and knocked it off the counter across the room....I needless to say I need some Weldon to put it back together.
Anyways here are a couple photos I took before I broke it
a new acan I got..not all the way open it has polyps that are almost 2" across..very cool imop
and of course a few of my favorite fish barnacle blennies everything is in a 20 long QT atm.. this one decided to hide in a filter sock of carbon.
EDIT: Oh ya on the ecobak. Numbers are down, but clumping is back even w/plastic discs replacing the foam..not sure what to do at this point.
