Solana tank owner thread.

kevantheman35 said:
anybody have any problems getting the sapphire skimmer to work? I bought mine used of here. I cant get the skim to get as high as the cup nomatter how i set it. any ideas?
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It takes a few days...sometime up to a week or so for it to break in...I have the valve/opening on the side completely opened and the bubble/skims flow nicely into the cup (once the skimmer is broken in of course).
 
Jeff_NJ said:
HAH, what MJK song if my fav? Probably Pushit from Aenima. But honestly, there isn't one song that I don't like. I've been driving the wife crazy with this for 10+ years already. She's a closet MJK Fan. :lol2:

On the reefing topic: Panorama light showed up yesterday. Nice piece of equipment overall. I hope that it performs as good as it looks!

The tank is due to arrive today, so I look forward to that. I also decided on the Tunze skimmer with the in-tank cup mod. I will also do the airline mod as noted by Chiefmcfuz (thanks).

I just need to do a little bit of research to find out exactly what needs done to get it to fit. I see some people saying you have to remove the magnet and others saying you don't. Guess once I have the tank and the Tunze I will be able to make that decision for myself.

Since I have a MP10w, and I got a decent deal on a fairly new used one, I am thinking of buying another and linking them together (master/slave setup). First though I need to buy the Osmolator.
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Nice pick. I think my favorite would have to be Third Eye but like you said what maynard song isn't good. At least your wife can tolerate him. My gf isn't a fan at all...

I removed the magnet on the tunze. Real easy and then it fits in chamber one.

Sounds like everything is coming together nicely! Did you start a build thread yet?
 
Chiefmcfuz said:
Has anyone tried any of these rapid led kits for their solana?

I think the site is rapid led dot com
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I personally have not purchased anything from that particular site, but it looks like they use Cree LED's and mostly meanwell drivers. I am familiar with the cree XR-E, XP-E, and XP-G led's and have been quite happy with all of them. The XP-G cool whites have the highest light output, but I prefer the XP-E. The lumens is only slightly lower and they are generally less expensive.

I have only used the buckpucks from LEDsupply, but have read a lot of posts from people using the meanwell drivers.

I currently have a small LED setup over my 3gal pico and am having really success so far, though it has not been set up very long. I am looking at starting a larger LED build for my solana, but don't really have the finances for it at the moment.

Here are a couple of pics of the pico with the DIY led.
 

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Here are some current pics of my Solana.
 

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Those kits seem nice. Decent intro kit - but I wouldnt do LEDs without dimmable drivers like the Buckpucks lpsouth uses.

I'm planning out LEDs for a new build and I'm probably gonna end up with buckpucks as well.
 
My solana had a mishap the other day. I came home to find salt all down the right side of my tank stand and floor so I wiped it off real quick and watched it and found the the back seam had split from the top down about 4" so wiggled it and it split more. I ran to the garage and grabbed some rope and wrapped it around the top of the tank to keep it together while I emptied my tank into buckets.
I was able to track down black silicone so I removed all the old silicone from the seam top to bottom and resealed it along with every seam on the tank. I freshwater tested it for one week and I moved everything back in yesterday and so far it is holding great.
The only thing I can think that caused it was my MP10. For the last 5 months I have had it on short pulse mode to make a wave in my tank and I figured the tank was strong enough to hold a wave. Or I just got a tank with a bad seam from the factory.

Just figure I would share my experience for those with wave makers on their solana's.
 
That sucks...I ran my VorTech on short pulse mode for a while too but now it runs on lagoon mode. Maybe its a good thing I switched it to lagoon rather than keep it on short pulse...even though it was pretty cool staring at the waves it made in my tank.
 
Yeah I can't say for sure it is was the wave action but I am running reefcrest from now on. I have not read anything about anyone else's solana coming apart so maybe I just got a lemon?
 
Penguintheory said:
Yeah I can't say for sure it is was the wave action but I am running reefcrest from now on. I have not read anything about anyone else's solana coming apart so maybe I just got a lemon?
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Has anyone asked Current USA's Customer Service about this? While trying to figure out my MP10, I remember reading how it's suggested to contact your aquarium manufacturer before using short pulse mode.

On the other hand, the marketing video for the MP10 is done in a Solana with short pulse mode on :fun4:

I will email Current CS to see what they have to say.
 
Cool, I hear ya. I already emailed them. I am curious as to what they have to say from a warranty prescriptive. I would hate to run short pulse, have the tank fail within the warranty period and have them tell me the warranty is void because of the wave maker.

/Jeff
 
Penguintheory said:
My solana had a mishap the other day. I came home to find salt all down the right side of my tank stand and floor so I wiped it off real quick and watched it and found the the back seam had split from the top down about 4" so wiggled it and it split more. I ran to the garage and grabbed some rope and wrapped it around the top of the tank to keep it together while I emptied my tank into buckets.
I was able to track down black silicone so I removed all the old silicone from the seam top to bottom and resealed it along with every seam on the tank. I freshwater tested it for one week and I moved everything back in yesterday and so far it is holding great.
The only thing I can think that caused it was my MP10. For the last 5 months I have had it on short pulse mode to make a wave in my tank and I figured the tank was strong enough to hold a wave. Or I just got a tank with a bad seam from the factory.

Just figure I would share my experience for those with wave makers on their solana's.
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Wow that really sucks. At least you got it fixed before it really came apart.

I run my MP10 on the Tidal Swell and Nutrient Export modes. Never tried short pulse.
 
So I took as small break this summer and did the bare minimum on my tanks to get by just to relax for a bit. Came back to the forums about two weeks ago and I guess these bio pellets are the new best thing to have/want. Was curious to see if anyone had them going on their Solana with the stock skimmer. I've been doing a lot of reading and have been wanting to give them a try, but just can't figure out a way to rig it up. I would be pulling the water from my third chamber (return area) to the reactor and it would return to the 1st chamber (Skimmer Area). I feel like I would just have the same water going through the reactor over and over again. My stock skimmer is a beast and haven't had any problems, tried the tunze skimmer and felt like it was junk compared to my stock (Think I lucked out). Any input is appreciated!
 
I'm running them but with a tunze 9002, which seems to be giving me a lot of bubbles but not much else.. >_< either way n and p's are low so I can't complain. I started off running them in the middle chamber in a bag, I then switched to sandwiching the bag horizontally between 2 pieces of egg crate in the middle chamber so water was forced to go threw them. Finally I caved, and got a BRS dual reactor, and am using a maxi jet 1200 to in the middle chamber to feed them, and returning the line back into the first chamber. Numbers speak for them selves, getting next to 0 skimate out of my skimmer, and have n bouncing between 1ppm-.5ppm, and p bouncing between 0 - .04ppm at this time. I will admit at this time after now running my 9002 for a few weeks that my stock skimmer did produce more skimate, to this date...but I think I may have finally gotten my 9002 dialed so I'm going to just leave it alone for a couple more weeks see how it performs and then go make up my mind if i want to put the stock skimmer back in.

In terms of just pushing the same water.. I wouldn't worry about that it all dilutes when it mixes back threw. Your skimmer is mixing it up, your power heads are mixing it up, and your return is mixing it up.

In terms of pellets i'm using wm ecobak and haven't tried the others so I can't speak to them.
 
Hmm ok cool how are you like the brs reactor was thinking of getting one but I like the tlf reactor since i can hang it on the back of the tank. Also are you running carbon? I actually have to clean out scrub my skimmer cup every four to five days from all the gunk it pulls out
 
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