Soulpatch's build thread (ongoing)

Well this tank is getting shut down tomorrow as the fish, plants, and filters are all sold:



Cant really say I will be sad to see it go. Doing so gets me about $500 or so to put towards the new tank which is basically stand money and a few beers as I build it.

Tonight I decided that the Kessil that is in the box needed to be used so I took off the top of my cube and put on the kessil.



This was a bit of a pain as I had to cut my driver wires and the zip ties holding everything together. It is all out now though but I did leave the drivers screwed into the stand.

I still have to wire the Kessil to the apex but that can be tomorrow. I am still recovering from an open bar corporate even last night.....

Here are some more tank shots:







Here is one of my crabs chillin in the torch

 
Looking nice as usual, and it looks good as an open top! You get to play with the AFS and everything. I'm sure it's sad and relieving to break down the FW setup, but on to newer and better things with the new cube.

And it's such a pain dealing with drivers and all of the wires all over the place with LEDs, but that's why I put everything on quick disconnects. It'll still be a pain to move/remove though.

So those pics are all with the kessil? How does it look to your eye? Better coverage and/or coloration? I'm interested to see how you feel about it in a week.

As a reminder, where were your LEDs set before you broke them down? (like % power per channel).
 
Yeah those pics were all Kessil and I have some more pics to put up.

I am liking it thus far but my evap has increased slightly.I need to get used to it since the bigger cube will also be topless. The shimmer is intense and so much greater then with the rapidleds which I did find suprising. As for my old lights I had them going up to roughly 75% but the Kessil I am starting at a max of 55% just in case. I actually have the old light patterns saved off in a file on my computer for when I revert back with the new cube stealing the kessil back eventually.

The AFS was actually on the tank with the top. I had the front hatch open all the time and had it mounted there. It worked out pretty well but was not the cleanest looking install.

The tank looks ok right now as I have gotten rid of the cyano for the most part. I have some bryopsis and culpera in the tank though. It is kept at bay at this point though and I dont mind it too much. There is also a single patch of GHA that my blenny likes to sit on so I leave that as well. Should it start to really grow then I will of course nuke it back into submission.

Regardless all of the rock in the tank is going to be removed in the coming months anyway so I can replace with TBS stuff. Considering scrapping the sand as well and going bare bottom in it since it will be a qt/frag tank moving forward. Would help keep maintenance down doing so. I could simply power up the gyre to 100% every few days to blow stuff around.

As for the disconnects I might add them next time though I have a feeling I will like the open look too much and might simply buy another Kessil when the time comes OR buy the mount system for the rapidled puck and still go open top with my existing lights.

I will note that the one thing I dont like with the new set up is the lack of moonlight. Even on low intensity and blue it is a bit too much I think for the tank. I need to figure a clean option out moving forward. The problem with the 93 is that it will be frameless and I want it clean looking. What I am considering is mounting a thin strip of blue leds on the goosenecks and using that for the moonlighting independant of the kessil but attached to the gooseneck for a clean look.

Pics:

Here is my acan rock and the small bits of bubble algae you can see. It barely grows and my crabs seem to like it so I let it go. You will also notice that my one acan (lower right) decided to start growing down and not back up over the damage it took during my black bug issue. I am considering trimming that dead skeleton off to see if it will grow up again.



Though covered by sand you can see the GHA my blenny likes to lay on next to the torch:


My prized rainbow acan and some of the rescues I have. The acan is on the rock with my alveopora next to it on the plug. Still trying to find where he wants to go. The rescues are the 2 acans on the right that are pale and not looking good. I am trying to color them back up as apparently they used to be stunning. You can also see a bit of my ric rock on the far right.



Better pic of ric rock:




All of the above pics were shot on my phone through the top of the water with the pumps off.
 
Woot I have a deposit on my 125 and it should be gone this weekend. I already sold the one pump and the guy buying the rest even wants the livestock. He got a hell of a deal as I sold the tank, remaining filter, lights, stand, air pump, food, plants, fish, cleaning gear, and more for all of $350. There is easily $100 worth of fish in there alone.

But this gets me the space in the living room for some of my daughters toys, gives me one less tank to worry about (I was not enjoying my FW tank anymore since I got SW), and most importantly all in another $600 towards the new build.

Now if only I could get someone to buy my old helicopter gear. I should probably put that up on craigslist as well as not getting much luck on ebay. So if any of you want some RC helicopter gear let me know. HA HA

The tank is supposedly ordered so as soon as that comes in I will place the order for the wood upon confirming measurements of the tank. The money from my 125 will go towards that all including the jig and a few extra clamps I will need.


I also think I will need to purchase a third Kessil as I am really liking the kessil on the biocube. Since I will be removing the apex from the biocube and moving it across the room I could get the spectral controller for the Kessil to keep dynamic control on the LED. Might even be able to get away with a kessil 160 since it will be a fraq/qt tank.
 
Very exciting... Making space to just fill it up again :p

But now you'll be officially 100% SW!

Because everyone likes the kessils so much, I almost bought a broken one locally to try to repair and play with. I just don't need it, and don't want to have to remove my hood. I've been really happy with my full-spectrum custom from Rapid. I was really happy to hear Homer's positive experience with adding LEDs on the side to even out the coverage. But I'm always still looking to see what you and the other cube folks are doing for lighting and see what else is out there. Upgradeitis....

I miss RC stuff. I had some sweet nitro planes in college when I wasn't running an aquarium. Had an accident and sold them all, then moved to Michigan. I'd love to start up again with nitro planes, but it's expensive and NY is such a pain to go anywhere to fly, and I'm sure I'd have to travel 1.5-2 hours to be outside of the range of an airport. I could never get into heli though, though it's funny how many people I know that still have old RC heli gear in their closets.
 
I am pretty good at my heli flying. I can do some tricks with the one as it is able to go inverted and such. I just don't have the time to keep up with it anymore and the one local hobby shop closed meaning parts are a couple days away when needed.

Still if sold I could nab almost another $500 and that is a deal as well. So we shall see. If I sold that then I can get nicer pumps for the new tank like MP40 or the new WAV pumps. Probably a bit more inclined to go WAV since they are cheaper and semi directional. Time will tell. I need the money first.
 
I was looking at the WAV pumps. You'll have to let me know how they do if you get them.

I'll be honest, I'm half temped to pull the MP10 and put 2 RW-4's in my tank since they are directional.
 
That is my biggest concern with the MP40. I have gotten used to the ability to have directional flow. SO right now I am torn between 2 RW8 with the JBWave or the WAV system. WAV comes in at 500 but more interconnected to the apex then the JBWave would be.
 
soulpatch said:
Still if sold I could nab almost another $500 and that is a deal as well. So we shall see. If I sold that then I can get nicer pumps for the new tank like MP40 or the new WAV pumps. Probably a bit more inclined to go WAV since they are cheaper and semi directional. Time will tell. I need the money first.
Click to expand...

Do you feel that directional matters? How about when the gyre is thrown in? I'm surprised that you're recommending it based partly on that they're direction, since the whole draw (to me, and I think advertised) to the vortechs is that they're enough to move plenty of volume without needing to be directional.
 
And that's the key, setting up your rock work and coral to accommodate the pump. Personally, I'm getting a bit tired of doing things this way. Which is why the directional ability of the RW's is becoming more and more appealing.

I think it's all just personal preference at the end of the day though. I've messed around with, and "wasted" more money than I care to think about buying the "new hotness" and then realizing, sometimes immediately, that the "plain jane" old gear I had worked as well if not better.
 
I like the RW but I do not like its limited controlability. The new WAV looks a lok like the footprint of the RW and the control options are interesting.
 
I have old RC gear in my attic. Some so old its what they call control line flying. Instead of a "radio" to control the plane, you had a handle with 2 wires. It flies in a big circle, and you fly it until it crashes or runs out of fuel. People still make them and fly them, but it's typically a combat style where you fly back to back in a circle.

Back to the SW hobby, I couldn't be happier with my mp10's. The way I can make them fluctuate the output, have random output strength, and make them come on out of sync from one another, makes for a very turbulent flow in my tank and not directional, or cone like at all.
 
homer1475 said:
Back to the SW hobby, I couldn't be happier with my mp10's. The way I can make them fluctuate the output, have random output strength, and make them come on out of sync from one another, makes for a very turbulent flow in my tank and not directional, or cone like at all.
Click to expand...

Same here, that's why I'm so curious, especially hearing it from soulpatch who has the jeabo, MP10, and a gyre.
 
soulpatch said:
I like the RW but I do not like its limited controlability. The new WAV looks a lok like the footprint of the RW and the control options are interesting.
Click to expand...


Wouldn't this controller allow you better control with the Apex?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00P...1_2?colid=36JOHMAQW1KP1&coliid=I3EIVP4Y7GR61R

I'm wondering as I just found it when looking at Apex options. Says it controls multiple rw pumps. But still so new I have no idea what the differences are between the various pumps.
 
I don't know. I think that simply allows on and off and maybe power but not the flow modes like reef crest, feed, lagoon, our such.
 
I thought, since you can use the 0-10v outputs from the controller, and that you can control each pump individually, that you could simulate those modes and alternate the two pumps to play off each other.

But I'm making assumptions.
 
ReefWreak said:
Same here, that's why I'm so curious, especially hearing it from soulpatch who has the jeabo, MP10, and a gyre.
Click to expand...
I don't have a mp10. Cabo compared the gyre to mp which is why I have the gyre. The gyre will move to the other tank most likely with either a WAV or rw8 pair to compliment.

For the gyre I like the wide flow but it does have some dead spots amd I needed my rw still to hit them. If I had two gyre I don't think I would have Any issues but they are bulky in the tank which is annoying.

I will go mp40s in my next tank if someone wants to buy them and the wxm module for me. Lol.

I will however be getting the new ecotech pump for my return I believe unless neptune releases their FLO by MACNA
 
I still like the gyre, but I think I'm going to change how I've been running it in the past. Since moving to the larger tank, I think I'm going to run it vertically from left to right and see how it works with the MP10 still running.

Running them both together might be a bit much, but I guess I'll find out!
 
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