Starting a new build and looking for opinions.

[lpsouth1978]

Wow, that pump is huge! Do you think the head is due to the right angles in your plumbing? Maybe the RFG have a lot of head?

Habe you noticed any shimmer in the MarsAqua light?

I noticed you have a herbie drain. Could you not restric the flow on that rather than increasing pump flow? Is the herbie annoying to tweak?

Sent from my SM-S727VL using Tapatalk

Yeah, it is a big pump, but I wanted to have enough flow to be able to plumb in reactors and such down the road if needed. I think that the flow is in part due to standard head loss plus the use of a '"T" and 4 x 90 degree elbows. Also, I am only running the pump at 60%, starting the flow at about 1200gph.

The flow is restricted using the herbie. Any adjustment to the herbie requires and adjustment to the pump flow as well. Everything is balanced, so I cannot raise the water level by just adjusting the gate valve on the herbie without adjusting the flow rate as well.

The Mars Aqua actually has quite a bit of shimmer. I actually removed about half of the lenses to provide better color blending and reduce the disco ball effect. I am pretty happy with it, but will be replacing it with the 300W version in order to cover the entire tank more evenly.

 

[lpsouth1978]

The tank is doing well and still progressing slowly. I have now increased the stocking to include:

- Bonded pair of Black Ocellaris Clown
- Royal Gramma Basslet
- Melanurus Wrasse
- 3 x Pajama Cardinals
- Neon Dottyback (currently in the sump)
- Frogspawn frag
- Hammer frag

Unfortunately, I decided while at the LFS the other day to make an impulse purchase of the Neon Dottback. I have had them before, but did not realize that it would not get along with the Royal Gramma. I had to catch him and move him to the fuge until I can find him a new home.

I tested the water tonight in preparation of a water change tomorrow, and am VERY happy with the current parameters of the tank. They are:

Temp - 78.5 (digital Thermometer)
SG - 1.026 (refractometer)
pH - 8.4 (digital pH tester)
Ammonia - 0 (API)
Nitrite - 0 (API)
Nitrate - Undetectable (API)
Phosphate - Undetectable (API)
Alk - 7.5 (API)
Calcium - 480 (API)

I am using the API tests for now, because I think they are accurate enough for my current needs. Eventually I plan on getting more reliable and accurate test kits, but these should suffice for a while. I will try to get some more pics tomorrow.

 

[lpsouth1978]

I made the rounds to a few LFS today and picked up a Rainbow BTA. I am really happy with it and it seems to be doing really well so far. It attached to the rock almost as soon as it touched it. My clowns have not paid it any attention, but hopefully in time they will come together.

 

[lpsouth1978]

I made a pretty big purchase for the tank yesterday and upgraded from the Chinese black box to 2 x AI Prime HD. So far I really like the lights, and things in the tank seem to be responding well so far. I am also quite happy with look of the tank with these lights on it. I feel like it is a cleaner look. The previous light looked good and I didn't think it looked cluttered before, but now that these are on there, looking back it did look cluttered.

 

[lpsouth1978]

I only made it one week with the AI Prime HD. I just made a purchase to upgrade from the Prime's. I found a great deal on a pair of 2 month old Hydra 26 HD's with tank mounts. I should have them about the middle of next week. Now I just have to decide what to do with the Primes.

 

[lpsouth1978]

This is mainly going to be a picture update. UPS shows that my new lights are not going to be here until Thurs, so I am just in a holding pattern for now. In the meantime, I have all the stuff to make diffusers for the Prime's so I think I will play with that this weekend. I plan on making some for the Hydra's when they get here, so I figure this will be a good test. I will keep you all posted.

In the mean time, enjoy some pics of the tank as it looks today.

P.S. - I posted 2 pics of my torch, the first is of it in the spot I originally placed it. The second is of it 20 minutes later, after moving it in front of a rock. I guess it didn't like the first spot.

 

[lpsouth1978]

More Pics:

 

[BruceWayne]

Im a big refugium guy, but your either one or not personally wouldn't set up a tank with out one. Couldnt you have 3 chamber
1. tank to chamber 1 bags, skimmer,
2. refugium, 3 return

 

[lpsouth1978]

Im a big refugium guy, but your either one or not personally wouldn't set up a tank with out one. Couldnt you have 3 chamber
1. tank to chamber 1 bags, skimmer,
2. refugium, 3 return

About that....

It looks like I forgot to mention that I ended up finding a Bubble Magus NAC 3.5 skimmer that fits perfectly in the first chamber. I now have a ball of chaeto in the middle chamber that is roughly the size of a volleball. I plan on adding some marine pure blocks in there eventually, but for now it is working great.

 

[BruceWayne]

Great to hear it’s doign well looks great

 

[lpsouth1978]

New update -

I was checking out a LFS I had not been to previously and they had a really nice green Haddoni Carpet anemone, so I decided to get it. They only wanted $45 for it, and the last one I had years ago cost me close to $200.

I also took the Primes off the tank and shipped them out to their new owner. I was supposed to get my new Hydra 26HD's thursdays, but there have been issued with UPS and I am still waiting for them to be delivered. In the mean time, I have a pair of PAR38 bulbs over the tank and they seem to be doing OK. I placed a light directly over each anemone since everything else in the tank is low light.

I attached a short video of the tank as it sits right now with the new anemone and the PAR38 bulbs over it.

40 breeder 08-20-2018 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

 

[lpsouth1978]

I finally got the Hydra 26 HD's yesterday and got everything set up on the tank last night. The shipping was a bit of a mess, and the packaging of everything was a joke. The guy I bought them from put the lights in the original boxes, but then just threw everything else in a box. When I opened it, there was a rats nest of wires, power supplies, and mounting hardware. It took me about 20 minutes to get it all untangled and out of the box.

Anyway, the lights are in great condition and work well. first thing I did was complete the diffusers for them. I already had the acrylic cut and the stand-offs ready to go, I just needed to know where to drill the holes. So far I am pretty happy with the lights, but I do have a couple of complaints and there is definitely some room for improvement on AI's part.

First, the mounting system is a serious pain in the @$$! My biggest problem is that they did nothing to make it compatible with rimmed tanks. I ended up having to cut small discs of PVC pipe to use as spacers inside and outside the tank to keep the lights from falling. It looks totally ghetto on an otherwise clean system.

Second, the WIFI on these lights is TERRIBLE!!!! I have only one cable outlet in my home where I can locate my modem and router. It works great for EVERYTHING else in the house, but I cold not connect to the Hydra's with it. I ended up having to connect a 50 foot coax cable to my modem and stringing it halfway across my house. It is now working, most of the time, but I have cable running across the house and a modem and router sitting in the middle of the floor. Now I need to try and find a good range extender to use.

Anyway, here are a couple of pics of the lights, with diffusers, and the tank. Let me know what you think.

20180822_214610 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

20180822_214459 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

 

[lpsouth1978]

Things are going very well with the system. I have moved a few things around, mostly for tier protection, but also in preparation of receiving a number of new additions that I ordered from AquaSD during the Labor day sale. I picked up an Aussie Blasto, Acan Lord, Zoas, Favia, Galaxea, and an Aussie Macromussa. I also git a John Deere Leptastrea in their Ebay auctions this week. I got all 7 corals for less than $130 shipped.

In addition to these, I stopped into the LFS yesterday and found a beautiful Aussie Elegance and couldn't pass it up. I have been wanting and looking for an elegance for a while, but everything I found was just outrageously priced, I got it home, drip acclimated it, and put it in the tank. Within about an hour, it had opened up pretty well. By this morning it was double the size it was in the store and looks amazing. Next to my Indo gold tip torch, this is my favorite coral in the tank right now.

Here is a FTS from this morning

20180901_092443 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

And the Elegance coral (under my normal lighting)

20180901_081746 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

Elegance coral (under UV, Violet, and RB)

20180901_081619 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr

A short video of the tank this morning (sorry about the music, I was cleaning the house and has it playing in the background).

Tank video Sept 1 2018 by Lyle Southard, on Flickr