the 1700g stingray reef
- Thread starter spazz
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spazz
New member
no that you have had you piture fix you addicts i can describe what i seen in the system. the first thing i knoticed was the tank was alot brigher looking. he has changed alot of the vho's over to t5 bulbs. it has made a large improvement in the system. the corals pop with colors. there is corals in that tank that are so colorful that they look like they would be fake corals. but there real. then there is the shear size of the corals in the system. there are alot of corals the size of basketballs and footballs. then there is the stag that is bigger than a garbage can. its massive.
then you start to knotice all the smaller corals that fill in the little areas or the reef. there every where. its just too much to look at. you could sit there for hours and se new and interesting animals pop out of every nook and cranny. every time i go there i see a new fish that i never knew existed. the big plus is the rare fish and the fish that are not considered reef safe. but in his system it doesent matter its so large that the corals are not affected by a pylop eating fish. i hope you all enjoy the pics i enjoy pics. spazz
then you start to knotice all the smaller corals that fill in the little areas or the reef. there every where. its just too much to look at. you could sit there for hours and se new and interesting animals pop out of every nook and cranny. every time i go there i see a new fish that i never knew existed. the big plus is the rare fish and the fish that are not considered reef safe. but in his system it doesent matter its so large that the corals are not affected by a pylop eating fish. i hope you all enjoy the pics i enjoy pics. spazz
spazz
New member
energy asked me to post some pics of the big ugly mother. you can find all the info in the diy section here on r/c. itslisted as "my diy dart needle wheel". we are testing it on his system to see if it would make a reliable skimmer pump. if you have any questoins about it please ask them in that thread so we dont clog this thread up with those posts. energy watches both of these threads.
here it is.
here it is.
Lordhelmet
Active member
SWEET!
As always it was a pleasure to have you over spazz. That "big ugly skimmer" as you call is rockin. 8 cups of skimmate in under 2 hours! The polyp eating fish is a ornage spotted file fish and yes it does actually look like its going to explode. I bought it becuase the LFS had it trained to eat flake food and it survived quite a while in a bare bones tank. I hoped maybe it wouldn't be so voracious a coral eater but boy was I wrong. At least it's healthy and there are plenty of corals for it to browse through without causing to much damage to any one of them. JNS that echino is one of my favorites- got anymore? BTW I need to bring over your items- I didn't forget but ended up working thanks to a dusting of snow.
asnatlas
New member
I agree with you spazz, back on page 29 in the first few pics you posted I notched that the tank looked brighter and I was not sure if it was due to the T5 upgrade or your camera, now I know
Energy if you don't mind me asking, could you tell me more about your T5 setup... I am in the process of setting up my 600gal (96x48x30) and I am looking at running 4x 250w MH's in L3 reflectors with some T5's on IceCap ballasts...
How many VHO's did you have ??
How many T5's did you end up going with and on what ballasts ??
Is there anything you would do differently or change ??
Any tips on lighting 32sq ft of water surface ??
supermarvin76
New member
Today is day two of trying to read this entire thread, and it may take me another day...I don't want to miss anything about this awesome system,
I'm sure Energy has heard this a trillion times but I must say...SWEET set up!!! I LOVE IT!!!! I like the rockwork outside the tank as well.
I like the idea that you use the excess heat from the lights to heat your house, and that you try to replicate the natural enviroment.
Congrats by the way on that Alligator Gar (I think that is what you said so many pages ago.) That must give you a great sense of accomplishment to be able to keep an animal that long.
You are a great insperation to our hobby!!!!!
I'm sure Energy has heard this a trillion times but I must say...SWEET set up!!! I LOVE IT!!!! I like the rockwork outside the tank as well.
I like the idea that you use the excess heat from the lights to heat your house, and that you try to replicate the natural enviroment.
Congrats by the way on that Alligator Gar (I think that is what you said so many pages ago.) That must give you a great sense of accomplishment to be able to keep an animal that long.
You are a great insperation to our hobby!!!!!
Lunchbucket
Premium Member
i want to see that "big-ugly skimmer" in person!!! ROAD TRIP!!!
Lunchbucket
Lunchbucket
Kent E: "BIG UGLY" pulls just about half the power of the other skimmer and produces 8 times more skimmate!! Twice I have measured the quantity of skimmate of equivelant color and both times it was 8 to 1. It's absolutey amazing. "Big Ugly" is a force air fed experimental model that Spazz built and were testing on my tank. Asnatlas: My lighting schematic would be impossible to describe and allow you to get an accurate idea. The T-5's I prefer are the aqua blue 11 k's which send off the perfect spectrum. I have also thrown some PFO 10'K which are more yellow but this helps to balance out all the 20 k XM's and VHO actinics. All my halides are 20 k xm, all vho is actinic only, and the t-5's are all a mix of 10K and 11K. These are intermixed across the tank to provide and even light without to much blue. I use the ice cap 440 and 660 ballast as well as two dedicated T-5 ballasts. Lunch: your always welcome to stop by and bring Travis with you. I have some more frags ready for ya.
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