The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[Sparkss]

I had read that from others in various thread here on RC over the years, that is what prompted us to give it a try. What species and what size horses did you have ?

BTW, minor update on our horse.. we found him in another section of the fuge... I had thought that the egg crate would have kept him in the forward section but he managed to get through and is now in the prop tank section (yea, he is that small... the egg crate is from Lowes and larger than we normally see, but still pretty small comparatively). So the horse is now found and still doing well, just not where we really wanted him to be (yea Jonathan... there goes our pods now *sigh*).

 

[jnarowe]

munch munch munch...:lol:

 

[Sparkss]

Oddly enough I saw a ton of pods still on the glass this morning, and the horse seemed to ignore them.. but he went after the arcti-pods that we put in.. go figure ?

On a different note... our skimmer shipped today


Ship date May 14, 2007

Estimated delivery May 18, 2007


So it looks like this weekend will be a tank/plumbing weekend after all !!!

 

[jnarowe]

what is your impression of the Arcti-pods? Shelf life? The seahorse may like them because that was what it was fed prior to being shipped to you.

 

[mrcrab]

Jonathan,

GET BACK TO WORK!!!!

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9946616#post9946616 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jnarowe
what is your impression of the Arcti-pods? Shelf life? The seahorse may like them because that was what it was fed prior to being shipped to you.

from what I read they were fed mysis. Our impression of Arcti-Pods is a very positive one. We have used them to sucessfully get several "hard eaters" to start eating in our aquarium, and even nursed an ailing lineatus wrasse back to health with them (no one else could get him to eat and the wholesaler was about to give up on him). Their shelf life (refrigerated) has been great. We always have a bottle in our fridge . We started a thread in the BAR forum a while back labelled "ArctiPods Rock !!!", or something like that. Lots of great feedback from other hobbyists. One even reported that his mandarin was eating them, IIRC. The bottles are a little pricey, but they are jam packed.. very concentrated critters, so a little can go a long way (even in your tank ).

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9946696#post9946696 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mrcrab
Jonathan,

GET BACK TO WORK!!!!

LOL !!!!


On a separate note :

I lost most of my thread subscriptions lately for some reason, and have been needing to resubscribe. I looked back a couple of pages for your thread mrcrab.. any updates lately on your tank ? . IIRC, it was your thread that gave us alot of the ideas for our tank setup.. I would love to see how your "inspirational" tank is doing these days

 

[jnarowe]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9946696#post9946696 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by mrcrab
Jonathan,

GET BACK TO WORK!!!!

:lol: I am not at work today. My wife said I was making the store tense yesterday so I am taking a medical day off.

 

[raddogz]

Wow, all of this sounds great Tom.

Major kudos to you and your wife patiently putting all of this together. My heart just sank last week when I read about the fish disaster.

I am contemplating a 225g

 

[Sparkss]

Thanks for the kind words Eileen. We have taken a good bit of time to bring it all together and appreciate it when others acknowledge our efforts . We had a luncheon/baby shower this past weekend and one of the couples little girls just sat mesmerized by the tank all throughout the meal.. I told her that it was OK to take her eyes away from the fish and take a bite from her plate.. that the fish would still be there

Let us know when you get ready to set up your 225 . Hopefully ours will be grown out enough that we can help you with some corals !! . Make sure to send us your build thread when you start one.. and/or post it here (so I can't miss it ).

About the "fish disaster", I finally finished up with Live Aquaria in getting our refunds for all of that.. but money can't replace the fish or make up for what they had to go through . At least the one that made it seems to be acclimating well to our tank, and the ones we got on Friday are doing great (I love my Tomini Tang !!!.. he is so small, but also so kawaii !!!!). I feel bad for the sea horse though.. even though he has an almost unlimited food supply, he is in the fuge all by himself now (at least until he either grows up enough to have a go at the main tank again, or we find him a new home in a dedicated species tank somewhere).

Right now we are stoked about our skimmer finally arriving this Friday . Hopefully we will have plenty of new pictures to share by the end of this weekend (and happy pictures at that).

Thanks to everyone for following along with us on this journey

 

[GreshamH]

Your skimmer is coming finally? That's great news Tom. I'll have to make it up your way to see the monster in person :lol:

 

[mrcrab]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9946765#post9946765 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sparkss
LOL !!!!


On a separate note :

I lost most of my thread subscriptions lately for some reason, and have been needing to resubscribe. I looked back a couple of pages for your thread mrcrab.. any updates lately on your tank ? . IIRC, it was your thread that gave us alot of the ideas for our tank setup.. I would love to see how your "inspirational" tank is doing these days

Thanks for the kind words. I've been slacking lately as we've been remodeling the entire interior of the house and I've had my hands full with that. The disease issue has gone and we've gotten some new livestock. I'll be spending some quality time with the tank in the next week and I'll update then.

Here's the link:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=9830030#post9830030

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9947963#post9947963 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GreshamH
Your skimmer is coming finally? That's great news Tom. I'll have to make it up your way to see the monster in person :lol:

FedEx estimates delivery on Friday... the builder states 4 - 6 hours to assemble it.. then I need to make up whatever extra water needed (aside from the 40g of make up water in our Brute).. seeing that the skimmer holds approx 70g, I expect the RO/DI to run over night, at least, to fill it up. So stop by after this weekend to see it in operation.. after it has had a chance to break in . I hear tell that ones this big take days to weeks to break in.. one double the size of ours took almost a month to finally break in :eek1:

But yea, I am pretty excited about it shipping and arriving soon !!! And you are always welcome.. you already know the way, you just need to find the time !!

 

[Sparkss]

May 18, 2007 7:40 AM On FedEx vehicle for delivery STOCKTON, CA


Woohoo !!!!

The driver called about 30 minutes ago, as they were loading the truck, to make sure that we were going to be here to sign for the 4 huge boxes . I guess he was hoping we wouldn't be so that he didn't have to load them up . He indicated that he would be here between 1 and 2:30, so I hope to be building a skimmer about 6 hours from now . The thing that worries me is that the air pump (to "super charge" the skimmer) was being drop shipped from the vendor (Alita), and I have not yet received notification of it's shipment, so I may end up with a built skimmer, just no bubbles . If the skimmer gets built and I still have not received the air pump, I may run out and buy one locally from a pond store or something and just cancel the drop ship (if Alita even actually shipped it yet).

Hopefully there were be picture goodness in a couple of hours

 

[cbui2]

how big is that skimmer again?

 

[Sparkss]

the body is 18" diameter and around 4' tall.. the skimmer overall (bottom box, diffusion chamber, cone, collection cup, etc) was between 5' and 6' tall, IIRC. I will know more exact diemnsions later on today. I was told it holds approx 70g of water.

 

[Sparkss]

I am tired and it has been a long day, so I will leave off with just one picture of the skimmer for tonight. It is assembled, in place and 65% full. There was an RO/DI issue that prevented my being able to fill it all of the way. Not that it would have mattered, I need to head to HD tomorrow to pick up a few last minute fittings to finish plumbing it in. In this pict it is running w/o the air pump to "super charge" it, as that didn't make it here today. The water in the skimmer is freshly mixed SW.

 

[cbui2]

wow thats a beast, will you be going to LFS to pick up pump and cancelled the other one also how will you plumb the nog. spazz makes some great skimmer and look like that collection cup hold over 3 gallon easy.

 

[jnarowe]

would like like some sauce for the spaghetti Tom? :lol:

 

[Sparkss]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9973222#post9973222 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by cbui2
wow thats a beast, will you be going to LFS to pick up pump and cancelled the other one also how will you plumb the nog. spazz makes some great skimmer and look like that collection cup hold over 3 gallon easy.

There is a drain on the facing wall that I already have a p-trap tap in. The collection cup has a drin plumbed in that I will connect to the sewer drain line.

The skimmer will be gravity fed off of the 2" drain line from the tank. 100% skimming of the water coming from the tank. Currently the overflows are running through the "backup" line that I installed for when we take the skimemer offline, or is the skimmer line gets clogged for some reason.

I hope to have the last of the plumbing finished this afternoon (optimistically to coincide with the RO/DI water finishing).