The inwall 380 starfire reborn

[Sparkss]

Hobby Experience: 10 years on and off
Current Tanks: 380 starfire inwall ,two 150g sump/fuge. Volcano Ca RX, ato, 6' Volcano skimmer. LAIIIs w/400w Ushio 14K on IC EBallasts
Interests: 'puters, Reef tanks and DIY equipment




So far we like them alot better than the 250W XM10Ks on HQI ballasts, although we took a hit in PAR when we moved to the 400W Ushios. Thanks for the kudos on the light rack... I am thnking of tying the two of them together to form 1 rack, but haven't made my mind up if it is really necessary or not yet . Once I address the tilt in the main ligthing carriage I will consider tying the 2 (MH and VHO) racks together. There was a couple of posts way back just after the rock arrived, where I took pictures of the rack as we put it together. Since then all we changed on that rack was the bulbs and ballast.

Seems that I recall you having built a quite elaborate lighting rack yourself

 

[cbui2]

i should have look at the bottom, but i always get carry away on reading and forget the signature. thanks tom also are you still having any microbubbles issue?

 

[Sparkss]

yes (and no). I waffle on being convinced that micro bubbles are the real problem (and not a "sand storm" from too fine sand). I have a set of tests to run, but have not had the time to execute them. This past weekend was no different. I spent most of Friday evening through late this afternoon working on other household tasks. Maybe I will perform the test this week, one test a day. I really do want to nail down the cause and then focus on developing a plan of attack for resolving it.

I see that your tank is shaping up nicely also

 

[Sparkss]

I broke out the tripod and an old/new lens for our camera. It is a fast (I forget the f-stop, but it is a fairly low number.. 1.8 I think), fixed focal length (50 mm) lens that we bought some time ago and only used for a short bit before putting, and leavin, a longer focal length, but slower lens on the camera.

Both the lens and tripod and disabling of our flash hopefully will lead to more and better pictures . The shorter fixed focal length makes some pictures a little challenging, both the wide shots and any attempted close ups on corals at the back of the tank, 4' away. But here are a few of our first attempts this morning. These were taken right after the actinics came on (They are URI Actinic White bulbs.. and they look pink to me, but they will do for now ). There was also quite a bit of glare from the morning sun, but most of the pictures were good enough for a trial run. Let me know what you think ?

NOTE : I will try to take more later today, after both the MHs have come on and the sun has moved to where it is not glaring on the tank.

I thought about cropping this one to crop out the glare on eitehr side of it.. I probably shoud have..

Our pocci forrest and an ORA tort. Behind the tort is an amazingly dark blue/purple tenuis that I will try to get a better picture of it later on today. This one does not do it's color justice.

This is the one picture that came out nice. The bluish purple deep water that is in the focal center of this picture is one of our favorites. It is actually more of a blue than purple. I will take a better pict after the MHs come on

Just a few corals that we grew out from frags over the last several months . The URI bulbs bring outr some colors and wash out others.

Here is the left side (the right side had too much glare to post, but I will try again later on today )

 

[Sparkss]

Halides came on and the sun moved past that window enough to warrant a second attempt at some tank and livestock shots. A couple of my fellow RCers have prompted me to add some more eye candy to my thread... which is why the renewed push on my part to post more picts

Well, off we go with some FTS (sort of). Left, Right and Center (can't quite get the entire tank into one shot, but the center shot does get a good portion of it).

 

[Sparkss]

 

[weatherson]

Nice shots, Tom. Through the miracle of PS and with some creative license...

Joseph

 

[Sparkss]

Thanks Joseph. I was about to post some more picts here, but got distracted by work , so look for more close up shots shortly (or as close as I can get with this lens). I went looking for your thread the other day in my favorites (I think my subscription must have dropped to it ?). Can you post it here ? Anyone who has not read Weatherson's tank thread already, should do that now. It is a truly inspirational thread. I got many ideas for solutions to our "probelms" from his thread and posts

On another note the 1/4" mesh for the top came in today, so I will be out this evening finishing up our mesh top . This will open the door for some of the other fish we wanted to add (but were known to be jumpers)


Now if I could just take care of the water clarity issue ... !!! . I am going to go down right now and start test scenario #1 to start to try to identify the root cause of the clarity issues. I am leaning even more towards the sand being the culprit becuase when I was trying to take the pictures the fish were all worked up since they thought I was there to feed them *sigh*, and this led to a cloudy tank from them all swimming around stirring up the sand more. It died down and cleared up soon enough, but it is evident in some of the later pictures (that I will post soon).

 

[jnarowe]

man, that is just a crap-load of corals Tom. It's going to get crazy in there when they grow out! Vortechs have a nice coating on them...I am getting ready to rotate in a spare. I generally soak them for a day or two in vinegar and I don't like not having the flow while I do that.

 

[Sparkss]

Yea, mine are in need of a cleaning. I haven't decided how I want to rotate through them to get them all cleaned, but I do need to start sometime. Some of them are running a bit hot and making more noise than normal, so I am assuming it is cleaning time .

And yes, there are alot oc corals.. as they grow we will prune and make re-arrangement decisions. There are quite a few duplicates throughout the tank. As they grow we will start moving them either to the prop tank or out as sales or trades. There are a couple that are not coloring up to meet our "expectations" yet, and those will be given another 6 - 9 months or so to "make good" before they also get moved out to make room for newer, more colorful livestock.

I just turned off all 4 Vortecs and set the timer here to start test scenario #1 to try to determine the casue of our cloudy water.

Test #1 : Run the return pump and no vortecs for 4 hours
Test #2 : Run the Vortecs and no return pump for 4 hours
Test #3 : Run the Vortecs at their lowest setting and return pump at 25% - 50% for 4 hours (basically as little water movement as possible without endangering the livestock)

 

[Sparkss]

In these next shots the focus shifts from the back objects through to the front ones. So even though it looks like the same shot, because of the lens and the settings we used there are actually 3 different focal points. I tried cropping them to just the focal objects, but they didn't crop well for some reason, so bear with me

ORA German blue polyped acro

Our favorite blue w/ white polyped deepwater (not sure of species/genus ID)

And the recent score in trade from a fellow reefer

 

[Sparkss]

You can see the cloudiness in this shot of the corlas at the back of the right hand valley :

I tried to get some shots of the zoos but this guy just kept jumping in front of every shot, so I went ahead and took a couple of pictures of him and he seemed to be satisfied after that (although he is still lurking in many of the subsequent shots )

 

[Sparkss]

 

[Sparkss]

 

[Sparkss]

Last couple of shots

 

[jgsensor]

Nice tank, man am I enviess.

Couple of quick questions. I don't know if I missed this, but what does the dosing of sugar do for you? Does this help reduce the phosphates? I am curios since I have been battling a phosphate problem that got way out of hand. I am getting ready to change out my filtration to add more skimming, filter socks and just a finer filtration ability, but was wondering if the sugar would help reduce my phosphate in the mean time?

Also, how is that eco-cooler holding with the new tank? I know the heat test is still to come.

 

[weatherson]

Tom,
Thanks for the kind words. Here's the links for you...

Part One.

Part Two.

And a Last-Post link.

Joseph.

 

[Sparkss]

sugar dosing is the same as vodka dosing (and/or as the carbon/sucrose based component of similar systems, like probidio, zeo, etc, even Coral Vite is sugar based (I think I got the product names right)). Do a search on vodka dosing and sugar is the same, just using 1 tsp of sugar instead of 10 ml vodka. The results are the same (10 ml vodka contains 1 tsp sugar) and the dosing is for the same reason (to provide carbon to the tank). At least that is what I read . The dosing mainly helps with nitrates but it has also been reported to help reduce phosphates. There are several important factors to the dosing and it is far from being for everyone. A large skimmer is necessary amongst other things. Do a bunch of reading and decide for yourself if it is right for you . I don't want to be responsible for making a suggestion that ends up nuking anyone's tank (and that is a possibility with dosing if it isn't done correctly). That being said, you will find with your reading that many people dose sugar on a regular basis (daily, weekly, etc), so if all criteria are met, it can be done safely

More skimming is a good step, filter sock are also good, but will also require more maintenance to change them out, clean them, etc, but they do serve a purpose in our filtration

So far the eco cooler is holding it's own, but you are right.. we have only had a handful of days that even tipped into the low 90s, so a true test has yet to happen. I did clean it all out this past weekend and have the materials to put up a new awning over it (although this one is still temporary, but hopefully will still last longer than the previous one did ). I have high hopes that it will manage through this summer (so long as we don't have another massive heat wave again.. uugghh ).

What skimmer do you have ? and what are you considering upgrading to ?

 

[Sparkss]

Thanks Joseph.. I think I lost my subscription when it split.. going to remedy that right now

 

[jgsensor]

I currently have 2 MR-2 running off the Mag18. They do ok but the Mag does not do the beckett justice. I am going to switch to my original plan (mainly because I have had it sitting in my house now for over a year and the wife will kill me if I buy someting else) and run a MR-3 with dual becketts off the Gen-x XP70. That was the original plan when I set up the tank, but I had problems with the bulkheads in the sump sealing with pipe attached. Turns out the holes where drilled too large. My main problem right now is that I am under skimming and have nothing to catch particulate matter unless the skimmer pulls it out. So I have a new sump/refug built that needs some mod work done to it ( I will ask that one in another thread here shortly), will run some filter socks, hook up the new skimmer, and replace the chiller with the eco-cooler.