ZM's 200g build

[zoomonster]

Latest iteration as of today. The red dust from cleaning coralline cleared a lot faster than expected.

By no means done and I will probably be screwing with this for a while yet. Didn't get around to vacuuming and cleaning up that left floor yet. Shell debris, polyps and stuff that need to be placed. Guess they were camera shy... less than half fish in pic.

 

[zoomonster]

No wonder the fish were hiding... too many fish eaters in the neighborhood :lolspin:

 

[zoomonster]

This red dragon I've had a while and it's next to get mounted. It's been a fairly slow but steady grower and is extremely hardy. It is however extremely fragile. Look at it and tips break. I've slightly damaged it a few times and one reason its still on the frag rack. This was a DFS original Red Dragon supposedly from the original line. Next to it is a couple tips of Garf Bonsai I broke when cutting and mounting it.

 

[daveM100]

How are the kessils working out? I have 2 over my 48 long 100g right now and they have worked out great. Once I get my 96x24x24 in place was thinking about 2 more. Your tank is 72 long and you went with 5 lights, do you think 4 would have worked fine?

 

[zoomonster]

The Kessil's are great and no real complaints. No notable change in color or growth since I switched. Yes I started with three Kessil's and coming from running MH/T5 I kind of freaked about how dark the tank was even at 100% power. Add to that a lot of shadowing with my rock work and almost enough shimmer to induce vertigo. My tank is 72" but it has two braces dividing it into 3 24 x 27" areas and add to that a large center overflow. So the best layout was 2 left, 1 center and 2 right. That really reduced shadows and reduced shimmer to more MH like levels. I'm using Apex programmed levels but my main daylight period peaks at 80% power and 77% color.

So yeah maybe if I had a rimless maybe 4 would have been ok. With rimless I would have been able to equally space them.

 

[daveM100]

Ok and thx for that info. Yeah shimmer is no prob for these lights lol, sometimes I catch myself laying on the couch looking at the shimmer on the ceiling in a daze hehe.

 

[zoomonster]

I've been wanting moonlights back since I switched to the Kessil's and have been mulling the options. I thought about Neptune but too much hassle with the fixed length wiring between units in a string being I'm using Kessil's on goosenecks. Not a bad option for ~$105 with module and a 3 light string but there is a better option. I found a few DIY options and went with the Super Bright LED's 450nm angel eye (led rings for car headlights) in 80mm. $28 shipped and likely I already have a 12v adapter to use with it (packrat and have a box full).

Some people put them on multiple lights but I'm going to start with just doing the center Kessil and just have a single moon. The 12v adapter will just get plugged into the Apex power bar and control it with the moonlight table. The intensity can be adjusted by voltage ranging from about 8v-12v with 8v supposedly being the sweet spot for moonlight.

Should have the parts by the end of week and I'll post a few pic's when I get it together.

 

[daveM100]

I use my kessils as moonlight. I have the lights ramp down to 16% intensity 0 spectrum, then i made a profile called Int_Moon that has the intensity at 16% for a few hours then ramps to 0, works great.

 

[zoomonster]

I use my kessils as moonlight. I have the lights ramp down to 16% intensity 0 spectrum, then i made a profile called Int_Moon that has the intensity at 16% for a few hours then ramps to 0, works great.

Yeah I tried that but too bright for me especially with 5 chained lights. 16/0 is actually where I start at 9am and from 8-10pm ramp to 20/0 and then lights off. I especially like the 20/0 and the couple hours leading up for evening viewing.

Got the light this week but been too busy to deal with it. Soon though.

 

[zoomonster]

Been pretty busy but a little catch up.

It finally dawned on me something did not look right with the Christmas wrasse I got a while back. Turns out to be red line, Halichoeres biocellatus instead of Claudia. No complaints though as its a pretty peaceful and beautiful fish. The miss id seems to be pretty common in the trade.

I've kind of been on a wrasse kick lately. Then again there's been some nice ones around lately and locally. I guess it was a week ago I added a melanurus and a filamented flasher.

Unless something really catches my eye there probably won't be much else. I've pretty much covered the angels, wrasses, anthias, clowns, butterflys and tangs I want. Not much left reef wise except maybe some gobies. Well actually I have a purple pseudo and would probably take one or more of the other basslets or dotty backs. I did have a royal gramma early on that kicked and never replaced it. Never been much for big fish and the purple and regal tang along with copperband butterfly will be the largest.


Still have not gotten around to the moon light but hopefully soon.

 

[zoomonster]

While documented elsewhere this is here for reference. Funny thing about aquariums... whatever you have you usually want larger. More tank, more fish, more coral :bounce3:

Bimaculatus Anthias Pseudanthias bimaculatus X2
Carpenter's Flasher Wrasse Paracheilinus carpenteri
Cleaner Common Wrasse Labroides dimidiatus
Copperband Butterflyfish Chelmon rostratus
Coral Beauty Angelfish Centropyge bispinosa
Fathead Sunburst Anthias Serranocirrhitus latus
Filamented Flasher Wrasse Paracheilinus filamentosus
Flame Angelfish Centropyge loriculus
Flameback Angelfish (African) Centropyge acanthops
Hoeven's Wrasse Halichoeres melanurus
Multicolor Angelfish Centropyge multicolor
Potter's Angelfish Centropyge potteri
Purple Dottyback Pseudochromis porphyreus
Purple Tang Zebrasoma xanthurum
Red Belted Anthias Pseudanthias rubrizonatus X3
Red-Lined Wrasse Halichoeres biocellatus
Resplendent Anthias Pseudanthias pulcherrimus X2
Six Line Wrasse Pseudocheilinus hexataenia
True Percula Clownfish Amphiprion percula X2
Yellow Belly Regal Blue Tang Paracanthurus hepatus var.
Yellow Coris Wrasse Halichoeres chrysus

 

[zoomonster]

Melanurus wrasse and ORA Red Planet. Like some other stuff that RP was left on the frag rack too long. It wasn't until it was permanently mounted that it really started to take off.

 

[zoomonster]

This millepora was a very recent addition and was a Bali maricultured "ultra". Snagged this one hot off the plane from Bali. They had a variety of the so called ultra colors but this one really stood out and caught my eye. As far as color this one is a bit of a chameleon depending on light and its hard to put a finger on. On inspection it just looks like a pink milli with green polyps/tips but there's other hues in there I can't put a finger on giving it gold, peach, salmon, yellow hues depending on light. As far as a named variety who knows. In this picture (no flash) its more gold and you can hardly make out the pink presence.

 

[zoomonster]

This was a ReefGen Joe & Laura's Orchid Stylophora frag added just shy of a year ago. Probably one of the fastest growers I have. It also has some shades of green but the growth on this is so tight you really can't see it over the pink tips and blue polyps. I have another piece I picked up some time back that's the blue/pink but lacks the fluorescent green highlights of the orchid. Starting to get a little white out at the bottom but I'll probably prune it and make some frags.

 

[zoomonster]

I grabbed this maricultured blue/purple millepora when I ordered my multicolor angel from LA a while back. Doing pretty well but DD shipped it w/o an icepack in 90F plus weather and it arrived totally browned out. It would not be the first time but most of what I get from a select few places arrive full color. Anyway the color is just starting to peek and did not even really notice it until I took this picture and see some blue over on right tips.

 

[zoomonster]

I'm pretty picky about LPS and have been looking for a while for a brain I really wanted. Stormreef is having 2nd anniversary sale this weekend and this lobo just kind of reached out and slapped me. With 30% off the price was pretty reasonable as LPS goes. I always like to keep a red or red/green Wellso and they had a really nice large. It took some restraint to walk out w/o it but maybe later :hmm4:

This was under my daylight period but the peach really pops more blue light along with all the pastel colors in there. The green is about as electric lime as is gets.

 

[zoomonster]

Here's a little better picture. Trying to up the game and just shoot raw. This is one of my first attempts using lightzone.

 

[zoomonster]

Still my favorite... IMO Bimaculatus is the holy grail of Anthias. He's just finally starting to accept the much smaller female.

 

[zoomonster]

There was a little spat in the tank and these two were hiding out together in a corner. That's a sunburst and a purple queen. You don't see purple queens too much anymore because they are such a PIA to get to eat and keep alive. I got a really good deal and took a chance on three of them.

 

[zoomonster]

Don't you just hate when **** happens? Sometime overnight my female bimaculatus Anthias got sucked into one of the Vortech's. Found it this morning head trapped in pump fins and eyeballs half sucked out. I even run them at about 60% constant power overnight. I might just switch to pulse overnight so something has a chance to get away if this happens again.

I've had two splits of RBTA's in the past 2 weeks for a total of 6 and not one has ever done the power head float. It happened once with my original RBTA but that was with the finer finned Jebaos's and no real damage. I guess I might run the foam covers on the Vortech's but I was hoping to avoid that.