Stone's 225 Carbonate Factory

[Stones]

It's been a long time in the making but I figured I'd start a build thread seeing as my tank is almost ready to see some salt water. I puchased the tank second hand in Calgary over Christmas and have been slowly getting it ready to house the remains of my once great SPS reef that I previously had in a 90 gallon tank. I lost about 90% of my acros when I moved the tank in Decemeber so the new tank is going to look pretty empty since all I have left is about 1 dozen small frags that I managed to save.

Here's a shot of the 1st round of die off after I moved. In total, I lost more acros than you could fit into two 5 gallon pails. 3 of the colonies I lost were over 10" - 18" in size. Life lesson: never move a reef tank when its -25 C.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_5327.jpg

When I bought the setup, the tank came with a 2" steel tube stand, a psuedo finished wooden skirt for the stand, and a 77 gallon sump that was in really rough shape.

I had to finish renovating my basmement prior to starting on the tank build so it took much longer than planned to start working on the tank itstelf. Plus work was always getting in the way since it takes me out of town for 1-2 weeks at a time.

The first stage was to prep the floor for where the aquarium was going to go. I decided to remove the carpet and tile the floor to give myself a good solid foundation for the tank as well as waterproof the floor directly under and adjacent to where the tank would go.

Dry fitting the tile
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/dryfittingtile.jpg

Removing the carpet
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/carpetremoved.jpg

Installing 1/4" cement board
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/cementboardinstalled.jpg

Mortaring the tile to the cement board
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/tilemortared.jpg

After grouting the tile
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/tilegrouted.jpg

The tile actually looks much darker in reality but I kept getting a wicked reflection from the flash in every picture I took of it.

[Stones]

After I got the floor tiled, the next step was to bring in some electricity to power the tank. I didn't want to have extension cords hanging out either side of the stand so I decided to run 2 seperate 15 amp circuits to the wall directly behind the stand. Running the wires above the supsended ceiling was the easy part. Getting them from above the ceiling to the holes that I had cut near the floor wasn't quite so easy. After several "thinking" beers, I had an epiphany.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/wiringconundrum2.jpg

However it seems that my idea to use a glass cleaning magnet to string a rope behind the drywall was only good in theory. The magnet with the rope attached on the inside of the drywall kept getting snagged on the insulation behind the vapour barrier and would get hung up.

3 and a 1/2 hours later and several more "thinking beers", Success!
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/wiringsuccess.jpg

I really wasn't looking forward to doing the whole process again for the 2nd outlet however it only took about 10 seconds. The magnet didn't get hung up even once on the way down so that was most spectacular.

After installing the outlets, the next step was to get my stand painted and sealed to create a moisture barrier.

3/8" Plyboard attached to form the bottom of the stand
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/bottominstalled.jpg
Stand getting primed and the bottom painted with oil based paint
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/standprimed.jpg
Exterior getting painted and I ran a bead of silicone where the 3/8" bottom plyboard meets the 2" steel stand. That way, if the worst should happen and I ever do get a leak, the stand itself should hold about 10-15 gallons of water before it overflows onto my basement floor.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/paintedstand.jpg
I still have to install the doors and finish the stand but that will be done after all the livestock has been transferred over from the 90 gallon tank.

Once the stand was all painted up, myself and 2 friends lugged the heavy beast from the floor and got it centered and levelled on my tile.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/tankwithtrim.jpg
Once the tank was on the stand and I recovered about 25% of the floor in my basement, I started working on making the sump I received functional and reliable. I had to remove several acrylic baffles that were secured with what I can only assume was an entire tube of silicone for 2 baffles. Then I removed all of the inside beads of silicone as I was going to re-do these once I installed my own glass baffles.

Sadly, when I was removing several pieces of 3/8" acrylic that the previous owner had siliconed over some holes that he was no longer using for bulkheads, a massive chip got taken out of the tank while I was removing the final piece of acrylic.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/paneremoved.jpg
So obviously I had to remove the entire pane of glass and replace it.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/sumprepair.jpg
After siliconing in a new pane on the end of the tank, I re-siliconed the inside beads and started installing new baffles.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/bafflesgoingin.jpg
And here's a finished shot of the sump with the 3 different compartments. Skimmer will go on the far left along with a filter sock and a mag 9.5 to feed my manifold. The central compartment will contain 2 heaters and a mag 18 for the return pump. The right compartment will act as a refugium to store excess live rock and possibly some chaeto algae.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/SumpFinished.jpg

[Stones]

After I got the sump finished, I started working on the plumbing to connect the tank to the sump. After removing what seemed like another entire tube of silicone from inside of the overflow, I removed the existing 2" and two 1" bulkheads from the holes in the glass. I replaced these with new bulkheads since the previous ones had fittings glued and not threaded into them.

The way the return lines were setup, I decided to do a 2 in 1 style herbie overflow utilizing the 2" hole for both the main drain and emergency overflow. The other 1" holes in the overflow were used for the return line since they lined up perfectly with the bulkheads for the return outputs in the top of the overflow pointing into the tank.

Here is the finished product
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/drainassembly1.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/drainassembly2.jpg
Here is the manifold I glued together. It will be fed by a mag 9.5 and the outlets will deliver water to my calcium reactor, UV sterilizer, phosban reactor, Vertex media reactor, and I left 1 outlet open incase I add any other new device that requires a feed of water in the future.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/manifold.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/manifold2.jpg

Here is a little schematic I drew up to explain how I plumbed the herbie overflow using only a single 2" pipe.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/drainschematic.jpg

Basically, water drains down the bulkhead into a space between the inside diameter of the bulkhead (which will soon be getting a piece of 2" sched 40 PVC jammed in there to prevent my entire overflow from draining when the power goes out) and the outside diamter of the 1" pipe in the center of the bulkhead. From here, the water travels down to a T where it passes through a gate valve that serves to regulate the height of the water in my overflow. If I close this gate valve too much, the water level in my overflow fills up to the point where it starts flowing into the 1" emergency overflow pipe which sits approximately even with the top of my overflow. In the event the gate valve becomes clogged completely, the 1" emergency overflow will handle all of the flow from my return pump so there is no way the tank "should" be able to overflow.

All I had to do was drill out a 2" to 1" Slip reducing bushing so that the 1" pipe could slide through.

2" to 1" reducing bushing right out of the box
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/2to1inchbushing.jpg
And after a little bit of dremel work. You can see that the central ring is now gone which allows a 1" pipe to pass all the way through the bushing instead of bottoming out half way in.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/2to1inchbushingafterdremelling.jpg
Then I slid the 1" pipe through the bushing and glued the bushing into the bottom of the 2" T on my drain assembly. The 1" pipe I did not glue in case I ever want to adjust the height of my emergency overflow. Even with the gate valve fully closed, I only get a slow drip out around the 1" pipe through the bushing. This doesn't matter though as it drips directly into the refugium anyways.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/bushingdryfit.jpg

[Stones]

For whatever reason, the previous owner decided to keep the overflow comb for himself so I was left with nothing but some silicone residue on the top of the pieces of glass that formed the overflow. So I figured this would be a perfect time to test out my new table router.

First I cut the pieces of acrylic to size with an 80 tooth blade on my table saw.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/overflow1.jpg

Since the max height my overflow comb could be was 1", I decided to go with 3/8" acrylic in order to make the comb a bit more rigid. After I cut the pieces of acrylic to size, I started cutting out the notches using my router table. The router table worked real good to cut the first few teeth but since the fence on the table would only go back 2 1/2", I could only cut 4 teeth. Since my overflow is 14" long, and I had 18 teeth to cut out in total, I had to come up with another idea. So I tried building a secondary fence and feeding the acrylic in perpendicular to the "proposed" feed direction. The result, an Epic Failure.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/overflowepicfail.jpg

So after destroying half of the 3/8" acrylic that I had, I decided to build a stationary jig and hand router the teeth into the overflow comb. This time, I was going to leave the pieces uncut, router the teeth in, then trim them to size on the table saw in order to give the acrylic a bit more rigidity when routering out the teeth.

Here is the jig I quickly built
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/routerjig.jpg
After cutting out a tooth, I'd just readjust my piece of acrylic, clamp it back in place and cut out another tooth.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/routerjig2.jpg
All the teeth cut out and my acrylic is still in one piece. Amazing!
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/overflowalldone.jpg
And all trimmed to size and dry fit
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/overflowdryfit.jpg
Siliconed onto the top of my overflow. Here you can also see the 2 outlets from my return pump. Each of these will be getting a 3/4" pacific coast flow accelerator which is basically a smaller version of an eductor.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/overflowinstalled.jpg

Well that about ends the DIY portion of my build until I get around to bracing my drain plumbing (since it is ridiculously heavy) and manifold into my stand as well as installing the doors on the stand and finishing the exterior.

[Delphinus]

Great looking build..

That first picture is a bit.. ouch ... but this tank looks to be shaping up to be a good place to regrow all you lost and then some, so I guess just keep looking forward..

[Stones]

And what do we have here!
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/newlight.jpg
And after the quick install
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/sfiligoistealth3.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/sfiligoistealth2.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/sfiligoistealth1.jpg
And here is one of the sweet moonlight I got Sfiligoi to install into the fixture.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/ledmoonlight.jpg

Lastly here is what the tank looks like after I got the black trim removed off the top. It took a full week of my RO/DI running 24/7 to get the waterline to where you see it now. I can't wait to see this months utilities bill!
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Tankfilling.jpg

[lastlight]

Yahoo looking great! Might I say...top shelf?

I loved your corals in the old 90 so I can't wait to see what you do here. Where are you buying 80w bulbs from? Nice touch with the added moonlights too.

[christyf5]

Great looking build! Nice to see it all coming together :biggrin:

[Stones]

Yahoo looking great! Might I say...top shelf?

I loved your corals in the old 90 so I can't wait to see what you do here. Where are you buying 80w bulbs from? Nice touch with the added moonlights too.

Thanks Brett. I ended up getting the 80 watt bulbs from Reef Geek. They had great prices on the bulbs but shipping alone was over $100. I see Oceanic corals now carries a few 80 watt bulbs so I'm hoping to get replacements from within Canada. Hopefully one of the sponsors will pick up the GE 6500K daylight in an 80 watt bulb. That tube has got some serious PAR.

[lastlight]

Yeah I loved the colors of the ATI bulbs but you could pick that GE out of the mix if you weren't squinting so hard your eyes were shut. Great for greens and yellows.

ReefGeek packs their bulbs bomb-proof. I was super impressed.

What's your bulb layout look like?

Damn I just noticed you still have the other fixture. Talk about PIMPIN'!

[Stones]

Yeah, Reef Geek does pack the tubes extremely well. I was a bit worried since they had so far to travel but I don't think the bulbs would have broke even if UPS had rolled their truck.

As for a bulb combo, I went with 6 ATI Blue Plus, 3 ATI Aquablue specials, 1 GE 6500K Daylight, and 2 KZ Fiji purples. When all the tubes are on, the tank has an ~14K look to it so I'm much more pleased with this than my 8 bulb fixture tube choice which gave me more of a 10K look.

I also just sold the 8 bulb Stealth yesterday. Now there are 2 of us in Regina in the Italian Lighting club.

Not the best pic but you get the idea
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/bulbcombo.jpg

Also made some progress on getting my electrical cord holes cut in the eurobracing. 1 down, 3 to go.

Hole saw jig I made out of acrylic. Keeps the bit centered and acts as a damn to hold water around the bit.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/glassjig.jpg

All finished up with the uniseal installed. I ended up with a few minor chips on the bottom side but I'm not worried since its only the eurobracing and you won't be able to see them once I have the trim installed around the top of the tank.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/holefinished.jpg

[lastlight]

Nice touch with the uniseals.

Yeah that combo is darn near exactly what I was running but I used 2 procolors instead. I never had coral in there but to my eyes it sure looked like ANYTHING would have looked very nice under it.

[Aquatics Elite]

Great job on the build so far! Looking forward to seeing the light in action once the tank is stocked.

[andestang]

I like the build so far. Looks very simular to what I'd like to do. I even have the same lights, the most prize piece that I've aquired thus far. I really like the schedule 80 so much better than the 40, to bad its so pricey. Great work so far :)

[Stones]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. Luckily I was able to get the tank salted before I got called back out to work. I couldn't believe it took nearly 2 full pails of reef crystals to get the tank up to 1.025!

Also got my substrate put in the tank but I didn't have time to snap any pics. I ended up going with Caribsea Seaflor Special Reef Sand. I had sugar sand in the previous setup before moving and I always had bare glass showing on the bottom of the tank due to my vortechs. I really wanted to avoid this but I didn't want to go bare bottom either. I'm hoping this substrate is large enough that it won't get blown around. So far its been behaving but the vortechs are still in the 90 gallon so all the flow is coming from two 3/4" eductors run off my mag 18 return pump.

I really like the look of schedule 80 pipe as well. I tried getting most of what I needed for the plumbing off of BRS but plans changed and I ended up having to get about 2/3 of the fittings and all of the pipe from a local pump warehouse. I'm sure I ended up spending over $300 on the pipe and fittings whereas I could have probably done the whole thing in schedule 40 for under $100. Since nothing has prices on it there, you get a nice surprise when its time to pay. After seeing my invoice, I remember that the 2" sched 80 "T" fitting was $22 and I ended up needing 2 of them.......brutal.

I also got the last 2 holes drilled in my eurobrace so I now have a 1" uniseal in each of the 4 corners. If (more likely when) I get a new tank built, I'm definately going to leave drilling the holes to the experts.

The first 2 holes I used duct tape on the bottom side of the eurobrace to hold the glass in place so that the glass disc wouldn't fall into the tank when the bit finally cut all the way through. On both of these holes, I ended up with significant chipping when the drill bit punched through the final bit of glass even though I was taking my time and making sure to keep as much weight off the drill bit as possible.

So on the last 2 holes, I decided to brace the bottom of glass with a piece of 3/8" acrylic that I clamped to the eurobrace instead of using the duct tape. My thinking was that if the glass was braced from the bottom, when the drill bit would cut through the bottom of the eurobrace, I wouldn't get any chipping seeing as the acrylic would be pushing up against the glass. In theory, everything sounds good. But in reality, I ended up with the same amount of chipping as I did using the duct tape. Its is still pretty minor as most of the chips are only ~1/16" or less in thickness but it is still angering to say the least. With the uniseals installed and after I get the trim put back on the top of the tank, the chipping won't be visible and I'm not worried about the structural integrity of the eurobrace as there was no cracking.

[Stones]

So I had the past 24 hours off work and made a bit more progress on the build. First, here's a close up of the substrate I used after the water cleared up.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/substrate.jpg

Once the water cleared and I got the substrate pseudo-level, I started with the rock work.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/reefceramics4.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/reefceramics3.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/reefceramics2.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/reefceramics.jpg

That 1/2" barbed fitting jammed in the rock is only temporary. Once the epoxy cures, I'll remove it however I may need to jam a small piece of live rock rubble in that space to help support the flat piece of rock on top of the structure.

I still have about 300 lbs of actual live rock to put into the new tank as well however about 200 lbs of that is still in my running 90 gallon tank. Hoping to get the aquascaping all finished up later this week when I'm finished this stint at work.

[hillegom]

Looking good, I like what you have been doing.

[Delphinus]

Great looking pillar!

[lastlight]

I can picture your fish circling that thing covered in SPS. Going to look great!

The tough part with something so cool and unique...is finishing your scape. Just adding more cool towers to each side and it might lose it's appeal. But placing more basic piles in there may make it look out of place. Scaping is hella tough but rewarding when you sort it out.

[kien]

that's a great looking structure indeed! Putting corals on that sucker is going to be loads of fun. :biggrin:

[Stones]

Thanks everyone. The plan is to load that pillar right up with acros to make it more reminiscent of braches on a tree. We'll see how it turns out after the corals grow in a bit.

I'm actually quite stumped on what I'm going to do with the rest of my live rock as I'm sure no matter what I do it will take away from the central pillar. I guess its back to good old trial and error sometime later this week and just see how it turns out. So long as I get a few caves for the fish to hang out in and a few nice ledges to pile acros on, I'll be happy. I'm guessing I'm going to have a ton of rock going into my fuge though as I have alot of bowling ball sized pieces that are really hard to scape with.

[RIPTANK]

The plumbing work looks awesome! Where are you getting your grey pvc from?

[Stones]

The plumbing work looks awesome! Where are you getting your grey pvc from?

I ordered some of the PVC fittings from BRS while all the pipe and the fittings I forgot to order came from Aquifer pump in Regina. I wish I had planned out the plumbing a little more carefully though, as the fittings from BRS were about 1/3 the price of what I ended up paying locally. I just received another package in the mail yesterday so I should have everything I need now to get the system fully operational.

[Stones]

Well I have been slacking at keeping up with my build thread but work has been absolutely chaotic for nearly this entire year. I work out of town and have been away from home for 26+ days out of most months so needless to say, my tank hasn't been receiving much atttention.

With that said, I finally did some work to my tank here this week more out of necessity than anything.

I purchased a Vertex Alpha 250 skimmer last year since my previous external skimmer had a tendency to flood my house if enough salt creep built up in the venturi. Since I'm usually gone for 7+ days at a time, this was obviously not the most ideal situation. I thought that an in sump skimmer would solve my problems as if anything were to go wrong, the skimmer would just overflow back into my sump and the worst that would happen would be a slight nutrient spike from the skimmate running back into the sump.

Oh how I was wrong. In the event of a power outage and the level in the sump goes up past 10", or if a small piece of algae gets sucked into the skimmer pump's needle wheel, my skimmer starts to overflow in about 5 seconds. Once the collection cup is full of water, the collection cup basically gets air locked and a geysier of air and water erupts out of the 4 vent holes in the lid of the collection cup. This water then sprays all over the inside of my stand, coats all of my electronics in a saltwater mist and I end up with a ton of salt creep not to mention a nice puddle of saltwater in the base of my stand.

So after spending $75 on a couple of float switches and a regulator module, I should never see my skimmer flood again.

First off, I started with a narrow strip of black acrylic
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6441.jpg

After a generous application of heat from a butane torch and some careful bending I ended up with this
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6442.jpg

I then trimmed off the excess acrylic and drilled holes in both ends. One to accomdate the 1/4" NPT threads on the float switch. The other to accomdate the 1/4" standard threads on a nylon screw
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6443.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6444.jpg

Here is a pic of the unit fully assembled with the float switch installed
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6445.jpg

All I had to do then was push the float switch wires through one of the vent holes in the lid of my collection cup and then thread the nylon screw through the same hole to secure the float in place
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6448.jpg

After installing the unit into my skimmer, I ended up changing the design to make the acrylic bracket shorter as well as shaped like an "S" instead of a "U". This was because the new shape allowed me to position the float so that it wasn't touching the outside or inner wall of the collection cup whereas with the "U" shaped bracket, I could not adjust it enough to clear both walls. I also installed male and female moisture proof connectors so that I can easily remove my collection cup for cleaning.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6475.jpg

Here is an overview of the whole setup. Basically, so long as float #1 in the collection cup and float #2 in the sump are both suspended out of the water, the skimmer pump will be energized. If either switch floats up, the power will be immediately cut to the skimmer pump and will not be engergized until the float switch drops back down to its fully open position. This way, if my sump level comes up past 10" which it always does after a power outage, my skimmer pump will remain off until my sump level returns to normal thus preventing the collection cup from overflowing. If for some reason, my skimmer still decides to give me some unnecessary grief and start overflowing, the switch inside the collection cup will kill power to the skimmer as soon as it floats up to the closed position. This scenario is less ideal since the collection cup will have to be drained before the skimmer will resume operating however it will also prevent the dreaded saltwater geyseir that ends up flooding my tank stand.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6477.jpg

[lastlight]

Nice bit of DIY. Any new FTS?

[untamed]

Nice work. I ran my skimmer with a very similiar mod for many years.

[Stones]

Well finally managed to snap a few shots of the tank tonight. I really need to pick up a new camera as my old canon point and shoot isn't quite up to snuff by today's standards. I can never get the white balance set quite right so the darker colours likes blue's and purples aren't as vibrant as in person.

Here is the stand and tank trim all finished in 2"x4" Turkish Travertine
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6883.jpg

And now for the acros
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6850.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6845.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6841.jpg
This efflo is finally starting to colour up after 6 frustrating months
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6840.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6837.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6833.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6828.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6826.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6822.jpg

[Stones]

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6821.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6815.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6814.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6813.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6812.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6809.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6808.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6801.jpg
This frag is my current favorite
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6799.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6796.jpg

[Stones]

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6792.jpg

And here is that FTS you were asking for Brett
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6847.jpg

[mseepman]

Looking good. Love the center rockwork.

[lorenz0]

tank looks awesome!

[Stones]

Thanks guys. Slowly but surely everything is starting to fall into place. A few more months and everything should be coloured up as nice as it was prior to moving the corals from the 90 gallon tank.

[Stones]

Snapped a few pics of the tank again tonight while a new fish was acclimating.

Bariene tang and Majestic angel
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7192.jpg

Purple tang and Bali green slimer acro
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7187.jpg

Majestic angel
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7182.jpg

Acropora efflorescens slowy starting to color up
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7176.jpg

Rainbow monti coloring up nicely as well
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7174.jpg

Random SPS shots
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7172.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7169.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7168.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7167.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7165.jpg

[Stones]

Deepwater acro I snagged from Skimmer King when he got out of SPS. Its almost doubled in size in less than 6 months.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7164.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7162.jpg

Snappys rainbow stylopora
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7161.jpg

Ora green birdsnest
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7160.jpg

Bonsai acro that died when I moved is now coming back from a patch of encrustation smaller than a dime
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7155.jpg

Snappys purple valida
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7153.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7152.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7148.jpg

Supposed to be a tri-color birds nest but mine only has gree polyps with a yellow base
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_7175.jpg

[lastlight]

Really love your big colonies. That ora green birdsnest especially. The tri-color has a sweet growth pattern.

[reefermadness]

awesome build and nice corals.

Keep us updated.

[Stones]

So I finally got around to changing my bulbs in my T5 fixture today since I had been running them for almost 16 months. Thought I'd snap a few pics since I decided to change which T5 tubes I was running from the previous year.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/greenwithpurpletipsacro8-1.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/greenwithpurpletipsacro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/fuzzygreenpolypacro8.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/fuzzygreenpolypacro7.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/yellowdeepwateracro2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/tricolorAnana2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/tablingacro2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Snappysrainbowstylopora2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/ShroomsmulticolorAmillepora.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/robinseggstag2.jpg

[Stones]

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/robinseggstag.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/purpleacro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/pinkAmillepora.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/neongeenacro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/leftside3.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/greenwithpurpletipsacro9.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/greenwithpurpletipsacro8.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/greendeepwateracro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/greenandpurplemysteracro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/fuzzyyellowpolypacro5.jpg

[Stones]

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/fuzzyyellowpolypacro2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/bonsaiacropora.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Alokani2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Aefflorescens2.jpg

[lastlight]

Your colors look incredible. I thought the corals looked dope before... these new pics are even sweeter =) You running an ULNS?

[Stones]

Thanks Brett. Yeah, the SPS are finally starting to show some serious potential and I'm hoping will get even more colorful now that I've swapped out the old bulbs.

As for an ULNS, I was running the biopellets but shut them down after I had a major plague of hair and turf algae. It may have been a huge coincidence but the algae has slowly died back after taking the pellets off line so its hard to say what caused the outbreak. The algae was contained mostly to ceramic reef rock so I figured the algae could have been pulling some phosphates out of the clay that was used to make the rock.

I'll likely try the pellets again here once the corals get used to the lighting spectrum. I'm not sure if they actually do anything as my phosphates were zero prior to starting the pellets and I didn't notice any increase in skimmer performance.

I haven't ever used any kind of bacterial supplement as I didn't feel I needed to. An oversized skimmer seems to really keep all my nutrient levels in check.

[Skimmerking]

TOTM

[Boomboy]

TOTM

yeah i think so.

[Stones]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. My system is a far cry from TOTM though as it has alot of maturing to do. Most corals in there have only been in the sytem for 6 - 16 months max. Once it all fills in it will look alot more symmetrical and I'll post some FTS then.

[Azzkr]

How is the tank comming along you havent posted anything in along time??? I think its time for some new pics

[Stones]

How is the tank comming along you havent posted anything in along time??? I think its time for some new pics

Hey Mike, sadly the tank took a bit of a turn for the worse earlier this year when I suffered a small scale tank crash.

For a reason that still remains unknown, I ended up with sky high nitrate levels (40 ppm) after not having detectable nitrate levels since I moved the remaining corals from my 90 gallon over into the 225 a few years ago.

I did do a precautionary interceptor treatment of the entire system prior to the Saskatoon frag swap as I had 2 or 3 colonies that were not looking 100% and I wanted to make sure that it wasn't red bugs before selling a bunch of frags, even though I never did see any on the affected colonies. I'm not sure if this is what triggered a chain reaction that somehow caused a nitrate spike or if this was simply coincidental but either way, the tank hasn't been the same since.

I've been battling to keep the nitrates down since late April and still have not got them back down to zero despite doing doubling or tripling the amount of water changes per month and firing up my biopellet reactor again. Last month I finally started noticing the biopellets shrinking in size and numbers so I'm guessing they are finally populated with beneficial bacteria and starting to work their magic.

I ended up losing about 10 small colonies and frags and had to frag up 3 of my largest acros in order to prevent STN from killing them completely. The majority of the remaining SPS have browned out somewhat but I can see the colors are finally starting to come back. A few of the SPS have actually never looked better which is really strange. My giant colony of Cali tort along with my red planet, two differnt color morphs of A. granulosa and a few other random ones actually look pretty amazing.

I also had a nice live rock collapse when my blueface angel and bariene tang got into a pretty good scrap and took out the zip ties holding my live rock tower together. Apparently UV resistant zip ties are not immune to going brittle from prolonged exposure to salt water. Once the first zip tie holding a shelf rock overhang in place snapped, 3 others followed suit and a 15 lb piece of rock came crasing down to the bottom. Both fish escaped with only a few minor scatches but a half dozen acros got really beat up and it took me almost 8 hours with the help of my wife to get the liverock all re-drilled, pegged with fiberglass rods and re-zipped tied back into the aquarium. Now there should be no way that the same structure can collapse as it all supported from the bottom as opposed to being held in place predominatly by zip ties.

Now that golf/fly fishing season has come to an end and my shotgun is in for repair after a significantly too short pheasant season, I'll get some pics taken next time I'm back in Regina.

[kien]

wow, sorry to hear of your woes man. Sounds like this year was a tough year for a lot of tanks. Good to see you're still plugging away at it though :-)

[lockrookie]

He is overly picky his tank at its worst is still amazing. I was over there the other day getting a couple frags and I can only dream to have such a tank.


Sent from my porcelain aquarium

[Stones]

He is overly picky his tank at its worst is still amazing. I was over there the other day getting a couple frags and I can only dream to have such a tank.

Sent from my porcelain aquarium

Thanks Jeff, that acutally made me lol at my desk at work.

The tank could be in worse shape but it looks nothing like it did when I posted pics last August.

I'll post some progress pics shortly as the SPS have all gotten bigger, just their color leaves ALOT to be desired.

[Stones]

Well as promised here are some shots of the system from last week. I didn't turn the flow off so some of the shots aren't very clear and I couldn't quite get the white balance adjusted perfect so the pics don't quite do some of the colors justice.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050368.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050363.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050361.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050358.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050343.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050341.jpg
Cali tort running out of real estate
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050332.jpg
Rainbow monti
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050327.jpg
My pride and joy, 10+" across Acropora efflorescens. I'm so glad I didn't loose this guy in my psuedo-crash
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050325.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050323.jpg

[lastlight]

be nice if your colonies weren't all so MASSIVE. My eyes get sore from uninterrupted AWESOMENESS.

That efflo is going to bust your front pane out!

[Stones]

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050321.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050320.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050318.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050316.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050314.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050310.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050301.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050296.jpg
ORA red planet and Acropora granulosa I believe?
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050290.jpg
close up ORA red planet
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050289.jpg

[Stones]

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050288.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050287.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050286.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050285.jpg

And now for some recently aquired frags that seem to have some serious potential
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050380.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050373.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050370.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050366.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050331.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050315.jpg

[Stones]

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050307.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050305.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050303.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050297.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050283.jpg

And heres my sad attempt at some macros
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050379.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050375.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050311.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050312.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050295.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050294.jpg

[Stones]

And here are some comparison shots to show the effects the nitrate spike had on my tank:

2011
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/fuzzyyellowpolypacro2.jpg
2012
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050282.jpg

2011
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Alokani2.jpg
2012
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050309.jpg

And a few pics of the other tank inhabitants
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050275.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050279.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050346.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050354.jpg

[Stones]

be nice if your colonies weren't all so MASSIVE. My eyes get sore from uninterrupted AWESOMENESS.

That efflo is going to bust your front pane out!

Most would be alot larger but they really haven't grown much or at all since April when I started having issues. Since the color is finally starting to come back, I'm hoping to start seeing some growth tips again on some of the more stubborn species.

The key to getting the OK from the wife to get a bigger tank is clearly strategic placement of corals. After a year or two, if placed in a suitable location, they'll start to encroach on the sides of the tank.

So now when I show the wife that efflo, I say that poor coral is going to grow into the glass unless I get a wider tank. Checkmate.

[Skimmerking]

Hey man did u get alot of those corals from Dreef

[Stones]

Hey Mike, it's actually the other way around. Dreef got alot of those corals from me. There is the odd one in the tank that came from him but they are just frags at the moment. I have a few A. millepora colonies that I grew out from him and a nice A. convexa but I didn't snap any pics of them this last go round.

[Stones]

Now that 2012 has come and gone, I figured I'd try and update my thread a bit more regularily than I did in the previous year seeing as I only made 1 or 2 posts.

Since the family was going to be out of town for 5-6 days in a row for Christmas, I was getting my tank prepared to run fully automated for such a long duration as in the past I've always had a friend swing by to check up on the tank while we were away.

I upgraded my auto top off reservoir from a 6 gallon instant ocean bucket (which would last for 2-3 days) to a 15 gallon food grade plastic barrel that just barely fit inside of my stand. Sadly I forgot to snap a pic of the new setup but it's looking like I can now go 7-8 days without needing to refill the reservoir.

I fed the fish a 1/2 sheet of nori and setup my Rena automatic feeder so that they would continue to be fed while we were away. I then went upstairs to pack myself for the trip. An hour later I went back downstairs to do one final check on the tank only to be greeted by the aroma of burning plastic.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050404_zps422c820b.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050406_zpsd57255a4.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050407_zpsf77a409b.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050408_zps2bb5ed99.jpg

It seems the laws of physics defied themselves (quite typical in this hobby for some reason) as saltwater from the tank had managed to auto-siphon itself over my 3/4" thick eurobrace, run down the end pane of the aquarium and slowly drip directly on top of both of my vortech wireless wave drivers that were screwed to the inside of my stand. I'm still a bit baffled by how this managed to happen but the only scenario that I can come up with is that there was a small puddle of water left on top of my eurobrace by the PVC nori feeder tube that I had just used. When my wavebox fires, the water level in the aquarium rises up ~3/4" to just touch the bottom of the eurobrace, which conveniently has a 1" hole cut in the corner for running cables or PVC pipe through. Somehow the small puddle of water sitting on top of the eurobrace must have wicked up additional saltwater each time the wavebox fired through the hole in the 3/4" thick eurobrace until the point where it started to drip down over the end pane of the aquarium.

I'm sure this would be impossible to replicate again if I tried but either way, I'm just glad we hadn't left the house yet as I'm sure there would have been a fire.

In the past, I had also burnt out a wireless wave driver when a friend of mine had come over to help my wife take apart my return pump while I was away at work. The return pump failed to fire up again after a power outage causing a small scale flood (when my siphon breaks in the return line failed to do their jobs). My friend accidentally spilled some make up saltwater down the end pane of the tank and it dripped into one of my vortech drivers causing it to malfunction and not work correctly afterwards.

Seeing as this was the 2nd time it happened, I now have revised the way I mount these drivers to the inside of the stand. Before they were screwed directly to the wood on the end of my stand. And here is my solution to hopefully prevent this from ever happening again.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050410_zps88c3d0b6.jpg

I used 3/16" foam spacers meant for protecting flooring from chair/table legs so now if water ever spills or drips down the end pane of my aquarium, the water should run behind the drivers and end up in the base of my stand which is sealed and can hold ~10 gallons of water.

On a related matter, if anyone has upgraded to the Ecosmart drivers and still has their wireless wave drivers kicking around, I'm going to be needing a new one as I only had 1 spare and 2 drivers were damaged by this little incident.

[lockrookie]

That sux bud you do know I'm only a phone call away if you need a tank sitter. I am glad you fought it in time

[Stones]

That sux bud you do know I'm only a phone call away if you need a tank sitter. I am glad you fought it in time

Thanks Jeff, I may take you up on the offer in due time. However, you may need firefighting experience as a pre-requisite for the job:biggrin:

[lockrookie]

If it helps I have two huge extinguishers I can bring with me

[Stones]

If it helps I have two huge extinguishers I can bring with me

Well you certainly meet all the credentials now!

[lockrookie]

Lol well I hope you at least had a good vacation.

[Stones]

So I got in on a few black friday bargains from an American retailer and decided to get myself a much needed christmas present.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050397_zpsd50ee22e.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050419_zpsa1cb571f.jpg

And why, may you ask, is this a much needed item? See exhibit A below:

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050412_zps817450ce.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050414_zps51c57d03.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050417_zps70a0b6c0.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050415_zpsb2d52f45.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050416_zpsfcf96f14.jpg

I work out of town for ~24+ days a month and when I'm home I typically don't have enough time to do all of the maintenance I'd like to on my reef tank. Combine this with the fact that it's a real PITA to remove my skimmer cup from my very cramped sump and you have a formula for a very gross and poorly performing skimmer.

Here are the pics of the Vectra installed on my Alpha 250 cone skimmer:

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050421_zps84e0ecd1.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050420_zps4c3f94f1.jpg

And here is the collection cup after only running for 5 days with the neck cleaner installed:

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050426_zps3d5902cd.jpg

Since I've had the Vectra installed for ~3 weeks now, I can say that this was definatley a worthwhile investment. I purchased this product primarily to cut down the amount of maintenance required and didn't really expect to see that much of a difference in the performance of the skimmer. However I was pleasantly surprised by how much more skimmate I'm now getting with the Vectra in place. I'd estimate that I'm now producing 20 - 30% more skimmate per week than I was prior to installing the Vectra.

Currently I have the Vectra running at 1 minute intervals twice per day and that seems to be doing the trick although I may add in a 3rd or 4th interval as well to see if it makes any difference on skimmate production.

I did shoot a short video of the Vectra in action but since I'm on satellite internet out at work, I wasn't able to upload the video (I'll try to get it uploaded on my next shift at home).

What I wanted to illustrate with the video was how the Vectra has basically no effect on the foam head inside of the skimmer body when it's operating. I had expected the foam head to collapse similar to when I add food or work with my bare hands in the aquarium. This is not the case. Directly behind the wiper blade, larger bubbles end up forming as the blade wipes the skimmer neck clean and then seconds later they are replaced by the same small to micro sized bubbles that are more typical of a needlwheel driven skimmer.

As with every Vertex product I've ever owned, build quality on this unit screams qualilty. Packaging was very modern and effective at protecting the unit from damage while in transit. My only complaint with this unit is that it does not have an integrated timer and I had to go out and drop another $15 on a digital timer in order to get this unit up and running. This is a very common complaint on this unit and the folks over at Vertex say they left out an integrated timer purposely so that hobbyists could integrate the Vectra more easily with their reef controllers.

I personally do not own a reef controller and even if I did, I'd rather this unit have its own integrated timer anyway so that I wouldn't have to waste one of the precious few outlets on the power bars for the Vectra.

Either way, this is the only shortcoming that the Vectra has IMO and this seems very minor in comparison to the solid build quality and benefits of running the Vectra.

[lastlight]

"I have a mind-blowing SPS tank which I usually don't have enough time to perform general maintenance on".

You sir... suck :biggrin:

[Stones]

"I have a mind-blowing SPS tank which I usually don't have enough time to perform general maintenance on".

You sir... suck :biggrin:

I always look forward to your posts Brett:biggrin:

The mind-blowingness of the system however, is sadly at an all time low right now. Hopefully I can get everything back on track here within the next few months with some diligent water changes as well as a few other measures I'm taking to test their claimed effectiveness.

Luckily I didn't lose too many pieces from the pseudo-crash and just need to get them to color back up to their full potential. Most of the pieces I did lose are also replaceable as I had given frags to the only other hard core SPS addict in southern Saskatchistan.

[Delphinus]

Did you compare the Vectra against the Avast unit at all? I'm curious, I'd like to try one someday as well and the two seem similarly priced.

One idea I had if I ever get ambitious and energetic enough was to put a cleaner head on my skimmer and see if I could also attach a mist nozzle attached to a pump on the RO/DI reservoir doing the top up. Get a wipe AND a spray-down kind of thing .. but maybe the squeegee does a good enough job on its own?

[Stones]

Did you compare the Vectra against the Avast unit at all? I'm curious, I'd like to try one someday as well and the two seem similarly priced.

One idea I had if I ever get ambitious and energetic enough was to put a cleaner head on my skimmer and see if I could also attach a mist nozzle attached to a pump on the RO/DI reservoir doing the top up. Get a wipe AND a spray-down kind of thing .. but maybe the squeegee does a good enough job on its own?

I didn't really look into the Avast unit Tony but I did know that they made a similar product. I've been quite happy with every Vertex product I've owned so I didn't have 2nd thoughts on pulling the trigger on this purchase come black friday.

Thats a pretty slick idea using a spray nozzle and pump to help aid the cleaning process. When I first heard of these neck cleaners, I assumed they would have had hardware in place to do just what you described so I was a bit dissapointed that they were simply a motorized squeegee.

The trick to pulling off such a design would be running the hose to the spray nozzle if it were mounted on the wiper blade arm. You'd have to figure out how to get around the hose getting wrapped up as the wiper arm rotates. You could just mount the spray nozzle protruding just below the inner lid of collection cup so that it sprays the entire skimmer neck I guess but this wouldn't be as effective.

However, I'm not sure that a spray down would be necessary or even help the cleaning process at all. It seems the foam head inside of the skimmer neck keeps the surface of the neck continuously wet. When the wiper blade makes its rounds, it removes most of the grime on the surface and after each pass, the rising foam column cleans off any loosened gunk that the wiper blade may have missed. If the foam head were to collapse shortly after the wiper blade started moving, then I could definately see a mist of freshwater aiding the cleaning process but this is not the case.

I'm also running the wiper blade for 1 minute intervals twice a day so the wiper blade goes around 6 or 7 times per cycle. After each run cycle, the skimmer neck appears just as clean as if I had gone over it with a scrubber so I'm happy enough with how this unit performs without the use of an added fresh water mist.

[lastlight]

I'm not sure it's made anymore but the AquaDriver units had water nozzles:

http://reefbuilders.com/2009/07/31/aquadriver-wash-system-custom-nice/

They also cost as much as the skimmer lol.

[Delphinus]

Cool, thanks Stones, yeah I agree Vertex seems pretty top notch on all their other things too. I'm still sort of tempted to consider Avast because I'd probably get one of their waste collector buckets (with a skimmer shutdown relay? Boo yah!)

Brett - Oh wow, neat, it almost looks like that would spray down into the cup area. I didn't even think of that but man would that make for a nice feature.

[lockrookie]

Next thing you guys will want is the fish to be potty trained lol.. Cool stuff tho I've thought of the skimmer cleaner but now I won't have the room to fit it

[Stones]

Cool, thanks Stones, yeah I agree Vertex seems pretty top notch on all their other things too. I'm still sort of tempted to consider Avast because I'd probably get one of their waste collector buckets (with a skimmer shutdown relay? Boo yah!)

Having a skimmer shutdown relay has been one of the best additons I've made to my equipment lineup in years and I highly recommend installing one for all those hobbyists using in sump skimmers. Prior to the Vertex Alpha 250, I had never ran an insump skimmer before and didn't realize how finicky they were in regrard to water level consistency. I'd end up with an overflowing skimmer every time the power would go out or if for some strange reason the water level in my sump rose by more than 1".

Posted this pic at the beginning of the build but it shows how I added a 2 way shutdown relay to my skimmer.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/IMG_6477.jpg

This way if the sump level rises above the level where I have float switch #2 or if the skimmer collection cup gets full it triggers float swith #1. If either switch is engaged, power is cut to the skimmer pump until the float drops back down. This way, I'm protected against power outages where the sump level rises by ~6" or if I add something to my tank like 2 part epoxy that makes the skimmer go crazy for a day or two the skimmer also shuts down when the collection cup is full.

[Reef Pilot]

Not sure if you have an Apex, but if you do, you can use it to have your skimmer come on 5 min after your return pump following a power outage. Also similar to your float switch relay, you can use the Apex with a water sensor to shut down your skimmer when it overflows. I use this DIY sensor with my Apex (which can recognize an off/on switch event) to shut off pumps. It could be taped to the outside of your skimmer cup. Or use your float switch inside with the Apex (no relay needed). Just some alternatives...

http://i1304.photobucket.com/albums/s540/wklatt/WaterSensor_zpsf87f6810.jpg

[Stones]

Thanks for the advice Reef Pilot but I do not own a reef controller at this time. I think you have the option to shut down your skimmer after a power outage on pretty much all of the major brands of controllers now whether it be via timer, sensor or float switch.

As stated earlier, this feature has saved me multiple times from having to shop vac my aquarium stand after it gets blasted with gross skimmer foam following a power outage. Depending on how long its been since I drained my collection cup, it also prevents all of the skimmate from flowing back into my sump and contaminating the system with a concentrated shot of nutrients.

[Reef Pilot]

As stated earlier, this feature has saved me multiple times from having to shop vac my aquarium stand after it gets blasted with gross skimmer foam following a power outage. Depending on how long its been since I drained my collection cup, it also prevents all of the skimmate from flowing back into my sump and contaminating the system with a concentrated shot of nutrients.
Totally agree you need some kind of solution with these skimmers. Sounds like yours does the trick. I learned my lesson a couple years ago, when I had a skimmer overflow that splashed water outside my sump and onto a power bar that I had hanging on the wall. Almost had a fire....

I also had a hose pop off a return pump outlet (wasn't using a clamp) once when I was adjusting flow with a ball valve. Water shot right up to the ceiling of my sump room. Luckily I was right there, but I still got soaked and lots of water on the floor before I found the right plug to pull. That's what inspired me to use a water sensor to instantly shut off my pumps...

BTW, you could use my DIY water sensor (nails and solder) with a relay too (without a controller), to stop a pump. It acts like a closed switch as soon as the paper towel sucks up some water. Works on RO/DI water just as well as salt water.

[Stones]

So in order to help combat my nitrate issues and to hopefully prevent further instances from happening, I decided to give a new product a try about 8 weeks ago.

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050399_zpsbef84a1c.jpg

I've never used any of the Brightwell products before but their price point was much more competitve than probidio or zeovit so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I'm not running their full blow zeolith system but simply using a combination of the Xport-NO3 media and MB7 dosing to keep the beneficial bacterial populations well stocked and diversified. I also picked up some amino acids to dose as well as some marine snow as I've heard that it can help prevent cyano.

Here is a close up of what the Xport-NO3 media looks like. First thing I thought of was that they look almost exactly like the bite size mini wheats.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050400_zps42e0fbe3.jpg

Prior to ordering, I wasn't exactly sure whether or not this media acted like a sponge and absorbed nitrate from the water column or if it was simply an inert substrate meant to be colonized by beneficial bacteria as their product description is a bit ambigious.

After seeing the product in person, I'm assuming it's just an inert substate with tons of surface area for bacteria to colonize. However, there are these little yellow "chunks" embedded into the media as well which I'm assuming may be some sort of bioplastic used as a food source for the bacteria.

Prior to first use, you are required to "seed" the media with a mixture of tank water and microbacter7 for 24 hours. After this has been completed, you can then add the media to a filter bag or reactor.

Here is the media inside the reactor downstream of my carbon and GFO. You can sort of see the yellow chunks I was speaking of earlier in this pic.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050423_zps47d3d7e2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050428_zps005b17fa.jpg

The product instructions also state to replace a 25% of the media every 3-4 months which doesn't make much sense to me if it is simply meant as a substrate for bacterial colonization. If for some reason, nitrate levels do not seem to be dropping after a few weeks, Brightwell also recommends adding a carbon food source for the bacteria which they offer in the form of Katalyst (biopellets which I'm assuming should be run inline prior to the Xport NO3 media) or Reef Biofuel (liquified bioplastic similar to Instant Ocean Nitrate Reducer).

After running the Xport NO3 for ~8 weeks and dosing the MB7 whenever I'm home from work (at least once per 10 days) I have noticed a substantial difference in the health of my corals as well as nitrate level in my system.

Prior to running this product, I was using only biopellets and despite this, I was still getting readings of 10-20 ppm nitrate using a titration based test kit. The test kit was very expired however and my other test kit usually showed nitrate levels <10 ppm. Now I'm reading zero on both test kits and the SPS are all starting to show signs of color darkening. Hopefully after a few more months, their color will recover to the extent they were prior to the tank crash last April.

[Stones]

Quick update, tank is back down to zero nitrates and phosphates thanks to a combination of microbacter 7, Brightwell Xport NO3 and biopellets.

Cleaned the glass and everything was looking so good I had to snap a few pics. I'm still having major issues getting the white balance set correctly as the blues and purples in the pictures are not nearly as dark or intense as they are in person. I tried using a piece of grey rock in the tank to balance the WB but 99% of my rock is deep purple from corralline.

Does anyone use a piece of white or grey plastic that they can submerge in the tank to set their WB? I need to figure out a way to get the WB set consistently so I don't have to waste half my time fighting with it before finally settling on a mediochore result and snapping some pics.

Cali tort
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050687_zps9f0b07f9.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050686_zpseef5df0e.jpg

Rainbow monti
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050685_zpscebb4ba8.jpg

FAL mystery Millepora
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050681_zps1a424c4f.jpg

Efflo
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050680_zps0bab9e3c.jpg

Unknown tabler. Anyone have an idea on species?
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050678_zps473d3e2a.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050675_zps30af3c4c.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050674_zps9b07eb8d.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050673_zps14433708.jpg

Another mystery FAL frag
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050672_zpsc2e4ad55.jpg

[kien]

Nice. Looking good man.

Your mystery tabler looks like a Loripes to me. Also, your mystery millepora looks like a "sunset" or "christmas" millepora.

[lastlight]

What's FAL stand for? Glad you've gotten things under control! Those colonies are just huge nice work.

[Stones]

Here is one of my favorite pieces that I lost when I had my pseudo-crash last April.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/greenwithpurpletipsacro8-1.jpg
A good friend of mine was kind enough to give me a frag of it back and it's slowly starting to come around after a rough start back in the tank.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050671_zps784149f5.jpg


http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050670_zps9f667116.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050669_zpse96d82ff.jpg

ORA Red Planet
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050668_zps554d2bd2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050667_zpsfa5f9151.jpg

A. granulosa
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050666_zps7fa3b4bb.jpg

Snappy's purple valida. Started out with 1 frag and now I have 6+ colonies spread randomly throughout the tank.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050665_zpsbc65bb1c.jpg

Rainbow Monti again
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050664_zps9b5b6f9c.jpg

Backside of Cali tort colony
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050662_zps19ac6036.jpg

[Stones]

Another shot of the efflo
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050661_zpsdbb11da7.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050659_zps8c53f446.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050658_zpsca2cbcc6.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050657_zps07881940.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050656_zps9587951b.jpg

Close up ORA red planet
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050655_zps6475f0f3.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050654_zpsb6f73dae.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050653_zpsdab4671f.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050648_zps815eef2e.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050641_zpsee0f6fbd.jpg

[Stones]

And here is why I've come to hate mushrooms
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050647_zpsebc578bc.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/P1050645_zps61dc97fa.jpg

They seem to just gravitate and move toward SPS. The one on that colony of Snappy's purple valida started out at the base and crawled up to the center of the colony before splitting into 2 lovely mushrooms. I'll eventually have to frag the colony into tiny pieces to get them out of there. Don't know what I'm going to do with that granulosa/loripes frag as the frag plug is thorougly stuck in the live rock.

[Stones]

What's FAL stand for? Glad you've gotten things under control! Those colonies are just huge nice work.

Thanks Brett, its slowly but surely coming along.

FAL just stands for Frag-a-lot. I've got most of my nice pieces from Burc over the years. Some come in looking pretty hot but most require some serious TLC after they are forced to endure Fedex shipping from TO to Regina.

Nice. Looking good man.

Your mystery tabler looks like a Loripes to me. Also, your mystery millepora looks like a "sunset" or "christmas" millepora.

Thanks Kien. That mystery mille came in deep green and has morphed into having a peachy golden orange base color. It's definately one of my favorite pieces in the tank right now.

[lockrookie]

I'm glad the frag is doing well wish I could say the same for mine I shoulda just gave you the whole thing...

Glad everything else is coming around too

[Stones]

I'm glad the frag is doing well wish I could say the same for mine I shoulda just gave you the whole thing...

Glad everything else is coming around too


Hey Jeff, I wish that was the frag of the crayola plana I got from you. This one is a different frag that I got from Dreef (originally from Seacare) but the crayola I got from you is doing quite well. Did you end up losing the colony?

[lockrookie]

Just about I tried to frag it and save it but the base I'd dieing off very strange it like it got cooked I have a small hope for it but I honk the deterioration of the hydnophoria is the cause I had another frag do the same. Most everything else is fine and some are colouring up. As well my aggressive fight against the hair algea issue may have hindered the delicacy of the two

[Azzkr]

WOW all those corals are looking awesome. Comming back quite nicely. You will have lots to fill up that frag tank of yours. Might just have to buy a bunch from you.

[dreef]

Lookin good buddy,i can see big improvements since i last stopped by.I already picked the ones that i need a frag of down the line :) Yeah that FAL mystery milli is HOT..definately going to be one of my favorites.My frag has grown a bit i got from you,new tips are forming.Thank You for cutting it...i wasn't going to ask...but you know me and milli's :D

[Stones]

WOW all those corals are looking awesome. Comming back quite nicely. You will have lots to fill up that frag tank of yours. Might just have to buy a bunch from you.

Thanks man. Things are slowly but surely coming around. Seeing as I'll be off work for the next 2 months I should have some serious time to get everything back on track. Am I right in assuming this is Mike?

Lookin good buddy,i can see big improvements since i last stopped by.I already picked the ones that i need a frag of down the line :) Yeah that FAL mystery milli is HOT..definately going to be one of my favorites.My frag has grown a bit i got from you,new tips are forming.Thank You for cutting it...i wasn't going to ask...but you know me and milli's :D

Thanks man, good to hear the frag is doing well. I think it's going to be a real stunner of a piece once it catches up in size to the others in the tank.

[Azzkr]

You bet its Mike, Changed my name so there is no confussion with the two of us having the same name on here now

[Stones]

Seeing as golfing, fly fishing and camping season have come to an end, I figured I would give my build thread a bit of an update.

It has been a fairly rough summer in the reef as I pretty much let it do its own thing for the past few months. I continued to do 50 gallon water changes every 4-6 weeks and topped off the dosing salt containers with fresh mix when needed but other than that, I hardly put my hand in the tank except for cleaning the glass every few weeks.

The SPS corals have pretty much been at war all summer as most have grown into their neighbours usually leaving one colony the victor and the other severely damaged. I'd say at least 50-60% of the SPS corals have also browned out significantly due to decreased tank maintenance but predominantly from the fact that 4 of the 12 T5 ballasts in my fixture burnt out on me between May and now. So the tank has basically been running at only 2/3 of the PAR that the corals are used to and the result is not very pretty.

Last year I also replaced 2 of the ballasts so in total, I've had to replace 50% of the ballasts in this fixture in 3 years. Even though the first 2 ballasts died on me after the 1 year warranty, Sfiligoi was good to deal with and sent me replacement ones for free. But obviously there is an issue here seeing as there is no way these ballasts should be dropping like flies after only 3 years of use, especially since this is a high end fixture which cost over $2000 new.

Based on the fact that Sfiligoi added a 2nd set of 8 x 50 mm fans to the opposite end of the fixture on the Stealth T5 models the year after I purchased mine, overheating of the internal components is likely the cause for the excessive ballast failure rate. It would have been nice if this would have been dealt with like a recall and current owners of older models would have been sent a kit to install the 2nd set of fans themselves. This however was not the case so I decided to make some serious mods to this fixture to better suit my reef tanks needs.

I had ordered some DIY LED supplies on a few black Friday sale last year as I was planning on swapping out 4 of the T5 bulbs for LED strings to try and increase PAR, cut down on electricity, cut down bulb change costs and get some shimmer back into the aquarium. I knew that this would be a huge undertaking so I was not looking forward to this project and this was part of the reason I prolonged doing it until now. After seeing how rough many of my beloved colonies looked, I finally took the plunge and removed my Sfiligoi Stealth fixture from the tank earlier this week.

Step 1) Remove the 4 ballasts and associated wiring for the 4 bulbs that will be replaced with LED strings. I also replaced the burnt out ballasts with the 4 ballasts that were removed to make room for the LEDs. In order to get to the ballasts on these lights, you have to remove the bulbs and then the individual reflectors to gain access.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/fixturegutted_zps39495ed5.jpg

Step 2) Install more active cooling. I added 6 x 100 mm fans which I wired into the old moonlight (removed due to having burnt out as well, common theme hey) 12V power supply. Since the fans were too big to mount on the far end of the fixture, I mounted them on the top of the fixture similar to how ATI powermodule fans are mounted. I also have them mounted so that they will pull hot air out of the fixture and vent it through the perforated top of the fixture.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/activecoolingadded_zpse58dea2b.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/eab5988b-edde-4650-9363-2cef5193b15a_zps61b43a14.jpg

Step 3) Mount LED drivers
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/driversmounted_zpsfe25c9da.jpg

Step 4) Wire LED drivers to 110V power. This fixture came with 3 power cords, each of which operated 4 x 80 watt T5 ballasts. I removed the stock wiring and wired the 4 LED drivers into the 3rd power cord that I had my white T5 bulbs running off of previously
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/110Vconnection_zps2e977f80.jpg

Step 5) Replace 2 burnt out fans and rusted fan grills (I replaced all the grills, not just the 2 shown in the pic). I'm guessing this is the reason that a few of the ballasts ended up croaking on me. The 2 fans on the far end of the fixture had died but that didn't explain why the other 2 ballasts on the opposite side of the fixture also grenaded on me...
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Drivers_zpsedaa61a3.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/rustyfans_zps9a9f652b.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/replacedfans_zps91c528cd.jpg

Step 6) Wire in potentiometer for dimming. I had already pre-soldered a 10V power supply to a dimming pot so all I had to do was drill a hole through the end of the fixture to mount the dial. Here is a pic of where the pot is mounted for easy adjustments. I still need to pick up a new knob cover as the black and green dial just doesn't jive with the silver and grey of the Sfiligoi fixture.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/dimmingpot_zps9e21173e.jpg

[Reef Pilot]

You have a very nice tank, with lots of nice corals. Hope you get it back on track quickly. Good luck with your new lighting.

[lastlight]

great work on that fixture. scary stuff all these blown ballasts. after i sold mine the new owner had similar issues if i recall correctly.

shocker that the grill rusted so bad... your tank is open top right?

and it's pretty mean to not post a fts under the new light...

[Stones]

Step 7) Notch heatsinks. The 2 outside heatsinks profile's were too tall to fit inside the fixture with the glass shields in place so I had to notch the ends of the heatsinks as well as both sides of these heatsinks to accomodate the T5 ballasts below them and the LED drivers beside them. I didn't snap pics of the notches cut out for the ballasts and LED drivers as they weren't very asthethically pleasing.... The central heatsink which had 2 strings of LEDs mounted side by side with the moonlight seperating them had a thinner profile and gladly didn't need any modifications.
Before
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/heatsinkprecut_zps6f123993.jpg
After
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/heatsinkcut_zps80f47ba2.jpg

Step 8) Mount LED strings on heatsinks to fixture. After removing the T5 endcaps from the aluminium channel on each end of the fixture, I drilled a small hole through the end of each heatsink and bolted them to the existing channel. I then wired the LED strings (14 x 3 watt CREE XTE cool whites) to the 4 LED drivers.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/LEDsinstalled_zps010b22a5.jpg

Step 9)Wire in moonlight lighting and install T5 bulb reflectors. I replaced the old 3528 blue led moonlight with a waterproof 5050 SMD blue led string that was mounted directly to the heatsink. I also have a potentiometer wired inline to dim the moonlight which I'm hoping will also help to keep the LEDs cooler and prolong their life. After firing them up, I noticed that 3 of the 5050 chips in the center of the string did not want to come on but I did not feel like replacing the whole string for this faulty section of the strip. The moonlight strip has 83 5050 chips on it each consuming 0.24 watts of power so I used a 1.7 AMP 12 V power supply seeing as I needed 1.66 amps to power this string properly. I am currently running the string at the dimmest possible setting and will not run it at full capacity as this would definitely decrease the lifespan of the moonlight.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/5050smdmoonlights_zps287cf40e.jpg

Step 10) Test LEDs. In reality, I did this step much earlier but also did it again at this stage. The first time I tested the LEDs, all 4 strings came on but at ~1% of their total brightness no matter where I set the dimming potentiometer. I actually had to turn the lights off in my basement to see if the LEDs were on or not. This was then followed by ~3 hours of troubleshooting/random cursing.

The first thing that I tested was the built in pot in the meanwell drivers. This can be turned down or up to modify the max amperage output of the driver so that you don't burn out your LEDs as the max output of these drivers is 1.3 Amps. I had previously opened up all of the drivers and turned the built in pots as far as they would go clockwise but I thought I may have turned them all the way down by mistake. After putting the unit back together, I fired it up with the same result of the LEDs barely lighting up.

Seeing as that didn't work, I tested each LED string independently with a 700 mA non dimmable meanwell driver to make sure I didn't have any cold solder joints. All 4 strings light up perfectly and I proceeded to see spots for the next half hour.

I then assumed the problem was coming from the dimming feature of these drivers as the non dimmable driver fired the LED strings just fine. I removed the dimming + and - leads from all 4 drivers and used a 9V battery to give a reference voltage so my LEDS should have come on at 90% intensity. After plugging in the string, I got the same result of the LEDs coming on at 1% intensity. I didn't even bother checking the solder joints at the dimming pot as this obviously wasn't the problem. At this point I proceeded to stop troubleshooting the fixture for a while and focused all of my energy entirely on randomly cursing until I felt slightly better about myself.

After that much needed break, I completely took the fixture apart removing all the heatsinks (which was a PITA to do as the nut securing the bolt to the aluminium channel is near impossible to hold in place with your finger). Once I had the heatsinks out I immediately noticed the problem. The neutral lead of the 110V line into the LED drivers had popped out of the stock fixture's port. It was a tight fit as I soldered all 4 of the neutral lines coming out of the LED drivers together and the "plug" I had made was now slightly larger than the stock plug as the wiring Sfiligoi used was thinner than the meanwell's wiring. My new "plug" had fit into the stock socket however when I secured the heatsink in place above this wiring, it obviously just popped out of place.

After really jamming the neutral line back into the socket and securing it much tighter than I had originally, I installed the heatsinks again and wired the dimming + and - leads of the LED drivers back to the dimming pot. I plugged the 10V power supply for the dimming pot in as well as the 110V line for the LEDs and crossed my fingers.

Finally! We have light! I didn't even mind seeing spots at this point I was so happy the LEDs were actually working and the dimmer was operating fine as well.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/LEDson2_zpsd25037fb.jpg

Step 11) Replace T5 reflectors (again) and test T5 bulbs. I thought I was homefree at this point but as my luck would have it, only 7 of the 8 T5 bulbs lit up. FRAK! After trying a different bulb, I decided another short bout of random cursing was necessary. I then followed the wiring from the T5 endcap to see which ballast was causing the issue after removing the 2 reflectors that were directly overtop of the ballasts on that side of the fixture. I luckily had 2 extra brand new ballasts that I had ordered from Sfiligoi when they had sent me the 2 replacement ones for free. I replaced the faulty ballast, put the reflectors back in place and all 8 T5 bulbs fired for me.

Hazaa!
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/T5son_zps93234ba9.jpg

Step 12) Fire up LEDs, T5s, and both sets of fans, just to make sure...
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/LEDsandT5son_zps9bfed8e4.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/LEDsandT5son2_zps18063c2b.jpg

Step 13) Clean and replace the starfire glass inserts that protect the bulbs and hang it back over my tank. With the 3 heatsinks installed, this fixture is now ~50 lbs heavier than it used to be so I placed 2 pieces of 2x4s over the tank to make sure I don't have any unexpected surprises while I'm away at work if the aircraft cable suspending the fixture decides to break.

Step 14) Drink a victory beer and relax for an hour by catching up on the Walking Dead.

Overall, the project took me ~14 hours to install the LEDs, add the fans, replace the broken fans and grills and replace the burnt out T5 ballasts. I'm sure I could have had it done in ~8 hours had that neutral line stayed in place as opposed to me having to troubleshoot every aspect of the wiring. It took another 2 hours or so to mount the LEDs to the heatsinks with thermal epoxy and to tin and solder all of the LEDs and wiring for the 4 LED strings.

At present, I am running 6 ATI Blue plus bulbs and 2 ATI purple plus bulbs in addition to the 56 x 3 watt Cree XTE cool white LEDs. I set the LEDs to the lowest brightness possible using the dimming pot and will slowly ramp up the intensity over the next few weeks in order to acclimate the corals to their new source of light.

[Stones]

You have a very nice tank, with lots of nice corals. Hope you get it back on track quickly. Good luck with your new lighting.

Thanks for the kind words but the corals at present are no where near their full color potential. Hopefully this upgrade in lighting along with increased maintenance will help get everything back on track shortly.

great work on that fixture. scary stuff all these blown ballasts. after i sold mine the new owner had similar issues if i recall correctly.

shocker that the grill rusted so bad... your tank is open top right?

and it's pretty mean to not post a fts under the new light...

I somehow knew you'd manage to sneak in post before I could finish documenting the whole build Brett:biggrin:

Thanks for the compliments on the fixture. It was a ton of work and in hindsight I'm not sure if I would do it again from all the unnecessary stress and the time it took.

I'm only off work and at home for 48 hours every 7-8 days. The rest of my time is spent several hours away in SE Sask so when I am at home, I typically have an overwhelmingly large amount of tasks to accomplish in a short period of time. I'm hoping that all my work will pay off in the long run seeing as the current trend is to supplement LED lighting with T5s. I figured this would be the best compromise I could make at the moment and there is definitely enough room left on the heatsinks to accomodate more LEDs if deemed necessary in the future.

I'm not surprised about the ballasts failing in your old fixture as well. My old 48" Sfiligoi stealth was the same generation as my current fixture and the new owner had said that 4 of the 8 ballasts had died. He was going to sell it to another reefer to gut for a LED build until I told him Sfiligoi had replacement ballasts available that were easy to replace and actually not that bad of a price.

My tank is an open top with the fixture sitting ~9" above the water line. I'm pretty angered about the grills rusting and actually just being there in general.

My old Sfiligoi stealth didn't have these ghettotastic grills on the back side. It simply had the same perforated aluminium insert that was present on the opposite side of the fixture. It looked way better but I'm guessing the engineers at Sfiligoi thought that it hindered airflow too much hence the change to the open hole/grill configuration. If they were going to use grills, then they at least should have got some custom stainless ones built in order to prevent rust instead of using cheap computer parts.

Seeing as the next years models came with 2 sets of fans, I'm guessing changing to the open hole/grill setup didn't resolve any of the heating issues anyway. All they succeeded in doing was making the fixture look bad. It's like putting black steel rims on a Ferrari...

As for the FTS, I spent all of my spare time fixing this light fixture so I didn't even have time to clean the algae off my glass on days off. As you can tell, I carefully cropped the tank out of the one photo showing where I mounted the dimming potentiometer:biggrin:

I'm hoping next time I'm home, I can do another water change, clean the glass and do some much needed pruning to some SPS colonies as well as my current crop of hair algae and caulerpa.

[lastlight]

wow that sounds like a whole lot of NO FUN. hopefully this thing actually works for an extended period of time now. and yeah those grills are crazy ugly. mine had the nice mesh grill as your previous fixture had.

[Stones]

Well as per request, here is a FTS showing how rough a lot of the corals are looking after their 4-5 month lighting shortage. I ended up losing about a dozen of the more delicate frags I had and I'm going to have to do some serious pruning of some of the larger SPS colonies as a few of them suffered from some substantial die off.

Left side
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/FTSLeft_zpsf790c53d.jpg
Right side
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/FTSRight_zps1b0915cd.jpg

Here are a few close ups of some of the corals. Most have lost a substantial amount of colour but the odd colony or frag looks just as good as they did prior to this summer. You'll have to try to mentally block out any valonia or aiptasia from the photos as I'm going to have to add some critters to help win the war against these pests.

Rainbow monti frag and bonsai from aquarium illusions
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/montisandbonsai_zps2d551d30.jpg

FAL blue dragon
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/bluedragon_zps864b3df3.jpg

Stardust PE palys and Reef Shoppe Tri-color nana
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/stardustPEs_zps6d9ecd81.jpg

FAL purple tabler
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/purpletabler_zpsc839e584.jpg

Seacare bonsai
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Seacarebonsai_zps6b2920d2.jpg

Tyree pink lemonade - this guy started out as a 1/8" nub I got from a good friend
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Tyreepinklemonade_zps1f6f87bb.jpg

FAL unknown millepora
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/FALmillepora_zps5853ee95.jpg

Cali tort
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/calitortmacro_zps2947c8fa.jpg

[Stones]

Cali tort forest - my colony and 2 frags decided it was in their best interest to combine power rangers style into a giant colony
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/calitortforest_zpsfe2596df.jpg

Aussie pocillipora
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/pinkpocci_zpsdff2b2b6.jpg

Tri-colour bird frag
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/birdnest_zps264c6b4e.jpg

Coralmaster purple valida - this guy has really lightened up and lost a lot of its color during the summer months
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Coralmasterpurplevalida_zps0df18cb0.jpg

Rainbow monti vs A. vaughni
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/warfare_zpsd09213a9.jpg

FAL banana lokani
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/banannalokani_zps5f1cd44c.jpg

Reef Shoppe Tri-colour nana
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/ReefShoppetricolornana_zpsdbfc5dac.jpg

Loripes
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/loripes2_zps191e3ec7.jpg

My poor browned out efflo. It's gonna take years to get this guy looking good again.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/efflo_zpsd3898885.jpg

Bottlebrush acro. About 2/3 of this colony STN'd on me due to lack of light as well as algae encroachment.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/bottlebrush_zps84a83480.jpg

[Stones]

FAL unknown deepwater acro
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/bottlebrush2_zps6571bae3.jpg

Coralmaster rainbow stylo. Also lost a lot of colour as it is very low in the tank
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/Coralmasterrainbowstylo_zps8033d62d.jpg

Coral warfare on the frag rack
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/warfare2_zps3684fee6.jpg

Rainbow monti taking over most of my rock work
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/rainbowmonti_zpsf7489757.jpg

FAL ultimate monti
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g47/prestieb/FALultimatemonti_zps619e7f9a.jpg

[lastlight]

While your colours did take a hit I'm still amazed when I see how massive your colonies are. And they're only getting bigger!