Also make sure you have a zero setting in the morning, ie at 9pm @ 10%, 10pm @ 0%, 7am @ 0%, 8am @ 10%

Thanks.. Will give those things a try tonight! :)

So your tank is in the land of the Midnight Sun?


What do you think of the colours in the light so far?

Well I haven't really played around with them enough to say for sure, but so far I love them.

Got the program figured out tonight and got the light hung above the tank. My phone doesn't like LEDs, so apologies for the pics.

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...f/photo3-7.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...f/photo4-6.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/.../photo1-10.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...f/photo2-9.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...f/photo5-6.jpg

That is awesome. I like how you've changed the scape up a little also. Looking great!

So J that mitras is 1200 plus taxes for that unit

Something crazy like that.

wow, that looks perfect over your tank!

tough to say yet but what do you think about the amount of light reaching the ends of your 40" tank? how high is the light mounted and how bad is the light bleed into the eyes if you crouch beside the tank?

</million_questions>

'

Looks pretty good eh.. :)


I've currently got it mounted 11.5" above the eurobracing, with room for to go upwards for coral acclimation. Has no issues really covering the length of my tank.

Got to remember that I have 3" euro-bracing so I'm losing 6" in overall length, so I really only need to cover 34"x12"

These pics were also taken at around 9 or 930pm, so my lighting was already down to 15% brightness. Can't really comment on the light bleed into my eyes, I didn't really notice it though.

You are welcome to come have a look if you're thinking about buying one. :wink:

yeah i'd def be interested in checking it out once you have sticks and stuff under it.

how does eurobracing affect coral placement? you can still have corals spanning the full ~39" of useable tank space can't you?

Yea, I shouldn't have any problems placing coral. Just saying that the euro-bracing is going to hinder light penetration around the edges a bit (even if it is star-fire glass).

I'm really not concerned with light coverage based on what I saw last night and this morning. Plus GHL has been saying this light is good for a 40"x40" footprint. There is a tank on RC that is 40x40 with this light over it and no issues.

AquaDigital might have posted a link in his vendor area to that tank too.

your fixture is in the centre and the light radiates down at an angle to hit the tank ends so your eurobrace won't have an effect. looking forward to seeing some livestock in there!

I've got a few things, just no pics right now. :(

Fish:

1x Yellow Coris Wrasse
1x Female Redfin Flasher Wrasse (I think, I'm not confident in Big Al's I.D.)
1x Lubbock Wrasse
1x Candy Hogfish
1x Algae Blenny

Yes, this is turning out to be a Wrasse tank..

Coral:

1x Blue Polyp Birdnest
1x Monti. Confusa (Frag)
1x Green Acro. (Frag...unknown right now)
4x Various zoa frags
1x Green/Purple Favia
1x Acan Echinata
1x Pineapple Express Acan frag (2 heads)
1x Purple MaxiMini

maybe if you spent a little less time living at concepts and more time at home you'd have something to entertain us with?

The ASSASSINATOR strikes again!

but if I don't go to concepts I won't have anything to put in the tank.. it's a catch 22.. :lol:

Truthfully, My iphone sucks when photographing the tank and quick moving wrasses. :(

Hey pUnk.. I took pitchars this weekend.. :mrgreen: Just having issues getting them off the memory card now..

you didn't put the sd card into the dvd slot like i did now i hope? :lol:

LOL! No, I certainly did not sir.

For some reason my card reader won't recognize the memory stick.. Will have to get my roommate to download them and send them to me. (his memory stick anyways)

We don't want excuses, we want results.

I don't want results. I want pictures and pitchers. Preferably the kind that are full of cold frothy drinks and not the sweaty ball throwing variety.

I wanna see your new additions! Especially that digi.

Ask and you shall receive... sometimes. :mrgreen:


My Phone messed up the color of these acans.. they are closer to a light green.
Pineapple Express Acans:
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...psb7eb52e2.jpg

These are almost spot on regarding color.
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ps052bc79d.jpg

Hydnophora Colony.
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7583e8b2.jpg

I'm thinking this is gonna take a bit to properly color up.
Forest Fire Digitata:
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ps74f590ae.jpg

Love the Pinapple Express! I never really loved acans before, but I'm really starting to appreciate them more and more as I see them. I like the photo colour, even if it is 'off'.

I loved the different oranges I could see in that digi at the store. Its going to pop under those led.

Picked up a few things on the weekend from Concepts.

Chilliwack Tort:
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ps99656ef0.jpg

A-Grade Acro (Looks sorta like a Cerealis(??)):
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ps7785ef7c.jpg

Blue Tipped Pink Millepora:
http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ps44870e93.jpg

I also got a Blue tipped Gold Stag, but I can't get a photo of it which shows the colors properly. It's a decent size piece too, probably about 5-7" on the longest branch.

Aside from the corals I also picked up some KZ Amino Acids and Coral Snow to begin my dosing regiment. (will add sponge power and coral vitalizer soon)

Meh!:mrgreen::wink:

that stuff looks great Josh! You snagged some sweet pieces from Concepts there!

Welcome to my thread buddy. :)

That's only because I got there before you probably! :lol: Unfortunately I had to pass up one of the Bali Tri-colors they had.. :(

and that's because I haven't gone there yet! :biggrin: But now that everyone else has had a chance to cherry pick I think I'll make the trip today and see what's left :-)

I didn't pass on it :)

Picked this little guy up last night. My favorite pygmy angel but first time onwer.

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...pse574a474.jpg

Sweet. I think I missed seeing him when I was there.


Actually it's because I was there first and cleaned out everything. :)

Love the potter's angel. Lots of orange and red on that beauty

Unfortunately he is long gone (as far as I can tell). Haven't seen him for weeks and never found a body. :(


July 13, 2013 Test Results :

Mag: 1300
Ca: 450-460
Alk: 7.78 dKH
PO4: 0.08ppm
Salinity: 1.026
Temp: 25.5C
NH3/4: No Test
NO2: No Test
NO3: No Test

I forgot my test kits for the last three items at work.

I was expecting these to be a lot farther out of wack considering how much difficulty I have had keeping any coral really. Now I'm really confused. Unless I've got Ammonia, Trites or Trates..

Operation "Skim Damn You!!!"

I can't recall if I made any mention of it in this thread but I have had a lot of frustrations with trying to dial in my Reef Octopus XP2000sss skimmer since day 1.

From what I can remember I read that 9" was the optimal depth for the water level in the sump, I'm almost bang on 9" so you can see how things could get frustrating when I can barely get this skimmer to skim.

By my math, I've MAYBE collected 3/4 of the skimmer cup full worth of skimmate since I started this tank. Really not that good and I considered myself to be feeding rather heavy, so this lack of skimming has not been ideal.

While my PO4 reading this week gave me a 0.08ppm reading I still feel this lack of skimming has had a part in my difficulties with this tank so tonight was the last straw. The boys at Concepts had suggest that I raise this skimmer to around 5" of water depth rather than 9" to get better performance from this thing.

So I went out to Home Depot to pick up some egg-crate. Home depot here in Airdrie apparently closes at 8pm now!! I ended up finally finding egg-crate Rona. $12.59 (and 1 Large Steeped Tea) later I was on my way home.

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...psc6b843bb.jpg

I didn't go right up to 5" yet. I built my skimmer perch to 3" to raise my skimmer to 6" depth and in doing so my sump level dropped somewhere between 3/16"-1/4" putting me at approx 5.75" (which just so happens to be what Bulk Reef Supply has on their site for optimal depth). I'll try that out for now and see if my skimmate increases.

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ps5c7fdab3.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...ps369aa2eb.jpg

http://i1258.photobucket.com/albums/...psf1d286dd.jpg

Ya, I had an SRO int2000 as well and it didn't work well at the depth they said either. Mine seemed to work the best right around 6" if I remember correctly. One thing I found though is that it raised the effluent discharge a fair bit and the water exiting the skimmer got noisy. I put an elbow on it which did quieten it down but I found out that if you turn that elbow down all the way so that it's totally submerged, it air locked. SO I had to turn it a bit so at least a bit of the elbow was out of the water so that air could escape.

The other problem I had was that piping isn't standard size and I had to use a bit of spa flex filed down on one end to connect the elbow to the discharge of the skimmer.

I'm curious where you had your gate valve set on the outlet nozzle. Mine doesn't seem to be much more open that it was before.

As of this morning I still didn't really have any substantial amount of skimmate in the cup. Good amount of foam right at the top of the collection cup neck though.. I've had this thing overflow on me a few times so I'm nervous to close down the gate valve much more than it already is.

It's been almost a year since I've had that skimmer, but it seems to me I had it closed a fair bit.

**TURN AWAY NOW IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ A WALL OF TEXT**



Ever since I got back into the salty side of things, wrasses seem to be my bad luck charm.

I had a very healthy Leopard Wrasse that I got off reefwars for my 180G which vanished one weekend with no trace or body.

I lost another Leopard Wrasse in my home tank. Similar scenario, just vanished one day, no body to be found.

I picked up a Blue Sided Fairy Wrasse for my 180G tank yesterday from Ocean Creations that I had put on hold Friday until Han was OK to sell. This wrasse is now not doing that great in my QT tank. Won't swim and barely even bothers to keep himself upright. Only thing is he seem to be very attentive when it comes to his eyes, he's always scanning around the tank but I don't have high hopes for him. I can basically reach in and grab him with my bare hand.

And to top it off, I get home last night, my fish are doing well and all accounted as I walk in the door. Few hours later (only minutes before I was about to go down and feed the tank) I can hear my roommate hollering at me that my tank is making some noise.

I head down stairs and the alarm on my Tunze ATO is beeping wildly and my skimmer is overflowing. Wonderful.

After unplugging the skimmer and ATO I tried to diagnose the problem. Yup, you guessed it... A Wrasse.

As far as I can see, one of my smaller wrasses was able to get through an extra wide gap in my overflow teeth, which would have instantly forced him down the main drain line. Likely getting mangled when he got to the gate valve and forced through whatever small opening there might be. This in turn slowed the flow of the tank and my tank level increased until it began to go down the Emergency drain (thank goodness for Herbie Overflows). With more water going into the tank than what was draining from the tank for a few moments activated my ATO as the levels in the sump dropped a bit.

Once the wrasse had been forced out of the piping the system settled back down which then elevated my sump levels about normal (and above my ATO emergency float switched). This caused my already sensitive skimmer to overflow what it had been skimming since my mini-project on the weekend.

And to top it off, I had a dead, mangled wrasse in the skimmer section of my sump.

Ultimately it could have been a lot worse I suppose but I was finally starting to get this tank back on the road to recovery with my levels, PO4, and what has seemed to be a successful fix for my skimmer issues. So certainly frustrating. :neutral:


WRASSES!

sorry to hear of your wrasse's demise. i'd definitely put drain guards on your herbie lines to prevent a repeat of that. on the plus side i'm not hearing anymore talk of selling this tank which is great to hear (or not hear i guess).