think they are within 30 bucks of each other .. with the Geo being the cheaper one .

alright ,
Got the little stand installed for the water change / top off water tank. its a 46 gallon bow
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...302_132835.jpg

and . added 3/4 bucket of IO salt
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...302_135125.jpg

Also installed the bracket by the spears valve to support the 2 drain pipes .
also drilled a whole through the wall to feed my RO water line from under the sink into the 46 bow

Guess we are transferring everything over this week....:twised:

ahh maybe a week and a half lol ... ahh be a bit yet

well , we are up to temp , and sand is in, salt is in .

mag 9.5 return pump is hard plumbed and is driving me nuts !!!!!
it is sucking in the odd air bubble , and humming like crazy . didnt seem that bad on the old tank .
Anyway , ripped it out today and temporarily tossed in a ehiem compat 3000. way less flow , but so much quieter :biggrin:.

added sand
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...303_172448.jpg

all cleared up
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...304_165450.jpg

looks ready to me:mrgreen:

I was expecting to take longer to clear up, looks like its ready for live stock.

getting there buddy .
Today i finally got around to building a light bracket to hold the mitras . I for the next while will be running just the one mitras in the length ways fashion over the very center of the tank.
that should provide the center of the arch perfectly with enough light to grow SPS . on the outsides i will stick with some lps , etc .

Then one day i will add another or different lights all together .

looks like for the calcium reactor it is going to be the GEO 612. Pretty excited. And happy to have made up my mind.

Set up looks dope! let me know if you need help moving day.

Are you going to transfer in your old rock to sustain the livestock while the dry becomes live?

Was not planning on using any of my old live rock , maybe a piece or too. May also grab some from wayne or someone.to help seed .
Doing a start up dose of MB7 o and used all live sand 80lbs lol hahah aha

Is all that laughing because you fell for the "live sand" deal? :razz:

Lol too funny! :lol:
Glad it wasn't me saying it or I'd be blamed for this too!

lol heeeeelllllll nooooo.
an arrangement was made for dry sand , turns out it showed up wet . so in the tank she goes ..

Live sand is way way better . it is shipped in grey murky water , full of things ..... live things that may or may not survive on the sun , moon, the back of a flat bed truck in 40 below for 3 months ..
everyone knows that is better . lol

Its all your fault lol , everything . If i had never met you i would be happily looking at a tank of beautiful gsp , blue star polyps and pulsing xenia .

Instead im stuck in a perpetual cycle of always trying to keep up with the "rice reef's" of this world

your fault . friendship over ,, btw im keeping the maxijets

So that explains why I can't find them to mix my salt with!

Ok.
Fabed up the light stand.I will mount it tomorrow.

today I dipped alot of my corals to check for bugs. None found.
so I transferred over about 30lbs of live rock to my new sump.

I did pull the trigger on the geo 612 calcium reactor. So that should be here in a week or so.

Pics tomorrow

well , decided today to transfer over the bulk of my coral .
i am much much happier already with this tank. the rock work is much more interesting to look at .
I like the tank being higher . so far i am pretty damn happy

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...313_201728.jpg


still need to get a new return pump .
Properly hook it up , Get the calcium reactor in ,

The old tank is still running with some rock and all livestock still so the transfer is only partially done

wow.. that rock work does look SPECTACULAR! I love it. It's more the just interesting. Well done!

thanks . much . Coming from you thats an awesome compliment.

Kool 'scape Jon !!
Lots of room for growth and swimming

Thanks , Ya the fish will think they hit the lottery with all that swimming room

Good Job, Jon! Almost there! :biggrin:

Once the corals fill in the rock work is gonna look so purty!

thanks bud .

I totally forgotten how much work it was to set up a new tank. Every time i turn around the list of to do's keeps growing..

today the wife and I , Built a new screen top, with acrylic lids on each corner.
We Incorporated a Nori feeding rod that slides into one of the lids from the top. Now i can feed nori without getting my damn hands wet. I was really tired of the TLF algae clip.(hated it )

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...315_222747.jpg

Used the home depot DIY screen frames etc. Used netting from buckerfields.
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...315_222802.jpg

was our first working with acrylic , was fun.
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...315_222845.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...315_222900.jpg

couple of coral shots
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...315_223013.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...315_223038.jpg

Anyone ever put any coral in there overflow box ?
I need to ditch my torch coral as it is clearly killing my second clown fish. Wife thought that maybe we could put it in the overflow

Jon, good job on the screen and I really like that feeder door you made! Excellent ideal! Guess I should just get you do mine. :biggrin:

Great job on the screen and I guess it is ready for some fish tomorrow.

Just glue your torch to the back glass. Thats what I did, looks cool and keeps it away from everything else :mrgreen:

The issue is , our clown fish is hosting in the torch. He is slowly being stung to death. He is covered in black sting marks. He will occasionally get swollen areas too. We used to have 2 clowns. But came home one day to find the clown sucking on a torch tentacle. He was dead a few days later.

So I need to move the torch out of the tank. Or try the overflow box

Can you get him an anemone to host in?

My clowns host in my torch, no stinging. Maybe it's something else?

I had two clowns that hosted a torch. They did get lots of black marks however they lived a long and healthy life.

Are there any other signs of bad health? Or just the black marks?

That rod is awesome! I want one.

I would have thought that an anemone sting was more potent than a torch coral. Certainly in my experience they are. I wonder if one possible explanation is that if your clowns were captive bred that they've mutated and lost their ability to withstand nematocysts stings. Generations upon generations of inbreeding could potential cause this. In the wild if a clown was born with such a defect they would likely perish rather quickly and not propagate the potentially defective gene. But that's just a wild ass guess..

Well in the new tank the clown has decided he likes the hammer coral now instead. He seems to be slowly recovering which is good.
I have had most of my fish now for 1 full year . The only loss I have ever suffered was the first clown. He died within 4 months of adding the torch.

I have been pretty busy lately. Tank has been running well. Finally plumbed the eheim 1262 return in. Nice and quite.
Picked up the complete ca reactor this week. Filled the co2 bottle. 24 bucks..not bad.

Did the leak check on the geo 612 tonight. All is well.
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...320_213429.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...328_212606.jpghttp://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...328_212346.jpg

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...328_212423.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...328_212458.jpg

Need to figure out to add a movie to the thread.
Can it be done with photo bucket? .

Guess no video allowed ?

Today. Spent the day tunning around lookin g for fittings to t in the ca reactor into the return line. Finally found some.

Also did a mock water change with my new system. Took 20 mins total start to finsh to change 40 gallons.
I plumbed in a mag9.5 in the water change tank to do rhe recirculating and transfer . Works well. Seems evenly matched with the 1262 return .
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...330_182847.jpg

Update before I go on holidays for a week..

Calcium reactor has been running for 2 weeks now. And I am loving it . Think it was definitely a step in the right direction.
Effluent is at about one drip per second. About 20 co2 bubbles per min.

Have 4 wp40's running now on the new twin controllers. So far I think they are absolutely great for the what they cost.the twin controller is pretty darn good.

The new eheim 1262 has proven to be an excellent choice as well.

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...418_195749.jpg

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...418_195754.jpg

Also I must say its been great having the apex fusion. Evwr since switching to telus I have lost conection to the apex. But fusion fixed all that.
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...418_195815.jpg

Awesome job buddy! Tank looks really well!

Thank rich. Havent seen you on the boards much, how you doing ? Enjoying the change ?

Need to get rid of my 300 and get down to about that size like yours. I am missing my Sps! Keep up the good work buds. It's really nice!

well time for a quick update .

Tank is coming along really well . Its been up and running since march of this year , and I can officially say that setting up this new tank is the only thing that kept me in this hobby.
its ease of maintenance and simple design has brought the joy back for me.

I am loving the Calcium reactor. I do not miss mixing up jugs of bulk chemicals.
I no longer run any phosphate remover.
I run passive carbon.
I no longer run biopellets.

I do large water changes often.

My Corals have never looked better, and they are still improving. hands down the corals are leaps and bounds ahead of my last tank.

http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...012_101937.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...012_101947.jpg
http://i1023.photobucket.com/albums/...902_204117.jpg