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Stones 05-07-2010 06:18 AM

Stone's 225 Carbonate Factory
 
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/g4...b/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/g4...ittingtile.jpg

Removing the carpet
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...petremoved.jpg

Installing 1/4" cement board
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...dinstalled.jpg

Mortaring the tile to the cement board
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...lemortared.jpg

After grouting the tile
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...ilegrouted.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 05-07-2010 06:25 AM

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/g4...conundrum2.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/g4...ingsuccess.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/g4...minstalled.jpg
Stand getting primed and the bottom painted with oil based paint
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...tandprimed.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/g4...intedstand.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/g4...nkwithtrim.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/g4...aneremoved.jpg
So obviously I had to remove the entire pane of glass and replace it.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...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/g4...lesgoingin.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/g4...mpFinished.jpg

Stones 05-07-2010 06:29 AM

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/g4...nassembly1.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...nassembly2.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/g4...b/manifold.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4.../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/g4...nschematic.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/g4...nchbushing.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/g4...dremelling.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/g4...hingdryfit.jpg

Stones 05-07-2010 06:34 AM

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/g4.../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/g4...owepicfail.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/g4.../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/g4...routerjig2.jpg
All the teeth cut out and my acrylic is still in one piece. Amazing!
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...lowalldone.jpg
And all trimmed to size and dry fit
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...flowdryfit.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/g4...winstalled.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 05-07-2010 06:37 AM

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 05-07-2010 06:37 AM

And what do we have here!
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/newlight.jpg
And after the quick install
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...oistealth3.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...oistealth2.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...oistealth1.jpg
And here is one of the sweet moonlight I got Sfiligoi to install into the fixture.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...dmoonlight.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/g4...ankfilling.jpg

lastlight 05-07-2010 08:34 AM

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 05-07-2010 03:46 PM

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

Stones 05-07-2010 04:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lastlight (Post 517141)
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 05-07-2010 05:10 PM

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 05-07-2010 07:23 PM

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/g4.../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/g4...b/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/g4...lefinished.jpg

lastlight 05-07-2010 07:47 PM

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 05-11-2010 05:54 PM

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

andestang 05-11-2010 07:33 PM

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 05-11-2010 11:59 PM

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 05-16-2010 09:35 PM

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/g4.../substrate.jpg

Once the water cleared and I got the substrate pseudo-level, I started with the rock work.
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...fceramics4.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...fceramics3.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...fceramics2.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...efceramics.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 05-17-2010 01:23 AM

Looking good, I like what you have been doing.

Delphinus 05-17-2010 03:00 AM

Great looking pillar!

lastlight 05-17-2010 04:34 AM

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 05-17-2010 07:45 AM

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

Stones 05-17-2010 02:06 PM

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 05-18-2010 05:25 AM

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

Stones 05-18-2010 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by RIPTANK (Post 519757)
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 01-21-2011 09:56 PM

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/g4...b/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/g4...b/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/g4...b/IMG_6443.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6444.jpg

Here is a pic of the unit fully assembled with the float switch installed
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/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/g4...b/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/g4...b/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/g4...b/IMG_6477.jpg

lastlight 01-21-2011 10:25 PM

Nice bit of DIY. Any new FTS?

untamed 01-22-2011 04:59 AM

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

Stones 02-01-2011 04:00 AM

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/g4...b/IMG_6883.jpg

And now for the acros
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6850.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6845.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6841.jpg
This efflo is finally starting to colour up after 6 frustrating months
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6840.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6837.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6833.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6828.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6826.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6822.jpg

Stones 02-01-2011 04:03 AM

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6821.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6815.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6814.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6813.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6812.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6809.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6808.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6801.jpg
This frag is my current favorite
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6799.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6796.jpg

Stones 02-01-2011 04:05 AM

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6792.jpg

And here is that FTS you were asking for Brett
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_6847.jpg

mseepman 02-01-2011 04:29 AM

Looking good. Love the center rockwork.

lorenz0 02-01-2011 05:16 AM

tank looks awesome!

Stones 02-01-2011 05:58 AM

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 02-16-2011 04:32 AM

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/g4...b/IMG_7192.jpg

Purple tang and Bali green slimer acro
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7187.jpg

Majestic angel
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7182.jpg

Acropora efflorescens slowy starting to color up
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7176.jpg

Rainbow monti coloring up nicely as well
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7174.jpg

Random SPS shots
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7172.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7169.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7168.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7167.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7165.jpg

Stones 02-16-2011 04:39 AM

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/g4...b/IMG_7164.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7162.jpg

Snappys rainbow stylopora
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7161.jpg

Ora green birdsnest
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/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/g4...b/IMG_7155.jpg

Snappys purple valida
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7153.jpg

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/IMG_7152.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/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/g4...b/IMG_7175.jpg

lastlight 02-16-2011 05:25 AM

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

reefermadness 02-17-2011 04:15 AM

awesome build and nice corals.

Keep us updated.

Stones 08-11-2011 06:43 AM

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/g4...ipsacro8-1.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...letipsacro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...polypacro8.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...polypacro7.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...wateracro2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...olorAnana2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...blingacro2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...stylopora2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...Amillepora.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...nseggstag2.jpg

Stones 08-11-2011 06:45 AM

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...inseggstag.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...purpleacro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...Amillepora.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...ongeenacro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4.../leftside3.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...etipsacro9.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...etipsacro8.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...pwateracro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...mysteracro.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...polypacro5.jpg

Stones 08-11-2011 06:47 AM

http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...polypacro2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...aiacropora.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...b/Alokani2.jpg
http://i53.photobucket.com/albums/g4...lorescens2.jpg

lastlight 08-11-2011 07:16 AM

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


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