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#1
10-27-2007, 07:10 AM
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The next few months have me scanning the for sale section relentlessly looking for live rock to buy. It seemed like someone would post it and it would disappear in an hour so it took some doing but I finally found all the liverock I needed.
 I resisted putting my heater in the sump for the longest time, no idea why. Just the way it worked out. Next big addition to the tank was FINALLY a proper light. Bought a used Geisemann, 2x250watt MH with 2x54watt t5's.  The colour change took some getting used too. I still think it's a little yellow some days (bulbs are 13000k mh's and actinic + t5's) Maybe I'll try a 14k next time.  About this time, I finally started to get some frags in slowly as time and money allowed. Devils hand  So now we're into June and I start reading about this miracle cure for bryopsis with magnesium. Here is a small corner of the tank before the magnesuim...  This stuff was everywhere, after the magnesium I had almost none left. Fortunately I had 2 kinds of bryopsis and 1 wasn't affected by the magnesium. Lots of days with boiling water seems to have been the end of that. 
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#2
10-27-2007, 07:16 AM
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In June, my coralife powerbars gave up the ghost so I got my birthday present a little early...
 Absolutely love the controller... need more things to control now! The next big event for the tank was this summers frag swap in Calgary. Met some great people and got some awesome frags... even won a door prize! Here are some of the corals I got at the swap    Also got a green digitata, but didn't have a picture of it from back then Door Prize courtesy of Gold's:  At this point, flow in the tank was the Koralia 3, a 6045 and the sump return.
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#3
10-27-2007, 07:27 AM
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Grabbed this beautiful purple tang from Golds in June, he left Quarantine and went into the display just after the frag swap
 Since then, haven't done too much new with the tank until this week, picked up this deal from Gold's...  That was just an hour after acclimatization, I figured he'd be shy and stay "clammed" up for a few days but was pleasantly surprised! Here's some growth shots... I don't think it's too bad for about 3 months on these guys but I'm not sure. Frogspawn hasn't really branched out but is definately "bushier" very colourful and happy  Birdsnest is growing like a weed, much thicker and a whole lot branchier  CandyCane has a few more heads  Here are a few shots of the digitata, I mounted it on it's side because I remember reading that you'll get growth at both ends and so you do! This one has probably grown by 50% in mass since July   And just for fun a full tank shot from tonight... 
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#6
10-27-2007, 04:52 PM
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Thanks for the kind words. It's fun to look back, even on some of the mistakes, and see how far the tank and my knowledge have come! Hopefully by showcasing my mistakes as well as my successes someone else can avoid them!
Mark: The overflow I've got in there right now stretches the whole length of the tank, with a single 1.5" bulkhead in the back corner. I had tried using a cannister filter as a return because I originally had a spare one lying around and it seemed like a good spot to run carbon and rowaphos, but after burning out the second one last week I decided to put a Hydor Seltz on. I went with the L45 model which is rated for 900gph at 0 head. The climb up to the tank is through 1/2" flexible vinyl tubing so I'm imagining the final output is about 650-700gph. I don't think I'd want to go any more than that. I looked at your thread, and that's exactly what my original rubbermaid sump attempt sounded like. If you take a look at the picture where I'm talking about the new MH light you'll see my plumbing solution, I simply ran spa flex all the way into the sump. Maybe that's the difference, not necessarily in the bulkhead but in the pipe?
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#7
12-07-2007, 05:54 AM
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Update time.
Since my last post I've been busy. I accepted a whole bunch of Corals to "baby-sit" because her tank crashed. Some beautiful stuff in there, Ricordia's, Acan's, frogspawn and hammer as well as some montiporas. Everything I like is leaning up against the rockwork in case it "decides" to frag itself!!! It was all in fairly rough shape when I got it, but is coming along nicely. I got a nice birdsnest and monti cap from Fishytime and they're both doing really well. I'll try and get some livestock pic's up tommorow. On Sunday, ran down to Golds and bought a nice little target mandarin. She's quite pleased in the new diggs and very sociable. My wifes already in love with her! I also grabbed a zeovit starter package. After doing a bunch of fence sitting and reading about the zeovit system I decided to give it a 6 month trial. My reasoning is that it isn't a whole lot more expensive then running rowaphos and swapping it out every month. In fact it may be a little bit cheaper and it provides some extra benefits that I like. I'm really hoping it helps my zoanthids. For some reason the things will not thrive in my tank. I've got Monti's and 2 birdsnest that are growing like crazy, my lps' have great colour and look happy, but softies and zoanthids do not thrive in my tank. I'm not sure what the problem is, but zoanthids in particular just seem to barely stay alive sometimes. My mental blocks that have kept me away from it up until now... I was afraid of the time commitment and the cost. Now that I've rationalized the cost all I had to get over was the time commitment, and really it only takes seconds out of my day. Because I didn't buy a proper zeovit reactor I just put the zeolith rocks in a filter bag in my sump. I don't think this was really doing anything but I wanted them in there even for just a minor effect. So they went in Sunday night, as well I started the full dosing regime that evening. I'm just going with the basic 4 ingredients (zeoliths, zeobac, zeostart and zeofood7). Since then I've noticed my water is clearer, the skimmer is pulling more stuff and the sand-bed looks SLIGHTLY cleaner. I'm getting some nice colour from the one birdsnest frag that I wasn't getting before. The only negative I can see so far is that the LPS are a little "pouty" at night. During the day they're loving life and look great though so I'm not really concerned... probably just an adjustment phase. Not wanting to spend the hundreds of dollars they seem to want for a "professionally made" zeovit reactor, I decided to make my own for as cheap as possible (just to spite the manufacturers) Quite often, inspiration for DIY aquarium projects comes from my wifes kitchen (much to her dismay) and this time was no exception. After poking around a bit, I found what I needed in the Kitchen section of Canadian Tire. For the reactor body, I found a 1.9 litre juice mixing jug. Cost... $8.65, throw in some plumbing bits and I'm probably up to $18 or $19... not too shabby! Here are some pics of the construction.... Here's the jug, I drilled a hole in the bottom and just siliconed a barbed fitting in there. The eggcrate you see in there is to support the tray holding the rock.  Here's the "Juice Mixing lid and attachment" All I did was glue some plastic mesh to it. I found out that I did have to pull it apart and re-enforce the handle/rod where it joins with the mesh.  Cut off the bottom of the jug handle and it clips right to the baffles. In this shot I've got the rocks in and carbon is sitting in a bag on top.  I'm running about 60-65gph (240 litres per hour) through the reactor, I'll increase that gradually up to ~100gph over the next month. Overall, I'm already not quite happy with this reactor but for ~$20 how can a guy go wrong. My biggest beef is I'm thinking I should've gone with a little bigger container. If the zeovit works out and I decide to stay with it I'll build something really fancy. Keep an eye out for livestock pictures coming up!
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