65 Gallon Project

[BigJPDC]

Too kind. I'll trade ya for working over my plumbing so my bubbles go away. I'm gonna have to remove the skimmer and pretty much start over with the over flow, and then do a gate valve mod on the skimmer.

[newreefbishop]

Oh I have a quick question, what do you do for a living, and why does it seem like a good chunk of reefers are in the technology field, Im a network Engineer...hehehe...yup im a nerd....but Im a cool nerd....LMAO

[BigJPDC]

ha - maybe it's the thrill of the whole problem solving methodology thing? hard to say, might just be a guy thing, although my wife is way into it now that there are living things in the tank. She is not happy about us losing 3 of the hermits already since they came in. They were probably half dead when I bought them though, everything from the second LFS is doing awesome.

I work for a software company, doing account management stuff in the DC area, used to be more technical but now get to do more strategy type things.

jp

[newreefbishop]

Oh dont worry the more money you spend the more attached she gets, when my Tang went carpet surfing, my wife was depressed till I got another one...well maybe not depressed but she wanted to have a fish funeral...lol

[BigJPDC]

Nice! So far we've found two hermits reduced to just legs, and she wants all the rest removed from the tank now.

I think I found a way to get that 2 gal nano for my office . . .

jp

[newreefbishop]

Oh remember hermits molt, so from time they will leave "old skin" around. But hey that 2 gallon nano does sound nice, a couple hermits a cleaner shrimp and a tiny basslet....and some zoos or ricordia....that gives me an idea....LOL

[newreefbishop]

OK so new news, well not really new but the ATO is working beautifully, by my estimates I am evaporating roughly 4.5 gallons every 3 days, so I will be setting up a 15 gallon holding system to maintain at least 1 week of top off water.

Apart from this for some reason I walked in one afternoon last week and came in to a scene from a dream. Its hard to explain, but I have never seen the tank looking so clean and the coral looking so beautiful. It was unbelievable. I actually am at the point where my tank is starting to mature. Yet there is so much work yet to be done....with the addition of the new lights (yes I finally made up my mind) and rock, as well as coral over the next year I think my dream will be realized.

As far as the lights I am going to go with two 175 watt halide bulbs 10k of course with 2 96 watt pc's for actinics at first then switching to 2 t-5s. THis will enable me to grow anything without raising the power bill.

As far as tests everything looks baseline at the moment except my calcium which i keep pretty high at about 475-480ppm

[Liquid Hobby]

...I'm a tech guy too! I don't understand it, I just sell it! Well, I know enough to be dangerous!

[newreefbishop]

Ok so some news....YEsterday with the help of my brother and Sea In The City (probably the best reef store, Thanks Marcy) in orlando I got my hands on a beautiful Juvi black saddle back clown, which I think will turn into a male, and a beautiful orange ricordia polyp. Pics will follow later, I have officially decided to also go with halides. I saw my brothers tank and honestly its ridiculous, the growth he is getting. T-5's will be supplimental. I will be doing 175's Which should give me a whole lot of light.

anyway thats it for the news

[BigJPDC]

Cool man - how about more details on the lights - retro, hanging from the ceiling, Kelvin?

I hope to have my first coral this week.

jp

[newreefbishop]

Well, I my brother has 2 MH 150 bulbs on electronic ballasts, with PC suplimental lighting. Its ridiculouse how cheap he got the ballasts, but they work just as good as icecaps. Personally I dont have the time to piece together a viable kit so I will be doing a retro kit, and 175s.

So I will be doing 2 175 watt Ushio's in my canopy about 12-13 inches of the water. For the time being I will have 2 96 watt PC's for actinics, and eventually change them out to t-5's. As far as kelvin rating I will be running 10kbulbs, for maximum growth and look. I dont like the whole yellow light thing that you get in a 6500k bulb.

[BigJPDC]

Nice - I think I've liked the look of the 14K's, but I like it bluer than most maybe. 12-13 inches off the water would be good for me, it's such a pain to get in the tank right now. Do you think you'll have to do some kind of light acclimation for your anems?

I wonder if you might stay with the PC's, since T5's aren't known for their actinic ability too.

jp

[newreefbishop]

Not sure as far as the actinics.

Definately will have to do light acclimation with entire system, moving everything lower in the tank and then moving them up slowly. The tank will have more light that penetrates much much deeper. I'm almost giddy with glee....did I just say that.

[BigJPDC]

I bet!
Hey - tomorrow is one month with water in the tank, and everything looks good still. Do you have any advice on first corals or if it's really too soon for that anem I want?

jp

[newreefbishop]

Well everyone will tell you to wait for the anem.....basically it goes back to water conditions. The rock is cured, and you have good water quality. Personally, I dont want to send you down the same path as me, as you may not get same results. I went for it at about 2 month, as far as anemone is concerned. As far as coral you can go ahead. Get Zoos, or Ricoria, or Leather. They are very hardy, or Xenia. Basically get some of those and watch em for a few weeks. Also get a couple fish, when I say a couple I literally mean two... that will increase your bio-load at that point you can gauge how they do. If everything is well after say two-three weeks....find a nice bubble tip or Long tip...and stock your tank the way you want. The biggest thing to do is take it slow with fish, as those will increase bio-load quickly and you will have to give bacteria time to catch up. When are you getting your next batch of rock, and when do you plan on getting shrimp etc.

[Liquid Hobby]

Originally posted by BigJPDC
I wonder if you might stay with the PC's, since T5's aren't known for their actinic ability too.

You may need to essplane this one...

[newreefbishop]

LH did you get my PM? And maybe you could help us out, which one has the best actinic qualities, PC or T-5?

[Liquid Hobby]

PM: Back at ya NRB.

My head hurt when it came to choosing lights. I stayed away from MH due to heat and the small volume of water I'm dealing with. I would be of no assistance in actinic qualities of PC vs T-5. That's new to me...

My T-5 actinics are very blue

[BigJPDC]

hmm - I just remember reading a lot in the lighting forum that the T5 actinic wasn't as good as PC. I think the folks there were waiting on UVI to make what was supposed to be the T5 actinic that was as good as their PC's, and when it came out the reviews weren't all that great.

I like my T5 actinics very much as well, but don't really have anything to compare it to.

OK, I'll wait in the anem another month then. This week I will pursue cleaner shrimp and then can go back to agonizing over what fish I want to keep. I am amazed at how much my skimmer is already pulling out, with 23 snails and 7 or so hermits.

What about GSP?

jp

[Liquid Hobby]

GSP: Hardy and fast growing, some say a nuisance... however, it's also very easy to harvest and control. I'll put some in.

[newreefbishop]

I have two variations of GSP, honestly its great and beautiful, and easy to grow. Just like LH said you in some systems people let it grow to the point where its hard to control, but essentially, once it start growing in places you don want, frag it, and sell it. Just that simple or take it to LFS for store credit.

[newreefbishop]

OK....so here come some short updates.....

As the largest shopping day in the world was Friday, my LFS had a few good looking things on sale. I bought a beautifull green hammer at least thats what I think it is , it has two polyps, one of which I broke at the base during aquascaping, I epoxyied it onto a nice piece of Live rock and it opened up nicely....I also got some large green Ricordia Polyps, and another skunk cleaner shrimp. All are doing great. On another note I added a much needed backup power supply, with my return pump and skimmer as well as one powerhead on the backup portion. I tested it last night and I works great. I believe it should last 45 min to an hour. In my area most minor outages a cleared up within an hour, but I will be upgrading this as well in about a month or so to a unit that will last 5-6 hours. after which I have a generator.

Pics to follow shortly.

Mylton

[newreefbishop]

Oh today is my tanks 5 month anniversay

so much has been done since the start.....and yet so much is left to do.

[Liquid Hobby]

We'll need some pics!

I'm looking forward to a nice big green hammer myself! I've had my eye on a sweet red and green scolymia for a while! But at $125 I'm going to wait until my tank and skill are up to the task...

[BigJPDC]

yep we need those pics. Congrats on 5 months in action.

I came accross a UPS for my home computer that I hadn't planned on using and was wondering which components would be essential for system life support - probably heaters and the return pump?

Do either you or LH have check valves in your return plumbing? When I was getting stuff for Christmas lights I came across a footswitch and I thought it would be genius to use it to turn off my return pump at feeding time without having to go inside the stand to flip the switch - the checkvalve would stop the siphon.

What do you think?

LH - what happened to those $10 frags you were talking about? $125?


jp