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New 75g Reef (1 Viewer)

Front and side tank shots.
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Coral.[b/]
Thanks to SWE for the 'Metallic Green' zoanthids and Duncans!
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The lower bulkhead is the main drain. The gate valve controls the height of the water in the overflow and insures no air is sucked in, meaning the water enters the sump with no splashing or bubbling (with or without the filter sock). Supposedly this is called the "Herbie method".
The upper bulkhead is the emergency drain; the internal pipe is the same height as the overflow and normally the water level is about two inches below that level.
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The main drain enters the sump through a 100-micron filter sock, the emergency drain enters directly into the sump. Our skimmer is an EuroReef RS80, the newer model with the wedge-pipe, with little modification.
The middle section of the sump has room for some chaeto, our original clump all dissolved during the tank swap. The TLF Phosban Reactor contains both some Phosban and carbon, which isn't necessarily the best way to run things, but it works well enough.
The return pump is a Quiet One 4000. The gate valve allows us to adjust how much water is going in to the tank, but it is currently 100% open since the drain can handle everything. The T assembly above the gate valve allows us to pump water from the sump directly to a drain in the floor, making water changes a breeze.
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The rest of the pictures can be found here.

And now the bad news. Our McCosker's wrasse managed to find his way out of the 1/2" gap between our screen tops and the tank trim, where the cord for our Tunze 6025 was, and we found him yesterday night behind the water softener. We've now modified the screens so there are no gaps or open spaces, so hopefully we won't have any future jumpers.

Our chromis appear lonely today and the tank looks fairly empty without the red blur, so we would like to find another wrasse to replace the McCosker's. Considering that both of our wrasses were sold to us as Carpenter's and neither turned out to actually BE Carpenter's, we're looking at purchasing them through a reliable source. Any suggestions for replacement wrasses and sources would be appreciated!

Cheers
C & M
 
Continuing the 100% pictures theme:

High-light-loving blues.
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The "Limited Edition", "Mint Chocolate-Chip" Hammer, and defender.
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Top-down shot of clam needed, this doesn't do it justice! Duncans are up to 10 polyps in just nine weeks!
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Lucky shot of the echino and slimer(s).
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'Radioactive Dragon Eye' zoanthids, apparently. Grown from a 10-polyp, $10 frag. Thanks Fish Guy!
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Hitchhiker porites.
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Newest fish addition: Starry blenny. Likes to eat sand, so his gut is huuuuge.
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True percula pair. Nothing new.
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The required FTS.
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Cheers,
Marty
 
You might of already stated but how much rock is in here. I need a mental picture since i get rock this weekend.
 
hey bud, fish guy needs some blue zoas.... frag swap?

They're still in the 'grow out' stage, sorry guys.

You might of already stated but how much rock is in here. I need a mental picture since i get rock this weekend.

The GSP mountain on the right weighs 15 pounds and the rest of the rock weighs about 35 pounds. The amount you need is entirely dependent on the look you want and the rock you're buying, and you will always either have a ton of rock leftover or not enough to begin with. Speaking of which, anyone want to buy 40lbs of base rock? :biggrin:


M
 
As always, large pictures to follow!

A few more pictures before the ghetto-rigged lighting system is retired (hopefully) tomorrow, to be replaced by an IceCap 4-bulb T5 retrofit. Bulbs are (front to back) ATI Blue+, UVL Super Actinic, UVL AquaSun, ATI Blue+. I'm still debating how to mount them, but I have plenty of 80mm PC fans spare!

The three emerald crabs Charlie picked up three weeks ago are demolishing the bubble algae infestation, finally. They have had quite a bit of help from the larger members of the clean-up crew though, specifically the two-handed, five-fingered vertebrates wielding chopsticks, siphon hoses, and small green nets. As many have probably noticed, the emeralds only touch valonia that is the size of a BB or smaller. They will devour freshly-popped bubbles though, which is nice when you just want to reach in start popping with little regard to removal.

'Giant George' - Big emerald
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Li's Aussie Red Zoas (still a little angry)
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Little blastos
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Battle of Little Tile
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A spiderweb of blue zoas
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Fast-growing enchino with a little outbreak of cyano
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The centerpiece of the tank: maroon montipora capricornis
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Micro is an accurate name!
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And finally, the last FTS before T5s
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Cheers
Marty
 
Retrofit Mounting Idea

I'm still debating how to mount them, but I have plenty of 80mm PC fans spare!

WOW! Your tank looks great!
I recently mounted a 4 bulb retrokit onto a frame that sits on the tank. I was planning to post something about it in our tank thread but haven't gotten around to it. I have uploaded pics though that I thought I'd share. I used the aluminum stock you can buy at Menards/Home Depot/Lowes. It may not be the prettieist thing but it sits inside the hood so nobody except me ever sees it. Until now I guess.... :) The fans cool the bulbs plenty at the close end, not so much onthe far end so I may add fans down there too. I rely on evaporation for cooling so they also help with that. Take a look:
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Did you make the frame yourself? I've seen some of the stores use aluminum frames that look pretty sharp, strong and light.
If you know of any threads or forum links with info on working with aluminum I'd love to have them.
 
I did make them myself. Aluminum is s really soft metal so I just used cheap metal drill bits to make holes, a miter saw to cut the lengths, and stainless steel self-tapping sheet metal screws to hold the parts together. It is very rigid and quite light as well. I dimensioned mine to sit in the lower lip of the tank frame so I can slide it forward and backward almost like it's on rails and because it's wide enough it can't twist and fall into the water. If it were going to have been exposed I could have done a lot more to pretty it up but for my application it's strictly utilitarian.

I don't know of any threads, I just kinda go to work once I get an idea...



btw, that's the retrofit kit I bought from you and as of right now I'm still using the ProColor. ;)
 
Duncans are up to 10 polyps in just nine weeks

New polyps sprout fast and grow to become same size as the original pretty quickly. What takes the most time, is for the stalk of the new polyps to extend out past the original polyp. That process will take another year ( or more ). So propagation can still be rather slow despite all the new polyps. Still it's always fun to watch. I have over 300 polyps ( if you count the new ones ).
 
Thanks for the comments guys, and for the T5 pictures especially! I will get some pictures of how ours are mounted (hung, actually), but it is a little ghetto as we do not have an actual canopy.

We'll start off right away with a little comparison picture. A repost of the last FTS and the newest FTS, with T5s.
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We did get an additional toy with our T5 order...
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... which was an excellent purchase for many reasons. The AC Jr. now controls our lighting, heating, and cooling equipment, keeping the tank at a stable 78.5 degrees. We use the pH only for monitoring purposes since we do not run any reactors (yet), and it is always around 8.00. Still working on the serial connection to a laptop, but that is a whole 'nother story!

We were adding a few frags this afternoon :)biggthumpup:) and though to snap a few top-down photos. White balance on the camera is even more difficult with T5s, and the reflections don't add to the pictures at all either!

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Dinner time!


Marty & Charlie
 
The bulbs are the same as what I had planned, and the color is about perfect: ATI BluePlus, UVL SuperActinic, UVL AquaSun, ATI BluePlus. If I had to change a bulb, I would maybe switch out the AquaSun for a ProColor, but I am satisfied with the colors we're getting now.

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Each pair of bulbs from the two Vossloh ballasts is mounted to a separate piece of plywood, hung from three eyebolts in the top wood frame. Zip-tied (told ya it was ghetto!) to each pair of endcaps is an 80mm case fan (31 CFM at 28 dB) to keep the bulbs and tank cool.
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The bulbs are about 8 inches above the water level now as we are still light-acclimating the tank (especially the right side with the LPS). We'll lower them a bit over the next month or so, down to 4 or 5 inches off the water.
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Cheers,
Marty
 
Well hopefully this gets us on to the next page as I am adding more pictures. Even though not many people look at this, I find it fun to keep updating so we can look back and see how our tank has matured. The t-5s are doing great and the aquacontroller jr. has really gotten our tank stable. A few weeks ago Mary gave us 5 new sps frags. They are all doing great, anyways, onto the pictures....

"The Reefsitter Special"
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Blue Tipped Tenuis (blue didn't show up very well, but good PE)
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Miami Orchid (hard to get a great picture, is the farthest back in the tank)
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Unknown Frag (Any ideas now that we have a picture, Mary?)
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The only other frag we got from mary is a rainbow granulosa that is right behing the Reefsitter Special, its hard to get a picture of but is easy to see in person.

A Pink Stylo I picked up at the Something Fishy meeting that didn't do so well but is now recovered and looking good
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Clown Fairy Wrasse (he's a fast one)
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Love the wrasse! You definitely have some great frags to grow-up!!!
 

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