400 gallons of saltwater running through my house.

[CarlaW]

Devon, as long as you got a generator, you won't have any problems, I got mine back in 2004, and it has paid for itself I cannot tell you how many times in 10 years!!!!
If you have gmail, it seems to still go to the spam folder even after you tell it that it is not spam

 

[DevonM]

Well the power was only out for 2 hours and everything is fine in water world. I used the generator to run the skimmer and return pump. Over the course of two hours the tank only dropped .4 degrees.

 

[CarlaW]

Good first time run Devon, as time goes, you will figure out other stuff you can plug in also. I imagine in the winter you may be plugging in a heater! I have to get a separate longer extension cord to run that 1000W heater I have, no way I can plug that in with everything else.

 

[DevonM]

Wow has life been busy here lately. A few big deadlines at work due by the end of the year... hopefully after that I can get back into water world. I'm still changing water and doing routine maintenance but the hair algae still persists. Water tests this evening showed phosphates registering at ~0 and nitrates at ~7 ppm. The tank has been up and running for 11 months now and I'm hoping to hit the "less green" phase.

Here's an update video of what the refuge and tank looks like:

 

[DevonM]

Also, still working on the SURF2 project... Hopefully Santa Monica Filtration will help me get things figured out a bit better.

 

[CarlaW]

Do you want to come up and get some caulerpa? I know you didn't want to go that way.....................just sayin

 

[CarlaW]

Other than that, things don't look real bad Devon, it looks like there are only a couple of really bad spots of green from what I could see! Maybe just dead spot areas?

 

[DevonM]

Yeah, just a few bad spots but overall not too bad. I'll get it whipped.

 

[DevonM]

 

[sarmo]

hi Devon, the tank looks good. I only saw that one area of hair algae, not bad. the corals seem to be growing, the hammer looks good!!!

maybe it was head lights that freaked my Aro? sucks.... been looking for a different top water fish to fill his space, any suggestions?

hunting season was okay for us. 5 deer and 2 elk..... it was a total meat year. the only horns I got was from a muley buck that Bill and I followed a blood trail on and came across. we finished him off. good meat but not a wall hanger. the rest were does and cows..... elk are a lot harder to drag to the truck....

 

[DevonM]

been looking for a different top water fish to fill his space, any suggestions?k....

Hey Rob! We had the aro for a while and then some alligator gar which were kind of cool. That was pretty much the only top water fish we had although the fire eels hung out towards the top sometimes.

 

[DevonM]

Installed a new return pump (Reeflo) this week, pretty happy with it so far. The next project is lights! Hopefully Santa will be good to me and leave some LEDs under the tree.

 

[CarlaW]

Nice pumps

 

[DevonM]

Nice pumps

So far so good! I'm kind of surprised it took me so long to switch over to an external pump but I guess I didn't really have to space in the old place. I find myself getting tank projects done each year after hunting season and before mid-spring. On to lights. :biggrin1:

 

[CarlaW]

Having room to do stuff is nice!!! Where you getting the lights at Devon?

 

[DevonM]

After a bit of research I've decided that I want to build my own light fixture using components from LED Group Buy. I'm pretty sure I can build a LED fixture that will save on electricity and give my corals and clams better light. It looks like the Cree Lumia 5.2 LED chip is a great reef option. 5 Lumia 5.2's spaced on a 6 foot MakersLED heatsink (wife approved!) should make for a great setup on my 90 inch tank. Tentatively I plan on using the 5 chip setup as it puts at least one chip directly above each one of my tank's opening. It's recommended that you use one chip every 24 inches so there aren't any dark spots between lights. Using 5 LED chips on the 6 foot heatsink would put the LED chips about 16-17 inches apart. Here is my proposed diagram matched up with my tank:

I’m working with the staff at LED Group Buy to finely tune the design but I think the 5 chip design should work well. If anyone has any recommendations or comments to add please do! I know for sure that Carla and Kelan are using LEDs but I'm not sure if anyone else has made the transition.

 

[CarlaW]

Well cool, keep us on the update list when you get the chance then OK?

 

[DevonM]

Well cool, keep us on the update list when you get the chance then OK?

Will do! Hopefully I will be able to get it started next month.

 

[CarlaW]

I think I might be around....................LOL

 

[DevonM]

SURF2 Algae Scrubber Update Week 30