A 750g SPS system is born

[AcroSteve]

Sweet. Very FLA.

All the access from the kitchen side?

It is at this point we wish coral would grow like weeds.

 

[The Apprentice]

what is the material that you used? is that wood or what? that is really great. everyone seems to be doing oak doors, walls, etc. this is nice.

 

[Forestal]

Wow, not often i use the word, but that is truly awesome, a work of art...
I second the request for lights on shot, congrats on a wonderful system...now watching the corals grow into and establishing your reef will be fun for us all

 

[NaH2O]

Alberto - you look so much younger in these recent photos!

The completed stand looks incredible! Great design and work.

 

[dgasmd]

Thanks so much for the comments. The material is actually a formed and hardened foam like stuff. It is just as light as styrofoam, but hard instead. Very very light. The best thing about it is you cannot tell this is not real rock even standing 2" from it. A local store had a large tank with a canopy and stand covered in this stuff and I just couldn't get enough of it.

The funny thing is tha I hired a custom cabinetry place in town to do the work originally in maple with a really nice stain, lots of trim, etc. 6 Months later, not a single nail in the house. No refund of my 50% deposit for the work either, so I had to go to court to get my money back from them. The judge fell sorry for their sappy story and put them on a payment plan at a rate that will be an entire year from the moment I gave them the money to the time I get it back. In other words, an interest free loan!! You have to love the american legal system favoring and babying every a....le there is. In a sense, it did me a favor because I ended up going this route and turned out 100 times better.

Pictures will be available soon. I cleaned the glass yesterday after 6 weeks of not even as much as a magnet run!! I am one of those people that when I have a problem with something, the sequence pumps in this case, I let everything else go until the one problem is fixed. Today I am going to vacuum out the 50+ Lb of debri that is currently on the bottom and all over the rocks. I will take some pictures then.

 

[MINIATUS]

I cant see the pics. :?:

MINIATUS

 

[Travis]

Alberto, I think the cabinet builder fell through for a reason. That foam stuff looks amazing. I can't imagine any type of cabinetry work even coming close to looking as nice as what you have now. Not to mention what you have is "original" and you don't see it on too many tanks. Glad you will eventually get your deposit back.

How are you liking the actinics? Are you getting decent coverage of actinic light in the middle of the tank due to the huge LA3's?

 

[Craig Manoukian]

All I can say is wow, and outstanding craftsmanship Alberto!

 

[dgasmd]

How are you liking the actinics? Are you getting decent coverage of actinic light in the middle of the tank due to the huge LA3's?

Travis:

I like the actinics. As much as I like the radiums, I will switch at the end of the year. To what? I don't know yet. I will try out the XM 15000K and see what they look like and what they do. I know Sanjay already tested them and I hope he would have published it by then. The reason is the radiums had already crapped out on me by month 4.5-5. They looked dim and the corals were not doing well. I first added the actinics and the corals began to color up again. A week later I added the new radiums and things got better. I just find it hard to justify to myself spending so much money in MH bulbs when I could get the same if not better results with other bulbs. I know lots of people that claim they get 6-9 months out of radiums and I can't for the life of me see how.

As far as the actinics, I like them and now that I have them I should have used them fromt he begining. It makes a difference. It does not make the tank look blue as lots of people, me included, would think. I am running them starting 2 hours before the MH and going for 2 hours afterwards. The MH are on for 8 hours. What I did was that I put 4 x 75 watt (24") VHO actinics running perpendicular to the tank between the MH reflectors and then 4 x110 watt (46.5") VHO actinics running the length of the tank. A row on each side. That still leaves me enough room on the top to do whatever I need to do. On a tank narrower than 30" I can't possibly see how anyone would do it though unless you have them in a movable canopy to go up and down when you need to do something like even feed the fish.

 

[nbd13]

Hey you know Sanjay already published those finding on the 15k right.

Nick

 

[NaH2O]

Alberto - here is a link to the article nbd13 mentioned: Spectral Analysis of XM 15000K Metal Halide Lamps

 

[dgasmd]

Thanks. As soon as typed it I went to RDO to see the new magazine edition because I had forgotten it came out. There it was. Another disappointment as it puts out 30+ PPFD less than the radiums and seems to be the same XM 20000K in terms of the spectral analysis.

 

[nbd13]

any updates?

what fish do you plan or already have in there?

any big ones besides those anthias and wrasses?

thanks!

Nick

 

[dgasmd]

any updates?

what fish do you plan or already have in there?

any big ones besides those anthias and wrasses?

thanks!

Nick

Yep, the entire thing is completely finsihed now. All the pumps on the close loops are back and working, the intake for the pumps was re-done to accomodate bigger diameter pipes (better flow), and things seem to be doing OK.

As far as fis, I have the following so far:
-mystery wrasse
-possum pigmy wrasse
-solariensis fairy wrasse
-yellow fin fairy wrasse
-orange back fairy wrasse
-3 mandarin fish
-lyretail anthias (9 females and 2 males). 25 more females coming in a 2-3 weeks.
-8 Barlett anthias
-achiles tang
-powder blue tang
-desjardini tang
-male naso tang with streamers
-single sebae clown
-regal angel
-pair of saddle back clowns

Coming in 2-3 weeks:
-25 orange anthias (lyretail)
-50 green chromis

What is in the works to be changed:
-New monster skimmer
-aquacontroller
-getting more consistant with maintenance in the middle of my work and family schedule.

I've gotten some sweat frags of echinophilias as of late. Very very nice. All corals are growing and slowly coloring up, but not as fast as I would want them to

I would love to find a friend that knows how to do very good web work so they can make me a really nice website and host all the pictures there.

 

[nbd13]

you are really putting 50 chromis in there? thst should look sweet!

hows the regal doing? i know how tough they are, have been reading about them for the last 6 months....

how is the achillies tang? i have always wanted one, but i hear they are mean and need alot of room to swim...

are you getting any more fairy wrasses? i love them and have a nice collection of 6 myself, i might add 1-2 more after i upgrade to a 275 in the next 2 months...

are you done with fish after you get all those chromis and anthias? are you really getting 25 female anthias? that will also look cool!

oh yeah what skimmer are you looking at? Deltec, Bubble King, any ideas?

oh yeah what happend to those pics you were going to post with the lights on?

i knwo you said you suck at taking pics, but so do i, i would love to see some!

thanks looks good i saw some pics on RC, under Sanjays thread!

Nick

 

[nbd13]

oh yeah is your orange back wrasse agressive? my is the most agressive of the 6 i have and is the smallest one, haha.

Nick

 

[Illusion]

Wow.. I envy the Lyretails... Definetly an Awesome Fish... And Holy Moly... Enough Chromis... I put pulled mine out (13) so that I could drop in more Anthias... But I think with you buying so many that I better wait it out so the oceans have some time to Restock lol

James

 

[dgasmd]

hows the regal doing? i know how tough they are, have been reading about them for the last 6 months....

He is doing great. Eats everything including flakes and is fat. He gets alone with everyone.

how is the achillies tang? i have always wanted one, but i hear they are mean and need alot of room to swim...

He is doing great too. Very very active fish. I had one before for years until I moved to FL. This fish is much more aggressive than any other tang I've had before. Has already killed a few new fish like a long nose butterfly, a cooperbanded butterfly, a naso tang, and 3 black and white heniochus. He had a 3 day battle with the new larger naso and PBT, but things have settled now. They need lots of room and very very active flow.

are you getting any more fairy wrasses? i love them and have a nice collection of 6 myself, i might add 1-2 more after i upgrade to a 275 in the next 2 months...

I am done for a while on the fairy wrasses. I added a few more and they all got killed within a day or two. I haven't seen for sure who killed them, but I suspect it was the yellow fin fairy wrasse. I got tired of wasting money, so no more for a while until I can get several of them at the same time to spread the chances of assassinations. The orange back is not aggressive at all. My yellow fin wrasse is the nasty one.

are you done with fish after you get all those chromis and anthias? are you really getting 25 female anthias? that will also look cool!

Yes, I am done with fish after that. That is still a heck of a lot more fish than I wanted to add at the begining, but I do love fish. I may skip the chromis and just another 15-20 anthias of some sort.

oh yeah what skimmer are you looking at? Deltec, Bubble King, any ideas?

oh yeah what happend to those pics you were going to post with the lights on?

The skimmer will be a large custom made air stone skimmer with a wet neck. I find the cost to efficiency ratio of the more expensive/new/fashionable skimmers nothing short of ridiculous and can't bring myself to pay for them. For me, it is just that simple.

I have not had a camera for over a month as my wife was out of town with it. She is back now and may take some shots tomorrow. I know it is hard to understand it, but in a tank this big filled with nothing but frags it is difficult to take any shoots that look like much of anything. THere just isn't enough growth to make the corals stand out against the background. Besides, when you use radiums (at least my experience) it is extremely difficult to white balance enough to capture the real color of things.

 

[dgasmd]

I find the cost to efficiency ratio of the more expensive/new/fashionable skimmers nothing short of ridiculous and can't bring myself to pay for them. For me, it is just that simple.

Let me explain this a little better with an example. Take a Red Dragon 14 M3 pump. It costs $1219 and it has an Output - 3698 g/h, but it uses like 80 watts of electricity. You can also buy a Sequence ReefFlo Dart Water Pump 600-3200 gph at 168 watts for $195. Now even if the sequence heated the water by 2 degrees requiring a chiller to run frequently, it would take almost 2 decades for you to break even with the electrical savings of the first one I can about guarantee you 99%+ of you will be out of the hobby by then :lol: :lol:

Yes, in an ideal world, we would all have the most efficient one, but reality is not the same. You can fly from FL to TX in the space shuttle or you can take the same fly at about the same speed and time in a commercial plane. You get there the same and int he same time, but one if going to spend half a million doing it!! Is that a smart choice? I still don't quite understand why most people can't seem to see that.

 

[Scooterman]

There is always math to fall back on when deciding these things, I've come to realize that also, it is actually funny when you thinking about it, here are these people designing things more efficient, stronger & better all around but at what cost, something as simple as price can drive someone out of business, this has been proven time & time again, & in this hobby it is very apparent the majority will prevail.