Bloke's 90g Build Thread

[Bloke]

New Addtion:

It's a beautiful fish and the pics do not do it justice - if only my Purple Tang (aka The Purple B*st*rd) would leave it alone!

You can see that the warfare has caused some slight dorsal fin tears. I spent $25 at the LFS to buy something to preoccupy the Purple Punk; I hope it works out. (Don't ask - you don't want to know, but it is another Sander's Acclimation tactic!)

 

[Reefergeorge]

What type of tang is that. He's a beauty!

 

[Bloke]

Chevron Tang

 

[Jan]

I hope your preoccupation/acclimitization tactic works--that's a beautiful tang!

 

[Bloke]

Me too - at $130 I don't want to buy another.

 

[tike]

Man the tank looks really great! I wish i had wood working skills like that.

 

[tigerarmy40]

is he eating yet! its a beautiful fish!!!

New Addtion:

It's a beautiful fish and the pics do not do it justice - if only my Purple Tang (aka The Purple B*st*rd) would leave it alone!

You can see that the warfare has caused some slight dorsal fin tears. I spent $25 at the LFS to buy something to preoccupy the Purple Punk; I hope it works out. (Don't ask - you don't want to know, but it is another Sander's Acclimation tactic!)

 

[Scooterman]

That tang will grow to over a foot, so I'd have a plan for when it does get bigger, otherwise it is beautiful

 

[Bloke]

Just wanted to post a photo update:

 

[Scooterman]

Nice update, your tank is looking great, congrats!

 

[Bloke]

Alright... I finally got my Pacific Coast Calcium Reactor installed. I was a little reluctant to get it going, but I am now officially counting bubbles!

I do not have any room below my tank for the reactor to sit and I did not want the reactor visable, so I drilled a small hole next to where the carpet and baseboard meet and ran the water lines into the wall to keep things hidden.

Shown below, this wall is about 2' from the tank and the reactor sits on the same plane as the sump/fuge. I just built small landing for things to sit. Nothing special, but it'll do!

A little installation-tweaking had to be done. Originally, the irections called for two feed lines to be placed into the sump along with the effluent return line.

I tried to install the reactor as diected, but found that the water supply was insufficient. I am not certain as to why, but figued it to be the distance that the reactor has to sit from the tank peventing a strong enough syphon. So, I removed the 1/4" Gest fitting and replaced it with a 3/8" fitting. I then put a valve on the second feed line to seal it off and put a small feed pump at the other end of the 3/8" hose.

At first I was a little concerned because of a small leak. I thought that I had created too much positive pressure, but after tightening a few fittings, things seem to be operating fine... for now!

My effluent pH has been holding steady at 6.9

 

[trido]

Thats quite the dark coraline on all of that rock. Nice looking corals in there too.

How do the four tangs get along?

 

[Bloke]

Actually, they get along great. As you can see in the picture, they all school together. I KNOW I will have to move them as they outgrow the tank, but the problem is that I used to suffer from MTS (multiple tank syndrome) and when I decided to consolidate, the wife refused to allow me to get rid of a few fish that have been around for quite some time.

Her favorite fish is the Regal while mine would have to be the Purple. There is no way I can get rid of the Desjardin's so I am stuck.

As far as the coralline goes - people always comment on the growth. There is nothing special done. I keep track of my Ca, Mg, and dKH. I don't really supplement with anything but people are always asking me the key to growing coralline algae. My only answer is that I just mentioned along with actinic lighting.

 

[Bloke]

I thought that if some of you haven't seen it, that you might appreciate this. The Java-based Reef Chemistry Calculator is a very popular site for DIY-chemistry people, but they also have one for Ca reactors.

http://home.comcast.net/~jdieck1/reactor.html

Here is a picture of my values typed in to show as an example. With a system volume of 125g and of course daily testing, I know that I typically supplement my tank with about 2.5tsp of buffer to keep my dKH where I want it. After setting up my reactor and testing my effluent water, it's dKH was 30 of which I was returning to my sump at a rate of 40 drips per minute (dpm) that comes to about 2ml (just an estimate because NO drops/droppers are identical). Coupled with my initial tank dKH of 11 it tells me that if I do NOT adjust the dKH of my effluent water that I would have to adjust my dpm or rate of flow to equal 19.3ml/min which would of course be too many drips to count, but could be measured nonetheless.

You DO NOT have to complete both sides of the equation to get values, I just filled in both sides to see if my calculations on both sides were going to be equal and they only differed by .1ml - I can live with that. Now, I know that this is JUST AN ESTIMATE and that the reactor will still have to be adjusted as corals continue to grow or additional livestock is added, but this is still a nice little java-based reactor calculator that was a treat to find.

For those who are always the nay-sayers - I believe that the calculations are based on Dr. Randy Holmes-Farley as denoted at the bottom of the site.

 

[Bloke]

Sightly odd - but an updated shot showing each sectin of the tank.

 

[trido]

I get it. Looks like a six footer that way. :lol: