Halmus' 120 Reef Tank

[halmus]

I have an IP camera on the far end of the tank so I can view the tank remotely. It's a little extra piece of mind when I'm on vacation.

 

[halmus]

This is a far shot of the tank and stand. It's tall. Taller than I would prefer, but with the lighting system, I wanted something to hide the mechanics of a lighting rack that would elevate on pulleys out of the way for maintenance.

 

[halmus]

The lighting is done (for now) with 2 x 250 MH with 14K. 3 x 4' T-5 with mixed Geisman bulbs. 2 x 3' T-5 Geisman bulbs. The back bulbs will be replaced with a DIY project I'm planning that will be similar to the Radion LED fixture (only better). After I'm satisfied with the results from that, all lighting will be replaced with LED. If and when I'm satisfied.

The current fixture is hung on pulleys that allow me to pull everything up and out of the way to get to the tank.

 

[halmus]

Some of these pics are a little outdated. I am currently busy getting an Apex Neptune system in place that does away with many timers and organizes everything.

I've done a lot of work over the last year to update equipment. This means my tank hasn't seen many new corals. I currently have some naked spots where I've removed corals and in some cases, completely covered areas with epoxy puddy in the effort to fight zoanthids. So, I have some beautiful views in my tank, and some less beautiful. That's why I'm hesitant to show any good DTS. I'm a little ashamed of the ugly bald spots and puddy deserts. I keep thinking of the movie Sunset Blvd. Where Norma Desmond said, "Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up." Well, I'm not ready for my close-up.

 

[Somethings Fishy]

WOW nice job, can really tell you took your time and set your tank up right!

 

[halmus]

Thanks. I appreciate that you view it as being done right now. Actually, I've got an entire thread dedicated to how I set it up entirely wrong the first time!! Bad advice from local stores. Bad equipment. Bad planning. I put a lot of work into correcting that.

Here are a few more pictures of the right end of the tank fairly recently.

 

[tat2z_21]

I know what you are missing, it is the most important thing in any reef tank. The one item that sets a tank apart from another, APTASIA. By far the greatest thing I have growing in my tank right now. OK I am jealous, your tank looks amazing.........

 

[halmus]

I know what you are missing, it is the most important thing in any reef tank. The one item that sets a tank apart from another, APTASIA. By far the greatest thing I have growing in my tank right now. OK I am jealous, your tank looks amazing.........

Don't look to close....you just might find one. Actually I've been pretty fortunate in dealing with aiptasia. I have had my share over the years. Currently, I don't know of any in my display, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. There aren't any in my sump or refugium, which is somewhat surprising. It seems like if you find any at all in the display, they're going to find their way to the sump where they can thrive.

My advise is...just tell everyone it's a species specific tank! Didn't everyone consider them desirable a few decades ago? They were one of the few cnidarians that thrived in the old style systems. It's like glasses, the fads come and go, right? Soon a study will come out saying that aiptasias are beneficial and that water and being awake causes cancer.[FONT=arial, sans-serif] [/FONT]

 

[halmus]

I tried a new tactic to take pictures of my tank since I have no suitable camera. I tried shooting some pics using my UV blocking sunglasses as a filter. The tank looks pretty cool in person wearing the glasses, so why not use my IPhone with the filter? This is the best I can do. Even after the upcoming meeting at BR I won't be able to exercise the techniques until I have a good camera or any sort of SLR/DSLR camera to work with.

In no particular order with filter and without.

These were also shot with different lighting systems running (w/ MH, w/o MH, actinic only)

 

[senji]

let me get some frags

 

[halmus]

Product review time for a new bulb on the market. (at least I've never seen it before)

250 WATT 17500K MEGACHROME CRYSTAL METAL HALIDE BULB - GIESEMANN, DOUBLE ENDED​

To start off with, here is the sales pitch I fell for:

MEGACHROME crystal - the perfect light source for all marine aquariums that need a strong light performance in combination with a high blue/violett ratio.

The MEGACHROMEcrystal metal halide bulb offers excellent coloration and high intensity. It is crystal/crisp-white with a light violett/blue tint. It brings out the fluorescent pigments in corals nicely. Fluorescent supplementation is usually not necessary, but can be used for added intensity and to simulate dawn and dusk.

The light spectrum has a pink accent and shows fluorescent effects on many corals which gives a completely different impression of the colour. The very high colour temperature of this bulb is achieved through a special manufacturing process which at the same time guarantees a long colour stability which is a problem with many bulbs towards the blue end of the spectrum. The lifetime of this brand-new bulb generation, due to the innovative technology, will be over 3 years, prooved by several tests.

This bulb contributes to a healthy growth of your corals and produces stunning colours in your reef aquarium. An excellent choice for reef tanks with SPS and LPS corals.

Made in Germany​

• Color temperature: over 17.500 Kelvin
• Double ended
• 250 Watt - about 13.000 Lumen

​

It was that time of the year to replace my bulbs. I believe I was using Pheonix 14K bulbs before and I was somewhat satisfied with them. I thought, I'll try the Giesemann bulbs because I've always been happy with their T5 bulbs. If you took me off the street and asked me to identify the color temp of these, I would tell you without hesitation 7500K. That's with all of my actinic T5 bulbs on trying to offset the yellowness.


I'M VERY DISAPPOINTED GEISEMANN!!

 

[eartaker]

AWESOME tank and crazy closet. Just wondering if there are there any fish in the system? I didn't see any.

 

[halmus]

Thanks eartaker

This is a quick and dirty list (I'm horrible with scientific names):
The fish I like:
Two Yellow Clown Gobies (who I love but are systematically killing a large SPS colony by breeding in in non-stop. It doesn't bother me much because the coral has always been an ugly brown color when everything else looks good. Some day I'll have to move it out to make room for a good looking colony, and then they can find another home to systematically kill)
Royal Gramma
Green Clown Gobie
Two Bassets (blue/purple) very attractive. They eat more than anyone else in the tank even though they're smaller than most
Yellow Hog fish
Sunburst Antia I wish I had put more of these in to start with.

The delinquents:
Blue hepatus tang
Sailfin Tang (I have to get rid of a really nice wellso colony because they won't leave it alone)
Two unidentified Clownfish pure evil. They might be maroons.

I might be forgetting someone....Oh yah, a red cardinal fish that I see once every 6 months late at night if I sneak up on the tank with a flashlight.

 

[halmus]

let me get some frags

If you're interested in buying frags, PM me and we can talk. As a matter of principle, I only sell to people with tanks I'm fairly confident they will do well in. Nothing personal to anyone, but I wouldn't put a SPS colony in a tank with little lighting and filtration that's a month old. The corals are animals we're taking care of, and I have some sentimental attachment to them. I wouldn't let someone take a newborn puppy from my litter knowing they're going to raise it in a closet, the same principles go for corals.

 

[TJL]

WOW! Very impressive Reeftank and build, definately like the fact that you have learned from your many mistakes of the past and seriously hold yourself accountable for the well being of our captive livestock... DITTO for me. And I thought my old 75g was stuffed, great mix of corals. Welcome aboard RF and looking forward to your colntinued participation.


Cheers, Todd

 

[1guydude]

cmon i was gonna put those frags in a warm puddle... lol

Totally agree with u halmus! Since u dont like ur new bulbs, u should just get LEDs bro...

 

[halmus]

WOW! Very impressive Reeftank and build, definately like the fact that you have learned from your many mistakes of the past and seriously hold yourself accountable for the well being of our captive livestock... DITTO for me. And I thought my old 75g was stuffed, great mix of corals. Welcome aboard RF and looking forward to your colntinued participation.


Cheers, Todd

Thanks for the welcome and the compliments. My coral population hasn't changed much in the last year, but that's about to change this summer I hope. I'm going to be adding a few pieces (one nice birdsnest colony is arriving from east of the mountains this weekend). I'll also be finding a home for a few pieces. All my tank-funds have been dedicated to new equipment in the last year. Hopefully I'm almost done with that, but there always seems to be something I want to tweek. Anyway, I hope to spend a little money on corals soon.

 

[halmus]

cmon i was gonna put those frags in a warm puddle... lol

Totally agree with u halmus! Since u dont like ur new bulbs, u should just get LEDs bro...

I've done the math. It would cost about $2K in materials to do the LED setup I want to do. That's even as a DIY project. It would have at least 7-dimable channels (light spectrums) which would be controllable by the Apex. Now that the Apex is in place, I would still have to get one more additional module. If I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it right. I don't want to put that sort of a bill on the credit card. So, I'll save up. Corals or lights? We'll see what wins that contest.

 

[N1Husker]

Beautiful tank, your corals look like a forest. I hate spam too, tastes like a really bad ham.

 

[halmus]

Beautiful tank, your corals look like a forest. I hate spam too, tastes like a really bad ham.

Thanks. By the screen name I have to assume you're a 'Husker? I spent a summer working for John Deere as a field rep for a line of their equipment. I traveled all over Nebraska, but stayed in Lincoln and Omaha as often as possible. I loved the two towns! Is there much of a reefing community back there? I know you're local here now, but just wondering. I was young an into the local music scene back then, so all I cared about was buying vinyl records, seeing local bands, and checking out the second hand book stores. I've matured into a different breed of dork now. Thanks for checking it out.