Tank Journal Archive

[DavidS]

Love the acan :drool

Yeah, when I saw that I had to have it. It's practically doubled in size since I put it in the tank. I imagine this is one of those species that the more I feed it, the faster it grows? If so, I'm gonna make it fat. At $50, I want it to become huge :D
Admittedly though, the fluffy was the first coral I saw yesterday I really wanted.

 

[DavidS]

Funny how I thought the fluffy had doubled in size on Sunday. By the time I got home last night, it was huge. I had kept a fair gap between it and the acan, and when I came home, they were about a millimetre apart.

Wish my RapidLED kit would hurry up - really want to get it built, and get it over the tank and see if I can get my hammer looking happy again - at least until the big tank gets wet, and I'll be stealing it to light up a section of it.

 

[DavidS]

Received the RapidLED kit today. Started building at 5pm. Just finished - so about 4 hours. That's with a predrilled heat sink.
Both drivers wound back to about 720 mA. It's not tidied up, and not installed yet, but at least it's built, and at 100% they're blinding - haven't seen both one and blue on together as yet.

 

[MTG]

Where's the pics David ? What were the specs of the lights what did you get?

 

[DavidS]

Hey Matt - http://www.rapidled.com/servlet/the-54/24-Ultra-Premium-LED/Detail

Pics will happen after I do something that looks like an attempt at getting it over the tank. Past my bed time already :P
Hopefully I'll get it done tomorrow night. Debating not putting the lenses on it while it's over my nano - figured I might keep them until I put it over the big tank when it's built (along with another coupe of these kits).

That was a fun build, but damn that takes ages. The precut wires in those kits are too short to work on a 2 ft heatsink, but at least I didn't have to screw around with drilling holes and stuff.

 

[MagicJ]

If you do use the lenses, be careful putting them on - it looks like they need to be glued but DO NOT use superglue as it can fog up the lenses, permanently.

 

[MTG]

Will look great David !!! Will be super bright!!!

 

[DavidS]

If you do use the lenses, be careful putting them on - it looks like they need to be glued but DO NOT use superglue as it can fog up the lenses, permanently.

How about a hot melt glue gun? It would be a pain to do, but I haven't seen fogging with that stuff, and it's usually a little less permanent.

 

[DavidS]

Today is light up day with the new LED kit.

The build:
This is the "control centre" - basically didn't want to make anything that I can't easily and cleanly take apart, and I wanted to use stuff in I had laying around the house:

Basically a bit of scrap timber, a few joiners and some cable ties.

Some pics - these were taken at the start of a daylight cycle, so it's in sunrise mode, and is at the lowest brightness. Hopefully in half an hour or so I can go and pull its daytime brightness right down as I don't want cooked coral.

The light itself:
I opted for a 2 foot heatsink - mostly to spread the light more, and because I always figured that I may want to move this light to a bigger tank, and being the type that tries to do things with as much power efficiency as possible, I want light to spread so I don't need to use more of it than necessary. Note to anyone who tries the same kit with the same heatsink - the provided wires aren't long enough. I used some spare wire, and I colour coded it - more specifically - blue wire for blue light.


First light:
I apologise - I usually clean tanks of Saturday morning, and I haven't done it yet, so it's a bit of a mess. There's also a door with a glass panel in it behind me, and a window to the left of the shot, making it really hard to get a shot without reflections. Light had only been on for 10 minutes when I took the shot, so most things are still waking up. I normally don't light it up until 12, so it's a bit early for them.


Intentionally odd angled shot:
I shot this one pointing up, so you could see the timber blocks holding the light up for the time being. Those blocks are against the back wall of the cabinet, so they shouldn't go too far if knocked.


Zoanthid comparison (pics taken one week apart):
Old T5s:


LED:


Random:
Just a random shot - the poor hammer on the left is showing the most signs of life I've seen out of it in weeks. The fluffy next to him gets to about twice that size during the day. If that hammer starts livening up, then I may need to start moving things.

 

[DavidS]

Nitrite is up to .25 today - first time I've seen that happen since the tank cycled. Water change... tomorrow..

 

[MagicJ]

What do you think has caused the nitrite David? What is your nitrate?

 

[DavidS]

Nitrate is reading 0 at the moment - anything more and I'd have done a water change as soon as I saw it.

I can see a bit of fish waste floating around, so that's probably got something to do with it. I've been feeding a bit more of late, though they do seem to eat it (I tend to supervise so I can see how quickly food is devoured).
Could probably do with some more clean up crew. My snails look like they're trying to multiply, by such a small tank tends to interfere each time I do a water change.

 

[DavidS]

Nothing really to report for the nano. I've cut the photo period down to 8 hours, as the algae has been loving the increase of light and hours since the LED kit went in. I've increased the brightness to about 45% though.
The hammer is still hanging in - no matter how much I try to clean that damned hair algae off it, there's always more.

 

[DavidS]

Just for the sake of updating..
I haven't seen the tank since Tuesday, so no doubt by now it's a nightmare with algae covered glass from so much light hitting them. I don't care to put the lenses on the LEDs given that I plan on moving them into the big tank when that finally happens.
That said.. the nano is really just in maintenance mode until the big tank is ready, though I might try to fit a few more zoo frags in there until then. Definitely no more fish in this tank!

 

[MagicJ]

How is the hammer going now??

 

[DavidS]

Last I saw was just little improvements each day - will be interesting to see what it looks like when I get home. Hopefully I'll see more improvement!

 

[DavidS]

Just to quantify "little improvements each day" - initially I noticed more extension of the tentacles (please correct me here.. internet is painfully slow, so googling is not really a desirable option atm) from the centre. Then I started to notice that I was seeing them coming out more across the skeleton, and would find that they would also start to extend over the top of the skeleton during the light cycle.
It's temperamental though, as it does retract in the last hour or so of the light cycle (8 hours), and then they come back in line with the edges of the skeleton after dark I've noticed.
It's now at the highest point in the tank I can really leave it so it gets a lot of light exposure, and gets some flow (I don't exactly have any really powerful wavemakers in that tank). Has been there for a while, which was when I started to notice improvements.

When I got it, it was a brown/tan colour. Noticing more of a green tinge in it now, though this could just be a result of the change in lighting.

 

[DavidS]

I better hurry up and get the new tank ready. The nano now also has a spotted cardinalfish in it as well. Seriously overstocked now.

 

[DavidS]

Current FTS -

Only real changes are the location of the hammer and some small bits of live rock are gone - moved to the rock spa in attempt to get some life on to the base rock.
The cable ties in the corner are for the spotted cardinalfish's benefit, as I understand they like a spot similar to an urchins spines. Poor attempt, but it's somewhere for it, even though it seems to be happy to hang around by the leather.

Apologies for the tank being a mess - hasn't had a clean since Monday last week, and will be a couple more days before I clean it (waiting on some salt).

 

[DavidS]

Time for more photos.
Hammer is progressing, there's a morph to it's right that is looking like it's gonna split again. Waiting patiently to see if what look like baby hammers are going to fall out of it. Gonna be buggers to get to if they do fall. The float valve is putrid - really need to clean it out again.
The zoos on the far left are starting to look like they're growing.
Not seeing much of my clean up crew any more - snails mostly, but my crabs have all but vanished over the past couple of days. Suspect they're around the back. Also - I have a lot of bristle worms - and some seriously big ones for a smallish tank. Just wish they'd go over to the front right corner and clean that up.

The acan pic is average - that sand scratches the tank way too easy for me to get that close.