Tank Journal Archive
Well I am running 2 skimmers - so I guess a little from each is normal, I mean I have one fish and live rock!
I just see pics of all this gunk people are pulling out and get jealous
You have me very intrigued about that that airline mod though, I remember reading about that once but thought it was to do with accessing the adjustment dial. Time to GoOgLe....
I just see pics of all this gunk people are pulling out and get jealous
You have me very intrigued about that that airline mod though, I remember reading about that once but thought it was to do with accessing the adjustment dial. Time to GoOgLe....
Now that I can see everyones pics (damn my isp!) I like how your tanks looking! I love how the puss is fine tuning the engine to work better :)
The haunted tank is a new one to me, I watch way too many paranormal shows and it if it was one of my pics I'd be freaking out about now...........especially since my tv is disconnected from the power :D
The haunted tank is a new one to me, I watch way too many paranormal shows and it if it was one of my pics I'd be freaking out about now...........especially since my tv is disconnected from the power :D
Thanks!
Had a bit of a disaster last night.... We had a power out and I knew the skimmers were going to overflow when the power came back on, so the easy option was to wait for it to come back on. I waited and waited and ... fell asleep
I awoke to the noise of cascading water and freaked out, jumped up and looked in the cabinet only to see the Tunze 9002 going hell for leather overflowing back into the tank. Taking half a cup of waste with it :mad:So drastic measures are required. Both Skimmers need to be relocated to a spot where they can't have a chance to overflow. I'm thinking one in the back of the tank and the other in the first chamber of the sump. The second wall of the sump can then be removed making one large return chamber which will hold the balance from the main tank when the power goes out without raising the water high enough to ovewrflow the skimmers.
The other option is to invest in bigger single skimmer like Joshwaaaa suggested
Ok so it's been a long sleepless week of not much other than work and changing diapers. The tank is jut humming along with nothing much happening either. But on the bright side it is my birthday this week so LED's here we come!:D
I have spent way too much time investigating my options, the simpliest being to remove the lid of the tank as others on NanoReef have done but the my wife does like the look of the enclosed lid so thats out of the question. Its also the dearest option by a long shot. I'm going into this with a budget of $500 but I am spending $150 on a eBook reader so its more like $350. At a stretch I could spend more but I was really hoping to save my pennies for the next tank ;)
So its DIY or bust.
I could probably source the parts and build a unit myself for ~$300 after looking around but I always hate the incomplete look of my DIY projects. Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but I do plan on selling this setup one day and I would like it to look professional. The last real option I have looked at is retrofit kits from the States. I emailed Steve from Steve's LED's after reading some positive reviews on both the quality and professionalism of his kits online and was really surprised at how fast he got back to me. Not only that, but he actually seems to know his stuff and is more than just a salesmen.
The kit I am looking at is the RSM130D retrofit. It comes stock with 18 Royal Blues and 10 Neutral white Luxeon LED's on two seperate dimmer controls, a variable speed controlled high air flow fan, a custom built heatsink, all wiring precut and sized, thermal paste and mounting screws for both the heatsink and LED's. Build time is supposed to be about 1hr if you know what you are doing and then tiem to let it dry. Best bit is it looks neat, fits into the hood like a glove with no modifiations required unlike some others, and he is giving me a second power supply to run the MP10 that I cooked! The downside is of course freight and shipping. At $80 to get it here its nearly 1/4 of the over price!
Either way, I have a week left to decide on what to do and I am leaning towards the retrofit just for simplicity and price. Although part of me is hoping the birthday fairy is listening and drops off a Radion or two with a new MP10 :cool:
I have spent way too much time investigating my options, the simpliest being to remove the lid of the tank as others on NanoReef have done but the my wife does like the look of the enclosed lid so thats out of the question. Its also the dearest option by a long shot. I'm going into this with a budget of $500 but I am spending $150 on a eBook reader so its more like $350. At a stretch I could spend more but I was really hoping to save my pennies for the next tank ;)
So its DIY or bust.
I could probably source the parts and build a unit myself for ~$300 after looking around but I always hate the incomplete look of my DIY projects. Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but I do plan on selling this setup one day and I would like it to look professional. The last real option I have looked at is retrofit kits from the States. I emailed Steve from Steve's LED's after reading some positive reviews on both the quality and professionalism of his kits online and was really surprised at how fast he got back to me. Not only that, but he actually seems to know his stuff and is more than just a salesmen.
The kit I am looking at is the RSM130D retrofit. It comes stock with 18 Royal Blues and 10 Neutral white Luxeon LED's on two seperate dimmer controls, a variable speed controlled high air flow fan, a custom built heatsink, all wiring precut and sized, thermal paste and mounting screws for both the heatsink and LED's. Build time is supposed to be about 1hr if you know what you are doing and then tiem to let it dry. Best bit is it looks neat, fits into the hood like a glove with no modifiations required unlike some others, and he is giving me a second power supply to run the MP10 that I cooked! The downside is of course freight and shipping. At $80 to get it here its nearly 1/4 of the over price!
Either way, I have a week left to decide on what to do and I am leaning towards the retrofit just for simplicity and price. Although part of me is hoping the birthday fairy is listening and drops off a Radion or two with a new MP10 :cool:
It is something I spoke to him about as I was also unsure about the ratio of white/blue. I also read the great post on NanoReef about custom LED lights and it seems that as time has passed more and more people are starting to use a variety of colours for optimum growth. That said, I have yet to see any real long term studies showing what other colours make a huge difference when setting up a LED setup. The LED setup I have mentioned above is a mix of 5k and 20k which I thought should help as these are ranges that a well docuemented in MH and T5, and I hoped that individual dimming would give me the oportunity to change it to my taste but you make a valid point.
Overall it really is too hard to get a definative answer as the marine aquarium hobby is more a collection of peoples opinions than experiences. I mean that in the nicest way but it is the truth - ask 10 people and get 10 answers. You should have seen the answers I got when I asked if I should use ZEOvit! Its also one thing I hate about DIY, as I really like to see something working and decide on that rather than crossing my fingers nad hoping for the best.
Now to throw a real spanner in the works - I have been given a ripper deal on a new Garmin GPS watch... but I can't afford both the watch and my lights....
So I have 3 days to decide - either upgrade my lights and go SPS crazy (if I can ever decide on what lights) or spend it on a new watch for my second hobby and the rest on soft corals. :confused::confused::confused:
Yeah I thought the repairs to the 9002 might not work with the different pump. If I could be confident with it I would sell the blue500 and use the money on some coral or fish but I think you guys are right that I won't see any real skim mate until the bioload increases.
As per the light upgrade - well I'm still undecided. With ZEOvit and really good water quality I was thinking I may be able to get away with the stock lights until say tax time and work on stocking the tank with fish and the other coral types I was after in the lower reaches of the tank. Then either get he lights down the track or just stick with some easier to keep SPS on the higher tier of the rock work, which I had planned to do anyway. It seems a lot of people have had success in RSMs with SPS if the water is decent.
What do you think?
stocklighting is good if you swap out the lights for some T5HO globes i believe.... @Scottrotton did this i think
Yeah the more I consider it the more convinced I am to wait on the upgrade. Get the water under control, stock the fish how I want and let that settle then start adding coral. Then if the nutrients are still low enough, look at upgrading the lighting if required. The T5HO option sounds interesting I will have to shoot him a PM.
Cheers fellas
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