65gal launched

nobleben

nobleben

New Member
Yeah. I think im good with my light and setup having the longer shallow 55 gal - unless I wanted a clam I think.
He can get whatever you need sent in he says- basically you wont need to pay for shipping if its riding along with his shipment. So I am sure he can get you a bigger clam if you wanted.
 
nobleben

nobleben

New Member
That picture dosn't do it justice! It exploded! Man im looking at these threads with crazy custom builds.. my head is exploding..
 
drewsbrews

drewsbrews

Member
The light came in today. I got it on the tank and a couple layers of aluminum door screen under it. It worked but makes it a pain to access the tank. Then earlier in the evening I started searching around the net for hang arm kits. $90 for a couple metal tubes and some steel thread wire hmmm. sounds fishy to me when the ceiling kits are a fraction of the price and the only real difference I can see is a couple flimsey arms are thrown in. To the local hardware store I went. $16 later I had all the parts I needed to put together a proof of concept. I'm impressed by the 3/4" conduit. It's sturdier than I thought it would be.
I can't paint it yet since it's so cold, but I also plan to mess with the mounting so the bars are parallel through the whole length... and maybe modify a cable mounting kit to fit. Also the height seems a bit much, maybe I'll hack off another 6-10"
 
monsinour

monsinour

Active Member
yea that light seems a bit high off the top of the tank. and having the light pass through the glass covers doesnt help much either.
My tank has glass covers but my light is like 4 inches from the top.
 
drewsbrews

drewsbrews

Member
The chains can be lowered, I have it that high to aclimate the tank to the brighter light. Just aesthetically the arms look too tall, and I don't think I'd ever need to put the light up to the max height since it's not that high now. I'm probably going to pick up the ceiling hanging kit and attach it to the arms. That ought to look a little more snazzy
I havn't realy used the glass lids much, but the light specifies to use one and I don't want to void the warranty... yet.
 
drewsbrews

drewsbrews

Member
The bulbs came in today. Here's what I picked up:
2x Super Actinic (uv)
1x Aquasun (uv)
2x Aquablue Special (ati)
1x Blue plus (ati)
Not sure my eyes notice too much color difference compared to the stock 3x 10000K and 3x 460nm but I hope it will cause less hair algae. The best I can say is there is better color contrast.
The ceiling hanging kit came too. I only had to add a couple conduit brackets and a few nuts to attach it to the arms. This weekend will be in the 50s.. maybe I'll be able to get the arms painted.
The Chaeto has officially taken over the refugium. Time to prune I suppose.
I see bubbles In the sand bed on the glass. I need some more sand dwellers. One lfs has a ton of bristle worms in their tanks. I inquired about purchasing some. The guy tells me "If I can catch em I can have em"... I may take him up on that eheh.
 
nobleben

nobleben

New Member
Thats cool about the bulbs. Did you read somewhere that that combination would grow less hair algae?
Don't throw away that chaeto ill take it!
I would not get the worms if I were you. They do hang out just under rocks but from what I have been seeing lately they have been in the rocks themselves and not really burrowing in sand. Why don't you just get 1 sand sifting star?
Im not sure what will go down that deep but I thought that is kind of the point of the DSB.
BTW: Like half my fish died and my tank is fubar. I have done water changes like every few days and still have major nitrates- besides the ich.
 
drewsbrews

drewsbrews

Member
Since algae tends to be a near surface dweller, it can better use lower kelvin light . The Aquablue Specials are 12-14K color temp which replaced 2 10Ks. Also the "cheaper" bulb makers I'm sure are more exagerative about their spectrum.
I won't toss the Chaeto. I'll likely hack back quite a bit so I have room for another few weeks of growth. I should have a big hunk of it for ya this weekend.
I'm shying away from so named "sand sifters" for the moment. They eat the microfauna that make the sand "live". I need what I would call "sand dwellers"
If the top layer of sand cakes and fills with waste it will eventually crash the tank by holding toxins until released. It needs critters that will eat excess waste and stirr up the top layer to release toxins at a more managable rate. A remote DSB such as one in a refugium may not get so much solid waste on it; as well as the added benefit of being able to disconnect it from the display tank should there be an issue.
Sorry to hear of your tank troubles. There must be something rotting in there... maybe something is dead behind or under a rock where you can't see it? or maybe the sump and filtration need a good cleaning? I hear conflicting info about nitrates as to how tollerant fish and corals are, so I don't know how much realy would be bad for who.
 
drewsbrews

drewsbrews

Member
I pulled the skimmer last night to clean it out. There was a huge pile of crap under the stand I build from eggcrate that blew around since it was no longer protected. With that and the fact that it hasn't been skimming much recently I decided to leave it out for a while to see how things would do. This morning there seemed to be more pods on the sump glass.. maybe they are coming out to eat the chunks that the chaeto is filtering out of the water column.
I have access to a free 15gal with hood and metal stand. Had a few thoughts, one would be for a mangrove tank... but if the chaeto is filtering out too much the mangroves might not take off.
 
drewsbrews

drewsbrews

Member
Just finished a fan mod on my fixture. Doubled the fans by putting two on the air inlet side to be sure the new fans wouldn't struggle and cause more noise. total of 4 quiet Nidec 12v 80mm fans now; powered by a small laptop style power brick burried inside the fixture. The original fans were 120v. I can't say it's lost any air flow.. but I have lost alot of noise! about all I can hear is the dull rumble of the fan bearings.
 
drewsbrews

drewsbrews

Member
I'll be out with it. I've got fish, have had em a while.. ocellaris clown, Sixline Wrass, Firefin Goby, Neon Goby, Royal Gramma, Starry Blenny
My cuc is composed of red tip hermits, scarlet hermits, blueleg hermits, cerith snails, astrea snails, nassarius snails, a very large babylonia (fancy nassarius), a 1 3/4" conch, an emerald crab, and a pepermint shrimp. I also scored a ton of bristle worms from that LFS I was speaking of. I hadn't seen em for a couple weeks, until I spotted one tonight.
I've got a rock anemone that was bleached out when I got him. (didn't know white isn't a color they should have) But I fed him daily either raw shrimp or silverside chunks and nursed him back to health. He now has many colors in the tank lighting; dark purple, rusty brown, bluegreen. Since he is much more responsive now I have stopped handfeeding and let him fend for himself when the frozen mysis go in.
NobleBen gave me a chunk of what I guess is purple acropora when he stopped by. It's done well and seems to be trying to branch out. I picked up a piece of what I guess is green capricornus.
Nitrates have not shown up on my test kit since the first couple weeks. Bubbles continue to form in the sand. My chaeto is in need of another big pruning, it's completely taken over the fuge chamber in the sump again. I'm starting to see some diversity of small shrimps and copopods hanging around in the sump too.
I'm daily dosing calcium, and feeding phytoplankton. The astrea snails have shown explosive growth from the calcium. I've also seen alot of Coralline growth on my powerheads and starting to see spots on the backglass.
I removed the SCWD and one of the powerheads. I imagine 1200-1300GPH is fine for my tank
 
nobleben

nobleben

New Member
Great post! Sounds like things are working out flawlessly.
The tiny chunk i gave you would have been lost quickly in my tank with the "moving crew" I have.
You did have quite a lot of flow, but it seemed like it was a good idea to not let the 'bad stuff' settle. I know in my 55 gal there was many dead spots covered in detritus.
Send the chaeto on over! :)
 
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