My 300g to 130g upgrade!
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
My refugium is actually a section of my sump. I finally got my refugium light finished and hung.
The water is a little cloudy from the Fiji mud. I am still experimenting with the right combination of red and white light. I may also need to put in a black acrylic piece to block the light from the rest of the sump. We'll see how much algae grows in places where I do not want it. I ordered a refugium start up kit from IPSF.com. It came very well packaged.
Everything was triple bagged and they must have used at 50 rubber bands closing up all of the bags.
Everything was labeled very clearly as well. The kit contained several different macros, worms, snails, hermits, plankton, and pods. I light the fuge for 9 hours on an opposite light cycle from the main display.
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
I also got the skin for my stand painted and mounted the doors.
I love the hinges that I got for these doors. They are very low profile and soft close. I still need to get the glass for the doors. My wife and I haven't gone to the local stained glass shop yet to pick out what we (she actually
) want for the doors. It will be a frosted glass to disguise, but not hide whats inside. I hope to do this in a week or so. The glass company will cut and mount the glass for me. They are very good at it. With the lighting I have under the stand I think it will look pretty cool.
I love the hinges that I got for these doors. They are very low profile and soft close. I still need to get the glass for the doors. My wife and I haven't gone to the local stained glass shop yet to pick out what we (she actually
) want for the doors. It will be a frosted glass to disguise, but not hide whats inside. I hope to do this in a week or so. The glass company will cut and mount the glass for me. They are very good at it. With the lighting I have under the stand I think it will look pretty cool.
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
My Diablo 5500 decided to stop working all of a sudden. And of course, it happens when I am out of town. The tank was fine for the day and a half before I got back and now it has a brand new Waveline DC 10000 pump running on it. It seems to be much better built so time will tell how good of a replacement it is.
I still haven't been able to get glass in the stand doors. That is a selection process that must be done with my wife's help. She has a better eye for this sort of thing than I do. Hopefully in another week or so we will finally get that part done.
I still haven't been able to get glass in the stand doors. That is a selection process that must be done with my wife's help. She has a better eye for this sort of thing than I do. Hopefully in another week or so we will finally get that part done.
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Looking good man!
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
Thanks Rev. If I wasn't still doing battle with nuisance algae I would post some more tank pics. It is really quite frustrating to be honest. I haven't wanted to buy any corals to put in the tank until I get the algae under control. Worst case scenario I will remove all of my rock and replace it. That is the only place I can think of that is causing this ongoing growth. I run a huge on a reverse light cycle and actually noticed a narrower swing in my ph after several weeks, thanks to long term graphing by Reeftronics. I am going to do a few more phosphate removing steps and if I don't see any improvement the rock will come out. That will truly suck though so I really hope to avoid it. And this saturday I am taking my wife to the glass store to get my stand doors finished (finally!). Pics will go up once I do that.
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
I am working on a deal to swap my MP40 for two RW8 powerheads that I will be connecting to a DCI module and running that from my Archon. I would prefer to get the flow in my tank better using the RW-8's instead of spending more on another MP40. We'll see how that goes.
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
I have purchased a RW-8 and a RW-15 for my tank and after a short trip to San Fran this week I will be doing work on Friday or Saturday to get them in the tank and programmed through my Archon controller. I am also going to get my LED fixtures hung and wired up. Hopefully that will go smoothly. I'll have to do a little construction for that. I'll get some photos posted up when I do that.
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
Wow I am embarrassed to say that it has been 4 months since I posted an update here on my tank. I have finally taken the upper hand on the algea issues in my tank. Thanks to advice from Marc Levenson I have mostly eradicated the bryopsis from my tank. I am now finally feeling comfortable enough to start adding corals. I do still need to sort out what to do about my lighting though. Since Reef Radiance apparently doesn't care about customers enough to act upon repair needs, I am going to scrap the idea of replacing my halides and DIY LEDs with two RR Prostar 165 light fixtures. I am thinking of going with three Kessil 360's. I love the way they look and have been very happy with what I have seen and heard about them.
On the topic of the algae issues, I discovered a couple things that may have had a lot to do with the crazy growth of bryopsis in the tank. First, I didn't have enough light on my refugium to adequately grow the macros that are in there. I increased the light intensity and duration and now have seen those macros growing very fast. Second, I have removed my bio-pellets. I dose Prodibio and while I know you can use bio-pellets with it, you need to watch what you are doing with it. When I removed my bio-pellet reactor, about half of the pellets had turned to mush on the bottom. That is what happens when you do not pay attention to what you are doing. My bad for that. I am taking things back down to the simple tasks to keep things happy. After I removed the bio pellet reactor, within 3 days the algae in the tank start coming off the rocks in very large clumps. I simply reached in the tank and manually harvested as much as I could and it was 80% better. A few days later I was able to harvest more and now it is almost all gone. No signs of it coming back anywhere either.
Now my next task will be to replace my skimmer. I have a CADLights TIA1220 skimmer and while I have been relatively happy with it, the pump keeps stalling on it. I have cleaned it several times, which is not very easy on that model, and the other day the impeller shaft I discovered was broken. I am thinking of replacing it altogether and have been looking at the Nyos and Vertex skimmers. Not sure which one I want yet. I also need to get my Archon controller back into service. I had it off the tank for some beta testing and haven't had time to get it back in control. I will also be removing my MP40 and replacing it with my RW8 and RW15 being controlled with the Archon and a DCI. I will try to get some pics posted up soon.
On the topic of the algae issues, I discovered a couple things that may have had a lot to do with the crazy growth of bryopsis in the tank. First, I didn't have enough light on my refugium to adequately grow the macros that are in there. I increased the light intensity and duration and now have seen those macros growing very fast. Second, I have removed my bio-pellets. I dose Prodibio and while I know you can use bio-pellets with it, you need to watch what you are doing with it. When I removed my bio-pellet reactor, about half of the pellets had turned to mush on the bottom. That is what happens when you do not pay attention to what you are doing. My bad for that. I am taking things back down to the simple tasks to keep things happy. After I removed the bio pellet reactor, within 3 days the algae in the tank start coming off the rocks in very large clumps. I simply reached in the tank and manually harvested as much as I could and it was 80% better. A few days later I was able to harvest more and now it is almost all gone. No signs of it coming back anywhere either.
Now my next task will be to replace my skimmer. I have a CADLights TIA1220 skimmer and while I have been relatively happy with it, the pump keeps stalling on it. I have cleaned it several times, which is not very easy on that model, and the other day the impeller shaft I discovered was broken. I am thinking of replacing it altogether and have been looking at the Nyos and Vertex skimmers. Not sure which one I want yet. I also need to get my Archon controller back into service. I had it off the tank for some beta testing and haven't had time to get it back in control. I will also be removing my MP40 and replacing it with my RW8 and RW15 being controlled with the Archon and a DCI. I will try to get some pics posted up soon.
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
Just a quick update...I made a little video to show some progress in my tank.
I will post some more pics as soon as I figure out how to get them posted now that my site is being hosted on a different server. I finally put the glass on the stand doors and got them mounted up. It looks good.
I will post some more pics as soon as I figure out how to get them posted now that my site is being hosted on a different server. I finally put the glass on the stand doors and got them mounted up. It looks good.
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
This tank is now becoming a dart frog vivarium. We had to move to a new house and I do not have the room for all of the support hardware that a reeftank would take in this new house. When we move again, be it months or years from now, I will rebuild a reef tank.
Now I needs to start a dart frog build thread!
Now I needs to start a dart frog build thread!
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DaveMorris
MACNA2016 Co-Chair
This is what my tank looks like today. It does actually have about 110 gallons of water in it. The overflow, which is centered on the rear exterior of the tank, is now flowing in reverse and is the feed for the water fall in the center. The valley on the left side has water in it for the frogs to deposit eggs in. There are a lot of similarities between keeping dart frogs and keeping fish. Frogs are definitely easier, but I love watching them, as I did my reef tank.
