My custom 180
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
Did a bunch of fragging today 
figured what's the fun in having a new frag tank if you're not gonna grow tons of new frags out in it! @SB Reef Lights see that big chunk of blue staghorn laying there? That ones for you buddy! That piece is a pretty bright blue under my LEDs in my display.. A piece turned green under the Metal Halides I had set up. I'm gonna see how it grows under your lights now! 
figured what's the fun in having a new frag tank if you're not gonna grow tons of new frags out in it! @SB Reef Lights see that big chunk of blue staghorn laying there? That ones for you buddy! That piece is a pretty bright blue under my LEDs in my display.. A piece turned green under the Metal Halides I had set up. I'm gonna see how it grows under your lights now!
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
Closer up of the "frag" of that blue staghorn. (That's not a 1"tile btw, but a 5x5 I think) but I'm going to try and get it to sprout up so I can have a colony in my frag tank now. I took a nice size branch in hopes I won't have to touch it again for years.. I can just frag off of this one now.
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
Went to install the all new bubbleblaster 5k and a vital piece was missing from the box! 
Coralvue is rushing one to me and I should have it Monday.. Normally I'd be terrified going this long without a skimmer.. But the ATS will definitely help keep up. So a few more days shouldn't hurt.
Coralvue is rushing one to me and I should have it Monday.. Normally I'd be terrified going this long without a skimmer.. But the ATS will definitely help keep up. So a few more days shouldn't hurt.
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
I was talking to a friend today and he was bragging about this new LED par38 bulb he picked up at Home Depot yesterday. I told him about this bulb called evils par38 from nanotuners that I paid I think around $150 for back when LEDs first started hitting the scene.
That then made me dig through my old pictures to see if I had any photos of it because it was so sweet at the time. I even built a custom stand for it and all.. I did come across some pics.. It was in the photos we took for the insurance company after the fire destroyed our home
And here's the 90 gallon/biocube/frag system
And here was just a little bit before these pictures were taken..
Kinda has me down a little tonight looking through all of them.
That then made me dig through my old pictures to see if I had any photos of it because it was so sweet at the time. I even built a custom stand for it and all.. I did come across some pics.. It was in the photos we took for the insurance company after the fire destroyed our home
And here's the 90 gallon/biocube/frag system
And here was just a little bit before these pictures were taken..
Kinda has me down a little tonight looking through all of them.
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
Yeah it was the worst day of my life.. It put a lot of things in perspective.. It took everything I had except the things that were the most important. My dogs and my family. God was watching me that day. I was asleep in the back room as I work third shift. My son just happened to be home that day because of some teachers institute day at school. He heard a popping noise and woke me up. And even at that it happened really fast. When they tell you you minutes or even seconds matter.. They aren't kidding. I opened the door to the garage and it flashed in my face.. Something that gave me PTSD and effects me all the time. (I constantly have a flash of fire when I'm laying down almost asleep). After I closed the door by the time I got all 4 dogs rushed out the front door the smoke was so thick you couldn't see anything. Then for the next hour all I could do was stand across the street and watch my life fall apart while the normally slow road to my home was bumper to bumper of onlooker to get a peep into my tragedy... But we bounced back. People always say @with insurance you made out pretty good." They don't understand how it works. We lost 90% of our personal property money to get the house up to what we wanted.. And we were strong but to be honest I don't think I personally would be strong enough to endure it again. It took everything from me.. But I strongly believe that God will never give you more than you can handle.. He pushed it close on this one. But he made me realize that all the stuff I held on tight to since I was a child, was just stuff... Mostly junk actually. But a lot of memories went up in smoke that day...
As for the fish and corals.. Surprisingly most of it survived. The tanks were at the furtherst place from the actual fire. I dumped everything into dirty garbage cans I grabbed from the neighbors house.. Tank water and all as soon as the fire department would let me in.. We hauled it in a pick up to one of my LFS. Luckily one of his fish systems was empty so we put everything in there to get them in clean water. With it being at least 7-8 months to rebuild I couldn't ask for him to hold on.. So he made thousands in sure. He said he'd hook me up but I never could get the deals.... But the goal was saving the animals lives.. So at least I was able to do that.
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
I was trying to get a fully zoomed pic of the latest clutch of clown eggs. But it can be hard to find them when zoomed all the way in. So I went up a little bit to get a reference point and momma was on my screen as is posing for a photo. So I snapped the picture. Maybe it was just a lucky shot.. Maybe you real photographers think it stinks.. But I like the way it turned out. It's a tad blurry because of the digital zoom..
Josh King
Active Member
I found your tank when you posted about Led vs halide. I have been reading through. 1st- amazing set up, love your fuge and frag room with the diy algae turf scrubber. 2nd- sorry to hear about the fire but glad you all made it out alive. And lastly, it's nice to see what a healty reef can look like under all led. How are your diy "portholes" for pics working out?
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
Yeah that thread got a bit crazy.. :mad:That topic always does I guess. I'm a big fan of whatever works for you.. But it drives me crazy when someone doesn't have success comes on a national platform and screams that they'll fail if.. When obviously many have had great success.. But anyway, the homade iPhone "porthole" I guess you're calling them that because of Avast marines similar design? I actually stole the idea from @melev http://melevsreef.com/catalog/smart-phone-floater
(but if you steal his ideas I try to get people to send him some cash, as this is his job and he helps us all so much! ) but I'm also friends with the owner of Avast Marine, Dan's wife, Marylisa over on Facebook as she's helped me on my local club with sponsorship stuff.. So both very good companies and I'm sure either would get the job done..Now the simple answer instead (not sure why I even typed all of that??
But I haven't used it a ton for pics but have for just looking.. But here's a couple I did snap.
Josh King
Active Member
Nice! Looks like it's working well. I didn't know what else to call it. LolYeah that thread got a bit crazy.. :mad:That topic always does I guess. I'm a big fan of whatever works for you.. But it drives me crazy when someone doesn't have success comes on a national platform and screams that they'll fail if.. When obviously many have had great success.. But anyway, the homade iPhone "porthole" I guess you're calling them that because of Avast marines similar design? I actually stole the idea from @melev http://melevsreef.com/catalog/smart-phone-floater
Now the simple answer instead (not sure why I even typed all of that??
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
I think whenever we build a system most of us are inspired by a tank we seen elsewhere. The tank that inspired mine was a guy that lives a town away from me. I met him when he had posted his protein skimmer online years ago. He really doesn't go online or show off his tank much.. But it's always taken my breath away.. I even got his cabinet guy to come to my house to quote me on the stand and canopy.. It was way out of my budget so I just did it myself.. But here's the inspiration tank!
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
My betta came out today for a photo op he's from the batch that sustainable aquatics released back in 2013ish.. And I haven't seen them listed since.. So one of the few actual captive bred bettas in existence? I'm not 100% but when I got him he was about the size of my thumbnail.. Now he's one of the biggest fish in the tank!
he's from the batch that sustainable aquatics released back in 2013ish.. And I haven't seen them listed since.. So one of the few actual captive bred bettas in existence? I'm not 100% but when I got him he was about the size of my thumbnail.. Now he's one of the biggest fish in the tank!
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timkenagy
~Unashamed 116~
Package arrived that's supposed to fix all the problems with my Gyre today..
This is why I absolutely love Coralvue.. A guy sells me this gyre pump and it stinks!! Like literally doesn't do anything near what I see others online saying they'll do.. I literally unplugged the thing and basically wrote it off as I'm a sucker, guy got me for $200. Now a few posts back I was talking about getting a new Bubbleblaster pump? Well Coralvue just happens to be the same company for BB as Maxspect.. So I had such a great customer support with Carlos over there and I still had his email address.. I figured I'd let him know how I felt about these stupid pumps.. He got back with me that something wasn't right and it took a few days of back and forth but eventually figured out that the guy that had this before me stripped all bushings out.. He never asked me for a penny!! Just shipped me out the new "rugged" version.. Upon receiving them you can tell they are a huge improvement over the old ones and once I put it back together this little pump was rocking! Here's some side by side comparison of the old style vs new rugged version..
This is why I absolutely love Coralvue.. A guy sells me this gyre pump and it stinks!! Like literally doesn't do anything near what I see others online saying they'll do.. I literally unplugged the thing and basically wrote it off as I'm a sucker, guy got me for $200. Now a few posts back I was talking about getting a new Bubbleblaster pump? Well Coralvue just happens to be the same company for BB as Maxspect.. So I had such a great customer support with Carlos over there and I still had his email address.. I figured I'd let him know how I felt about these stupid pumps.. He got back with me that something wasn't right and it took a few days of back and forth but eventually figured out that the guy that had this before me stripped all bushings out.. He never asked me for a penny!! Just shipped me out the new "rugged" version.. Upon receiving them you can tell they are a huge improvement over the old ones and once I put it back together this little pump was rocking! Here's some side by side comparison of the old style vs new rugged version..
Jimbo662
2500 Club Member
I upgraded my gyre blades about two weeks ago. I was amazed at the difference. I initially had it running at 58%. After the upgrade I had to turn it down to 30%. I have two trachs on the sand below the gyre and it was sucking up so much water it was moving them around.
