Resistance Is Futile - 90g "Borg" Cube

Vivid Creative Aquatics · Aug 8, 2018

@Bmasculine, What's your plan for flow in the tank? is it just the MP on the side?
Your tank setup and the inhabitant you plan on keeping is the perfect case for a pair RFG nozzles, and the best part, @Bulk Reef Supply has them in stock ;-)

Aaron-A2 · Aug 8, 2018

I've seen them before! I think it's a great idea and I may check them out for all my tanks.

najer · Aug 8, 2018

Byronyk said:
I plan on adding a starry blenny

You will fall in love with it and it will beg outrageously for food even though it grazes all day, watch how it's "landing pad / perch" tummy grows!

Ryanbrs · Aug 8, 2018

Byronyk said:
I do not! If you want to DM me some information, hit me up

Thanks for the details! As for the BTA's, I've got a contact with some CC lineage BTA's (CSB, Inferno, Lemon, etc) so that's probably the direction I'm going. As for RFA/MM, the only place I was looking at was local and AquaSD. AquaSD has SO FAR been true to in terms of picture vs. actual product, but I'm still waiting on daylight pictures of their pink ultra rock flower..

Well, Fang and Sir chomps a lot from the 160 have quite a few babies that may need a new home. They are standard black and whites. I would be glad to donate some to your tank if you like.

If you are interested shoot me a PM and let me know how many you want. Ill have chad figure the rest out, there is no hurry

Here they are https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl-lRfFlcOM/?taken-by=ryanbrs

Aaron-A2 · Aug 8, 2018

Ryanbrs said:
Well, Fang and Sir chomps a lot from the 160 have quite a few babies that may need a new home. They are standard black and whites. I would be glad to donate some to your tank if you like.

If you are interested shoot me a PM and let me know how many you want. Ill have chad figure the rest out, there is no hurry Here they are https://www.instagram.com/p/Bl-lRfFlcOM/?taken-by=ryanbrs

Wait what. Oh my, I didn't realize you were Ryan, LOL! I was like "Fangs and Sir Chomps a lot.... That sounds familiar......"

For sure! I would love to increase the brood size of your clowns. I'll hit you up

Kenny4128 · Aug 10, 2018

very clean, now for the fun stuff...just remember we keep water not coral or fish and you will be golden.

Aaron-A2 · Aug 13, 2018

New Build Series Video!

This week I put a video together covering the aquascape! I had a lot of fun building it with many of you during a live stream.

Rock Used: BRS Reef Saver
Cement: NYOS

najer · Aug 13, 2018

like, what the heck par is the top of the column going to get?

Aaron-A2 · Aug 13, 2018

najer said:
like, what the heck par is the top of the column going to get?

Not sure yet haha. The lights are 13" above the surface, LED's running at 40%. At the LFS where I got the RFA, they were probably 20" from the same LED's at 100% power.

Regardless, I'll be borrowing a PAR meter from my local club here shortly.

Aaron-A2 · Aug 14, 2018

As some of you know, I've had issues with excess sound in my external overflow box (Ehsopps Eclipse). This issue is caused by the build design with the dry side sitting too LOW not allowing you to adjust your drains to the point where the water level is even between the tank and the dry side.

That being said, I have a couple solutions. My first step will be to take the wet side box and drill the teeth down .5-1" so that the water level becomes more inline with the dry side. This theoretically should reduce the sound.

If that doesn't work, I can work with a company who's willing to do a custom overflow box that fits my exact dimensions (already hard plumbed) so I can cut and swap. Hopefully I don't have to go to that length...

Thread On Noise Reduction - Eshopps Eclipse Overflow

najer · Aug 17, 2018

Hope the fix works for you.

Aaron-A2 · Aug 21, 2018

Update!

Using the PAR meter graciously provided by the MARSH reef club, I was able to get a fix on what I've got going on in the tank.

As a reminder, I'm using the Aquatic Life T5/LED hybrid (Radion G4's).

NY_Caveman · Aug 22, 2018

Byronyk said:
Update!

Using the PAR meter graciously provided by the MARSH reef club, I was able to get a fix on what I've got going on in the tank.

As a reminder, I'm using the Aquatic Life T5/LED hybrid (Radion G4's).

Nice! You were surprised by the PAR levels on the tall left structure. Love the authenticity in the video. Makes me wonder how high off the top your lights are? Sorry if I missed it.

Aaron-A2 · Aug 23, 2018

NY_Caveman said:
Nice! You were surprised by the PAR levels on the tall left structure. Love the authenticity in the video. Makes me wonder how high off the top your lights are? Sorry if I missed it.

Thanks man. Are you asking how high the lights are off the water? If so it's 13".

Amoo · Aug 24, 2018

just some food for thought A-Aron my Mag sits at around 400-450 Par. The BTA I have in our smaller tank is kept at around 225 Par. Generally 175-250 is a good range for BTAs, especially starting out.

Aaron-A2 · Aug 24, 2018

Amoo said:
just some food for thought A-Aron my Mag sits at around 400-450 Par. The BTA I have in our smaller tank is kept at around 225 Par. Generally 175-250 is a good range for BTAs, especially starting out.

200-250 is my target range. The guy I'm getting them from keeps his around that range.

Amoo · Aug 24, 2018

Unless he is running something with a lot of Violet/UV in it, it would be wise to stay a little below his numbers. Don't forget most of those actually fall outside what the photoeye on the PAR meters can read properly. So if you're going Radion G4 to Radion G4, you're fine but even if he's running LEDS, the makeup of his LED could be much different.

As an example I'm still running the original AI 26s, not the HDs and my supplement bulbs are 2C+ and 2 Actinic so my actual PAR is higher then what I read on my meter, hence I gave you the 400-450 number.

Aaron-A2 · Aug 29, 2018

Amoo said:
As an example I'm still running the original AI 26s, not the HDs and my supplement bulbs are 2C+ and 2 Actinic so my actual PAR is higher then what I read on my meter, hence I gave you the 400-450 number.

I wanted to pick your brain a little more about this. Are you saying that if I'm using a PAR meter against a LED/T5 combo, the actual PAR is higher than the metered reading? If so, is there a band/threshold I could follow to make sure I'm not burning my nems?

Amoo · Aug 29, 2018

Ok so unless you had a silver colored sensor you were probably using Apogee's "original" sensor. The Y axis shows the % of light it measures in that spectrum with 1 being 100%. The X Axis shows the spectrum itself. So as you can see by the chart, once you start going below the 450nm wave length and start getting into your Purples and UVs, which the Radion G4 has, or like my Supplemental Actinics have, the par meter is just not capable of picking those spectrums up.

So I'm just making up numbers here but say your Radion had 10% of it's light in the 400nm range, the PAR meter would only see 20% of the actual PAR. If you really want to you can figure out based on the specs of your individual system what % you probably need to add based on how your lights are set. You can obviously simplify this and just add a certain static % and it will probably get you pretty close, but since you asked, there's ALL the info you would need to figure it out.