Custom Build Started Sept. 13, 2009 - Present

Cottonwood said:

Nice! Much better of a drive than the long 3hrs!

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Definitely! I'm still going to take a trip up there nexy weekend as they are suppose to be getting more corals in over the week. I'll take your number with me incase I see anything you might like.

I had that crab before in my biocube I'll describe him as best as I could.he is brown big flat pinchers, body also flat, 2 lil net hands that extend from infront of him and always holds them out. I never knew the name of the crab but he never attacked anything. It only catches stuff with his net hands. I hope i make sense... But I doubt it's a porcelain crab

fishsticks said:

I had that crab before in my biocube I'll describe him as best as I could.he is brown big flat pinchers, body also flat, 2 lil net hands that extend from infront of him and always holds them out. I never knew the name of the crab but he never attacked anything. It only catches stuff with his net hands. I hope i make sense... But I doubt it's a porcelain crab

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That describes him to a 'T' Whatever he is, he now has an emerald for company! :)

I picked up my order today from Coral Crazy. Well, I met the owners on their way to Toronto to pick up and order. It's really too bad that they don't ship to the States because their customer service is the best from any company I have dealt with. I bought a pink ricordea, orange ricordea, blue paly's, eagle eye zoa's, red zoa's and a green stripped mushroom. They weren't sure if the frag I picked for the eagle eyes were going to make it or not so they pick 2 more frags in just in case. The pick ric is about ready to split so I more or less got 2 of them for the price on 1. In total for 4 zoa frags, a paly frag, pink ric, orange ric and the shroom my total was $90. Delivery to 20 minutes from my house include along with a coffee for Kim & I. On the way home I stopped by Lyle's shop as he finally got my emerald crab in. Here's the pics of everything 20 minutes after I glued them in place.

Here's a new video of everything. It is quite big and I don't now how to make it smaller. Anyone with any insite on how to do it would be great.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_f4o5CGnbA]YouTube - New Additions.mpg[/ame]

Here's smaller version of the video.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Za70361pkcg]YouTube - New corals[/ame]

Nice additions! Love the ricordea.

Bifferwine said:

Nice additions! Love the ricordea.

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Thanks Biff! I needed some colour and now I have some. I'm thinking on a really nice frog spawn frag too. The thing is maybe 2.5" x 1.5" for $30 and a nice bright green. My orange ric came unglued overnight, and my pink urchin now has it on it's back. LOL! Going to get some more glue.

Here's a picture of the frogspawn I want. Is it worth $30?

Looks like it to me. It usually goes for about $10 a head. That looks to be at least 3 heads.

Agreed. I'd pay $30 for that!

Bifferwine said:

Looks like it to me. It usually goes for about $10 a head. That looks to be at least 3 heads.

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ErinCahir said:

Agreed. I'd pay $30 for that!

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Then I guess I'll pick it up Friday. Cause $30 USD = $29.8188 CND So it must be a deal. LOL! Plus it'll give my clown something to bug come the 24th of Feb. when the fish get to have tons of room to swim in compared to what they have now. Thanks to you both for your input.

I was looking at my refugium/sump last night thinking on a way to get the water to actually flow thru the refugium part as the way the water looks now is like it is flowing is only over the top. Here's a drawing of my current design.


Area 1 is the refugium part (7"). 2 is the return area (8"), and 3 is the skimmer area (7 1/4"). The baffles are starting from the left of the refugium (1) 2", 2 1/4", 2 1/4", 2 1/2", and 2 1/4". It's a 35 gallon tank which is 36" long, 18 1/2" high by 12 1/2" wide. I was thinking on building a new one that would be 40 1/2" long, 18 1/2" high by 15 1/2" wide making it 50 gallons and laid out as below if it would create more flow thru the refugium area. I have the space in the stand for it, and have been told bigger is better.


The numbered areas would stay the same, but the widths of each area would be 1=10", 2=8", and 3=10 1/2". Baffles would all be 2 1/2" apart and from the bottom and the top of the tank.

My question is which layout would be better for flow thru the refugium. If both layout were either the size I have now. Just moving the baffles/dividers around to make the new layout, (keeping the areas the same size) or go with the bigger tank and keeping the layout the way it is or changing it around to the second picture. I know what I want to ask, but I'm not sure how to ask it so hopefully this is clear enough.

~~ Barry :D

So the Frogspawn I wanted ended up getting sold before I could make it there to buy it. I ended up getting some more inverts for my tank. I have a IOWLRAC (Inverts Only With Live Rock And Corals) tank. LOL!

I took some pics of my qt/hospital tank because I wanted to take some pictures of my fish. 19 days til fish can go in. :)





I picked up 2 huge Black Snails. Super cleans. Leave nothing green behind when they go over it.



Also the hermits I ordered came in. Remind me the next time I order something to specify the size I want. I order hermits and these ones are about 3/8" big. You can sorta scale them to the substrate size. I super zoomed in on them.



Here's everyone hanging out in my acclimation bucket.



Enjoying their new home. I tried to take a picture of the hermits but they were way too small.


So I'm watching the little hermits eat like they haven't eaten in days and that big hermit I entered in the PotM last month comes along and flips one of the new hermits over and starts eating it. Before I could get my net from hanging over the wash tub and my stool out to reach the bottom of the tank, I'm left with 4 small empty shells and one happy hermit that's had his crab meal for the day. Not too impressed.


So today I'm in complaining to Lyle the hermit ate the hermits and Kim falls in love with a Starfish and I'm looking at a Royal Gamma, pacific tank, yellow watchmen gobie, bicolour angel, and a bicolour blenny I wouldn't mind but have to wait 19 more days. We walk out with a nice reddish orange starfish. Meet Fantasia. (Yup another critter I didn't get a chance to name.):grumble:





Here's my acclimation setup. I run about 4-6 drips per second into the pail.


My tank is blooming nicely with hair aglae and I wasn't sure why. I checked my water and for some reason my N03 is at 40ppm. Not sure why since I don't feed anything except the corals once a week and that's just a light dusting. Thinking something's not right I test the RODI water I buy from the water store, and their level is almost 35ppm. Thinking maybe my readings are off, I took some to Lyle and he tested the same and checked my phosphate level. Nice purple colour the water turned as soon as the drops hit the water. Now I'm fuming cause I pay $4 for a 5 gallon jug of this so called 1ppm water. I called the owner of the water store & left a message for him to call me Monday morning when he gets in. I bought 2 jugs of water ($2/jug) and some filter socks to put some carbon in to hang in my sump to help lower my N03. Now I'm getting ready to DYI a phosphate reactor. (It'll be posted here and in the DYI section a long with the LR I'm going to make as soon as the play sand thaws out.) Next week I'm hoping to get a bright green brain coral he has in there. I did end up modifying my sump. I took out the baffle on the left in the refugium section and now water is forced up threw the macro algae. (hoping Kim will get me some of Biff's Magic Chaeto for my birthday!!!)

I would be pissed about the water too.

I love your new starfish! :) That sucks about your water, though. I had a huge hair algae outbreak in my Biocube about 2 years ago when I was buying water from a local store. I finally bought my own RODI unit, and I don't have the HA anymore. It's worth making your own water because it saves you money in the long run, and you don't have to worry about whose water you can trust...

SaltwaterNoob17 said:

I love your new starfish! :) That sucks about your water, though. I had a huge hair algae outbreak in my Biocube about 2 years ago when I was buying water from a local store. I finally bought my own RODI unit, and I don't have the HA anymore. It's worth making your own water because it saves you money in the long run, and you don't have to worry about whose water you can trust...

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Thanks!! The week before Kim wouldn't let me buy one I wanted, but she wanted this one and it was more money!! LOL! RODI system is on my list of things to get before the end of next month. I'm sitting with almost at $400 in lighting and test stuff for this month so I better not push my luck too far.

New Sump/Refugium is born. I made a lot of mistakes with the sump I originally built. Not big enough is the main thing. I sat down with pen and lots of graph paper to draw it out to scale and this is what I came up with.



After doing some math while I sat in emerg waiting to see the doctor, I figured out my return section was too small again. Only holding 4.71 gallons which is about what the one I am using now has and I have to add water everyday to it. So I came up with this one.


Now my return holds 9.35 gallons which is almost double what it held before, plus my skimmer and refug areas are bigger.

Calling on the extra hands of my oldest son, we headed to my work to build. Here it is with the sides put together.



I forgot the camera at home and my cell phone is an old flip style so they aren't very clear. With the night still young and my ear getting chatted off (I only see him everyother weekend) I figured we might as well finish it. So here it is all finished. By the time we were done we were both high on silicone fumes!!


I'm hoping it will be dry by Monday since it's a holiday and getting everything switched over for the coming week. Maybe if I have time I'll give making rock another shot this weekend. So may projects so little time. :grumble:

The silicone is dry. I brought the new design home today and filled it up with water. Been full for 12 hours and no leaks. YET! LOL! Here's a few photos. Yes, that is a heater in there keeping the water from freezing. The joys of being a Canadian during the winter.

Damn fine work if I say so myself! : )