175g Deep Sea tank

[cvcdrk]

This is really coming along. It looks awesome! Where do you stand with the cycle now?

I'm excited to see livestock in there! :)

Which lights did you get?

 

[Jimbo662]

I've not seen much of a cycle yet. I bought a couple of bottles of bio-spira from BRS...will probably put it in sometime this week. I went with the AI Vega's.

 

[cvcdrk]

The Vegas look amazing imo. I am excited to see what you think of them in a few months. :)

 

[monkiboy]

that looks great!

any reason you decided against going with a herbie overflow? seems like you got the perfect setup and situation for it. even if you just wanted to try it, it'd only take two minutes given how you're setup now.

i just ask because i just drilled and setup my new frag tank build with them and it really does work silently and well.

also, at what height do you have the tank at?

can we get a photo from further away from the living room side to see how it looks in the room?

thanks!

 

[Jimbo662]

Not even sure why I changed the overflow. I guess I'd read too many articles / forums and got confused. The bottom of the tank is 42" off the ground. I wanted it high enough so that you weren't looking down on it but not too high either.

 

[Jimbo662]

I do have one complaint about the Vega's. They only run with new wireless controller. The programming stays on the controller which means the controller has to stay on 24/7. If the controller turns off the lights stay at whatever setting it was on when connection was lost. Guess what!!! The controller has no internal battery!!! It comes with a USB cable and a wall adapter that's got a USB connection. Unfortunately for me the adapter seems to be defective. I had been plugging it into my notebook but when it went to sleep the USB port also went to sleep. Luckily I remembered my wireless router has two USB ports and thankfully they stay on all the time.

 

[Jimbo662]

Well, so far so good. I moved a clown each on Thur & Fri. Today I moved my polyps. Even though we had a slight accident they seem to be very happy already! I'd put the bag in the water to start acclimating them and went off to do some other stuff. I came back 15-20 min later and apparently hadn't secured it well enough to the side and I guess the currents sunk it...don't know how long it had been under. Within about two hours they've all come back out.

 

[wontonflip]

That looks great, Jimbo! Congrats!

 

[Jimbo662]

Here's something to help all the newbies out there. I'd bought two bengaii cardinals, a sailfin tang and a hammer last Sunday. By Monday morning the male cardinal was dead. When i got home from work the female was dead and the hammer had pretty much dissolved. I tested everything and all readings were normal. I took a water sample back to the store on Thursday and all tests were showing normal EXCEPT the salinity. She tested 3 times and every one came back 1.044! Who knows how the clowns and tang were surviving but they seem to be thriving and eating well. I came back home and tested my refractometer and re-calibrated it and I was still getting 1.025. I'd bought this in mid Sept because I'd broken the plastic cover off my original one. I'd been using it from the beginning of filling the tank. Luckily I hadn't thrown the old one away yet. I tested with it and sure enough I got the same crazy reading the store was getting. I'm now in the process of slowing reducing the salinity. Lesson learned here...always double check new equipment before getting rid of the old stuff. Luckily Friday was the last day to request a return so that sucker is already on it's way back!!!

 

[baeya]

Just read your whole thread! So amazing! Can't wait to see more!

 

[Jimbo662]

I hit the coral jackpot this weekend. I listed my 28g nano on our local reef club site. I got a response from a guy that is known for his great quality frags asking if I'd consider a trade? I'd posted it for $350 hoping I could get at least $300. Well, an hour later I walked out with 35 frags of all different kinds! He just kept pulling out one after another...I'm estimating it could have easily cost me $600 if I'd paid him for all of them. Sorry the pics aren't great...I just placed and order for a Canon T3i. Next time I should be posting much better pics!

 

[Ted]

Wow!!!! nice a win win...He gets the tank and you get more corals then you could have bought if you had the cash....now that is cool....:bowdown:

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

Very sweet deal. Please let me know how you like the t3i. I'm looking at gettin that camera as well next month. Thanks and nice pick up

 

[Jimbo662]

Updated tank pics. Finally got a new camera...still learning how to take pics with it. Still gotta get a macro lens too. ummmm...sorry for the large files...just realized how large they were.

 

[lilmatty5dimes]

your tank looks really good. what macro lens are you looking at getting? i cant wait til i can get the t3i. pictures look good

 

[Jimbo662]

Not sure about the next lens...still doing some research.

 

[Ted]

Tank looks great...

 

[Jimbo662]

I picked up 3 new corals over the weekend from local reefers and one from an LFS.

 

[Ted]

Cool...nice adds...:Cheers:

 

[Jimbo662]

Matty, this morning I ordered the Canon EF 100 mm f/2.8 Macro USM Lens