The preserving of the food would be my concern. I double bag mine in freezer bags and that seems to work.

I haven't tested in a while as things had been fine. My temps have been creeping up with the nice weather, thought maybe related, but I know better...

Tonight was a total-loss for studying :twised:
I opened some paper mail and ended up dealing with some personal crap until 8pm
By then I'd decided it was OK to put some time into modifying the canopy

I've realized some limitations and see I need access doors on the ends, so here's what I have so far ...
Doors are cut, sanded, primed and painted inside
Tomorrow, right before studying, they will get a coat of black on the outside and ends. Then another coat of black after studying before bed

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps31213a35.jpg

For my home-made food, so far I'm having success using a Foodsaver jar/can lid on a small glass container thingy
Each night I open it briefly to grab a cube and I'm not yet seeing any signs of freezer burn ...

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps0ea9920b.jpg

And, because I was growing very tired of dealing with a True Union ball valve to adjust the return flow/overflow level in the DT, I finally (after 6 months) got around to re-doing the plumbing with a Gate Valve that I bought, you guessed it, 6 months ago

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps1f9da5b2.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps61460bc4.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psb54286cc.jpg

The 3rd nem has moved into a spot that I am sure it's not going to like long-term
I'm hoping it doesn't move into any SPS territory anytime soon as I, have I said it before ?, don't have time for extra stuff :smile:
Jeez, I almost forgot to add the nem pic
I gotta get some sleep ....

The third nem is the one inside the overhang, underneath and to the right
It used to be between the two others
And, the big one looks like it's going to split again :doh:

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps51a695bc.jpg

So much to do, and so little time to sleep
Thanks for looking
I hope to have better updates once I'm caught up with, well, life :smile:

This is possibly the most well sorted out medium sized tank in here Greg :D I have always stalked your tank thread but its time to come out and say the truth: its dazzling :D

You must have my tank confused with someone else's, but I'll take the nice words. Thank you Raied :biggrin:

Not really. I haven't seen anyone putting so much effect on what's outside the tank itself :D

Disappointing update for me, but maybe it'll help someone else ...

The home-made food is going to have to stay in the freezer for now :sad:

Our Bangaii (Banggai?) has never really eaten the new food, so last night I added a small amount of Mysis for him
Now tonight everyone is being picky about the new food :doh:
All they want is the Mysis

I'm currently making a new batch of food;
4oz Mysis
4 cubes cyclopeeze (just 'cause it's what's left)
4 cubes plankton (same reason)
Some garlic and omega aminos

I think it was too soon to try the new food blend as nobody is full-grown yet
I hope to use the food when they get bigger, but who knows
Nobody is over 2-1/2" , so I chopped the mix fine
It's probably too small for bigger fish and I'll have to give it to J&L or something ...

FM

I took the home-made food to J&L and all their fish ate it up like it was a last meal !
Good thing as I don't want to waste it

I'm gonna stick with the mysis diet for now with my fishies and hope they will become more hungry/adapt to a different diet once they are bigger

If you've been following, you'll know that after I installed the new light surround, I found some limitiations with it
While I was building it I thought, Nah, there's no way I'll need more room than 33" of access, but while I was cutting the wood I was asking Myself about having doors on the ends. Myself told me there's no problem, there's lots of room, so I carried on

Well, it turns out that Myself was quite wrong and I needed doors on the ends
I tried to access an area last week and couldn't get to it, so Myself shouldn't plan stuff without consulting Me first

Here's the mods I made
Sorry for the poor lighting shots :wink:
I'll get better pics up one day ...

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps6bc272f2.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psc336436a.jpg

You should have consulted with "I". You see "I" always knows best, me and myself seem to forget who's boss! Keep that in mind next time you start second guessing!

Nice work as always!

Thanks Sheena for the reminder about consulting 'I', but it looks like we didn't have a full crew the day we were building

We think 'I' was on holidays as there was no other input that day, so we had to just go with it :smile:

'We all' still think it turned out pretty sexy, so it's good :smile:

And thanks for the nice comments :smile:

Oh, and for the record, We are not going to admit anything about schizophrenia
That's for Grizz's posts :razz:

Well, "they" must have been into the woobly pops, but regardless, it seems the entire team got it figured out!:mrgreen:

And you are welcome!:lol:

What's thenext project up your sleeve?? I know there's gotta be at least one more right...lol

I think you were being too soft on your fish. I would have starved them and forced them to eat the new food. A couple of days of hunger strike and I bet they'd eat it up as if it was there last meal! Mind you, that doesn't always work and some fish are stupid enough to hunger strike themselves to death so in the end you probably did the right thing.

LORD OF THE RINGS.....MY PRECIOUSSSSSSSS:mrgreen:

Ya, the Bangaii wasn't eating for about 4 days, so I had to do it

:silly:

Nothing fancy but, ya, there is one more thing on the go
I'm planning to mount an auto feeder on the inside of one of the doors, with an air vent hole through the door to prevent clumping, and a 'sunscreen' over the feeder to prevent overheating from the lights

Soon ...

Greg, maybe your fish don't like your cooking? :twised::twised::twised:

Ya, that's it :wink:

I've had the Flu since Sat, so I stayed home Mon thinking about the auto-feeder, and Tues afternoon I got lucky with a wandering RBTA. I poked it a bit and it floated, so off to J&L I went for a store credit :biggrin:

Tonight my brains were still scrambled from a left-over fever so, once again, no studying
Next week, I promise myself, I'll hit the books HARD

So, I got the auto-feeder mounted tonight
Thanks to my wife, Donna, for suggesting the final location :mrgreen:

It's an Eheim, with the little fan. If you're familiar with it, you know it's best not mounted inside a canopy as it can, besides getting splashed etc, cause the food to clump as the fan will draw in moist air from the tank

Well, after weeks of thinking about it, this is what I came up with

A 3/4" Forstner bit for the hole and some bent acrylic for a mount

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps9eebba64.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psdeecf8af.jpg

Some fibreglass bugscreen to keep the fan clean, and some foam to keep it airtight, so there's no tank air entering the container
In the first pic you can 'just' make out the red fan on the feeder
I used 2 layers of 3/16" foam, so there's lots of room for air to enter
The foam holds the mesh in place against the door

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf1ee662e.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psa4e8ecf9.jpg

Another piece of acrylic covered in sunscreen to keep the feeder from getting too much Sun from the lights. Could cook the electronics, or cook the food ?

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...pse7450638.jpg
http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psb7e67e1d.jpg

Mounted and ready to go (forgot to re-position the light-blocking foam around the hinges before this pic)
I used the factory screw to mount the feeder through the acrylic
You'll see I made the mount a bit sloped (food is heavy near the end of the container)
This is so the container doesn't run out of food when it's still partly full

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...pse26d6b54.jpg

Easy access for re-filling or re-programming

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psffcb2801.jpg

Many online have complained about this particular feeder being too touchy, and I agree
After some testing, I decided to tape the trap door in the position I like, and then I taped some paper over the end so I could get the 'perfect for me' amount of food
I was careful not to leave any tape exposed to food so there is no clumping

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps07c0b6d3.jpg

I will adjust the food as needed, but for now it seems to work great for our small fishies and Donna can now not worry about the poor guys going hungry @ lunch if she's tied up with work :lol:

Great work! Love how you can just open the door and re-program/re-fill.

that's awesome.

I love the door idea!

Thanks guys :biggrin:
Sometimes I think I like playing around with hardware more than actually having the critters :rolleyes:

Soooo funny, I was kinda thinking the same thing :biggrin: I'm jealous of your talent, seriously very clever!!

I already pointed that out few posts before ;)

Thanks again Sheena, you're too kind :redface:

Raied, it's hard to not see I like building stuff :smile:

So, another little thingy for whoever is interested
Way back before I started this tank, I bought the NPX screens for my TLF 150s, just in case I'd ever find a need, or what have you

I started using Vertex Rox 0.8 last month and thought, wow, these pellets are tiny, so I experimented and it worked out well

I was concerned the pellets would get stuck in the foams worse than other carbon, but was surprised to find a benefit ...
The dispersion plates actually work :biggrin: even though they weren't designed for this use
My carbon is no longer stagnant, with little geysers, and the same goes for my GFO
I was also able to turn down the flow through the reactors, so no more 'grinding' the product

So, after more than a month of testing, I'll say this works fine for both Carbon and GFO

I installed the plates between the product and the foams. It makes rinsing out the foams easier than before
Of course I don't need a plate on top for any flow benefits, but it helps keep the foam from plugging if pellets want to go that way. I do find that on initial start-up I get pellets going crazy, so why not use 2 plates per reactor

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psf7a44b4b.jpg

Due to some advice from Tang Daddy, I've cut back 1/2 of the Carbon I'm using. Hopefully I'll see a difference in my corals ...

I found some flat-bottom glass jars with plastic lids for the dosers
They don't hold quite as much but whatever. I'm bumping dosing pump run times so getting a month out of them is out the window
Maybe 2-3 weeks

The jars were designed for food storage and came with little movable day/month tabs inside the lids. Maybe I'll use them to remind me when I last filled them

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psdb7e413f.jpg

Nice vortex from the stirring bar

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...ps8468349c.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psef9fc30d.jpg

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...pseca37a98.jpg

I kinda like the look of the pseudo stainless lids
They are plated plastic, and the top inserts are also plastic, so drilling for the tubes was a piece of cake

http://i749.photobucket.com/albums/x...psb10913d3.jpg

I tried doing 15% WCs every 2 weeks, but my sand didn't like it
I've gone back to 10% WCs every week and now my dosing is out of whack, but my sand is clean :lol:
I had a good thing going on with my dosers dammit

My Alk is up to 10.5 so I've turned off the pump and await it to drop

Now I'll have to adjust the pump timing again ....

Looks like it's time for me to dump the Seachem additive powders and get on the 2-part bandwagon

Enough of this hardware talk, we want to see some photos!:twised:

Just add a few more sps, that will bring the alk down fast....

Nothing worth posting right now as there's been little growth
The only growing has been from our Coris, Junior
He started out the size of our Hector's and now he's twice as big

I may be doing that come this labor day weekend :wink:

Nothing to look at here ... carry on

Turned off the Alk doser pump for a few days and looks like I'll have to back-off on the amount of powder I'm adding to the container

This coming long-weekend has me busy already, but I hope to post a couple FTSs as I may move some LR, so look back for a 'scape change

I'm also going to cut my GFO in half and am considering why I'm using socks

Stay tuned for some pics :biggrin:

Why are you cutting your GFO in half Greg?

I'm having issues with bleaching and can't get enough food into the tank through fish poop and coral feeding, and changing my lighting hasn't helped
I don't want to remove my socks yet, so this is my next best idea

Hope to see you Sept 1st BTW

I should mention that Albert Dao suggested I do this many months ago, but I was afeared of an algae bloom. But now it's a the next best thing to try
So, thanks Albert :smile:

That's interesting. I've actually been hearing a few cases recently of people cutting back or stopping GFO all together. Seems like the trendy thing to do these days. I should try that.

I've gone without GFO before and would prefer running less or none when ever possible. I think that would help to reduce the amt of green sticks too, at least in my old set up.

Are you saying that you think that running too much gfo causes SPS to turn green?

Well, I am not an expert however I think GFO contains iron and I think dosing iron helps to enhance greens and when I ran without GFO I had a better balance of colours than when I had ran with GFO. Don't get me wrong... I am not saying it is bad but it was my experience and I think each tank is gonna be different.

I've read that too much iron will intensify green and even make yellows greener. I always forget the gfo contains iron , so what you say makes perfect sense.

How do water changes affect sand??

Cause I only clean the sand when I do a WC :wink:

You clean the sand? Like vacuuming it? Why?

I'm still getting some 'carpet' algae of some kind and it looks ugly