That looks awesome! :mrgreen:

Looks like it worked out pretty good man. Water soon?

hopefully today, its already mixed and waiting just need a chunk of 3/4" hose

nice job on the back rock wall, also smart planning ahead.

When the coralline algae gets a grip of all the spaces inbetween that is going to kick serious butt. I am so tempted to try this but it still terrifies me. Looking forward to seeing this one age a little.

Did you change bulbs and get some more par out of those t5s? Seems by adding glass and eggcrate it could only be worse?

the test rock i did i couldnt even get it off with a razorblade, im not worried at all,plumbing is all done and water will be in it tonight for shure,not that anything else will be though, i have 1 big rock i have to kill some aptasia on then ill put that in but then im back on the waiting list for a while

pics with some water, i filled it up a few days ago, no big problems but the tank is a bit uneven which is a pain cause if i want to fix it i need to drain the whole tank im shure so i can slide something either under the tank or under the stand.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...rtyc/002-1.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/djdirtyc/003.jpg

im super happy i did the rockwall even if it was a bunch of work i really looks good in person and when the tank is full of rocks it should help blend everything in nicely

im a bit annoyed with the sump, i ordered it before i had all the stuff so the chamber for the skimmer and return are a bit small and with the bigger than expected red dragon return and plumbing it quite crammed, biggest issue is the skimmer, without a stand it sits right at the line for the water limit but dont really work so i made a eggcrate stand to lift it up a bit, the skimmer's running ok but its louder than i hopedfor kind of a constant humming and a slight air sucking sound, its the humming thats the issue,im not shure if thier is an ideal hight the skimmer should sit in the water but id like to figure it out before making a glass stand for it, on the eggcrate the skimmer sits a bit slanted cause the rummer feet on the bottom.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/djdirtyc/004.jpg

Ive said it before and I will say it again....Its alive......alive. Looks good bud. How much water do you think all that epoxy displaces:mrgreen:

Wow your tank is really looking great. Looks like the rock wall hides wires when your looking in the tank..

Happy with the Vortech so far?

i have 2 on my other tank and am very happy,this one is making a slight noise but i havnt tried to hard to quiet it up, i did have a nice wave goin but the splashing into the overflow was too much to lisen to all day

i was doing some tests on the other tanks last night so i checked for nitrate in the cube and over 25ppm has built up since last sunday, so i guess i was right that rottin sand and dried live rock would kick up a cycle in a hurry,i havnt even bothered to take a few scoops of sand live sand from another tank yet but i should probably get on it,ill maybe wait another week and do a huge waterchange which will give me a chance to try and slip a shim under the tank and even it out a bit

I had a nightmare of a time getting replacement parts for my RD2000 and finally a whole new pump. Even with a supposedly working pump the skimmer can be heard when turned on with my stand doors shut and only the Dart Gold (pretty quiet) running. It's certainly not SILENT as so many say and there is a slight hum. I think the word is abused by many...it's much quieter than my old ASM was but for the coin and promises I felt a tad let down.

Still lovin' those rocks on the wall.

i thought it was the return pump making the humm but when you unplug the skimmer the tank is dead silent, like i said the air intake is quiet, very quiet compared to my 2 euroreef's but the humm is a bit annoying due to the tank being in the living room and thats why i spent the money on a high end skimmer

Feel your pain =) Overall my system is pretty quiet. Certainly tolerable whereas my old one took some getting used to. I may add some sound foam to some areas on my stand interior.

I wonder if there's a difference in the noise between the generation 1 (what you have) and generation 2 BK 160? I don't know where you got your skimmer but the gen. 2 skimmers have been out for a while so I'm assuming whoever the retailer was had old stock kicking around.

I'm getting a BK 160 as well but I'm trying to make sure I get a gen. 2 model. I've heard mixed reviews on the gen. 2 "upgrades" so who knows if there even is much of a difference. For comparison, here's a picture of a gen. 2 BK 160. One of the differences you should notice right away is that the air silencer is now incorporated into the output as opposed to being 2 pieces in the gen. 1. Also, the air tube on the gen. 2 is a larger diameter than it is on the gen.1:

http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...0/P1000139.jpg

i didnt know that they had some changes untill after i got it, its the same pump though and thats where my issue is, im shure its gonna skim just fine and ill have to just get used to the slight noise.
saying that, who knows if i went with something else thier could be even more noise

Is that you on RC who has their LFS replacing the impeller to see if that changes the noise which everyone else is saying is abnormal?

nope not me, i kinda doubt the noise is abnormal, it just seems like thats how it is,
anyway,i hooked up the extra phosban reactor i had with a mix of carbon and gfo from bulkreefsupply, sunday i had a big explosion of diatoms so i cut down th lights to 2 bulbs for a while, the vortec has ben running at about 1/2 speed for now so i turned it up and all the sand from the front of the tank is ending up at the back of the tank now so i hope this will not be so bad when i have more rocks in thier cause a 2" bare bottom strip at the front will really pee me off, im gonna try and go get some acrylic rod for the rockwork in the next week and hopefully a can afford a few hundred bucks worth of rock so i do some work on that

I don't know how noisy you're finding your skimmer is but the general consensus in this thread is that the skimmer should be virtually silent:

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showth...readid=1571129

changed my mind to no, works great creates nice flow but being in my living room whenever the tv is off or at night and in the morning all you can hear is the damb motor speeding up and down and it was making me a bit crazy.
so i broke down today and bought a tunze 6105 and a single controller, sorry doug couldnt justify another trip up thier.

some other updates in the last week or two, i did a 50% waterchange and slipped a strip of carpet under the one side to level it out better, i put a 1way valve on the return just for safety, when the power is off the sump gets kinda full and i just want to feel a bit safer.
ive dumped around 80lbs of rock in their. i gave up on making achways once i put a few of the biger chunks at the bottom they took up alot of space and im happy with how it looks,

im also thinking about changing the tek's for a aquaphoton 250w with 4xt5's having the lights cramed in the hood are a bit annoying so far.

i sent albert a message about the skimmer and he said it should be super quiet also and if i wanted he waould talk me through messin with it, but the thing has shut up all of a sudden or i just got used to it cause im not hearing the humm from the skimmer all week, i do have to make a stand out of glass for it still, the eggcrate one is no good, the skimmer has been pulling out some gunk every couple days and ive had it skimming kinda wet so its just a tea color for now but looks promising

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/djdirtyc/010.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/djdirtyc/008.jpg

i guess redcoral gave me a free gift for buying rock today, thankfully he decided to sit at the front of the tank instead of in the rocks,he is now in my qt tank
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...rtyc/011-1.jpg

That's too bad the vortech isn't working out in that tank, It just gives such a nice clean look without any cords.

that was the whole point, kinda annoyed but the tank needs to be as silent as possible and with the tank where it is the vortech was not workin, the tunze isnt silent either but its better.

you know, every time I start swinging one way for a power head for the 50 gallon, a post like that pops up and then I want to go in a different direction....*sigh*

i have 2 on my other tank and never noticed a sound cause everything else covers it up and the motors are tucked behind the tank, on the cube it wasnt really tucked away in a corner or anything and the sound was driving me nuts, we arnt talking a huge noise but when its the only noise it was quite obvious, i was getting a real nice wave which is what i wanted but the splashing water in the overflow and the pump speeding up and stoping was a killer.
im not overly upset with having an extra vortec for the 300g though.
im really liking the flow coming from the tunze though too bad they dont have some cheeper controllable sizes, the ability to aim the power head is nice too

Just as yourself, with the vortechs on the basement tank they are not a huge issue for noise, but I can see in your living room right beside the couch the "whir" of the vortech especially on pulse mode could get very old fast.

I'm sure your groupers will enjoy the extra flow :)

no vortech for the bedroom tank then!

+1 with the groupers. Everytime I see one in the LFS I almost buy it. Then I think of the one in your tank.

update's this week,
i made a glass stand for the skimmer and finally got rid of the eggcrate one,the skimmer now sits level and is working great, the first 2 weeks or so i was kinda like what the heck good is this thing then all of a sudden it started pulling out a good 1/4-1/2 a cup per day of juice,its not super dark but i turned it down a bit to see how it does skimming a bit dryer

i bit the bullet and ordered a giesmann infinity fixture with 4xt5's and a 250w halide so hopefully ill get some higher par numbers with that, the numbers are high enough for almost anything i want but not as high as my other tank and thats what i want.

i put a leopard wrasse on hold for the tank but i gotta do something with the mantis in the qt before i can pick it up,ive herd they can be tricky to keep but ill find out soon i guess, tyhe tank is filled with pods and ive noticed 2or 3 flatworms so im a bit ****ed about that but maybe the wrasse will help before i have a real problem,
par numbers
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...arreadings.jpg
thats all i can think of right this sec

If there is a bright side, it is, that it is better to have flatworms now, rather than after the tank is stocked:neutral: Let me know if you need any "exit" I have a stash.

No experience with a leopard wrasse but I can tell you that I tried a canary wrasse and he cleared up flatworms in my tank within 2 weeks. I assume it might be a similar story with the leopard, don't know for sure though.

im shure ive read somewhere they eat them, so by the time i add the wrass to the tank i should know wether the worms are gonna be a issue or not, i pick up the wrass and a bicolor blennie today so 3 weeks or so in the qt and i can add them,
i also ended up with 8 new sps colonys thanks to sales at redcoral and golds today, one from rc look real brown almost black but i liked the look of it and when i put it in the tank you could see its a dark blue and damb its nice,infact all the stuff i got is lookin real nice so no comlaints except i have no where to put them untill the new light gets here

My leopard ate flatworms. Certainly not enough to help out with the amount I had. Between him and my mandarin, they helped but not enough to rid me of them.

In your case, with only a few, he may help before it becomes worse. I do know several aquarists that have had success with the yellow coris Tony mentioned and six lines but now with the leopard in there, I would not add those.

im gonna try a mystery wrasse ansd maybe a manderin,but that wont be for a bit still and hopefull it goes well the tank might be a bit small for a manderin even though i have 70-80lbs of rock.

alright finally something to update on,
the giesemann infinity finally showed up, didnt take long to install even though the hanging kit was a bit stupid i thought.its a bit rigged up for now but thats ok.
with the new light on the tank i can now do a nice big waterchange and start adding some corals that are ballancing all over my other tank
the par numbers with the new light put things right where i wanted them, so i didnt waste my money for once so thats a nice change too
the top of the tank not quite under the surface was a par of 1700 right under the 250w, directly under the bulb in the center of the tank was in the 350 range while anywhere not right under the bulb was in the 500-600 range, and the bottom front was getting 250-300, so basicly double and a bit what i was getting with the 8 t5 bulbs
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/djdirtyc/009.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...rtyc/004-2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...rtyc/002-2.jpg


other than that i treated the tank with flatworm exit 3 times 2 of which i used quite a bit more than i should have and i still have flatworms, i only see the odd one on the glass once in a while but their in there.
ive added a bicolor blennie and have a mystery wrasse in the qt for another week or so.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/djdirtyc/013.jpg

before i added the blennie i was trying to catch the couple isopods that got in the tank with the rock and i ended up with around 20 of them sucking on a chunk of shrimp i tried to get some pics but thier so small it was hard to get anything clear
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v5...rtyc/004-1.jpg

newbie
 

great info, I get my first tank in a couple of weeks, 25g nano. Our son (Snaz) is going to help me set it up. Love the rock on the back wall, would love to do something similar. I will follow this thread with great anticipation.

well did something stupid last night, so ill be awaiting someone to hit me with a you know what.
since the tank is now ready for corals the last real step was to do a big waterchange check the levels and start enjoying.
how it actually went was i did the waterchange which ended up being about 20-25g smaller than i thought it was but big enough a bit after i tested the alk at 6dkh i though frig its still that low so i grabed the jugs of 2 part i had and poured about 200-250ml of each about 5 mins abart and in seperate areas.
i came back maybe an hour later and had a snowstorm in the tank... great im an idiot i thought

what i think happened is for the last month ive been dumping a bit of kents coralline excelerator stuff i got at macna so ive been adding calcium but no alkalinity and when i tested the alk at 6 i didnt even test the calcium cause i just assumed it would also be low since i forgot about the coralline stuff. anyway thismorning all my fantastic purple rocks where covered in chalk and my skimmer was filled with chalk and my glass was covered in chalk... yes there was a nice white coating of chalk everwhere and i continue feeling a bit stupid but atleast i now know what it liiks like when calcium precipitates in your tank..

other than that my mystery wrasse has decided he dosent want to eat and has a nice case of pop eye, i noticed it slightly when i got him home last sat but today its worse and im stressing a bit about a $100 fish not eating

well ive had the new light for a month now and love it, the 250w bulb is a bit yellow for my liking but not badenough to spend the money for a new one yet i think its a 13k so maybe ill try a 15-18k when im ready.
since getting the new light ive been adding corals a bit at a time, i actually thought i added some pics but i guess not, i was really wanting to not use big blobs of epoxy all over the place but havnt really been able to avoid it so now im just gonna live with it.
i usually always used the deltec epoxy but tried a few other things to see what i liked best,deltec epoxy is a fairly firm product when mixed up and easy to mold arond corals and rocks and still have the strength to hold(if that makes any sense), i tried the twolittlefishies epoxy and found it very soft when mixed almost to the point that you cant hold anything up untill it starts hardning, the part i do like is it hardens very quick compared to the deltec stuff which is nice sometimes even though i tend to waste small chunks cause it would be to hard to use when i would be ready to do another frag or whatever.
i also tried the zeovit speedglue, it was a real pain to figure out the best way of mixing the stuff so it would work but after a few tries i got it down fairly good, the problem i would have is once you get it mixed to a kind of playdough like chunk it would be hard in like 30 seconds so you need to be ready and know exactly what your doing with it, i tended to waste quite a bit of this also since i usually mixed up more than i needed, its kinda a pain to mix it up every time your ready to use some like if your gonna mount 2 or 3 things your probably gonna mix up 2-3 batches. definatly has it place and im glad i bought it, i like the grey cement look alot better than the fake purple expoy look also.

the other day i also noticed another mantis in the tank, not happy about it but thats how it is, i bought a trap from bigals for $20 but since nobody at the factory was smart enough to makeshure it dosent float i havnt tried it yet. i did a getto silicone chunk of glass to the bottom job. and i hope i catch this mantis soon, hes about 2.5-3" i though it was a pistol shrimp and never payed much mind to it untill i seen the little jerk hiding under a coral.

a couple pics for a update
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/djdirtyc/147.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v508/djdirtyc/148.jpg


ive had trouble keeping anything in the center due to the strong flow, i put the vortec back in cause the tunze was just too much of a stream in a tank this size, ive tried a few corals and the keep getting dead tips from the flow
ive also decided that i dont have room for a clam so ill be putting in a flame angle and hopefully he can behave with the sps, the bicolour blennie nips the underneath of the mili sometimes but nothing major sofar

The flow shape is wider from the Vortech? Odd, I would have thought they were nearly the same shape. That's good to know...