It's going to be a mixed reef, with a focus on SPS and Zoas

Don't know what Bommies means but I'll take it as a compliment! lol

Thanks Lando, I'll have to stop in one of these days when it's time to start stocking this thing.

LOL, a bommie is a rock outcropping covered in corals. They usually occur on a flat sandy area, sort of like a small hill on a flatland. Tony has one in his tank for his anemone I think.

http://aquadaily.com/wp-content/uplo...l-bommie-1.png


Love those columns, wish I had the patience to do that :biggrin:

Yeah "coral bommie" == basically a column rock structure on a reef. (Basically what you have there!)

Here's another:
http://lh3.ggpht.com/_PMP_NscDVyQ/Ro...0/DSCF1104.jpg

really coming along... looks great!

Haha! Whoops, thanks for the heads up.

Seems to be so far, it has one of the discharges from my closed loop pointing directly at it and it doesn't move at all. I'm happy with how stable it is.

Final aquascaping

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_2746.jpg

I'm about ready to slowly start adding some corals to the tank..anyone know a good source for zoas on-line these days?

That aquascape looks pretty cool...

Have you had much time to play around with your Apex controller? got a review for us (me) .. :mrgreen: Is it worth the extra money of an Aquacontroller Jr/3?

I love it, I would buy it again in a heart beat, but I'll hold off on the full review until I've got the entire tank plugged into it and programed.

On a side note, a few impulse buys

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_2754.jpg


http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_2755.jpg

I'm a big fan of the pillar on the left side, and your impulse buys! I love how this is coming together so nicely.

Thanks Catherine

Sometimes it's the impulse buys that bite you though! :lol:

I thought I would give an update on the tank although there isn't much to report.

I've done a pretty good job of leaving the tank alone and letting it do it's thing. The tank seems to be going through the same odd cycle over and over again. I get diatoms they fade, I get them again, they fade ect. I'm starting to battle a bit of H/A but so far it's managable. I haven't see much in the way of coraline growth yet. But then again I haven't been too concerned with the Calc and Alk levels so far as I don't have much in the way of coral. I did throw in a few pounds of live rock to seed all the dead rock back when I started up the tank but I'm thinking the rock I bought may have been pretty void of life, I haven't seen one pod in the tank so I might have to find another nice peice to throw in there.

I still only have the four impulse buy corals. Two are doing great the other two are brown.. lol the only fish I have in the tank are the chromis I started with.

Any update on that Apex Controller? :wink:

It's funny you should ask that, I have to send the head unit in to be looked at. It went from nice and bright to dim and then to black.

Other then the hiccup with the display I have to say I've been very happy. It does exactly what it's supposed to do without fail, I haven't had one instance where things didn't happen as expected. I haven't had to touch it in a few months.

However there are some things I would change about it if I could. I would match the web interface to the head unit, they differ in how they look and function. For instance, as mentiond I'm having trouble with my display and had to try and adjust the brightness settings via the dispaly, you can't access these menus's from the web interface. I would like to reset the unit back to factory setting to see if that had an affect on display, I can't do that via the web interface, It has to be done on the display unit ( as far as I'm aware )

Sexy Tank!:eyebrows: Sexy Build!:eyebrows:



:first::first::first:

I wonder if this is an isolated incident or if other users are experiencing this as well.

As far as I can tell it's an isolated incident, I searched for others with the same problem. I wasn't able to find any.

Never go fish shopping with an 8 year old,

Yesterday I came home with:
1 Royal Gramma
1 Flame Angel
2 Bangaii Cardinals

More fish then I wanted to get at one time but they are all pretty small so I don't foresee any problems.

Someone's been too quiet. Just because you won the old race doesn't mean you can rest on your laurels. Any visual updates?

Here you go!

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...Build/Tank.jpg

I have been resting on my laurels, I have so many things I need to take care of on the tank. CA reactor isn't running yet, I bought some of those bio pellets, haven't got those plumbed in yet, carbon reactor isn't plumbed in yet. My Apex is half programmed, my auto top-off isn't complete yet. T5's aren't in yet. I have to build or have built a canopy. I need new bulbs.
You can't really tell from the picture but there are corals in there, small ones. The turbo snails killed two of my SPS frags by dumping them in the sand the first day I left on a business trip, when I got back they were mostly buried. The softies are growing well but the SPS aren't growing, they have decent color and polyp extension but aren't growing.
Wow, now I'm all down about my tank... Thanks Brett, thanks a lot!

No need to be down dude I was just curious. My two big astrea have been pretty good to me so far it's the hermits that like to crawl all over the sps! Sounds like things are at least stable as they are and you haven't even finished with your equipment! Looking forward to regular updates now that's you've been dug out of the sand yourself =)

I'm not down about it, I was just being a jerk and messing with you! It's what I do best... :mrgreen:

It's actually very stable, all I'm doing it skimming ( pretty dry too ) and water changes with sub-par salt. I have no hair algae or cyano, I do get this fuzzy type of turf algae if I over feed for a few days in a row. If I cut down my feeding it goes away in a couple of days. Fish are all eating and healthy. So far I'm happy enough with the tank, once I get a few things taken care of I'm sure the SPS growth will come with it.

I never seem to find all these cool fish and corals that everyone else is posting pics of when I'm out shopping though!

Hey I'm always 95% sure you're kidding but on the 5% chance you're a whining pansy I gotta cover my bases :mrgreen:

You live in the same city as Dez. No excuses go liberate the man of his frags!

Since Brett made me feel so bad about the state of my tank I thought I should get in gear and get a few things crossed off the list.

First on the list was to get a manifold built to take care of the reactors. I set it up so I can isolate any of the reactors for maintenance or in case it's no longer needed.
Bio-Pellets
Carbon
Calc - Run off the long run to the right. My Calc Reactor is located in the first cupboard to the right of the tank. It reduces from 1/2" PVC to 1/4" tubing for the final tie into the reactor.
Spare


Sorry for the low quality pictures, I used my phone.
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a.../Manifold2.jpg

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/Manifold.jpg

I got the manifold up and running last night but I'm not entirely happy with the way it turned out so I might rebuild it. On of the problems I had was getting the hose barbs on the PM reactors to seal up properly, they are very short so there isn't a lot of barb for the hose to connect too, they still seep ever so slightly making me pretty nervous so I shut them down for now. I may have to convert them to run in-sump, we'll see. The sump is plenty big enough so it might be the best option. I got the Calc Reactor up and running for awhile, until I broke off the nipple on the bubble counter where the Co2 connects. I hope I don't have tooooo much trouble trying to source another one.

So all in all a very unproductive weekend working on the tank!
:lol:

Decided to take a few pictures of the tank, not too many of them turned out. None of the SPS pics turned out.

A rock with a couple different zoas on it. It used to look much better but I did a three day lights out a few weeks ago and they haven't quite recovered yet.
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_2887.jpg

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_2888.jpg

The ONLY thing that grows in my tank! The trouble with have a deep tank is it's a huge pain in the rear to get to these guys to kill em. I need to put my face inthe water to get this guy. I've been lazy and I will pay for it!
http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/a...d/IMG_2883.jpg

Overall a nice build... I love the cabinet and nice and clean setup... about the fish... most fish stores will bring in a fish if they know they have a buyer. Go online and find the fish you want then put in a request :D
Once you get the apex thing sorted out let me know how the whole warranty thing went, that tends to say a lot about a company.
And how about a FTS the last one was over 2 months ago... a good build like yours should have a FTS once a month.

Thanks.

The Apex problem is already sorted out. I e-mailed Curt and I had an RMA to send it back within the hour. Everything went really smooth. The nice thing about the Apex is I didn't have to take it off line to get the head unit looked at. The system continued to run as it should.

That settles it... Apex it is... when I have the money... Thanks man.

I love the APEX. I have EVERYTHING plugged into it. It can do some pretty cool things and I haven't even scratched the surface of what it can do.

You'll be very happy I'm sure.

Hi Robb

Great build. Some interesting mishaps with your first tank at the start of your project.

I'm curious what your latest opinion on the BRS Eco Rock is? I am considering this as the primary rock for my build. I know you said that you wish you ordered larger pieces, but are you generally happy with it?

Following along...

Yeah it was a bit of pain at the time but looking back at it things really did work out for the best. Thanks for the compliment.

I think the Eco rock is a double edged sword. It's great becase you can avoid introducing pests into the tank. On the flip side you also don't get any of the good stuff. Live rock for then entire amount would have been pretty expensive but would have given instant gratification. With the BRS rock you have to wait for it to seed and color up from a small amount of live rock.

Would I buy the ECO rock again? Absolutly. In a year from now you won't be able to tell what was what and it cost me a fraction of live rock.

Another option is DIY rock... I love how mine turned out... I'll let you know in a year or two if I still think it's good :D

I've heard lots of people having great success with DIY Rock. I didn't use it because I have no patience or artistic ability.

I decided it was time to due some maintence on my pumps. I have to remind myself to this more often. One of the closed loop pumps had 7 chunks of eggcrate in the impeller!

Wow... was it still working?

Yep, it was still running. There was no indication that there was anything wrong other then maybe running a little louder then normal. I'll took pictures of the pieces I took out. If I remember I'll post them later.

I want to come cook/bake in your kitchen!

That and I'm really really really loving how everything is coming together!

Ok Robb talk to us man.

ya Rob have some BALLs man , give us the updates