Dez' Tank Journal

[Dez]

Originally Posted by Leah

I 2nd the picture's! Sorry to hear the pet store thing was a bust!

Calgary is my home town and it let me down.....oh well. I'll get to see Ocean City one day when I'm back and I'll show up before 5:30pm

[Dez]

Okay, Here are the promised pictures. Soon I will inherit my wife's camera and won't have to use my cell phone camera anymore. Here is the 75 gal reservoir I added last week:



You can see the float valve at the top right. That's hooked up directly to my RO/DI. I'll probably only turn on the RO once a week when the tank is half empty. At the left of the tank is just my siphon tube going directly to my float valve in the sump. Pretty low tech auto top-off system - gravity.

Here's a closer look at my float valve mount, made it in about 5- 10 minutes with scrap glass:



Here is a FTS on the den side:



As you can see, I have a bit of cyano. I attribute it still to new tank syndrome. I have undetectable phosphates and nitrates. Calcium at 400 and Alk at 9 dkh. Tested about 10 minutes ago. Here's one from the living room side. I really do need a real camera.



I am seeing growth on a lot of my frags. Some "garbage" pieces that I've picked up from friends are colouring up nicely (purple/pinks) with new growth tips. I need to order new bulbs as I have no idea of the age of the bulbs cause my lights are from 5 years ago bought used. Any suggestions on nice colour/brand of 250Watt DE bulbs? I will eventually get T5's for either sides of the halides (they are actually on order from my LFS). Thanks for viewing.

[Skimmerking]

get the reef flux 12K its a nice blend Dez

[Dez]

Originally Posted by asmodeus

get the reef flux 12K its a nice blend Dez

And where would I order such a bulb? Thanks....

[Leah]

Nice to see fish/corals in it and doing well.

[Dez]

It has been a while since I've posted....but there are a couple more updates. I finally hooked up my kalk reactor. I made this reactor 6 years ago, and it still works. This picture is with it still filling, but everything is running fine, it's been running for a few days now and all my top-off water goes through it.



This is the big picture of where it sits:



Also, I finally got some T5 lights on my tank. I ordered some cheap fixtures but it's really for a bit of actinic colour supplementation. Sorry, this picture is kind of dark:



There is a 2 bulb 48" fixture on either side of the halides now, all with blue actinic bulbs.

I also got new bulbs for my 250W fixtures. I decided with 14K and I love the colour and I can't believe how bright it is compared to my "who knows how these bulbs are" used bulbs from 5 years ago. I'm eventually going to change the middle 150W halide to a 250 watt halide.

Here's a full tank shot from the living room (picture frame side).



Some more progress includes me drilling and plumbing in my 75 gallon water change tank (because a month has gone by and I'm due for a water change) and also plumbing a pump from the 75 gallon RO/DI reservoir to the water change tank. I however encountered a problem as my pump didn't have enough head pressure to pump water 8 feet up and 8 feet over (not effectively anyway). So my friend gave my a mag 9.5 which I'll try and re-plumb it later. Thanks for looking.

[saltynuts]

man that looks killer. i,ll have to drive down and have a look!

[Dez]

Originally Posted by saltynuts

man that looks killer. i,ll have to drive down and have a look!

Come by anytime Ed. One brown sps you gave me has turned turquoise/blue, the staghorn I got from you has a million growth tips now and has lightened up to green, that hairy acro is growing (probably 1/4" tip all around, I can tell the new growth cause I put it on it's side and now the new growth is growing straight up), that tiny birdnest is growing too but it isn't pink anymore, greenish base. Who knows what the corals will do now with the new lights. I was running old 20k bulbs before and actually the ballast you sold me died , so my corals browned out on that side of the tank cause it died right before I went away for a week. Call me sometime and come by and take a look.