Dez' Tank Journal

[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.

[Dez]

Another interesting to note- had my first major power outage today. Power was out for about 3 hours. Never thought through one before, but I just started my jeep, and plugged an extension cord from the car's plug in to the tank and hooked it up to 2 Koralias. Worked like a charm and made sure to have the garage door 3/4 open so that there'd be no carbon monoxide poisoning

[lastlight]

That looks awesome! That gorg on the left look really sweet.

Killer idea with the car btw. My truck has a 400W outlet in the bed that I will use if I ever need it. Great idea again!

[Dez]

Originally Posted by lastlight

That looks awesome! That gorg on the left look really sweet.

Killer idea with the car btw. My truck has a 400W outlet in the bed that I will use if I ever need it. Great idea again!

Yeah, I got the gorgonian from a fellow canreefer for $25 - Score! It's a photosynthetic one so it should be pretty hardy, the previous owner had it for over a year.

[Joshua Jones]

I need to stop by and appreciate this in person! I still haven't seen it since you got those new fixtures and bulbs in there! Pictures look incredible, and pictures never even come close to serving justice..