KrazyKuch's & Michika's 180Gal Tank Build

Marlin65 · #1 07-22-2008, 05:57 PM

Go to http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html and download their free program it's easy to use just add the pictures it will stitch the together for you then just crop out the black parts.

michika · #2 07-24-2008, 04:43 AM

So a quick update as this is probably the only chance I will get to do so for the next couple of weeks.
- both jawfish died, both were found together, dead. I suspect they were not non-cyanide caught as boasted by the store they came from. I = not impressed, since they were fine one hour, and BOTH dead together, less then an hour later.
- RKE bugs are fixed, we did an update to the firmware, and disconnected the head unit from everything else. No problems since.
- I am seeing some really awesome growth on one of the colonies, and the colors are REALLY starting to pop as of tonight. Or maybe I see more changes since I'm out of the house all the time now.
- I am debating the addition of a SMALL frag tank in the soon to be fish room, I'm thinking maybe 10" tall, 24" long and 18" deep. I want small, so it can be powered by a koralia, and run with maybe a very low wattage MH bulb.

I am going to try and do the photo stitch later this week.

Phanman · #3 07-24-2008, 05:04 PM

tank looks great cathrine

michika · #4 07-26-2008, 02:27 PM

Thank you!

We thought we had sorted out our RKE problem, but now we wonder if it even is an RKE problem at all. Our lights do not run the RKE. This morning when the T5s came on, at that same moment the skimmer pumps shut off, and turned on again. My first comment to Kevin was that we might be overdrawing the circuit when things start up. He gave me a big lecture about how power draw works, and my eyes glazed over.

At this point we/I do not know if the last time we heard the skimmer pumps if something else had just turned on. Maybe adding the RKE to the tank's circuit took it just too far, and is the cause of the skimmer pumps randomly turning off.

We are still seeing steady growth, and colour from all our SPS. Unfortunately I STILL can't get the white balance quite right. My photos have too much red in them. While this green piece shows reasonably well the green is a bit more of a neon green, and less yellow-green as shown in the photo. I'll keep working on getting it right.

When we first got it

This one here actually is a cream colour, with bright royal blue tips. I just can't get my camera to capture the colours.

And to show some growth, the photos below are from when we first got this colony

This one is actually a light purple

My purple monti from a previous order,

The 'bush' is coming along well. Either it came with an acro crab, or one already in the tank, but there is one there now,

The supervisor is not impressed at our lack of sump progress

michika · #5 07-27-2008, 07:56 PM

We cleaned the skimmer pumps today, and so far everything has been running smoothly. I'm thinking that the skimmer noises we were hearing earlier were because the pumps were quite filthy. The fact that when the T5s came online and we heard the pumps stop was just coincidence.

I picked up two more yellow head jawfish to replace the pair that died. However they didn't even make it home in their bags. They were packaged separately because the drive was over an hour from the store home. I called the store immediately, provided photos of the corpses per their request, and then have been told too bad, they left the store, so its my own fault. I am not impressed, I've spent A LOT of money in this store over the years. I think this is the epitome of bad service.

The raccoon butterfly did not come out today for nori, so I am worried it has perished, or been eaten by something in the tank we still haven't identified or seen. I saw the fish yesterday when I was getting ready for our awards ball last night, but nothing this morning. I am already thinking the worse.

Der_Iron_Chef · #6 07-27-2008, 08:04 PM

WOW. I can't believe the store was so dismissive. That's absolutely insane. Do you think they're cyanide caught or what?

michika · #7 07-27-2008, 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Der_Iron_Chef

WOW. I can't believe the store was so dismissive. That's absolutely insane. Do you think they're cyanide caught or what?

I'm starting to think so. The butterfly was from the same store, so that is 5 fish now from this particular store that died very quickly. Both pairs of jawfish died at around the same time. Each pair was from a different batch per the LFS employee. I'm no longer going to be dealing with that particular store.

BlueAbyss · #8 10-17-2008, 07:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michika

Unfortunately I STILL can't get the white balance quite right. My photos have too much red in them.

The blue light from your actinic and 13, 14 K bulbs is affecting your camera. It is nearly impossible to get good colour rendition under these conditions... unless you choose to use Photoshop or some other image editing program that can alter the colour cast created by these lamps.