Slick's Tank Journal(s)

[Slick Fork]

Stopped in yesterday and picked up my gate valve from Red Coral so I've got my herbie standpipes and plumbing dry fit so I was hoping someone could confirm that it looks right. I know... it's a pretty simple concept but I always get nervous right before I do something permanent!!!





Also, wanted to throw in a couple of shots of the critters while I was at it. Everyone is there except for Leroy the lonely clownfish who is still upstairs babysitting the corals in the 33 gallon. They'll all go in once I get the sump online.

This is maybe a 3rd to 40% of my rock, I've got some cooking in a rubbermaid, some sitting in the sump so this is by no means a final rock arrangement. I have a really cool tower waiting to go in but one thing at a time! Only light right now is a screw in type CF spiral bulb in clip on lamp. I won't put the halides up until it's time for the corals

Here she is so far...




Cheers

[Skimmerking]

looks great man love the over flow box, now get that plumbing going and get those heaters out of the tank . shame on you.

[sharuq1]

Nice tank! Can't wait to see the pics with all the corals in.

[Slick Fork]

Finally!!

After much sawing swearing and spilling of water (mostly on myself) The plumbing has been completed, the sump is full of water and all the coral is back in the tank. Mind you, it's all in temporary spots including a frag rack for the time being but... It's BACK!!

So, still to do is figure out where I want all the coral and start epoxying it down, zeo system starts back up tomorrow evening, halides will go back up tomorrow evening as well and then I've gotta figure out what I want to do with all the rock. I've got a little less then half of it in the display right now with the rest cooking in a rubbermaid.

I think I'll use this opportunity to weed out some of the less desirable pieces, maybe keep them in the sump and start keeping my eyes peeled for "cherry picks" at the LFS's

I'll throw some pic's up tomorrow but for now it's time for bed!!

[fishytime]

Tease!

[Slick Fork]

Well, didn't get too much done today other then to hang the halide's up and give them turn on. That went smoothly enough though so I did manage a couple of quick shots before my camera battery quit on me.

We'll start with a couple of FTS's with the actinics on.

No Flash


With Flash


Here's the back of the tank, with all the plumbing in, including a real rats nest of wires... mental note, add clean up wires to "to-do" list








I'm finding the Herbie is a really finicky system, seems like I'm constantly fiddling with the thing, deadly quiet though when I've got it tuned in, even when it's not 100% tuned in, it's quite silent. Just wish it were more "set and forget" but I am REALLY happy I took everyones advice and grabbed a gate valve for it. I think if I had cheaped out and gone with a ball valve I would be pulling my hair out already.

Had a bit of a surprise tonight when I turned off the feeding pump. This set-up with the herbie sends quite a bit more water back into the sump. The sump handled it fine as I designed it to absorb a lot of water. It did raise the water level in the sump by a good couple of inches which was all the encouragement the skimmer needed to send a big column of super wet foam to the top of the collection cup. Fortunately I was there to unplug the skimmer before any real mess was made. Now the profilux is set to turn the skimmer off when I hit the feed button!!

[Slick Fork]

So, here's a couple of real quick livestock pic's, mostly just for my own record as everything had browned out really bad while in the small tank upstairs. But first here is the tower I built with PVC. I'm really happy with how it turned out, pictures just don't capture it though...





And now a few misc livestock shots (only got a couple and the battery died)




Most of my coral was turned into frags during the move, some of this was intentional but a lot of it wasn't. Oh well, nothing like starting really fresh!!