lastlight's 225

[lastlight]

So already I can't keep my hands out of the tank. I'm cursed like everyone else of course. The longer I look at my aquascape the more concerned I was.

1. not enough interesting places for small fish to swim or hide. Not enough rock on display.
2. Lots of nice shelves to place corals on but not enough smaller piles for coral, not enough caves and not enough cracks to swim through.
3. No depth as both towers viewed from the side basically lined up.
4. Kien's underwater video raised the aquascape bar way too high for comfort.

Here is the old FTS:



Two slightly different angles of the new FTS. Notice I rotated the entire middle tower so that from the front you see just how interesting it is. Originally I had the neat profile facing the end of the tank.





Old FTS viewed more from above:



This shows perfectly why I am happy I made the change. It's more dynamic, interesting and the swim-through cave on the right end is pretty cool.



Few more random looks:

[lastlight]

Besides changing my rockwork I also did my first water change. It was easy. Flipped a switch and turned a couple valves. Hardest part was waiting for the small Eheim to top the 24 gallons back into the stand from my office. I didn't mix my new water with a heater. The awesome part about the way I have the water change tank circulating pretty slowly in the system is that the Ranco detected no temperature change at all as the slightly cooler water worked it's way in.

Ammonia still reads less than 0.25. Water prior to messing with my rock was very clear. Skimmate keeps getting darker. I drain about 2 inches from my cup each day. My ball of chaeto is about 6 times it's initial size. Pods are really growing in numbers and a film of algae is forming in the fuge.

As for flow...well my sand in both the front and back will not stay put. For now I have dialed the power of each 6100 to minimum and replaced the 24V jumper in the 6101 with the 15V. All pumps are running much slower and my 7095 is only ramping from 30-40%. It's still got good circulation for now and I will adjust as time goes on.

I also hack-sawed out the old fuge drain and put a proper T fitting rather than an elbow on the bulkhead. Let's me get a bit more flow through the bulkhead and skim the fuge rather than have the bulkhead fully submerged. Cutting pipe in that stand took me over an hour. 2 cuts and careful placement of garbage bags to keep pvc shred out of the water. The new plumbing is much quieter. No more splashes can be heard with the doors shut. It's all motor whir now (Dart).

[TheMikey]

Love the new aquascape. I thought the original setup was okay - the shelves were very unique - however the new look blows it away. Well done

[Delphinus]

A considerable improvement on the 'scaping. Good work! I'm a big fan of swim through's, caves and ravines. So while I hated your old look your new look is awesome. Ooops, I mean, your old look was fine.

What are you using to test ammonia? I would almost just throw that test kit right out. Don't bother testing ammonia, test nitrite. When you get a zero nitrite reading, your initial cycle is done and your ammonia is zero. I've noticed with a lot of ammonia test kits that I'd get a nominal nonzero reading anytime I tried it, unless it was a FW tank. I don't trust ammonia testkits (even ones that say SW) at all.

[lastlight]

Thanks guys. I think I have the same issue with aquascaping I do with graphic design. I can work on it till I'm blue in the face and convince myself it's awesome. The real test comes when I wake up and look at it in the morning. I woke up today and dig it hard. Thank god...I'm done mucking about with rocks!

Tony the test kit is Salifert as are all the kits I purchased. If RC had nitrite trust me I would have bought it. I'm going to track down one today and see what that tells me thanks.

[Lance]

Aaaaaah! Much better Brett.

[xtreme]

I agree with the other guys, the new 'scape looks awesome.

I have a salifert NO2 test kit that I don't really have a use for anymore, its yours if you want it. Best before date on it is 10/09 though, not sure if a couple weeks past would make much of a difference?

[lastlight]

Dammit guys. If you didn't dig the old rocks you should have told me! The rocks tricked me into thinking they were done prematurely =)

Thanks xtreme you have pm!