Dez' Tank Journal

[Dez]

Originally Posted by Reefie

I finally read each and every update since day 1 of Dez's build, and I was left speechless. It only took about a week and a half to catch up to the present time, and I feel like Marty McFly (Back to the Future). This has been an amazing journey from the get-go, I am very envious of your tank Dez! I am only allowed to keep a BC29, as I live in a condo in Vancouver. Although I convinced my wife to let me get a Skimz Ibox for my 3 year old daughter, like most people, it all started with Finding Nemo, haha! My wife said something very aspiring yesterday at the Vancouver Aquarium, she said I could have a bigger tank if we had a house, the first thing that came to mind was YOUR tank! I am trying to follow in your footsteps with the Zeo dosing, I've learned a LOT from reading this whole build! However, I'm on a tiny tiny scale compared to your tank, haha! I only dream of growth like you've experienced! I have a LONG way to go before my little nano BC29 see's any major growth. I switched to LED's about 2 months after getting the BC29, and have been experimenting with SPS, so far I'm experiencing good growth with a blue tipped acro, pink birdsnest, green birdsnest. I've been on a clam obsession lately though, 2 crocea's, 2 derasa's, and now 1 ultra blue maxima (bought 3, however only 1 made it). Anyways, back to your tank, please keep updating, and I'll keep aspiring to follow in your footsteps!

Thanks for the encouraging comments. It was through other people's tank journals that I've learned. Key thing is to be patient in this hobby. I am experiencing problems now because of my lack of patience at the beginning and getting too many frags. Now I have to remove large colonies and it's quite difficult at times. Find a system that suits your lifestyle and stick with it, only change it if it isn't working. It took me 4-5 years to plan this tank before I even started building it....be patient and start planning your big tank now .

[doch]

Hey Dez... I (and I'm sure many others) are curious as to what's going on with your tank buddy. How's it going? You get everything all figured out?

[Dez]

Yeah, I'm still here. I've been fighting cyan0 for a while now. I had it really bad , plus all summer I was working on my backyard and neglecting the tank. I have over the last 6 months or so have been selling off colonies. It was too much of a forest in there and the stuff underneath the forest wasn't getting light and losing colour. My flow was definitely impeded probably triggering the cyano. Out of the dozen colonies that I sold off, most of them barely fit into a 5 gallon pail. It was hard for me to sell them off and bring them to the lfs, but it was needed for my tank to have a future. Up until a couple of months ago, there were a few colonies that were about an 1" or 2" away from the surface of the water. I have since lowered them and rearranged so that they have room to grow. The corals are continuing to colour up again now that they can see the light and for some reasons my monti's are growing like mad compared to the other corals. Here's a FTS from 5 mins ago, you can see that ugly cyano, but it was way worse before. I've also had to sell of 3 clams as they were touching the glass and corals were growing into them.

Warning - CRAPPY CELL PHONE PICS

Office side (That Green Stag on the left was at the water surface 2 weeks ago, I got rid of some coral to make room and lower/trimmed it a bit)


Living room side

[Madreefer]

Hey Dez your corals still look great! Are you still running those LEDs? Since I put up mine I too have been getting some algae on the sandbed. I think it's due to the lights. But after reading what you posted about the flow that might also be a factor. Alot of my corals have grown alot and I dont really seem to get the undertow anymore on the sandbed. Is this hijacking? Sorry if it is.

[Dez]

Originally Posted by Madreefer

Hey Dez your corals still look great! Are you still running those LEDs? Since I put up mine I too have been getting some algae on the sandbed. I think it's due to the lights. But after reading what you posted about the flow that might also be a factor. Alot of my corals have grown alot and I dont really seem to get the undertow anymore on the sandbed. Is this hijacking? Sorry if it is.

I couldn't stand the fan noise of those LEDs so I sold them and DIY'ed some of my own and am running 3 AI sols. Have been running the Sols since July. Found a couple used ones and bought one new one. I've been slowly doing weekly siphons and it seems to help. I shouldn't have ignored the cyano that long, but had to get outside work done while it was warm outside.

[Dez]

Here's a couple of shots from 5 mins ago. Man, this is the first time I've tried to take top down pics with LEDs and it is darn near impossible. It fools the camera into thinking everything is blue, so these are all with flash.

Snappy's Super grape Mili grown from a 3/4" frag. To the left of it is my Saltynuts acro. I sold the entire colony which barely fit in a 5 gal pail and it's growing back now. I snapped it off at the base when I sold the colony, it was almost at the water's surface.


Pink Pocci and Green Mili


Frost polyps acro (originally from Lobsterboy), that purple one was a tiny brown frag, and the teal one is a grow back of a colony that I sold as well.


Montipora Spongides from Snappy (grown from a 1.5" frag)


One of my original corals - humilus (slow grower)

[Delphinus]

I wish my tank would look half as nice as your tank when it's "crappy" like this!

Very jealous man. Nice colonies and great colours and good overall health of the corals themselves. I'm sure in time things will bounce back up too, esp. now that it's winter and we'll all (presumably) spending more time indoors and stuff..

[BlueTang<3]

Originally Posted by Dez

I couldn't stand the fan noise of those LEDs so I sold them and DIY'ed some of my own and am running 3 AI sols.

So how many leds would u say u are running equivalent to 5 ai sol fixtures? What spectrum are you running the leds on?

[doch]

She still looks really good Dez!! Must be nice to have a green thumb with this stuff!!

[Dez]

Originally Posted by BlueTang<3

So how many leds would u say u are running equivalent to 5 ai sol fixtures? What spectrum are you running the leds on?

I have 360 watts total now (I used to run 1178 watts - when I was running halides/T5s). I basically got rid of my T5's and diy-ed 5ft leds. I have no idea what spectrum I'm running them at. I personally find the SOLs way too blue, so I think my whites are at 65% and the blues are at 35%. And on my Diys I have a 1:1 ratio of cool whites/royal blue (no reflectors).