Archive for March, 2009

31 Mar

Coral Transfer- Part 1

Beginning the slow and painful process of transfering corals and live rock from the old system into the new one. The first step is transfering the existing coral, that can be moved easily, into the frag tank. I started by cleaning up my old tank’s bottom that was overgrowing w/ zoanthids. Most of my zoos started to grow onto each other and the dominant species were killing some highly prized ones. Not by chemical means, but by growing over top of each other and sufficating the bottom ones. Anyone working with zoos should know that they can release a toxin that can be deadly. Always use gloves when cutting and fragging zoos.

My acans were moved to the frag tank as well. Most of these species are from Australia, but some are from Japan. I’m not sure if the Japanese acans are illegally imported or not, but they are definitely unique.

Some of my sps were also moved. There are the rare ones that always grow slow and are still frag size. I’ll post pictures when I get a chance, but the lighting on the frag take is messign up the colors on my camera.

I’m dipping everything that goes into the new tank in Salifert Flatworm Exit, Topic Marin Pro-cure, and Coral Revive. Also zapping any aiptasia, I can see, w/ Joe’s Juice. Just being extra cautious to prevent any pests from entering the new tank.

This entry is filed under: corals | news
24 Mar

Light Fixture Finally Built.

I finally got around to building a light fixture. It’ll hold 2 metal halide pendants and 4 t5 supplemental lights. The t5s are powered by a Icecap 660 ballast with slr reflectors. The metal halides pendants, not shown, will be Sunlight Supply Lumenmax 250 hqi’s using IceCap 14k bulbs and ballasts. The fixture is roughly 4 feet wide by 22″ deep.  3/4″ square aluminum tubing and steel brackets from Home Depot were used in this build. The hanger system is from Current USA and allows the fixture to be lowered, if needed. I like how it turned out, has a very industrial feel to it. I’ll be building a hood to cover everything though, to keep the look clean. Here’s some pictures:

This entry is filed under: equipment | news
16 Mar

Reefkeeping’s Tank of the Month- March 2009

Check out Reefkeeping.com’s March 2009 Tank of the Month!  I’ve been following this guy’s (Reefbum) built thread on RC and now it’s the TOTM.  Sweet! Click on the picture to go to the article.

This entry is filed under: news
6 Mar

We have skimmate!

The tank’s circulation has finally started and the Bubble King is doing it’s thing.  Here’s what it’s producing after a few hours.  I had to dump it out twice while I was adjusting it. Nasty dark skimmate. Picture was taken via iphone.

Update 3-24

I’m running the skimmer wet right now, because there isn’t much in the tank, and I want everything sucked out of the water fast. Here’s a shot of a weeks worth of skimmate looks like.

Update 6-19-09, running drier now.

This entry is filed under: equipment | news