Phil's 90g SPS dominant reef (aka The Electric Reef Project)

[curiousphil]

Made some time this weekend to work on my lights some more.  Spent About 12 hours over Saturday and Sunday changing my wiring to put the LEDs in series.  Yep, that was the problem all right.  As soon as I remounted the one fixture, I knew I was on to something.  It was visually much brighter than the other, unmodified side.  Confirmed my suspicion by taking a surface PAR reading - 600!!  Woohoo!  You have no idea how excited I was to finally figure out what was wrong.  I was so excited, that I had to do the other side!!!  Took some more readings, 380 at the top of my rockwork, about 250 midway down, and anywhere from 90-200 on the sand (depending on the spot).  My acros have immediately rewarded me with more polyp extension.

One more change I might make is to spread out the LEDs on the recently revamped fixture... the clustering has created a bit of a dead spot near the far right side and in a small spot close to the middle that I am not really liking.  Both LED fixtures are pretty much putting out the same amount of PAR, and I am much happier with the spread with the old fixture.  Oh and I'm running without optics right now because I had to remove them to redo the wiring.  So I may throw the optics back on when I pull down the one fixture to space the LEDs out.  Or maybe I will leave them off and just lower the fixtures.... we shall see!!  Now is when things get really exciting and I can perfect things .  Oh and I noticed as well that my banana tabler has already started to further encrust it's rock - there is dead corraline all around it's base that just developed yesterday.  Love seeing bright pink corraline!!

 

[jroovers]

I can't believe how much time you and effort you have put into your lights - cost wise, and definitely time wise, you may have been better off with just buying a fixture - however, I'm sure you have learned a ton through this process, and taken some satisfaction in figuring things out yourself.  Good to hear things are looking up! 

 

[curiousphil]

I can't believe how much time you and effort you have put into your lights - cost wise, and definitely time wise, you may have been better off with just buying a fixture - however, I'm sure you have learned a ton through this process, and taken some satisfaction in figuring things out yourself.  Good to hear things are looking up! 

Oh yeah you have no idea how much better off I would have been time- and money-wise haha... as my g/f has reminded me more than once!  If I applied my hourly work rate to the time I've spent researching and constructing this damn thing,  it would almost certainly make me physically sick lol.  When I first discovered that I could build my own LED fixture, I thought hey, that sounds like a fun little project I could do myself!!  If I had any idea the time it would take... yeah I probably would have gone another route.  But it has been an immensely satisfying (albeit sometimes incredibly frustrating) project and I would not have read and learned nearly as much about the lighting requirements for corals, which led to coral biology, spectral quality, PAR/PUR, etc as if I had just gone out and bought a unit day 1.

 

[jroovers]

Maybe if you go renting out your PAR meter at $10 per day you'll eventually recover some of those costs!  Going through the frustrations can be especially rewarding when you see things improve, or a coral start to grow, given what you went through to get there. 

 

[curiousphil]

Took a short video last night, you'll probably want to watch it on mute as the washing machine was running in the background.

http://youtu.be/wIP2cOAsFR4

 

[curiousphil]

After a very long wait, I was finally able to pick up my JNS ConeS CO2 skimmer from Big Al's on the way home from work last night.  Some assembly was required, but it only took a couple of minutes.  I'm very impressed with the quality of the product, has a good weight to it and feels sturdy.  Feels even more solid than my previous Deltec skimmer.  Once I had it together, I decided to give it a rinse and install it immediately.  Contemplated doing the 24hr vinegar run... but I wasn't really sold on the benefits.  I'll let it break in while in sump.  Its already making a mad amount bubbles!

How big of an upgrade is this?  I was going to take side-by-side shots of the skimmers to show the size difference, but it would have caused too much mess.  Maybe once the old skimmer is totally dried out I'll set it in front of the sump for a comparison shot.  But I'll describe the differences.  This skimmer feels like it's twice the size of my old one... the visual difference in amount of bubbles is huge.  Out of curiousity, I've tried to quantify the differences.  Numbers below are approximate:

Old skimmer...
Total height: 22" - pump sits underneath bubble chamber, takes up approx 4" and reduces effective skimmer height to 18"
Height of water level in chamber: 13 1/2"
Total bubble contact height: 16 1/2"
Height of foam column (from top of water level to top of cup): 8 1/4"
Chamber diameter: 5"
Chamber height: 9 1/2"
Neck diameter: 4"
Neck height: 8.25"
Chamber Volume: 228.67 in/c3
Neck Volume: 103.67 in/c3
Total Volume: 332.34 in/c3
Litres of air/hr: 350

New skimmer!
Total height: 22" - pump sits beside unit so bubbles start right at the bottom
Height of water level in chamber: 8"
Total bubble contact height: 22"
Height of foam column: 14"
Chamber diameter: 6"
Chamber Height: 13 1/2"
Neck diameter: 4"
Neck height: 8.25"
Chamber Volume: ~388.77 in/c3
Neck Volume: 103.67 in/c3
Total Volume: ~492.44 in/c3
Litres of air/hr: 720

Main differences: approx 30% larger contact area and more than double the amount of air.  I'm very excited to see the results of this change!   As of this morning I had a thin layer of light brown skimmate in the cup.

 

[benzzz]

Wow very nice that is a big ass skimmer !  And the collection cup has a handle    doh ! 

lol

Looks good hope it works the same!

 

[curiousphil]

Skimmer seems to be performing excellently so far! Collected half a cup of nice brown goo since my waterchange on Sunday.  Not black but pretty dark.  Lowered the water level in my sump to 8 inches on Tuesday night so I can play with the quick adjustment valve more and see how dry I can go while still producing consistent skimmate.  Had it at 9 inches prior to that, and since lowering it I've noticed that I'm getting some brown buildup at the top of the cone... so the water may be too low now.  I adjusted the output valve to be more restrictive and raise the water level in the cone a bit.  I'll give the cone a cleaning this weekend and let it go for a week, see how it works.  Really pleased so far though!!

On another note, visited Jordan last night and got a couple of smooth skin acro frags to try out - hawkins echinata and red dragon!  I love red dragons so I really really really hope it does well.  Jordan's specimen is more of a pink than a red so it will be interesting to see how it turns out in my tank.  Have the plug pushed into the sand right now acclimating to the LEDs.  I got a magnetic frag rack a couple weeks ago and put it at the top left of my tank above my GSP rock... the hawkins became its first occupant last night!  I'm still unsure where I will place it, but it should do
decent on the rack for now.  Couldn't get a good pic of it due to being at the back of my tank, but I snapped one of the RD best I could.  Was tricky finding a white balance that didn't make it look totally blue lol.

 

[jroovers]

Glad to see the frags made it into their new home - good luck with them, I'll be interested to hear how they do!

As for the skimmer, hopefully the pumps last on these things.  I can't recall specifically, but I think the recommended height for the skimmer was in around 9" to 9.5" if I recall correctly, I know there is some information in the equipment section of the RC forum on this.

 

[curiousphil]

Checked on the tank before heading to work this morning and saw that both new frags had their polyps out, yay!

Just when things start going good, I hear that I may be getting sent to Saudi Arabia for two years...

 

[Big_Als_London]

Checked on the tank before heading to work this morning and saw that both new frags had their polyps out, yay!

Just when things start going good, I hear that I may be getting sent to Saudi Arabia for two years...

Thats crazy.

 

[curiousphil]

No further news about my impending doom! Safe for another week

Had a super bad cyano bloom last week.  Siphoned out as much of the cyano as I could, dosed Chemiclean, turned the lights out for two days, 20% WC, another siphon/dose/WC cycle, and it seems to be eradicated.  I think the bloom may be related to the fact that I have only seen 2 out of 3 chromis recently.... .  Either that or possibly because I turned my GFO reactor off for a few weeks to try and get PO4 up, bring my tank parameters closer to the redfield ratio and hopefully encourage the Biopellets to work better.  Anyways, things are looking better now.  Tank updates....

-My regal tang has grown from the smallest fish in my tank to the largest, second only to the marine betta.
-Most corals have visually grown over the past month. 
---Birdsnest has regained its green tips and is putting out new branches.
---Banana tabler is steadily encrusting across its rock, probably sprouting a new polyp every day or so.  Has gone from the pale pinky/purple colour it arrived as to a bright yellowy-green with brown polyps.
---Red planet is sitting on the frag rack getting blasted with light, continuing to encrust over its superglue.  I transferred it to a 1.5 inch frag plug to encourage a hella big base.  Once it's made good headway in encrusting that plug I'll place it in the rockwork.
---Fire and ice/superman digi is branching like crazy all of a sudden.  Three new branches that are all nearly an inch.
---Purple digi has sprouted 3 new branches and one of the existing branches is shooting straight up at a good pace, maybe 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch over the past month.
---Green monti cap continuing to spread.  Broke it shortly after I got it and turned it into two frags, put them in different places in the tank.  Decided to place them next to each other back when I added the new liverock.  They have now grown back into one piece.  And the polyps have turned from green to blue.... which is strange but quite neat!
---Red monti cap fully covered its old skeleton and has begun plating out.
---Sunset mille starting to further encrust its plug.  It was encrusted over the top of the plug a little bit when I got it, but never progressed further down until now.  Colouring up nicely too.  Still not vivid orange and green, but much better than the peach and brown that it used to be.
---Sunset monti has grown off of it's plug, across the epoxy mount I made for it, and onto its rock.  New growth is looking much more colourful than the original flesh directly on the frag plug.
---Blue tort is encrusting and the tip is getting longer.  Was very blue when I aquired it, but its turning more purple with green highlights and green polyps.
---Humilis is encrusting over the back of its plug.
---A. loripes frag from Big Al's has finally done something!!!  Encrusted over one edge of the frag plug.  Turned green again and started putting its polyps out more often.  New polyps are blue.
---Both the new frags from Jordan are putting their polyps out on a regular basis.  My deceased red dragon never put out its polyps, so I'm quite happy that this new one is.
---Both Zoas from Nexusnight (one pink and one yellow) have sprouted new polyps.  The pink one is really going crazy and has actually jumped from its plug to the rock I stuck the plug in.  The yellow one has 3 new little tiny polyps but is not spreading out like the pink.  Also of note, the pink one grabs and consumes mysis that float into it when I feed the fish and other corals!!  That was unexpected.
---Duncan now has 6-7 new heads!!  It appears that the 2 main heads are continuing to build their branches, and as the branches get taller new heads are sprouting out of the new skeleton at the base of the main heads.  And each of the new heads are starting to build their own branches that are pointed upwards toward the light.  It's very very cool to see this unfolding!!
---Frogspawn is doing something similar to the duncan.  It was a single circular head when I acquired it, and now that head is splitting and the shape of it is changing into something like a venn diagram - three overlapping circles.  So I believe that the one head will become three new branches that each have their own head.  The flesh has also grown down over the frag plug.
---Orange crush acan echinata has 2 brand new mouths that appeared this week.

 

[benzzz]

From what I have read on other sps specific forum threads is the red dragon likes diffused light, keep it lower in the tank or it will turn pink. I have mine to the one end of my tank and is doing great,  it has such bright blue tips and growing well..  nice frags and  glad to hear you got the cyano under control.  Perhaps cut back on gfo amount instead of taking it off line. Worked for me  ;D

 

[curiousphil]

Had a good haul today, mostly courtesy of MJC.  Also picked up frags from Canada Corals, Bigshow and Reef Hero.  Great looking stuff all around!  My wad of cash disapeared very quickly lol which worked for me because I had a birthday party to attend for a special 1 year old.

My frag rack is full for the moment, still deciding on where to mount everything:
MJC
-ORA pearlberry
-DV limeade nasuta
-DV candle light acro (this thing looks exactly the same as all the pictures!! so awesome)
-Peach/green mille
-MJC banana split deepwater acro
-A plana crayola
-Electric boogaloo zoas

Bigshow:
-Jimmy Dean acro (sweet looking acro and really big frag!)

Reef Hero
-Yellow efflo (round two here we go!)

Canada Corals:
-Pink tipped abro
-Unknown acro

Back from the party now and everything is throwing out its polyps! So I'm a happy camper.  Set for corals for a looong time now.  Only thing I didn't get from my wishlist was a red convexa.

Second from the left, front row, in the bottom picture is the unknown acro from CC, if anyone has a clue what it might be please chime in.

 

[curiousphil]

Saw all three of my chromis today for the first time in well over a month!!! Happy day!!  I added three lyretail anthias on Thursday - a male and two girls.  They are out and about and eating, and working themselves into all the crevices of my rockwork, forcing out hiding fish and forcing everybody to be social .  I'm very pleased with my decision to add them.

All of my new fragfest acquisitions are doing great.  Took some new shots from around the tank:

 

[curiousphil]

 

[benzzz]

looking really good Phil  ;D

 

[Darryl_V]

Nice, you just have to let those bad boys grow..

 

[curiousphil]

looking really good Phil  ;D

Nice, you just have to let those bad boys grow..

Thanks guys.  It's a  very excitiing time for my tank right now!  All my work is finally beginning to pay off.

Picked up a Nikon D90 today along with a Tamron F2.8 90mm lens.  Lens comes Wednesday and then I can start playing!

 

[unibob]

[quote author=benzzz link=topic=5145.msg90977#msg90977 date=1397960820]
looking really good Phil  ;D

Nice, you just have to let those bad boys grow..

Thanks guys.  It's a  very excitiing time for my tank right now!  All my work is finally beginning to pay off.

Picked up a Nikon D90 today along with a Tamron F2.8 90mm lens.  Lens comes Wednesday and then I can start playing!
[/quote]

Similar setup to what I shoot with, you will like it


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