redwinger's blog

[redwinger]

Blog Created for redwinger

[redwinger]

Ok I will play along with this.

This was my first tank that got me hooked it lasted a whole two months.



I then progressed into the current tank which is a 75 gallon.
This is that tank on December 26th 2004



It was mainly a sofite and lps tank with very few corals.

I then got the bug to get into sps and the rest is history.

This was roughly July 2005 if I remember right



Then I switched up the reflectors and got rid of the VHo's and went to 20k xm bulbs.

This was in December 2005 IIRC

[redwinger]

I then had a brown wafer algae outbreak that was driving me batty so I decided to pull the rock and cook away. Something I had been meaning to do for quite some time.


After a good two months of cooking the tank went back together. This was April of 2006. Had no loss while cooking but some of the corals lost their color.





Allmost forgot my frag tank that was a mantis tank at one time.

[redwinger]

As for the tank itself. It is currently a All glass 75 RR. Lighting at the moment is 2 LA3 reflectors 2 icecap 250w ballasts. 20k xm bulbs. Circulation is provided by two tunze 6100 with the 7095 multi controller.
The sump is a DIY 30 gal tank.
The skimmer is this bad boy Made by reefmania. It stands 35" tall and is 8" in diameter. The pumps are sedra 5000's. There is a 25 watt aquauv plumbed in to it and is fed with a mag 5. I inject 50mg ozone through one pump 24/7


I had a real problem with the stank of the skimmate when I got this skimmer. It would literally stink up the entire house and needless to say the wife wasn't to pleased so I had Bob at reefmania add a chamber to the cup to hold some carbon to eliminate or cut down the smell. Needless to say it eliminated the smell.

Here it is with the carbon cup added


Calcium is maintained with a CA reactor from Reefmania

The tank is controlled with a aqua controller and x-10's up the wazoo.

I top-off with a liter meter that doses out of a 16 gallon container my top off water mixed with Kalk. I went this route as I am not to crazy about float switch's that tend to stick in the on position. This route although cost a little more gives me the piece of mind that is priceless.

[redwinger]

The next project is going to be going back to 10k lighting with actinic supplementation. I will be running xm 10k bulbs again and a ice cap 660 with 3 46.5 actinic bulbs. Reason for this is the 20k has seemed to wash out a lot of the color in the sps. I am going to keep the canopy less look. Bob at reefmania was over and we discussed a acrylic support system for the LA3 reflectors and the VHO's. We came up with a design that should keep the open look as best as possible and make it easy to access the tank. I will post more pics as it progresses.

[redwinger]

Allright took the frag tank down and coverted it back to a Mantis tank.
Excuse the dusty pics

[redwinger]

Allright got the new canopy up and switched back to 10k bulbs. Here is the new canopy the luminarcs sit right on top of it and there are four actinic vho's run off a icecap 660 ballast. I had reefmania make this as he makes anything acryllic for my tank he does phenominal work, is a perfectionist and makes a good neighbor too. Reason I went this route is I really wanted the actinic look back at dusk and dawn but wanted the par of the 250w xm bulbs and a more bluer look. I figured if I oversupplemented the actincs to 440w it would appeal to my taste. Needless to say it has. The reason teh luminarcs are exposed at the top is the wife liked the look of them saying it gave them a contemporary look. Have to keep her happy sometimes.


I had him incorporate holders on each side of it for the fans. The fans slide in and out of these box's and do not vibrate and are whisper silent.



You can see the staggered VHO's in this shot.

[redwinger]

So the 75 is coming down and a very custom 120 gallon is going up. Click on the link at the bottom of my sig to view the build thread.