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Yeah, I think you deserve some photos for playing along with my thread. I'll go switch the background and do a little photo shoot.

brb

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Ack! things got outta hand. I was trying to epoxy one of the torch corals to the rockwork when I accidentally moved a rock and caused an avalanche. Nothing got bashed up too bad, but my red and green blasto looks a little worse for the wear. I couldn't get the rockwork exactly as I had it before, but it still looks ok. I ended up using the epoxy to cement a few of the rocks together so it doesn't happen again.

So the powerheads got a good cleaning, but since the tank is all cloudy again I'm sure they'll get nasty again before I can get a good shot. Ah well, I'm due for a water change tomorrow, so I'll clean them again. I have to say the black background and clean powerheads looked great. Near invisible.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

yeah i thought the black background would look better

thinking of any new inverts to add to the tank?

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

Oh good, more pictures to come soon I read. I'll pop back later for a look

On a side issue, do you still have any planted tanks?

Cheers
TW

Alex - I'm actually looking to get a new clean up crew as soon as I can remember to do that while I'm at work. I haven't added any more in the near 3 years I've had this tank up. So I'll be looking at the usual suspects....a couple turbos, astrea snails, blue leg hermits, peppermint shrimp, and maybe an emerald crab. I have some bubble algae that could use eating.

Robyn- I'll try to have some pics up later today. Most of the gunk has settled out and the water is pretty clear. I'll get shots before the water change, cause normally I stir things up pretty good while I'm in there.

The only planted tank I have up is the 5.5 for the shrimp. I love how easy that tank is to take care of. The shrimp do all the work for me. I just have to pull out a gallon or so of water every week. Right now it's crammed with the plants that I had intended to replace what's in there with. During the transition, two baby rainbows popped up presumably from eggs on the plants. So now I'm stuck with a mess, referring to the aquascape, until the fish grow enough that I feel it's safe to mess with the tank. Might be a couple months. Worth it though, if the fish make it.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

OK, here's the pictures:

FTS:


My clowns hangin' with the hammer coral:


And a nice Acan echinata:


Ok, time to go get my hands wet

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Very nice Matty. Must be easier to look after without substrate.

Good job with the rainbows in the planted tank. Hope they grow up nice & strong.

Cheers
TW

Thanks Robyn, it is a good bit easier for me to take care of this way.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Looks very nice Matt. Great looking tank.

looks great matty

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

During the transition, two baby rainbows popped up presumably from eggs on the plants.

Thats pretty cool!

How are you liking the light set up on this tank? Could you give us some more info on where you got it and how hard it was to set up?

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Thanks guys, and thanks for stopping in on the dark side wings .

My light setup was originally purchased as an icecap 4 X 39 watt T5HO retrofit kit with individual parabolic reflectors. It's a lot to say to describe a light source. I replaced the original ballast (icecap 660) with two triad ballasts. The icecap 660 overdrives the already BRIGHT bulbs to IMO TOO BRIGHT levels. In fact, the four bulbs run a little too bright by themselves with the triad ballasts, so I limit the cycle of the second set of bulbs to just 6 hours.

Anyhow, wiring and what not is a pain in the butt, gotta hang the lights in a canopy....that sort of thing. In that regard a fixture like a teklight is easier (but more expensive). If you aren't very handy I'd say get a fixture, but it wasn't really difficult for someone mildly DIY inclined. I do really like my new canopy. Makes it really easy to feed, water change, top off (still manually :/ ) etc.

I got the lights and second set of ballasts at reefgeeks.com last august and thanks to T5 technology I'm still running the same bulbs. Bright as ever. I'll think about starting to change the bulbs one at a time in january or february. Good guys there BTW, customer service is above average and the prices are pretty good.

All in all I really like t5ho. They have really come down in price, they are FAR more efficient than any other viable option for reef lighting at the moment, they are cooler than halides, and they are truly on par with the light output of halides IMO. They won't ever penetrate as well, but have better overall coverage (left to right, front to back) and have shown to support corals at depths of 2+ feet. I have an sps growing over 18 inches away from the bulbs right now.

As you can tell I've been brainwashed. To be balanced I'll say halides are the old standby and are great, PC's and VHO's definitely have their place in the hobby, but T5 is where it's at IMO until we see what this LED lighting has to say....not to mention come down to about 1/10th of the current price to be competitive.

Feel free to ask questions or take more pictures of something I haven't shown well.

Baby rainbows still kickin' BTW .

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

The LED's seem pretty interesting to me but like you said, way too much

Pictures of the baby rainbows??

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

That's the first shot I took a couple week or two ago when I first saw them. The first one to hatch, and the bigger of the two, is probably twice that size now, but still maybe only half a cm long. The small one isn't growing as fast, it's about the size of the first one when I took that picture.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

nice baby Matty /:'

Cheers
TW

Thanks robyn.

I have a few new pictures to share, I got the start of a new cleanup crew....3 peppermint shrimp, and about 10 snails, some margaritas and some astreas. I'll probably add to that a little more this weekend. Maybe a few more hermits or a small urchin. Also, I finally got around to getting my torch coral up onto the rocks. I'll probably move a few more up as well in the future.

Here's the pics:

One of the peppys:


My wheeler's goby is finally settling in again:


The always photogenic clown goby:


And a shot from the right side of the tank:

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

I`m very impressed. Great looking livestock.

are your clowns using the hammer as an anemone?

nice peppy and stunning clowns you get there matty

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

Thanks guys

are your clowns using the hammer as an anemone?

yep.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Awww, that wheeler's goby is real cute

Cute picture of the clown too. His little mouth shapes looks like he's frowning for the camera though

Cheers
TW

Top of the line what I expect from you Matty. Keep up the good work.

"Party it up, Drink it down"

Nice picture of the little rainbow. All of the salt stuff looks pretty nice too. When I first read that you were going to go with a bare bottom tank I didn't think it would look good but it does. Nice work!

55G Planted tank thread
19G Container Pond
[IMG]http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y118/Wingsdlc/Ric

Thanks everyone .

Wings-I don't like the look of bare bottom over a nice deep sand bed, but it's a lot easier to tend to, at least so far.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

have they damaged the coral at all?

also matty this is the sw forum, none of that fw stuff here

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

lol, I don't have a proper thread to post my fw stuff in anymore, not that there's much of it.

They seem to annoy the hammer coral a little bit. It's still growing though, and has colored up a lot since that last picture, so I don't think it's anything major.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

More shots:

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

I don't peek in on the dark side much, but looks great! Excellent pic taking too!

Thanks Fish Patty.

I actually treated myself to a few new coral frags today. Good scores on my tests and all. I'll get more pics when they settle in.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Here's the new pictures I promised.

Some zoanthids:


An aussie acan:


And a red digi frag:




I also got a green slimer, but I didn't get a good shot of it. I'll get one up soon, promise .

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Closeup:

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

whats the coral in the close up?
pollicipora?

anything new?

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

yeah, the closeup is my pocillopora. That thing has been growing like crazy lately. Not much new unfortunately. I've been consumed with schoolwork. I'll try and give an update this weekend though.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

*waits* lol

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

yeah, I dropped the ball there. sorry . I need some new batteries, then we get more pics

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Ok, finally what I promised, but first a few pics from my 5.5 shrimp tank, just for fun

My baby has grown!






Back to the darkside stuff

Some corals:








FTS:


From the left:


Right:


Enjoy

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

nice
i like the acanstrea in the 3rd pic
still motivated enough to do weekly water changes? lol

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''

Thanks, that one was a bit of a "rescue" that turned out to be pretty good.

I'm really still doing pretty well. Almost every saturday sees a waterchange. I've missed two I think since I set this up. One of those I made up for in the middle of the week, so it doesn't really count. The part that's really surprising (20 minute wcs are pretty easy lol) is that every other week I soak all the equipment in a vinegar-water bath to clean it off. This way it blends in with the background really well. I also thoroughly clean out the Aquaclear every week so that any detritus it catches is exported instead of broken down into nitrates.

I'm really beginning to see a change in coral growth and color (more) and algae growth (more coraline, less of the nuisance stuff).

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Pretty! Everything!
The baby rainbow is coloring up nicely & I like the scape in that shrimp tank!

nice

did you turn the HOB into a fuge, dsb or just leave it running like a standard HOB?

Do your Koralias make much noise now that theve been running for a while? (Alot of reefers over here are having this problem)

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''All the clown fish and yellow tangs in the world cant save you now!''