Neptune Aquatics

Gimmito's 450 gal L-shaped tank

Garvin,

It's just a regular green hammer...it might be just the lighting. The only thing orange in there is the plate coral in the front. I'll try and take some more pics for you. What kind of nano setup are you doing ?

Jim

p.s.

Congrat's on the newest addition...hope you are getting some rest !
 
i plumbed a 6 gallon to my 100 and putting in softies (pics in my thread). ive never been much of an lps guy until recently and bought my first acan and dendro. would like to get more lps in there. i will try to find another nano tank and make it a nem/perc tank. always a project in the making.

thanks, tristan is doing pretty good; growing and getting more active each day. i just need him to sleep through the night! i get power naps to keep me goin

waitin on your pics
 
Grabbed my iphone and took a few pics of the rsm. Here's a pic of a magenta dottyback I got from my buddy Mike. It's hiding under some mauve candycanes.

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Another rock dominated by various zoa's. I can't tell what half of them are anymore b/c the rsm lights are'nt the best. They looked totally different under my aquatinics T5's in my old 75.

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I'm tryin' Bryan ! I just need to figure out how to finish this house and the tank. $)

I do have a few questions:

1) How many pounds of live rock would you guys use for the tank ? I was thinking about 300 pounds of live rock to start off. I'm leaning towards Jeremy's suggestion of using tampa bay live rock.

Any possible group buy ??

2) Of course there is the whole schedule 40 vs. 80 debate, spa flex, etc.

3) Skimmer wise I'm leaning towards the bubble king 300 internal.

4) I'm still leaning towards the coralvue ballasts, lumenbrights, & led's for atinics.

Give me your 2 cents guys !
 
Bah, tank first then house! First rule of reef club? Tank comes first! Second rule of reef club... Tank comes first!

1: I wouldn't fixate so much on an actual amount of rock, but more so what rock you'll need to have the structures that you want. I've seen some of the TBS rock, compared to Pacific rock, it stinks (ok Pacific rock that's been sitting on a tarmac in 110F Las Vegas weather stinks too), but eh... is all I can say.

I wouldn't suggest a group buy on rock since you typically pay per pound and shipping is per pound as well, so the only cost you'll be splitting up is any sort of boxing charge which usually is minimal compared to the other cost. Only reason I'd say group buy is for a small tank, where you can order a 90lbs box of Fiji or something and can't use it all so you split it.

2: Debate? schedule 80 comes in pretty dark greys, 40 in white. They are interchangable with each other, other than maybe a bulkhead there's no real need for the additional strength.

3: Pricey skimmer, I think over at RDO this talk went about as well, where for the money you could do with a lot more skimmer performance for the same price as BK.

4: Man I forgot how deep your tank was... lumenbrights are more parabolic and are great for focusing downward more so than the lumenarcs, if you need to punch through the water then great, if you want it more to spread out evenly then the later is probably better. No opinion on the ballasts, and your LED actinics, fine for when the halides are off, however I don't think there's anything out there that really can make a difference in halides like tradition actinics can de-yellow lights quite well if that's the effect you're going for.
 
Thanks for your input Mike.

1) The tbs rock was cool how they fit like a puzzle. I know what you mean regarding the "truly" live stuff....I remember Anthony Calfo saying it takes decades for live rock to seed.

2) I just might go with a combination of pvc, spa flex, & schedule 80 valves and bulkheads.

3) I can get a bk 300 internal (slightly blemished) for $1,200. Are you still big on the Alpha 300 ? I have a buddy who said to keep an eye out on the i-tech "beast."

4) Lumenbrites do make a "wide" version, but I don't think I can go wrong with either. I'm interested in the reefbrite led's...maybe Gresham can chime in ?

Here's some info from reefbuilder:

Reefbrite’s new LED striplight have been treated to an new extruded aluminum exterior and some slight tweaking that has radically undermined the price. For starters, these Cree powered LED strips totally underdrive the LEDs and it uses a common internal reflector to evenly disperse the light into your aquarium. The new body is just as efficient as a heat sink but now with even greater strength and much less manual labor to put one of these together. The extrusion also allowed Reefbrite to ditch the side screws going to an enclosure that is nearly sealed except for the ends. The new body comes with a somewhat narrower reflector that should still give better spread than a series of lenses. The real advantage from the extruded body is obviously the price cut which is nearly 40% off the msrp of the first gen: whereas a four foot fixture used to retail for $379, the new four footer LED striplight will now set you back only $260 at retail. The smaller striplights from Reefbrite will soon follow suit in 36, 30 and 24″ lengths that should all fall within the $200-$250 range. The 48 inch Reefbrite has already started shipping and we’re expecting to soon spend a weekend setting up 8 of these bad boys as the near exclusive actinic light source over a 1200 gallon local reef tank. We’ll report back soon on how these lights fare with 36″ of depth as well as going head to head with 400 watt radiums.
 
1: I think Calfo (amongst others) also said "real" live rock is actually a self replenishing resource.. but who knows, the TBS of course there will be stuff on it, they basically made an artificial reef like sinking a ship, life will pick up. The thing I never liked (unless they changed) about the TBS is it's really a dense rock, not terribly "pretty" either. If it were me I'd say damn the live rock, buy maybe a small box (45lbs or so) and get some really nice dry rock pieces that you can use to do some nice aquascaping, Marcorocks comes to mind.

2: I really didn't understand your question, flexible stuff from your pumps is great to help reduce vibration noise, although spa flex still is quite stiff. Everything else, I go with what's cheap, my life story, however I do know others who really fork over for the high end plumbing so it all looks cool.

3: Hell at that price I probably would go with a BK300 too, slightly blemished? Hell I'll take one for almost half off that's got a crack in it! :D

4: I did see the reefbuilders write up on those, don't know what to say about what they use, I'm guessing the royal blue crees in them? Also unsure why it says "they underdrive" the LEDs like that's a good selling point.
 
Mike...you do have a way of putting things. :D

1) I was talking about the dry tbs rock...which looked okay to me. I was initially thinking of marco rock, but Jeremy turned me onto the tbs stuff. I've been checking out there thread on rf and evrybody seems to be happy with the stuff. My buddy Mike keeps telling me to go to his distributor to cherry pick the rock also...might be worth checking out.

2) Wouldn't a heat gun work for making the spa flex more flexible ? or how about flexible pvc ? Whatever happened to pecs ?

3) Kinda hard not to go with a bk at that price huh ?

4) Always intrigued by led's, but not quite sold on them. Anybody else using them as atinics ?
 
1: Alright, whatever you feel is great go for it. I'm curious what exactly dry TBS rock is now, just the junk they throw into the ocean to seed before throwing it in the ocean? :D

2: Oh you can bend the pipe that's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking vibrations, you might soften it with a heat gun but once it cools it'll be just as stiff

3: Yup

4: In this area? None that I know of. I mean nano-reefers use them, but their cost tends to skyrocket the larger you go. Almost the opposite of other lighting, a T5 bulb cost about the same whether its 24" or 48", a MH bulb doesn't cost too much more as you go up in power, but for LEDs you physically need more of them as you go across the tank, and they're expensive as all hell to start with! I think that has really kept people away from adopting them more quickly.
 
1) I guess any live rock today is pretty much junk. The days of getting live brittle stars, crabs, & baby octopuses are long gone. I'll cross that bridge once I get to it.

2) Hmmmm vibrations and pump noise=divorce. :O

I'm trying to keep that stuff to a minimum.

3) See #2.

4) I know the mh/t5 is still the way to go these days, but I keep hoping led's will get more affordble and atleast better atinic supplementation. That will probably the last thing I install.

Thanks again Mike....I look forward to talking to you in person at the tank tour and checking out your set up.
 
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