Bill's 150

[wmboots]

deffinetly interested in the frogspawn, already have a few heads of hammer. PM me with contact info will try to get by this weekend

Edit: looks like I am going thru a mini cycle sand is deffinetly cycling with all the brownish algae all over it and cyano and hair algae blooms going on which I brush off and seems to slow down the growth. The one issue that has me concerned is testing alk and find it in the 12.5 range and I can't figure out why its so high. Nitrates, phosphates check to 0. Mag was 1250 so I'm dosing to bring up to 1400. PH was 7.8 and that bugged me but a little dosing and its back to 8.3. Anyone have any ideas on alk being so high?

 

[wmboots]

Just found a box sitting next to tank stand evidently my wife forgot to tell me the T5 lamp holders came in today. Could have been working on retrofitting the hood this evening, Oh well I know what I will be working on tomorrow. Will be nice to get 8 T5 lamps in a 6' canopy that will light up the entire tank versus the 6 lamp 48" fixture I have over the tank at this time.

 

[rdnelson]

You doing 8 - 3' lamps or are you staggering 8 - 4' lamps?

 

[bruce 1]

Bill if you are up in Chatsworth call me I have a Monti cap I can give you. It is good sized. (baseball)

 

[wmboots]

rdnelson99;755056 wrote: You doing 8 - 3' lamps or are you staggering 8 - 4' lamps?

staggering 4' lamps but the ballast I'm using I can run 80 watt lamps as well and I have enough reflector that I could run 60" lamps.
Depending on what I decide on LED's in the near future I may just replace 48" lamps with 60" when its time to purchase new. Fortunately I have staggered my lamp purchases so I can replace 2 - 4 lamps at a time insteaad of purchasing all 8 at once.

Edit:

bruce 1;755059 wrote: Bill if you are up in Chatsworth call me I have a Monti cap I can give you. It is good sized. (baseball)

PM me your info and I will call you when I'm in the area

 

[wmboots]

Back to square one when it comes to the canopy, what I planned to do with the lighting layout just won't happen with the amount of space I have to work with. I will be spending the weekend re-working the canopy to make room for 8 - 48" T8 lamps.
I was so hoping to have the lighting completed this evening.

 

[rdnelson]

Sorry to hear that. If it makes you feel any better I ran into a snag on my center brace. I will post details in my build thread so I don't clutter this one.

 

[wmboots]

Rich don't worry about cluttering my thread your about the only one who responds anyway
It does sound like we both have our weekends planned out for us, I had thought about tearing apart the hanging canopy that came with the tank but upon further inspection this thing is very well built. The pieces are routed and flanged together, whoever built this stand and canopy knew what they were doing and had the right tools.
Now I have to design and canopy that will hold 8 - 48" T8's because I really don't want to buy 6 - 60" 80 watt lamps plus I can't let go of that kind of money at this time anyway.
But the issue that has me more concerned is Alk being at 12.5 and the tons of diatom algae on the sand. I figure this is just the tank cycling but it still causes me concern

 

[jbdreefs]

I think dry sand is more prone to a diatom bloom than live sand. I can't remember which you used, but thought I'd throw that out there. I think most phosphate binders also aid in silicate removing. Maybe try one of them if you are not already?

 

[shanepike]

I had live sand and still had diatoms right at the end of my cycle and for a week or so after. They eventually went away just like Jenn promised me they would -- though I know there are other things that can cause them as well.

 

[eagle9252]

Was going to reply in my build about some stuff but fell asleep. So your using t-8's instead of t-5's. I was going to do the same but caught a lot of crap for even thinking it. I have a new in box 6 bulb t-5 fixture. Its 48" 2 ballast 4 on 1 and 2 on the other.

Don’t forget I have a couple of frags for you. You might already have them not sure.

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[jbdreefs]

eagle9252;755339 wrote: Was going to reply in my build about some stuff but fell asleep. So your using t-8's instead of t-5's. I was going to do the same but caught a lot of crap for even thinking it. I have a new in box 6 bulb t-5 fixture. Its 48" 2 ballast 4 on 1 and 2 on the other.

Don’t forget I have a couple of frags for you. You might already have them not sure.

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i think i just found a use for those magnet frag plugs i inherited from someone!

 

[rdnelson]

Eagle I think that was a typo on his part. I am pretty sure he meant to type T5 and not T8.

Bill, I am not sure how much I will get done on the tank this weekend. Tomorrow I have to go earn part of the money for my new LED fixtures and then on Sunday I may be making an overflow box for a member to help pay for a little more of those LEDs. LOL

 

[wmboots]

deffinetly a typo I am running T5's, wish I could afford a few of the LED's Rich is running a group buy on but with all the money owed my company that we can't seem to get customers to pay I'm not buying anything for awhile. I don't recall a time when I have had so much difficulty collecting on jobs and some of the deadbeat customers are large corporations. The amount of money owed to the company right now would run the business for 6 months.

Edit:

JBDreefs;755343 wrote: i think i just found a use for those magnet frag plugs i inherited from someone!

Is Dacula up around Rabun County?

 

[jbdreefs]

Not that far north! I'm 10 minutes or less from the mall of ga.

 

[wmboots]

made the long trip to Pure Reef on Saturday, been hearing so much about this store that I finally had to make the 1.5 hour trip to check it out. what a great looking store and abundance of product, I can only imagine the overhead and what amount of business they have to do per day just to break even.
In any case I picked up a couple of these guys

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I went against my better judgement and experience since there was a dead one laying in the bottom of the tank and when I asked how long they had been out of quarintine the answer this was all their display tanks are part of the quarantine system.
any case I purchased and spent 2 hours doing a drip, remove 50% of water and repeat to make sure I had a good acclimation before putting them in the display.
They interacted great with the other tank inhabitants and ate quite well but when I got up yesteday morning I couldn't find them. Later that day I saw one in the back of the tank but he didn't act quite right then a little later on I saw the other one or should I say what was left of him being fed on by a wrasse. Last night I had to remove the other one as it had died.
Lesson learned AGAIN do not buy fish that haven't been properly quarantined and be sure to ask how long the store has had them.

Edit: By the way my wife picked out a beautiful and cheap black damsel fish that is doing just great

 

[eagle9252]

wrasses are the devil... they ate my clam

 

[rdnelson]

Bill, I have had luck with the few fish I bought there but you are right. I much prefer to go where I know they QT. I also prefer to get them right out of the QT tank before they go into the tanks on the sales floor. I picked up two just like that from my fav LFS and they are doing great. On top of that, the prices are usually better at the I am talking about. I think you know which one that is. Sorry for the losses. :-(

 

[wmboots]

rdnelson99;769350 wrote: Bill, I have had luck with the few fish I bought there but you are right. I much prefer to go where I know they QT. I also prefer to get them right out of the QT tank before they go into the tanks on the sales floor. I picked up two just like that from my fav LFS and they are doing great. On top of that, the prices are usually better at the I am talking about. I think you know which one that is. Sorry for the losses. :-(

Price was great, actually cheaper than our fav LFS and the black with white spot damsel Shirlee picked out is doing great. I just went against my better judgement and knowledge I have when I purchased the fire fish. They looked really healthy but I didn't bother asking how long they had been in the store, so shame on me

Edit:

eagle9252;769344 wrote: wrasses are the devil... they ate my clam

wrasse never bothered either of the fish until they died but my experience with clams and wrasse is either one or the other

 

[wmboots]

found an old pic of the 90 that crashed on me, just wonder how long it will take to get the 150 close to this. made me sick to find out I had a faulty heater put out by blue line that killed off everything in the tank except for clown fish and a wrasse
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