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Unread 09/30/2016, 08:18 PM   #101
madweazl
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New guy in the house!




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Unread 10/01/2016, 10:34 AM   #102
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I started digging through the pictures to see if I could find a full tank shot at monthly intervals.

Day two (1 Jun 2016)



One month and nineteen days (18 Jul 2016)



Three months and two days (2 Sep 2016)



Four months and one day (1 Oct 2016)




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Unread 10/02/2016, 03:58 PM   #103
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I wasnt in the market but I came across a deal on a Kessil A360WE (tuna) that I just couldnt pass up today. I wont be able to get another to match until next week but there is a chance I'll be able to use these with my existing canopy. This would put the light roughly 8.5" above the water line which might be just enough to get the coverage I need (keeping my fingers crossed).


On another note, I snapped a shot with all the fish visible (gotta really look for one of them). How many can you find?



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Unread 10/03/2016, 06:09 PM   #104
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Cleaner shrimp made its way home with us today.




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Unread 10/04/2016, 04:31 PM   #105
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Retested KH today at 8.15 and Ca at 455. Only one day of data right now but it looks like KH dropped ~1.5-3. I added about .5g of fresh saltwater mix yesterday because of the shrimps acclimation process so that will muddy the numbers a bit. I'll continue to monitor the rest of the week and should have a good idea of what is being consumed. Best guess right now is 1.5 KH and 1ppm CA daily on a total volume of 72.5g (based on dosing this appears to be exceptionally close).

Also did some gonkulating and it looks like I can drop the lights to 4" above the water line and still cover 44" at the bottom (outer dimensions of my rock structure). Cant wait to start testing.


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Unread 10/05/2016, 07:03 PM   #106
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I spent some time messing with the placement of the Kessils over the tank today. I downloaded a simple LUX app on the cell phone and took some measurements. With the Kessil on the lowest setting, it produced 6000-6100 LUX at approximately 4.5" below the light. The SBReef 16" basic boxes produced 5700-5900 LUX at approximately 8.5" below the light (about as close as I could make them). The coverage of the Kessil really caught me by surprise. After reading a lot of threads I had some concerns about their realistic coverage until I watched BRS TV Episode 21. After mocking them up over the tank, I was blown away by the coverage, shimmer, and color (set at approximately 70%). The anemone is roughly two inches right of center in the tank.

SBReef 16" basic box 9" above water (right side SBReef on)



Kessil A360WE 5" above water line (right side SBReef on). The Kessil is mounted 8.5" left of center.



SBReef left, Kessil right.



With the placement worked out, I got to work on getting the canopy ready for the lights. Had to run over to the hardware store to get a hole saw (4 1/8"); those suckers get exponentially more expensive after about 2 1/2"!



The holes came out exceptionally clean! I had absolutely no splintering, not sure how I pulled that off (pretty sure it was because of the Red Gard and paint on the underside).



Still brain storming how I want to mount them within the canopy. I have a few ideas but I havent settle on one yet (I'm sure I'll wake in the middle of the night with something).


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Unread 10/06/2016, 05:27 AM   #107
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Current equipment list:

Marineland 75g (48x18x21)
Kessil A360WE (x2)
Ebay 1200gph low profile overflow (1" bulkheads to tank with 3/4" drains)
Eshopps R-200 sump/refugium (2nd generation)
6500k compact fluorescent (x2) in clip on fixtures
Bubble Magus Curve 5 skimmer
BRS carbon reactor
Waveline DC6000 return pump
Jebao PP8 wavemakers (x2)

Current fish list:

Coral beauty angel
Yellow tang
Lyretail anthias (female)
Black ocellaris clown
Pearly jawfish
Randall's goby
Kaudern's cardinal
Yellow assessor
Chalk bass

Current invert list:

Tiger pistol shrimp
Peppermint shrimp (2-3)
Skunk cleaner shrimp
Brittle star
Sea Cucumber
Reefcleaners CUC

Current coral/anemone list:

Duncan
Torch
Meteor shower (cyphastria)
Monti cap (red)
Pipe organ
Jack-O-Lantern
Rose bubble tip anemone
Green mushroom


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Unread 10/06/2016, 02:50 PM   #108
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I like the look of your tank with the Kessil. I really like your aquascape. It just looks natural. I'm setting up a 75 right now and I'm struggling to make it look more natural


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Unread 10/06/2016, 06:11 PM   #109
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Luckedout View Post
I like the look of your tank with the Kessil. I really like your aquascape. It just looks natural. I'm setting up a 75 right now and I'm struggling to make it look more natural
Aquascaping is always an arduous process. You're always one rock away from perfection. I think one of the biggest keys is to remember to leave a lot of vertical room in the tank for stuff to grow into. Might look awkward at first but your corals are going to fill in all of those spots. I like to leave a good amount of space between rocks as well. This creates better flow through the rock and leaves lots of areas for the fish to swim and hide.


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Unread 10/06/2016, 06:40 PM   #110
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Copps rainbow undata



Jason Fox Jack-O-Lantern




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Unread 10/06/2016, 07:34 PM   #111
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Not a very good image because of the placement of the coral but best I could do.

Cali tortuosa



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Unread 10/07/2016, 04:13 PM   #112
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I need to paint everything but I made the cradles to suspend the lights. I need to find some grommets for the top of the canopy to make that nice and clean still too (I'm thinking port covers for speaker boxes will probably work out pretty well). The hardware isnt stainless but is cheap, off the shelf stuff at the local hardware store so it's easily replaced. The lights sit 4.75" above the water line and the coverage comes just under the center brace of the aquarium just as planned.






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Unread 10/07/2016, 05:02 PM   #113
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Coverage from each Kessil.






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Unread 10/07/2016, 08:48 PM   #114
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Wow the kessils look amazing beautiful tank

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Unread 10/09/2016, 03:41 PM   #115
Fuel Doodle
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Wow the kessils look amazing beautiful tank

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Tank shot with both on at the same time please how high above the water are they?


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Unread 10/09/2016, 08:18 PM   #116
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Fuel Doodle View Post
Tank shot with both on at the same time please how high above the water are they?
Lights are mounted 4.75" above the water. Intensity was about 50% when this was shot.




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Unread 10/10/2016, 10:39 AM   #117
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Awesome. Thanks


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Unread 10/11/2016, 03:54 PM   #118
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I never seem to place things in a good position to photograph.

Cali tort


Duncan sprouting a new branch



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Unread 10/11/2016, 07:03 PM   #119
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Huge sweeper (relative to the size of the coral anyways) from the leptoseris!




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Unread 10/14/2016, 03:21 PM   #120
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Quick question, are you the madweazl from clay-boa?


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Unread 10/14/2016, 03:45 PM   #121
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Originally Posted by madweazl View Post
... continued

I ordered 65lbs of the BRS reef saver dry rock and started planning the aquascaping. I threw some masking tape of the floor to outline the tank and used 1/2" OD PVC to make a basic structure. I wanted to create structures the fish could swim entirely around providing a bit more surface area to graze on. I wanted to incorporate the rule of thirds into the structure and I want to split the structure to help create the illusion of depth. The small diameter PVC was really easy to work with and helped me better visualize everything.



Enter one year hiatus and the aforementioned move here

It was finally time to start working on plumbing! I had ordered red furniture grave PVC about a year prior along with the matching white fittings to give an otherwise nice appearance to what typically ends up rather unsightly in my setups. This time I vowed to keep it clean, simple, and functional. After some mock-up, I started cementing things in place; I wanted to keep the straightest, most vertical path possible in an effort to maximize flow since I was using smaller diameter PVC at 3/4".



Now when I say maximize flow, it only counts on the drain side. I'm a symetrical kind of guy and I had plenty of pump for the return side of things.



The business end of the overflow was a very tight fit and I was a bit concerned things wouldnt quite work as intended. Thankfully I was wrong and with a bit of tuning, everything worked out perfectly.





The water level inside the tank was spot on! There were no leaks in the plumbing and everything was working pretty well. I removed the pre-filter to do some tuning of the main and open channels.



Once dialed in, I replaced the extension tubes and everything was operating pretty smoothly. The overflow box was a bit noisy from the water cascading from the inner chamber to the outer so I started working on a solution to that. I had to slow the return pump down quite and bit and subsequently, close the open channel down quite a bit. In the end, the overflow box was almost dead silent and the loudest part of the entire setup was the return pump.





It was time for aquascaping and sand; total master piece, right?


Very clean!


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Unread 10/14/2016, 06:29 PM   #122
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Quick question, are you the madweazl from clay-boa?
Yes (gotta love the filters here).


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Unread 10/14/2016, 06:34 PM   #123
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The cali tort is in a location that makes it impossible to photograph well from outside the tank so I decided to go inside and put the S7s water resistance to the test. 10k white balance has provided very close color rendition.



And she finally gets to show off her true colors!









Last edited by madweazl; 10/14/2016 at 06:45 PM.
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Unread 10/16/2016, 08:26 AM   #124
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Picked up a Reef Raft Wolverine over the weekend (tiny but I'll work on getting a decent picture) along with a couple other sticks (currently unknown so perhaps I can get some ID help as I get pictures posted later).

I begrudgingly performed some maintenance on the sump this morning. The skimmer really needs a complete tear down and bleach (rather unsightly right now) but I was lazy and cleaned the cup and reachable neck/body. Foam block in the bubble trap was getting pretty nasty so I cleaned it up too (released a lot of pods from the refugium area I'm sure so that will make some display critters happy). It was time to replace the carbon so the reactor is getting a thorough cleaning. Nothing exciting this morning but necessary (and better than putting everything off until I have to do it all at once).

It looks like I'll probably have to add another Kessil (160) to provide a little more coverage where I placed the new SPS; they're about 8-9" below the water line and two are on the perimeter of what I'd call adequate coverage. I'll give it a week and move forward with a plan after some more observation.


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Unread 10/16/2016, 10:39 AM   #125
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Cant quite get the white balance to show off the yellow




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