Re-Doing 4YR 55 Gallon (BEWARE PICS)

Looks great Travis, I like the new rockwork and other tank improvements.

Do yourself a favor and mount your power center on the side or back of tank and it will be much safer and cleaner (shame to be electrocuted as such an early age). Zip ties are the easiest way IMO.
 
I got shocked earlier... Not very fun and i will definatley be looking for alternative placement for that power strip. Thanks for the kind words and advice!

Travis
 
If you ever get a chance to take everything out of the inside of the stand, I would put in some pond liner as a to catch any spills and such that occur.
 
I will be doing some type of lining also sound deadening. That will be on my next Co2 fill up. Thanks for the suggestions, keep em coming!
 
If your going to order from key critters, then I would recommend 25 astreas, 50 ceriths, 25 blue legs and maybe 2 or 3 emerald crabs.

Where did you get your Calcium reactor. I've been looking around but most of the setups cost at least $400+, so I'm going with a kalk reactor for now.

Also are you testing for you magnesium?
 
Thanks comment, I was hopeing sombody would chime in about the Clean Up Crew!

I got my reactor from www.ReefTek.com for 150.00 at the time. I also bought my solenoid off of ebay for 85 and got the Co2 bottle local for about 25, not extremely expensive, just gotta look hard for the deals :) The media wasnt expensive at all, I think a got a 50 lb bag from Aquarium Maintenance off Plano road for 20 when they closed down shop. I havnt tested for Mg yet but im still gathering my test kits up, those things arnt to cheap lol.

Anyways there has been some talk about the Blue Legged hermits, theres actually a thread somewhere around here and some say they wish they never put them in their tank. My Initial CC was going to be 75 Astrea 120 Ceriths. -No crabs- lol. But i dunno, so far only algea in the display is small amounts on the rock that are going away and detritus on the sand in low flow areas.

Travis
 
Hey Travis,

I don't use blue legs, but I thought you liked them. I wouldn't use my money on them the astreas and ceriths should handle most of the algea.
 
Your right I do like them :lol: , but I reasearched them and figured it wouldnt be the best idea for me. I looked at ReekTek looks like their prices went up :sad:

Travis
 
Ok, Well heres an update for yall :sad: . Last night one of my power heads came loose from where it was mounted which pointed the nozzle straight down blowing the sand out from under the rock work. The rear of the structure gave away sending my LR crashing down ruining my aqua scaping. I got it all fixed and it looks beter then it did IMO. I still need 1 more chunk of huge rock to make it look good and some rubble. Im waiting for the water to clear and ill post some pics. I sure do wish i had time to PVC brace everything...

Thanks for viewing
Travis
 
Just a small suggestion - when you put the bottom layer of rock in, "wiggle" it down through the sand so that it's resting directly on the glass of the bottom of the tank, that way an errant powerhead (Or fish!) will have a harder time causing a collapse...
 
Thanks Serk, Ill keep that in mind next time. Hopefully i can use PVC supports :) .

Well on another note I drove out to saltwater Paradise today. I sure wasnt satisfied! Their shop was disorganized, cluttered and dirty and a few of the coral tanks looked bad. Hopefully they are just recovering from the holidays 8) , I really see the potential in the store! However, I did make off with 10 lbs lr for 20 bucks so im happy about that.

Ok heres the pics!


Tank with new rock and diff scaping.
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Another Blurry pic :cry:
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The queen in her castle.
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Thats it for now
Travis
 
Hey Red,

They were taking down a small reef. The rock was in the middle of the fishrooms entrance in a rubbermaid container. Looks like they were cleaning house and didnt have room. It was a steal! I did want a huge peice, weighed about 7lbs, very nice with holes for 25$. I chose to get the smaller peices to fill in the holes.

Travis
 
So im about to place my order for the group buy. How does this sound for my tank? Add more or no?

*100 Cerith
*50 Astrea
*7 Scarlet Hermits

I dont think a Emrald is neccesary :)

Thanks guys
Travis
 
That sounds good, but I have two emeralds in my tank and love them. They pull the algae right off the rock, and pick up any food that makes it to the bottom of the tank. They are only $2.50 a piece or less now from the GB, so I would go ahead and get two. Just because the price is awesome.

Good Luck
 
That sounds like a good amount of clean up critters to me. Maybe a bit heavy, but not rediculously so.
 
Awesome!

So its time for yet ANOTHER Update. So today I was sitting around showing off to my family what the tank looks like under VHO and MHs. Then they saw a spot of algea in the tank so I grabbed th scraper and went to work.. woo it was HOT in that canopy. *DING* IDEA!!!

Its now time to start my Canopy cooling and Moonlighting project on a budget :twisted: . A few things I wanted were:

1)Controllable Fan RPMs
2)Moonlighting and Dimming feature (LEDs of course)
3)Ease of use
4)CHEAP!

I then had to ask myself well how do I do this? Im no electrical mastermind or wiring specialist. So I figured id use a spare ATX Pc powersupply I had laying around and use all computer parts.

The parts I used are:

1) Two 80mm fans with 4blue LEDs inside them (HINT HINT)
2) One 120mm fan (No Leds)
3) Nexus Fan controller
4) ATX 400 Watt Power Supply
5) 22AWG Spare Wiring
6) A kitchen table (Agianst Mom's wishes :lol: )


My First task was to figure out how to make the PS come on without the presence of a... well computer lol. This is done by taking the green wire out of the Motherboard wiring bundle and grounding it. The PS lit up and started pumpin out the wattage.

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After doing that I had to clean up the Wiring. There were tons of wires going every which way and I wanted this to be somewhat organized!

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Now that the PS was on and running and looked good, It was time to crack open the Fans and Controller for a test run and heres what I got!

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Hmmm the LEDs in that pic look weird right? I took them out of the housing for some modifications 8) . Heres a better look. Can you guess what im doing yet?

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Heres the final product of one of the completed fans. Of course ive entended the LED's wiring about 1ft anywhere to 2ft and they work!

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To put the LEDs in the canopy I drilled some angled holes (so the light wouldnt be straight down in spots) and inserted the LEDs into them. You might wonder what my canopy looks like after this and in short it looks like a UFO runway :lol:

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This project took me a little over 2 hours and it was a good experience. The tank looks great and the clownfish are puzzled! I also have sufficent cooling with adjustable RPMs and Light Dimming. OH and the Lonley shroom is glowing florescent red.

As always im open to comments and suggestions! Enjoy!
 
I wonder how much power that powersupply is actually pulling. If it is a 250w powersupply, and you are running milliamps for those fans, does it still generate the 250w it is designed to produce, even though you aren't actually tapping into that power?

I use regular wall-wart powersupplies for fans. One can run several fans if you match up amps and voltage.

Great work. I put something similar over my 55g a couple of years ago, and used the blue LEDs to light my tank at night. I pointed them downward instead of how they were oriented into the fans.
 
Im not sure how much its actually pulling, I could have went for a Power converter but after buying all the parts and paying for the my share in the GB im broke (lol) so I just went for the PC PS, I might change it in the future.

OH and let me add this! I did see how you modified your fans! I read on your website about how you modified them to point downward, thats why I bought Blue LED fans because I was going to attempt the same thing. :D So I believe I owe you a thanks!

Travis
 
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