Titus's 110 in-wall

PM Titus, that's who sold him his tank. Some people frown upon him on this forum, so it should probably be a private conversation. Sorry for the hijack Titus.
 
It's been a while since I have updated this thread, so time for an update...

First of all, I am sad to announce that Mike the Blood shrimp is no more. About 2 weeks ago, Spock the Butterfly decided he was no longer interested in Mike's cleaning service so decided to make a meal of him. I saw the whole thing unfold and it was more than a little disturbing to watch.

Second, I finally have made a new fish purchase and it was a big one... Today I received a trio of Hawaiian Flame Wrasses from PIA. They have been successfully acclimated to my QT and are already actively eating frozen mysis. Crappy cell phone pics will be posted shortly.
 
OK... here are the really bad cell pics. My Daughter has named them "Junior and the Girls".

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Day 9 for the Hawaiian Flame Wrasse Trio in QT. They are doing really well. The eat like pigs... The male is very outgoing, and has learned that red solo cup = feeding time. The females are both skittish, although one is noticeably more outgoing than the other. They seem unaffected by the copper treatments so far.


Lighting update - I have not been 100% happy with the T5s for a few different reasons.
1) They put off a good bit of heat, and I worry that will be more of an issue once I get around to adding trim to the office side of the tank.
2) I don't look forward to the annual bulb changes.
3) with the lights mounted directly over the rocks, and having a blue bulb and a white bulb, the rocks look blue from one side of the tank and yellow on the other. The girls don't notice it but it bugs me.

With all this in mind, I have been looking at LED options that will allow me to light both sides of the rocks evenly for the whole 7+ feet of viewable area and keeping the overall wattage less than or equal to the 216w of T5s. I had been zeroing in on the idea of running 4 evoslims from Reefkoi. After taking with them at Nextwave, I decided to start by ordering one 36" 50/50 strip from them to see how that looked. It has 9 white and 9 blue LEDs, all running at 2w each. It arrived yesterday and I tried it out. As I expected, it created too many shadows when centered over the rocks. I tried it offset and I really liked it. Great color, lots of light and a ton of shimmer. It even got the stamp of approval from the girls. Now I just need to order another 36" and 2 48" strips and figure out the best way to mount them.
 
@shse666 wrote:
[I]@Titus wrote:[/I][quote=" I tried it offset and I really liked it. Great color said:
Photos will be required. :)"]
Once I get the rest of them and come up with a way to mount them, I will snap some pics. [smilie=wink.gif]
Click to expand...
 
Sad weekend. The Flame Wrasse trio went into the tank after lights out Friday night. They all stayed in hiding most of the day Saturday. We got home today to discover that the Male had been repeatedly attacked and was in bad shape. I managed to net him and hope that he will recover in the fuge. The females are staying out, and are in good shape... their smaller size enables them to dart into many more crevices than the male was able to, so they are able to quickly avoid the tang's attacks. Right now it looks like the best case scenario to hope for is that the females are able to make it in the tank, and the male recovers in the fuge so I can sell him. [smilie=whew.gif]
 
The Super male Hawaiian Flame Wrasse did not make it. [smilie=crying.gif] On the bright side, the females seem to be doing great. They appear to have been fully accepted by the Butterfly and the flame angel. The tang still chases them occasionally, but nothing like a few days ago.

To cheer myself up, I went ahead and ordered 3 more EvoSlim LED strips from ReefKoi and I think I have the haining worked out. I will post pictures when I get them and start hanging them.
 
I now have 3 of the 4 EvoSlims that I ordered (one is backordered but should be here soon), and I figured out how to hang them.

I started by ordering some Aluminum bars from onlinemetals.com. Each bar is 0.125" x 0.75" x 8" and is 6061-T6 Aluminum. Once I got them, I drilled each with 6 holes... 2 pairs that line up with the EvoSlim mounting holes and a pair for hanging. The hole alignment is not that great because I don't have a drill press and didn't think to make a jig, but they work just fine.
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Once that was done, I ran to the hardwares store, picked up $5 in misc nuts, bolts, and chains, and came home to put it all together.
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So right now I have 2 36" evoslims hanging over the left side of the tank, while still running the 2x54w T5s(ATI Blue +, ATI Aquablue Special) on the right side. The evoslim side looks more purplish to my eye. I can't wait to get the last Evoslim so I can assemble the other side and make the tank all one color!
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EvoSlim LED Side:
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T5 Side:
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Bottom line, I have cut my power usage by 48w, it is brighter, it looks better, and no changing bulbs. I am a happy camper.
 
I always knew that one of my Female flame Wrasses would go male with the death of the original male, but the speed is amazing me. The 2 have been alone in the tank only 12 days since the male was removed. At that point, the 2 were complete indistinguishable. Now they look way different from each other. One has not changed, still sporting a sort of orangy pink color with white belly. The other's belly has gone from white to yellow, the lower half of his body is also turning yellow, and the top have is looking more red. He has also started frequently quivering his dorsal fin like the old male did. This color changing still has a ways to go and the fins don't seem to have grown noticeably yet, but I never imagined the change would be this obvious in such a short time.

Unchanged Female:
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Turning Male:
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How cool is that?!?

Looking great. I was excited about this tank on page 1, and now I know why. It was a great plan and it has turned out really really well!
 
@matt_longview wrote:
How cool is that?!? Looking great. I was excited about this tank on page 1 said:
Thanks! Its been slow going but I love the results so far.

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S 4g using Tapatalk.
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Brad!

My daughter and I visited Apex Aquariums today and ended up coming home with a nice big Yellow Tang. He is about 4.5" and has already settled in to the QT. [smilie=smile.gif]
 
Just placed my Pre-Order for a Waveline DC4000 to take over closed loop duty from the Mag 9.5, and a Waveline DC6000 to take over return duty from the Mag 12. They gave me a 30-60 day estimate, so we will see. I am hoping they will keep the tank a little cooler and quieter. Eventually I will add a VDM to my Apex lite and play around with varying the speeds, but that will not be an initial priority.
 
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