Pics of my new 90 gallon

[Mike]

Hello everybody! I took some pictures of my new 90 gallon yesterday, and I thought I would share them. Not much to see yet, but if anyone has any comments or suggestions, or sees something I might be doing wrong, please let me know! The next thing I have to do is build a new hood to get the halides farther off the water - a good 6" or so, I figure. There's only 4 lbs of live rock in there now, just to get the sandbed seeded. I'm planning around 100-130 lbs. The lighting is with the metal halides only right now - 175 watt 10k Ushios. My actinic bulbs were back ordered. Thanks for your feedback, everybody!

Mike
:blob:

[Mike]

Another view

[Mike]

Hood open

[Mike]

Sump area.... Middle chamber will be the refugium... Still need a skimmer pump....

[Mike]

Thanks firefighter! Picked the tank and stand up at Big Al's in Barrie... Tank was something like $184, then I took it back and got a drilled one with an overflow... Somewhere around another $150.... Have to hand it to them, though... They personally delivered the first one, and then came back, picked it up, and dropped off the drilled one.... Pretty nice guys! Now as to what I have in it in total now, that's another story! Good deal on the lights from Cool Touch, though! The stand was around the $300 mark, if I remember correctly.... The sump/refugium came from Oakville Reef Gallery - very nice unit, but it was kinda pricey... Worth it, though, in my opinion.

I built the hood originally with VHO's in mind, so it's too low for the halides. I couldn't resist sticking them in and trying it out, though! The hood turned out better than I expected, especially since I haven't built anything in a VERY long time, and only have a small hand saw and a cordless drill! Gonna use power tools on the next one!

[afss]

***Thread moved ***

Please try to post in appropriate forums.

Nice looking set up BTW :cheers:

Scott

[Mike]

Whoops! Sorry... still a newbie.... :sorry:

[Michael_Lambert]

Mike it is still looking good,

Next time let me know when you are going to go and buy rock to help seed the tank, I mean if you are going to buy rock of big Al's for 8 bucks a pound, let me know and i will sell you some rock from my tank for 8 per pound, Or at least let me trade you the rock i have for that rock in your tank! Its looking a Little dull!

You know where to find me :)

[pbutkovich]

Mike give me a shout and I'll give you some old substrate in a plastic margarine container to seed your tank. I did this in my 100, and have tons of pods, worms etc crawling around now. It is crushed coral. Not sure what you have. If it is sand, just keep it in the container and bury it up to the rim so it wont mix.

Oh almost forgot...TANK LOOKS GREAT!!! :dance: Nicely put together!

[Mike]

Thanks guys! Tooloud, the rock came from ORG. It looks a lot better in person. There is a fair bit of coraline algae on it - probably will look better once it has been under the lights for a while. Thanks Paul, that's a generous offer. I'll take you up on that. The substrate is a mixture of the fine and course Aragamix or whatever it's called from Carib Sea.

[Michael_Lambert]

Cool Mike,

ORG Rock is mint stuff! Was afraid it came from another LFS !!

I as well can provide you with a couple of cups of Crushed Coral from my tank (18 Months old) lots of goodies in there !

[visor]

LOOKS GREAT. HOW HIGH IS YOUR WATER IN YOUR SUMP,IS THEIR ENOUGH ROOM FOR OVERFLOW?

[Mike]

Thanks! The water in the sump is about 9" deep - just above the height of the baffles. When I unplug the pump the level rises to about 3" from the top, even with the return siphoning an extra inch out of the tank. I'll have to be careful to remember not to adjust the return to be too low in the tank. As the tank is on the top floor of my house, a flood is something I would prefer to avoid.

[Mike]

Just bought a new digital camera from Tooloud - thanks! So I thought I'd post some updated pics. Got some of my liverock now, really nice stuff from ORG. Thanks Flavio! There's only about 50 pounds in there right now, eventually I'll have 80-100 or so, I think. The aquascape is pretty much how I want it, only bigger. Any comments or suggestions would be appreciated!
:thanks:

Hmm... that didn't seem to work... let me try again....

Hmm... still not working... Maybe the file is too big? It didn't warn me, though.... It's 640 x 480, 51.1K.... I'll try again later... :confused:

[Michael_Lambert]

Mike ....

the site is having issues with the posting! .. just wait till they fix it.. or email them to me..

mlambert@rogers.com and i think i can host them for you and then link them !

[Mike]

Thanks! I'll send them!

[Michael_Lambert]

http://extremereef.com/ExtremeAlbums/album04/Mikes1.jpg

http://extremereef.com/ExtremeAlbums/album04/Mikes2.jpg

http://extremereef.com/ExtremeAlbums/album04/Mikes3.jpg

[Mike]

Thanks Firefighter! And thank you for posting the pics Tooloud. Looks like I need a bit more practice holding the camera steady when I take a picture - kinda blurry, eh? :D

[Michael_Lambert]

no the pictures are fine! ..
Just need to practice on the focus points :)

[Mike]

Hey everyone! Thought it was time for an update... I've got some inhabitants, now - a small cleanup crew comprised of about 8-9 hermits, 6 turbo snails, and 2 cerith snails, as well as some mushrooms, star polyps, and a leather frag. I stopped at ORG tonight and got my substrate for the refugium, some grape caulerpa, and a light, so that's finally up and running! Hopefully in a couple of weeks I'll be able to get the rest of the live rock. It's been a very long process, but it's finally starting to take shape!

[Mike]

Leather frag and mushroom

[Mike]

Star polyps

[Michael_Lambert]

Alright Mikey...

good to see you getting the use from the camera.. Just took some pushing i guess :)

LOVE that first shot... if you look at the back of the glass it looks like a Shark! or some pre astoric creature.. lol

Maybe just me tired.. but i see somthing :)

[Mike]

Refugium

Yeah... that's just algae on the back glass, Mike.... I guess I should've cleaned it off before taking the pic... Actually now that you mention it, it kinda looks like a humpback whale or something, eh? Cool! :D

[pbutkovich]

Hey Mike, it looks like that Berlin is finally starting to pull stuff off eh? Do you think it was slow because of the lack of stuff in the tank? When did you notice it really starting to foam?

[Mike]

Hey Paul, it started to pull stuff maybe 3 or 4 days after I started it up... Just after I started that thead about it not working! It seems to be working well, I'm getting about an inch or two of dark green/black skimmate per week. I think it was just getting broken in. I'm still thinking of upgrading it in the future, though - I think in a year or so, after I recover financially from starting this hobby, I'll upgrade it to a Euro-Reef ER-CS6-2+, providing I can fit it in the cabinet. Or maybe, if it won't fit, I'll just have to get a bigger cabinet... while I'm at it, a bigger tank, too! And thanks again for all your help so far. Hopefully by the time you get around to stocking your tank I'll have some frags to donate! :thanks:

Mike

[Sohal Tang]

Hey Mike,

way da go! Tank coming along nicely I see.....
No doubt some upstart $$$ involved.....it does NOT get better...
That guy on here that says the more I want the more I spend the more I spend the less I have the less I have the more I want...
MAN O MAN....what can I say...that is DAMN TRUE!! hehehe :roflmao:

bUT...IF THE STUFF WAS CHEAP we probably would NOT appreciate it as much (thats the up side??? hehehe) :)

Nice tank! Love it! :D
Congrats! :cheers:

Tim