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Crob5965

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Posts posted by Crob5965

  1. 1/4” glass, agreed it’s only 14” tall
    There’s really no calculator out there for anything other than a rectangular plywood tank so I played around and found that 1/4” glass was recommended until you went over several hundred gallons. That being said they were using a top brace and no corner seam.
    Bottom line I had 1/4” glass so decided to give it a shot, my original plan was to have the “ picture frame brace around the glass, but I decided to try it without 1st.
    Tank is drained now but held up no problem for 48hrs.
    Once bulkheads are installed I’ll fill it up again for a few days to be sure.

    I used liquid rubber with geo textile fabric to waterproof the tank


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  2. Not having a top brace made me very nervous, especially as there was little to no other plywood tanks similar online that I could reference so I had to just use my best judgment and pray it held water.
    After 48hrs of holding water I’m going to drill the return and overflows today and re apply 1 more coat for good measure.
    I will be placing a 3/4” return in the back corner with Dual loc line sprayers and 1” overflows on each end.
    This was originally going to be a frag tank under my stairs but I’m leaning towards turning it into a shallow reef somewhere in the house if I can find space


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  3. So I finally decided to try building a plywood tank, I wasn’t looking to go big enough to justify the cost so I decided to try and build something different to make it worth my while.
    My wife suggested that I build an L shape shallow reef so here it is
    200881ac1dacc5c3561724fb5e69ad86.jpg
    0473a50629787520e1f3415a695d1fd1.jpg0b298ec96bf36b701827bc0ad4a52d3b.jpg403cff922590fb1c07848138ec9134db.jpg794ffdd97a953285803f1fa50dfee212.jpgceb03d8b01dcdd9fe4ca8e80d72a688f.jpg9139dbc617a97e072338ea342409c680.jpg6675d19616de449845d67606c20a671d.jpged77a32e18d40a8140eee784785b9bd8.jpg
     
    Tank is approx 75 gallons
    48 x 16 x 14
     
     
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  4. Just set my 40 gal cube back up after taking a break for a year, I lost everything in the move down here (probably $2K) so I needed a break. 

     

    looking for anyone that may be down here that wants to do Coral swaps or has some LR, pods to help get my tank up and running again. LFS are scarce and over priced here and making this hobby more frustrating than it needs to be lol.

        if anyone is down in this area and has stuff to sell/trade or donate please PM me.

     

    Thanks

  5. Hi

     

    Jumping in with far less reef keeping experience than others but I can honestly say GHA was one of the easiest problems to fix in my system, I bought a bunch of blue hermits, upped my water changes and it took care of itself, you could also try carbon dosing. I have all kinds of undesirable stuff in my Fuge but my DT is clean as a whistle, I only keep LPS and softies in my tank but I don't even run a skimmer anymore, I have a large fuge and a GFO/Carbon reactor with 15% WC weekly and everything is good. not saying get rid of your skimmer, but your going to have all kinds of random problems in a new system and Hair algae is really one of the easier ones to fix.

  6. I usually use Reefs2Go they have a lot of good deals on inverts, blue hermits especially, I see 100 hermits for $20 there pretty often, I usually buy Pods from them every 60-90 days which is usually free shipping.

    havent tried anywhere else, if it's just a couple of crabs or snails I just pick them up from the LFS.

  7. I guess I'm going off topic a little, to answer your original question, I think LED's really make your Coral pop and I love the fact that you can adjust them to get the color you want. 

     

    As far as feeding, you are correct regular water changes will do the job, but spot feeding and adding supplements will definitely increase your growth rate, I dose daily and spot feed once or twice a week.  

     

    Good luck, tank looks healthy so far so whatever you're doing seems to be working for you.

  8. I like LED lighting for a number of reasons, I wouldnt worry about Coral choices being a factor, my Elegance, Fungia, Scoly and Duncan all did great under T5, I switched to LED to about 18 months ago, I love the color and everything is doing great but I will say that things grew a little faster under my T5's.

     

    B.L.U.F.

     

    LED's are great but there is a ton of amazing Coral that will thrive under T5.

  9. I used flex tubing for my tank for almost 2 years, I eventually hard plumbed it so I could add a manifold, I prefer the hard plumbing but had no issues with flex tube for almost 2 years

  10. How much vinegar should I add to 40G of water ? 

     

    I have done this before with my 90 gal with a 30 gal sump, I was sure I was going to lose everything overnight but only lost 1 Anthia that I caught and put in a QT( she jumped out) all other fish and Coral survived, I only had about 15Gal tops of RODI on hand but I think I mad upe another 10 gal of just straight tap water and did a 25gal WC that night, I have never dosed Vinegar, I use Vodka (about 5cc) I would wait for some better intel on Vinegar but I believe you can double the dose of Vinegar to vodka so 10 cc would be safe, I would do it slowly if you're not currently carbon dosing maybe 5cc of Vinegar might be good for tonight and maybe another 5cc in the morning. my tank looked like I did a WC with milk when I OD'd on Kalkwasser within 2 days everything was back to normal.

     

    This is just my experience, hopefully someone with a little more knowledge can give you better info.

  11. I feel like a broken record, because I make the same recommendations all the time, I would go with a 40B lol, although  biocube's are super easy, you really dont have to think about them I would say a 29 Biocube would be my 2nd option

  12. I'm thinking that a 5-year-old is not going to care even a little bit about zoanthids. (I have a 6-year-old boy; so I have some experience.)

     

    She's going to find fish more interesting. I'd go for a pair of clowns and the biggest host anemone the tank, lighting, and your desired feeding schedule will comfortably accommodate.

     

    Maybe add a few shrimp and/or crabs to round out the setup.

     

    Focus on inhabitants that will perform identifiable behaviors rather than things that will just look pretty.

     

    +1 tried this already, it was just another tank for me to maintain, that noone in the house cared about or even noticed when something died

     

    I suspect it's more a tank for dad, cough. Dad likes zoas. Cough. And designer clownfish. Cough.

     

    That's good advice! I think it would be more fun!

     

    lol yeah, my kids have never asked me for a midnight clownfish or a picasso.

  13. Hey Crob, the diurnal cycle of photosynthesis and respiration is the cause of this rise and fall of pH. During the day organisms in the tank convert CO2 and H20 into carbohydrates and oxygen. The consumption of CO2 raises the pH while this process is taking place during the day. Likewise once the lights are out, the organisms still need energy, so they start breaking apart the carbohydrates in a process called respiration, releasing the CO2 back into the system and lowering the pH.

     

    The larger the tank the smaller this swing will be, for example when I had my 75 gallon lightly stocked tank, the pH swing was less than .2, whereas oi my heavily stocked BioCube the pH would swing by 2 if I let it.

     

     

    Thanks for the insight, I remember reading this a couple of years ago when starting out, I have been doing the lighting cycle since day 1 just couldn't really remember why, I just knew I read somewhere that that was the best way to reduce PH swings, I have a 90gal with a 29gal sump and haven't ever really noticed that much of a PH swing, that being said after the 1st year I'm not really big on water tests ; ) things just seem to stay the same as long as I do regular  a WC

  14. I have always just done Vodka dosing, I think I'm at about 3cc a day now.

     

    I went as high as 10cc a day when I was having a Nitrate issue and once it started coming down I lowered it until it increased again. not sure what a good starting point would be if you done have any issues to begin with.

     

    I would be happy to go into more detail if you're interested in my methods.

  15. Not planning on installing any bracing. Based on what I've read so far, 3/4" seems to be plenty strong enough. 

     

     

    I'm sure it is, bracing would just allow you to use multiple pieces that's all I meant

  16. I remember awhile back some discussion (perhaps Jimlin?) of some kind of thin, solid substrate with sand in a matrix (clear epoxy?) that gives the look of a sandbed without the concurrent potential issues. If I were re-doing a tank, I'd probably go bare-bottom or something like I just described, UNLESS I wanted to have fish that require a sandbed (jawfish, some wrasses, etc). Just a thought - no noisy crabs.  :tongue:

     

    Who knew crabs liked to tap dance!

  17. So Jason I've seen your tank and it's beautiful. .... but what I read online talked about the possibility of heavy silicate in same from HD. What kind did you get? Any silicate trouble?

     

    aquarium7043.png

     

    I think I used pool filter sand because it's really white looking and mixed it with some live sand, I forget the brand but it was from petco, never had any issues other than wishing I hadnt used any at all. 

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