madweazl

I was referring to something like the Instant Ocean Holdfast (number of manufacturers have their own version).

I like the 2 part epoxy much better for frags. Every frag I've ever attached to the rock work (or plug) has encrusted over the epoxy much faster than CA. CA is a poor choice for wet applications but it's simplicity of use has made it popular.

Was bored this afternoon so I tossed four A360WEs over the 150g and took some measurements with a Seneye. The Kessils are mounted 9" off the water and 12" on center; the tank is a standard 150g measuring 60x24x24. Kessils were set (manually) to 50% color and 100% intensity. The sand is bed sits an average of 18" below the water surface (water level is approximately 2" lower than if were running normally). I'd expect a 100 PAR increase across the board if the lights were hung 5" off the water. Pumps were turned off while the measurements were being taken.

Slowly clearing up...

It has certainly taken longer than I expected but moving never makes things easy. We still have a number of boxes in the basement that we haven't unpacked. I was hoping to make some more progress in the basement this week but the truck has been in the shop for a week now.

Day 1! Phosphates read 200+ on the ULR; it will be interesting to see how much GFO or lanthanum chloride it takes to get the levels back down. Once I get that in line, I'll start moving some live rock over; I may skip using rock from the 75g and order some new stuff from Tampa Bay. Whichever direction I go, it will be placed on top of the section that wraps around the pillar on the left and wont require much as want it lower than the pillar up front. Oh, I only used three of the four bags of sand so it currently has 120lbs in it (80lbs of special grade and 40lbs of Fiji pink).

OK, the 95% solution now that the mortar has just about completely cured. This leaves a minimum of 2.5" inches between the rock and the glass on all sides (inside of the tape). I'll use the live rock from the 75g to create the structures on the left side along with the pieces that are laying on the sand.

Ahh, I don't have an Instagram.

What the heck is that from?

Rough outline of the aquascape; the idea is to make it look like the right section fell from a ledge above. It will be raised off the sand about 5" and I'll cut the rocks under it to sit flat on the glass and poke up through the sand about an inch (sand should be about 2" deep). Two or three rocks will be littered about in the sand to look like the broke off. Highest point will be right around 12", the rest will fill in from the corals.

Not much progress today but I got a little plumbing work started.

Side shot from the cell phone; I really need to grab another dSLR.

Made a little more progress on the stand today. Started cooking some rock too; 15 minute acid bath and now its in bleach for the next week.

It's amazing how resilient all the critters actually are.

After reading "raw lettuce and spinach are commonly used as substitutes," I realized I was reading the drivel of another anti-access zealot that had no interest in learning, or educating, anyone.

I've never owned a boat but had cleaned the underside of my bosses boat once; what a giant pain the butt! I can understand paying to have that done, not something I ever want to do again (and it was only on the lake for about five months).

Deep cycle batteries are designed to be charged and discharged frequently; typical car batteries fail prematurely if they're run down to lower voltages (deep cycled) and charged back up frequently. Glad the tank inhabitants are doing well. We may it through the 13 hour power outage in San Diego around 2011 without any losses; naturally it happened on one of the hottest days of the year too. I agitated the tank by hand every half hour or so but that was it. I keep the generator ready to go these days.

The 330 does flow 800 more gph than the MP10 so I'd thing a bit of leeway should be given in that regard. I've never run a gyre as I have no desire to use its flow pattern it's not exactly an apples to apples comparison. How loud is the gyre at roughly 65% (where it would be a closer match to the MP10)?

Little more progress this afternoon.

Framed the first wall of the fish room; the stand and mixing station will sit along this wall. Hopefully I can knock out the stand today.

The least permanent option to run the plumbing into the basement was to run it down the stairwell to the basement (easily patched should we sell the house down the road). Couple of measurements and a leap of faith later, everything was in the right spot I wanted to make everything as user friendly as possible so I went with threaded bulkheads; in the event of failure, I can simple un-couple the main PVC and unscrew the rest from the bulkhead for removal/replacement. I need to find some trim rings to tidy up the drywall or box it in after I'm done; not sure which way I'm going yet.

Thought we went with 5/4" rough cut maple for this but regardless, it is extremely stout! Actual measurements worked out to 1.25"x7" and the deflection was less than 1/32" over 4' after the tank was filled.

OK, it has been quite a while but I made a little progress the last couple of days Bought the lumber to start bracing the floor for the tank; I dont think it would have been an issue but I didnt want a spongy floor regardless. A few hours later and I was basically done with that project. Everything from the front of the couch, back, is the "fish room." More than enough space for anything I want to do (most of it will likely go unused). With the floor supported, it was time to test fill the aquarium (I've had it over a year and a half and never tested it...). A few people mentioned concerns over the stand not having a center brace so I snapped a picture of the gap between the door and the top of the stand. A hundred and some gallons later, it's doing just fine... now I just need to clean up that big ol paint booger. It holds water! Tomorrow I'll try to knock out some more plumbing and get started on the mixing station and sump stand while I wait for said sump (about three more weeks out if there aren't any delays from Elite).

I saw it about 30 minutes after a got home from BRK with a new tiger pistol shrimp; seems to always happen that way.