Justin's 550 almost-cube

[Antiguan]

Nice tank!

[jamesbuf]

Coming along nicely. Good to know I have a place to send my fish once they outgrow my tank

[Connor]

Great tank, i bet your fish like all that open swimming room, also you've probably mentioned it at some point in the past threads but what are the dimensions of the tank.

 

Connor

[ctenophore]

Thanks everyone!

James, you should see how many orphans we have in the greenhouse tanks in FL. Two giant vlamingi tangs, a giant emperor angel, a sohal tang which needs his own vat, lots of huge damsels, etc. It's like an animal shelter for marine fish.

 

If anyone wants to set up a really big aggressive tank (like 1000 gal+) let me know, I have some fish for you.

 

Connor, dimensions are ~67 x ~45 x 42, but the viewing pane is about 55 x 42. I left some space on the sides to recess things like stream pumps, rocks, etc.

[jason the filter freak]

Tang looks happy! glad to see this is moving along... so when are you adding the urchin-o-death? :-)

[ctenophore]

Yeah right, I was about to post to see if anyone wants it. Pic coming soon.

[mogurnda]

Hard to add any more superlatives. It looks great, and will be an amazing display when it matures.

[SnowHeart]

Wow. I've heard of DIY projects but that takes the cake (even if you did hire some contractors). Wow.

 

P.S., You have a truly remarkable wife if she's willing to let you do that. It's taken months of twisting someone's arm to be able to move forward with my 90g.

[Boret]

This tank is awesome!!! Even more in person. The whole setup is beautifully done. Thanks Justin for having Paqui and I over this weekend. It was awesome to see the tank and I really appreciate all the advice and the answers to my 20,000 questions. My wife actually liked the idea of a tank like that... now I am in trouble!

 

Later,

 

Boret

[Sharkb8]

I am addicted to this thread now. Who would not admit that this system is a dream system? It is so awesome someone in our club has the means and will to do something like this.

 

We need more pictures Oh, and a video, if possible. Or better yet, just put it on a webcam so we can check in on it whenever we want !

 

Tom

[ctenophore]

Thanks for the compliments everyone!

 

I will post updated pictures after this weekend. That way there will be something new for the people coming to the tank tour. There are fish and corals in now, but the nice pretty white rocks are now getting primary algae succession despite the best efforts of the cleanup crew and tangs. Hopefully coralline will start to take over soon.

[Sharkb8]

that brings up a question - what is your cleanup crew? How many snails, shrimp and starfish do you have to put in there to maintain everything and how often do you have to do replenishments?

 

Also, did you get much of a cycle? If so, how long did it take?

Edited April 30, 2008 by Sharkb8

[dzekunoi]

So beautiful!

 

Clam will look good there

[lmeyer]

Justin,

 

Can you give me some more details on the light rails? I am about to start my own build and am looking for ideas.

 

Thanks!

[ctenophore]

I used a light mover rail for hydroponics pretty much like this except I forget where I got it from (somewhere online though). Then some angle & bar aluminum from home depot to create the framework to mount the reflectors and VHO endcaps. About $50 worth of aluminum, and the light mover rail + trolleys were about $100 shipped. Took me about a day to get it all put together and installed, so not too bad. It works very well although I do have to counterbalance the front side since I was cheap and only used a single rail track to slide the assembly. A parallel set of rails would eliminate any swinging, but it's not a big deal at all.

[dandy7200]

 

I will post updated pictures after this weekend.......

 

We know you have a new camera

[CHUBAKAH]

So, where's them updated pictures?

[ctenophore]

Ok I suppose it has been a while.

 

I switched out to 10k bulbs last week in order to grow the acros a little faster.

 

Red table from Rik, good growth so far.

 

Little blue tenuis from Francis (gioNVA), got as a single stick:

 

Clown who hosts in the pink palythoa:

 

Full tank as of today:

 

I still have a long way to go with learning this camera, and the tank still has a lot of bare rock. Hopefully the 10k bulbs will help the latter.

 

Special Thanks go out to Jason the filter freak for helping me do a lot of stuff with this tank, especially being the coral gluing assistant while I am in the water. His aquamend sculptures are second to none.

[Larry Grenier]

That depth is schweet!

[reefmontalvo]

Very nice tank. Are you running any type of uv cleaning system?

[ctenophore]

Thanks everyone!

 

No UV system. My water is fairly dirty in terms of particulates, but I think the corals like it that way.

[jason the filter freak]

 

Wamas poker leauge anyone?

[scott711]

Nice Justin! I have to come over with Sydney and check it out!

[HowardofNOVA]

Justin,

Tank looks great, but the Poker Fish needs to go!!

[DDiver]

cant wait to see when all the corals grow out..great work