BigAl18's Spec V

[BigAl18]

I've been lurking in the corners of forums here for a couple of months and have decided to post my first saltwater tank. The big draw for me with the Spec V in particular was the fact that everything can be done in one tank with a few changes and additions.

I have a few LFS's in town and had some birthday money to use when I started this. I found the perfect piece of cured live rock at one of them.

Equipment:
Upgraded pump to mini-jet 606 for more flow (removed two ends to fit in stock chamber)
Custom media rack with 3 sections, chemipure at the bottom for now (thinking about rubble or cheato above) currently have an Aquaclear sponge on top
Custom RapidLED system with 4 CREE RB and 2 CREE NW (DONE)

In the Tank:
LFS water
4+ lbs of cured Live Rock (looks kind of like a dog from the outside eh?)
CaribSea coral

Livestock:
3 Hermit CUC (two red tips and a Blue leg) "Downton Crabbies"
Emerald Crab "Emerald Legasse"
Two Pericula Clowns "Lou and Seal"
Peppermint Shrimp

Coral:
GSP frag

How it all started:

Wet FTS

FTS 2/22 (still Cycling lots of Brown Algae)

FTS 3/7 (Fully Stocked)

 

[Reefomeez]

Nice tank Alex! Welcome!

 

[BeanMachine]

Your rock looks like a little dog.

 

[BigAl18]

A few close-ups of my friends:

Hermit

Emerald

GSP:

I also found some aptasia on the side of the frag and got the peppermint shrimp this weekend and havn't seen it since.

I know this tank is way too small in the long run for all of this livestock :baby:, but maybe this will give me an excuse to get a bigger tank to move things into :a15:

 

[BigAl18]

Your rock looks like a little dog.

I know right? That was the first thought I had when I put it in, and then the little rock behind it made me feel irresponsible.

 

[pgr11]

Looking good. Welcome to the club. I'm sure you'll upgrade. We all seem too

 

[Speaker73]

How did you do the led light fixture? interested in that….

 

[BigAl18]

Well, I took the stock light apart, which was basically 4 screws, and it most of the bottom part out and only left a strip for the center screw.

Then a simple 1.25" w piece of aluminum from home depot that came 3' long and I cut down to a foot. I then drilled a hole for the center screw and the end screw. This is my heatsink.

I am using two moonlight drivers from RapidLED.com so they don't run the LEDs at their max and thus keep the fixture warm to the touch with all six lights on but that is it. The LEDs are held in place with berquist thermal pads that are adhesive.

This is the final result.

All i am trying to figure out is a splash guard. I am suuuper happy with it for now as are my green star polyps, although they don't seem to be growing much after 3 weeks, they are open all the time and extend quite well.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[BigAl18]

These were sitting at the end of my tank on the bottom quite nicely but weren't growing much. So I moved them closer to the light to grow out. First time attaching anything so a bit of overkill on the epoxy. If this works tho, it'll be covered in no time.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[JOSE CASAS]

Cool tank, I have the same tank but for FW planted tank and works very well. Welcome to the club and its a matter of time before you upgrade lol.

 

[BigAl18]

Thinking of adding a hydor flo to my main pump to create more movement in my tank. The bottom next to the wall is fairly dead.

Will this restrict the amount of flow only to spread it around? Any thoughts on this?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

 

[BigAl18]

Last week I started what I believe to be a dinoflagellate problem. I hadn't introduced anything into the tank for several weeks. The only thing that changed was a busy week with no time to properly top off evap...I used filtered tap water (tisk tisk I know). It has been kind of fun watching the "Downton Crabbies" go crazy, especially the blue leg. In addition Emerald Legasse has been coming out of hiding earlier too.

I am going to update my media rack and use a new bag of ChemiPure wrapped in floss on the bottom and cheato on top to help reduce nitrates.

I have read several theories on how to get rid of dino's, from starving them to overfeeding (without water changes) to allow their own naturally occurring bacteria to over grow and kill them. Any thoughts are welcome.