southpaw23

Before we can answer some of your questions, perhaps you can answer a few of these questions first in order for us to provide you better advise. 1. What types of corals do you intend to keep? Or are you lookin at a fish only with live rocks (FOWLR) tank? 2. What kinda dimensions are you lookin at for your 5 ft tank? That'll determine the water volume. Theres a big diff between a 5x2x2 tank and a 5x3x2.5..that's almost double the water volume. 3. What kinda budget are you looking at? 4. Do you intend to upgrade in the future (thus cater for oversized equipment..this is also dependent on your budget) For a start, here are a couple of generic advise i can give you based on the limited knowledge i have of your requirements. 1. Go with T5s if you're not going for SPS. It transfers less heat to your tank and thus doesn't put too much of a strain on your intended chiller. Even if you intend on SPS, there are a number of T5s that are capable of allowing you to do so. But i will qualify that this is just my preference, there are others who prefer MH for the "effect" as well as the intensity. Again, it really boils down to what you're wanting to keep. 2. There are so many choices for skimmers out there and ranging from a couple of hundred bucks to a couple of thousand. My advise is establish a budget for yourself first, then find the best skimmer within that range. IMO Deltec's have a very good reputation and is always a safe bet if you can afford it. Nonetheless, there's plenty of other viable skimmers out there as well. 3. Again, boils down to your budget. Resun chillers are known to be cost effective while Arctica's are known for their efficiency and run pretty silent. Note that all chillers will produce heat, more so the higher the horsepower so decide on chiller placement early on in your planning. Well...hope that gives you some idea. I know i haven't really given you firm answers...and that's probably not gonna be possible cos everyones got individual preferences. So take what you can and provide more specific details so's we can help ya better. cheers

both!

Hi all, Am in search for some large size good shaped liverocks, around 1.5 to 2 feet and above. Anyone with any for sale or any leads do look me up. For those selling, a picture of the rock would be most useful in helping me decide. cheers all!

Yes, from the living room you can see right through to the bedroom and vice versa. The tank acts as a divider. But i've installed blinds to address the privacy issue

Living room view with tinted mirrors installed..

Bedroom view with the doors fitted..

That's funny.... But not so far from the truth i guess. When i went to the Interior Decorator for the first time and he was lookin at the layout. The first thing i mentioned to him was that there has to be room for a marine tank setup in your proposed design. And so it was conceived with the wall dividing the master bedroom and the living room coming down and in its place the tank as the divider. There's also extra cabinet storage in the bedroom to utilize the entire 9-10 foot wall not covered by the tank. Will post more finished pictures soon to give ya'll an idea

Last shot for the day, here's the view in the living room. Stay tuned for more pics (as i sort thru em) in the following days

And after months of anxious anticipationg...the tank finally in place

The tank had to go in from the bedroom so here's the guys preparing to hoist the tank in place...

Styrofoam in place

The house was still a mess as renovation work was still takin place, so the guys had to maneuver past some obstacles to get the tank in place

Tank shot up close. With the external overflow, it stands at 74" high..plus being on the stand it was close to 80"

Arrival of the tank abt 3 days after the last shot was taken

Yep...more to come Just need to sort out the pictures

The incompleted false wall and view from the living room

Fast forwarding 2 weeks from the delivery of the stand, with major cabinet work completed, here's a look at the tank view in the bedroom.

Tank stand view from the living room. It's yet to be put in its final resting place in this pic.

Tank stand height at 39 inches.

Here comes the tank stand :

After months of waiting, the tank is finally up Tank details have changed slightly from the original plan. Here's the latest tank details Tank Size : 66"x27"x28" (8" external overflow) Sump tank : 36"x18"x18" Return Pump : Red Dragon 12m3 Chiller : Chill Down Drop in Coil and Compressor Skimmer : Deltec AP701 Lights : DE T5 Retrofit 80wx6 Flow : Still undecided Tank Maker : Geo Aquatic Finally got around to sorting out the pictures from taken over the last few weeks. Here's the first pic of the wall completely torn down I had the plumber run a pipe outlet along the left side wall to facilitate water changes.

more pics to be up soon

I'm cool....no worries Good deal on the dymax by the way...am sure the anemones would appreciate the increased light levels.

Exiled infidel, A word of advise to you, you might wanna hold off before jumping the gun, and if not, u might wanna consider your tone in your replies. Your past replies have been quite defensive in nature (some fairly offensive too). And odd considering that my comments were not even directed at you. As for your accusation on my supposed contradiction...i beg to differ. A healthy looking anemone can still look bleached..it can be a product of recovery or gradual decline in health. In my first comment i speculated that it was due to the lack of light, which was later clarified that these anemones were bought in that color. I made that comment simply cos I've had GBTAs previously and they normally have a much darker tone to them and under the 36watts of light i had them under, their color gradually faded. At the end of the day, you've got your experiences and knowledge and so do others like myself, just cos they vary slightly doesn't make either one of us right or wrong. So perhaps you might consider being a lil more open to other ppls input as opposed to challenging everything that may be different from your point of view. Anyways...as i've stated previously, no offense meant on my replies...just sharing my own experience with these animals. As for Nitro....nice shots....keep the pictures and updates coming

U might wanna consider letting the blue tang go when it gets bigger (and it will get bigger) cos tangs generally require much larger tanks being active fishes and all. Other than that...post some pictures will ya! Lets see all the anemones!