madmac's Reef

[prec]

ur weipro 2011 can keep DOC-free water for ur sps?? wow... any sps pro reefers to enlighten?

[madmac]

LaW: Thx for your compliment. The 2011 was easier to set wet than dry, although I've achieve that before, I find the tuning a touch challenging, after each time I cleaned it. So I jus set it as wet and it works great. The canisters are great, just great... it just not trendy these days... you'lll never know, one day they'll come back as the in-thing to have in reef-keeping.

weishun: Thank you.

prec: they've worked well so far... "if it ain't broke dont fix it.", has always been my thinking.

[scarab]

ur weipro 2011 can keep DOC-free water for ur sps?? wow... any sps pro reefers to enlighten?

Did you read that he do weekly 25l water change? That's one way to get around with using a smaller skimmer. You got to credit this type of dedication in coral husbandry.

BTW, nice tank bro although I haven't got used to the bare bottom thighy. The tank like look a bit ........###### lah.

Bro, understand you are only using 150W lights and I see you are keeping good colours in your SPS. Good job. Although bro, with a better skimmer and stronger lights, your colours could be even better. Something to consider...........

[prec]

hmmm... sounds easy.. i do 3 pails of water change every week too.. but that totals to how many litres im not sure.. haha

[scarab]

hmmm... sounds easy.. i do 3 pails of water change every week too.. but that totals to how many litres im not sure.. haha

Bro, every tank have different characteristics lah. You got to understand your tank. Some tank no need to change water that often also can work, some change every other day also got problem. The flow in your tank, the rockscaping to prevent detritus collection, clean up crew availability, how much and often you feed your tank, what type and quantity of fish ........ all these differs from tank to tank. You just monitor and make adjustment to suit your tank inhabitants. As long as water parameters good and tank inhabitants healthy, I think you are on the right track.

Equipment set up can be costly depending on what you aim for. So try not to be a slave to the equipment. If simple equipment works for you then stick to it.

BTW, 1 full pail (those normal red ones) is about 25 litres.

[prec]

ahh icic.. words of the pro reefer speaketh forth...

[madmac]

scarab: yes, I can't agree more, the tank does look ######... it looks for-long and lonely, I'm growing to like it.. I hv been considering upping the lights, I'm playing around with this water clarity thing first. if it works then may not need to up them all... Im' intending on reducing the photo-period to anything thats not detriment to the corals health first, colour comes second to me. tho that does not imply I dont like colours... I just cant keep the ocean's reef thats all and there has to be a limit.. and to me, limit means the tank size (at the moment). Haiya.

[Dispar_Anthias]

wow i am amaze... more sps and your tank will look even better

[Gouldian]

Nice job! Another bro that likes to show his barebottom.

[williammuk]

madmac, good job on your tank. I also enjoyed reading your write-up.

Keep them coming. Thanks for sharing. Cheers.

[madmac]

DA: Thank you. You're truly the undisputed zoos champion...Not intending to stockup... I'm gonna go slow from here on... the space has also ran out... two corals cannot find space for it anymore... personally don't like to squeeze them too close,(the truth is, I'm not so creative as to match colours and coral placement... those gurus out here are really good, I can't for the life of me know how they can stack up so nicely... I think their skills are amazing... jus to do the arrangement took me so long, and i usually end up cursing after awhile.)

Goudian, William: Thanks too. Lots to learn still. Your passion for, will certainly inspire us.

[madmac]

update since BB date....

1 week from going BB, I removed left side canister filter.

2 week, the right canister went together with the fluidise reactor but re-connected back the first one w/out any media inside, to power the chiller.

Week 3, a new set of lights came in... I was jus in awe at the looks of it.. well not really new, but sort of.. its been put off for some time... but now that its here, I felt like kicking myself for delaying it...

here a pic of the old setup, the right side compartment is completely empty now, except for the wire/plugs.

[madmac]

(first off some updates and points for note)

the BB tank is now into week 4... I been siphoning out about the same about of detritus, mainly fine sand, snail poo every 12 hours.. the amt is about 1 table spoon full... I wonder when it'll start to subside.

2ndly there have been about 5 times when I clean the glass off from algae... the last one was a real major clean as it involved the back glass... so there is still algae growing...

3rdly, here is pic of wet-skimming, 12 hours later from an empty cup... I couldn't go away peacfully, knowing that it looks that full... note to self, mod a overflow for the skimmer cup.

[madmac]

lighting:

I been mulling about lights for some time now... the difficult part was that I didn't think the corals were in anyway going down(because of the old lighting system alone)... maybe not up to their full potential.. .they were growing and some had good colour... and there could well be other issues besides lighting.... the list can go on... BUT

thats the big but.. I think I've tied the ends and whats holding them back now is jus lights.. so 2 week ago CalciumReef came over and took the weipro single 150W MH, in the meantime, he loaned me an Atman 2*150, 6500k set, (that was one huge Mama, boy)!

So here a pic of what the old light config looked like, daily photo-period was about 7 hrs.

its not elegant looking.. it works though.

[madmac]

This was what I got back on Saturday morning... simple beauty. a very thoughtful and careful mod done.. I'll post pics showing the details... but these are the specs:

Single 250W MH, 10000k BLV bulb, Nikon ballast supplemented by

2 39W 20000k Aquaz T5s powered by tridonic atco t5 eballast and

2 39W Actinic Aquaz T5s powered by the same above

[madmac]

I'm light-dumb... my initial feelings when T5s came on was... WOW! Thats bright! This was just the 2 20k ones on only. When the other actinic went on... I was actually thinking to myself, I made a mistake in ordering for the single 250W MH... just the T5s together were already brighter than the 2*150 MHs I used before.

When the 250 Mh came on...I expected it to be a great deal brighter... there was the increase but not very noticeably brighter... you see what I comm CalciumReeff was to mod my existing lightset, remove everything inside, but use the same reflectors... the reflectors are more suited for 150W... it looks like the 250 could benefit from one with greater depth, which the light frame could not provide.

The MH is 7.5 inches from the water level, the T5s 4.5.

[weishun]

Bro.. your light stand very unique leh.. did you DIY them yourself or is it included orginally when you purchased your lights?

[madmac]

Hi weishun, the lights were modified whole sale... I don't know what/how CalciumReef did it... I didn't buy any of the components at all... its an incredibly neat job with good, clean finishing... the attention to detail is amazing.. for instance the T5 ballast was hidden somewhere in the frame bar... the original light frame has only the blub and reflectors in them.. the MH ballast is external. I'll post some zoomed shots tonite to show the quality of the finishing. Thx.

[weishun]

Hi weishun, the lights were modified whole sale... I don't know what/how CalciumReef did it... I didn't buy any of the components at all... its an incredibly neat job with good, clean finishing... the attention to detail is amazing.. for instance the T5 ballast was hidden somewhere in the frame bar... the original light frame has only the blub and reflectors in them.. the MH ballast is external. I'll post some zoomed shots tonite to show the quality of the finishing. Thx.

Okay bro. Would like to see more detailed pictures of the lighting setup. Thanks..

[madmac]

I was going thur the pics and I couldn't find much to add except maybe this view... the endings are filed clean and have black caps that cover the openings... the seams are closed squarely. As mentioned above the T5 ballast is hidden in the horizontal bar...

I was also mistaken about the ballast.. it is not a Nikon MH ballast but a 250W Enersave e-ballast.. which reduces the power consumed by 30% and is instant on...

On a personal note... CR, that was truly a great little piece of mod done.. a great deal of care was exercise... Thx again.

[spawns]

On a personal note... CR, that was truly a great little piece of mod done.. a great deal of care was exercise... Thx again.

i couldn't agree more...by the looks of it, it is truly unique design. also a thought for those who are considering upgrading their lights without using a hood.

nice yellow belly u got there . how did you tame it?and the potter?i am looking to own 1 too....any secrets to share?

[kamiru]

I think the depletion of kh & calcium will be high, since u got a lot of sps. Need to monitor daily.

[madmac]

i couldn't agree more...by the looks of it, it is truly unique design. also a thought for those who are considering upgrading their lights without using a hood.

nice yellow belly u got there . how did you tame it?and the potter?i am looking to own 1 too....any secrets to share?

spawns Hi,

I don't know... it jus comes about after two weeks in the tank... I've documented one aspect of keeping this fish in the The Regal Angel Thread... A very resourceful thread for those considering keeping this beauty... Pls give some time to read it.

The potter is a easy fish to keep... It only starting taking fed-food recently.... I had it since August '04 and it was jus feeding algae off the glass walls for so long... In Jan '05, when I introduced the Regal, and started to feed Cylopeeze, the Potter suddenly took an interest too... quite an aggressive fish... no secrets to share, bro

Thx, Br mm

[madmac]

I think the depletion of kh & calcium will be high, since u got a lot of sps. Need to monitor daily.

Kimaru, your SPSes are so beautiful, the ones you put up for sale and then withdrew later, why did you want to sell them in the first place.?

You'll be surprised if I told you I don't monitor Ca at all. When you go BB, your alk suddenly becomes very stable, as the dynamics within the SB is remove(due to less decomposition), you actually hv less acids going around and so pH remains stable.. the only test I do is the dkh, and i try to keep it within 7-9 range... the rest are not so important.. I replenish evap H2O sometimes using Kalk and sometimes using Bak Soda and occasionally with SeaChem Ca. Adv.

[madmac]

I'm bumping this up to incl. this pic which some say they could not see....

(edit... I don't know why, if you still can't see it, the pic JPEG formated... works fine on my macs????)