amazing design

this company does some amazing work. very big
and extravagant but defiantly looks worth it. check it out!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-n2U1mJIWQ&feature=g-vrec

Controversy over bio balls and refugiums.

I have been doing a lot of research on the benefits and the negatives of having bio-balls in a salt water aquarium and what I am finding isnt what I expected. 　From what I am finding is that the bio-balls are good and even essential in a fish only aquarium. But when adding the benefits of live rock and live sand then the bio-balls serve only as another element contaminating the water with nitrates. 　When having a lot of live rock and live sand that add to the naturally accruing beneficial bacteria you should lean more towards a refugium with a deep sand bed for a filter component.

For my aquarium, sence I have only about 50 lbs of live rock in a 125 gal aquarium i made a refugium that utilizes both bio-balls and a live refiguim. so far so good. no problems with it and all of my fish are thriving perfectly.

Protein Skimmers VS Refugiums

This Video I found on YouTube Helped me out A LOT for my ideas for my salt water aquarium.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccyJXNkRVQc&feature=related

Powder blue Tangs and Ick

Powder blue Tangs and Ick

So when I bought this nice 3 inch Powder Blue Tang the guy told me that they were sucseptibal to Ick. As with a lot of stories in the trade, I like to see for myself the ones that are true and which ones are fiction.

  Now I have had this tang for a few months and it has caught ick a few times but none of my other fish in my aquarium have gotten it. I don’t have a UV sterolizer and I have not treated the water since i don’t like putting chemicals in my salt water aquarium that could potentially have a bad affect on other organisiums in my aquarium. 

 There was a few articles that I have read that said by placing a salt water fish in fresh water for about 5 to 10 minutes will cause the ick to die off. Now If you know about ick then you will know that it is a fungis that grows on fish when they get stressed and have losed their protective coating. So by putting salt water fish in fresh water I thought wouldn’t be such a good idea since that is one of the most stressfull things for a fish. But I figured I should give it a shot anyway. This did work, and I started to see the ick redeuce in size after a day or so. Now its been 3 or 4 days since I have diped my Powder Blue Tang in fresh water to get rid of the ick and it is completely back all over the tang. So in my opinion this fresh water dip to get rid of the ick is a bad Idea. It will kill off the ick but since it doesn’t fix the reason it started in the first place it is not a good solution.

Fast Algae growth

About a month ago I went to this aquarium store called Matts Coral Connection ( http://www.mattscoralconnection.com/ ) to get algae for my refugium. I picked up

Spaghetti Algae mixed with Caulerpa, only about a hand full but it was very cheap. The algae help to keep your water conditions where you need them by removing harmfull bacteria from the water that the fish put into it. The handfull they gave me had a few copepods in it as free bees. Since then the ball of algae has more than doubled in size along with a lot more copepods all over the place which are good for some types of fish to feed off of. This was deffinatly a great investment.

 In my photo of my refugium you can sort of see the algae at right about a month in the refugium. It’s helped so much that my 125 gallon salt water aquarium has yet to need a water change.

Ok so here is my refugium/ wet-dry sump. It doesn’t look like much but it’s the one that I built myself.

Working my way up

Today I figured that I would start building on a small scale and work my way up. Granted I have about a year before I get out of the military and really get this buisness up and running. So for starters I will make a sump completely out of acrylic that I will buy from lows. This job im estimating will cost me about as much as it would cost to buy one yourself already made but its for the cause so I don’t mind. I just hope that it will come out just as good. I mean I have built a sump/ Refugium before but it was out of an exsisting 29 gallon fish tank and it didn’t come out perfect and that’s what Im going for. With this company I don’t want any corners being cut. I want perfection all the way.  The picture I have attatched is the sump I made prior to this before I had it up and running. I will take a new pic of how its doing now since it has been in use on my 125 gal aquarium for about 2 months now.

Current Project

This is the aquarium I currently have.  It’s a 125 gallon tank filtered by a sump/refugium I made out of an old 29 gallon tank and an overflow I got off of www.drsfostersmith.com since this tank was not predrilled. I realize that trying to drill an overflow in a glass aquarium is not wise since the glass is tempered and will shatter very easily when trying to drill through it. There is still much work to be done and will be done when money permits. At the moment there are a few tangs along with two black and white clownfish and a few chromis. I have rebuilt the canopy since the hinges, brakets and even the balesk for the lighting were all rusted out when I bought the used aquarium. Since the brackets I swoped out were replaced by metal ones I know that they will eventually rust also. Maybe I need to find some kind of spray to cover metal components to prevent rusting.

Insperation

Theres this show on The Animal Planet called "Tanked" this show is prety much the reason I have decided to finish out my Military enlistment and start a buisness building custom aquariums in Florida.

  I have been amazed by aquariums for as long as I can remember. I had my first salt water aquarium in grade school and was very successful. This is why I know that this is the only thing i would truly be happy doing.