Aquarium Update

Just a new video of how my aquarium is looking now. I knowticed that a lot of hobbyiest have dirty aquariums. Its not exactly a bad thing because they leave all of the benifical algae and bacteria that grow all over everything. Well though I always want the best for my fish and corals, I also want my aquarium to be as beautiful as I can. So one new measure I took with my aquarium is stacking all of my Live Rock in such a way that none of them are touching the glass. This makes it easier to clean and also helps preventing scratches on the slide and back glass.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETEynymtwNE&feature=plcp

My aquarium Temp

I thought i would share this little bit of information about the temp in my aquarium.

 I realized that I was going to start having a tempature problem when I bought my 3 175w metal halides for my 125 gal aquarium so I started to look at chillers but then I was even more shocked at how much they cost. especially for something that I was hoping to not even need. But then I built a 55 gal refugium to replace the very tiny 29 gal refugium I made before. Ever since I made this switch I have knowticed that I no longer have a problem with my water temp. I guess for the large amount of water under the aquarium where it actually has time to cool off before it runs back into my tank actually keeps the water where it needs to be. right around 78.5 durring the day (AC stays at 75) so it actually works out great and saves me a few dollars. im not sure how well this will work for people with higher wats on there metal halides but its food for thought if your trying to save a little money.

Filling my Refugium

I ordered some plants and macro algae for my refugium and they came in today. It cost me right around $20.00 for everything plus shipping.  This is what I got.

5 Red Mangroves

Chaeto

Ulva

And Red Gracilaria

I already had some spaghetti Algae with a little Grape Caulerpa so I have quite a few different plants in there now.  At the moment my Nitrites are at .5ppm and my Nitrates are at 20ppm. Its not very accurate since I'm using only the test strips and they can be off a little. . I will be posting on the progress and the growth of these plants and the affects it has on my water.

New, New Refugium.

I have Made Many changes to my 125gallon aquarium. If you watched my video that I posted in my last blog then you would have seen my 29 gallon tank that I turned into my Wet dry/ Refugium. well I have recently invested in a 55 gallon tank that I bought used so that I could turn that into my refugium because the 29 gallon tank just wasn't big enough to fit my protein skimmer and my UV Sterilizer in it. Though this process wasn't as easy as I had hoped. I will walk you through the process and explain it the best I can.

This is the 55 gallon tank after I added the glass dividers. I accidentally got white silicone instead of clear. Its not a problem. Its just kind of an eye sore.
The first 2 pieces of glass weren't cut right for some reason so they ended up not being level.

Once all the dividers were dry I went to the next step of installing it. That was a problem also since the tank didn't fit under the stand. Something i wasn't prepared for. So i adapted to my new problem and I had to empty the tank to slide it away from the wall and cut one of the beems off the back so that I could slide the tank in. 

 

this is the board I had to cut off.. once the rafugium was in place i put some brackets on this board to put in back into place. I don't have pics of that part of the process though.

This Dry portion with the Bio-Balls isn't accurate. I just didn't want to throw the Bio-Balls away so I just threw them into this chamber.

 I was considering adding filter socks but until i figure out how I want that set up I just added foam inserts to stop free flowing junk in the water.

The last chamber has my UV Sterilizer and my protein skimmer. I have heard of people not using a protein skimmer when they have a refugium but I have been running a refugium since I started this tank and it does great but when i added the protein skimmer to the tank it started pulling out a lot of junk so i decided to keep it.

 

 

 

Ignore the following....

Tags: Corals, Fragging, Xenia coral, mushroom corals, aquarium, 125 gallon, gal, Reef tank, huge aquarium, large, live rock, salt water, ocean, Fiji mud, Refugium, metal halides, 175w, 250w, 300w, calcium, iodine, blue tang, shrimp, yellow tang, clown fish, angel fish, foxface rabbitfish,Trigger, fish, Niger Trigger, Clown, Clown fish, Percula Clownfish, Tang, Yellow Tang, Custom Aquarium, Custom aquatics, living reef, reef, reef aquarium, 125 gallon aquarium, refugium, mud, live rock, live sand, deep sandbed, sand bed, corals, sps, over flow, blue regal tang, hippo tang, green chromis, foxface, foxface rabbitfish, one spot, anthias, mushroom corals, duncan corals, algae, LFS, Extreme aquarium, ultimate aquarium, coral beauty angel fish, lunar wrasse, DIY aquarium, Custom stand, LED Lights, 120 watt LED's, reef lighting, lights, salt water, deep sea, amazing aquatics, ocean,

New Build

So I have some what completed my new project and I have made a little video of it to show everyone the new item.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spIwAfal5bg

UV lights and ICK

So ever since i got rid of my powder blue tang i have had an out break with ICK. It started out only on my powder blue tang for a while but when I traded it out for 2 regal blue tangs the ICK covered those two along with some spots on my black and white clown fish. I have added vitamins and garlic extract into their food diet about a week ago but hasn't had any positive affect yet so o decided to get a UV sterilized in hopes that it will kill off one stage of the ICK there for eliminating ICK all together. I have already lost one blue regal tang as of this point and will keep posting on my progress with this problem of mine.

Completed Stand

I have finnished the stand I have been building and have attached a photo of the finnished product. I haven't worked on making a new canopy for the aquarium, but that will come very soon so dont mind the color differences. =)