Office Fluval Edge Build (and A Few Mods)

[Dakota9]

This tank never went through a diatom phase all all media was cycled.

Here's a pic of what little green phase it went through, and one with the moonlights

[Dakota9]

I'm really enjoying my tank at work......

The level of SUCK has greatly diminished!

[rdnelson99]

:-)

[PFCDeitz]

Looks killer. I'm thinking about pulling mine out and just doing freshwater

[Dakota9]

Shots of the (nearly) full tank after almost two months..

Including the main attraction, a Fire Shrimp that was generously purchased for me by an anonymous stranger! Possibly the kindest act anyone has done for me in this hobby!

Edit: And a personality filled gobie I picked up from Cantare00 (sp)

[Dakota9]

Did a water change last night, API test shows nitrate @ 80ppm. Yikes!

Decided to ditch the foam block in the filter. It just doesn't make sense if you're running the prefilter sponge on the in-take. The prefilter sponge is fairly fine, where the foam block is fairly coarse, anything small enough to get through the prefilter sponge is WAY to small to be trapped by the coarse sponge block in the filter. I'm using that space for other media right now......

Battling a cyno issue, no a huge problem, just a dusting of red on the rock and glass.

[PFCDeitz]

Junk the API bro. I got the most random test with it. Drop the 15 bucks and get better

[Dakota9]

Jenn checked my NO3, they were 5ppm or less...... I'd say my tank received a B+ as the SG was a bit high at 1.027 and PH a bit low at 8.1. Other than that, everything was spot on....

I suppose the API can't be relied upon!


I'M GETTING SOME LOTR PALYS MONDAY......... I'm psyched!

[Dakota9]

Latest FTS with new LOTR Palys........

[Dakota9]

Here's a FTS using the "Heavy Saturation" setting on my camera. I was reluctant to use it because I feel corals should be naturally colored, but honestly, the colors in the tank bleach out so bad on the regular setting of my camera, The "High Saturation" setting looks closer to real life.

Is this a bad thing?

[gnashty]

Lookin good bro!

[misu]

nice, I need to get mine up to speed next week when I go back to work, how do you think the zoas/palys will do under those lights?

[Dakota9]

I'm adding a few more watts of LED soon, but try aquascaping fairly high in the center of the tank, right under where the lights are, and then place light-loving corals in those places..

It's kind of funny, if I kick up the dust in my tank, you can see the edges of where the light cast a cone shaped column through my tank and that is where I've aquascaped. I'll see if I can get a pic of that.......

[rdnelson99]

Looking good man. You have more coral in that little thing than I have in my 45. Oh well, I have most of my equipment the way I want now so now I can concentrate on getting some nice stuff going.

[Dakota9]

There's still plenty of room for more, but I'm waiting on an o2 test kit to arrive before I add much more, I want to make certain I have a healthy oxygen level before adding much more. Without knowing the o2 level in the tank, it could be the next thing I put in the tank to cause everything to die.

Thanks,

[misu]

did you see this one?




original thread here but she had enough O2 to do that I think you'll be fine for a while

http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/tank-threads/79058-picods-fluval-edge-reefing-journey-10.html

[Dakota9]

^^ Looks like that's a one inch fine sand bed too........ That alone sucks up a lot of o2, not to mention the corals. A sand bed sux up more o2 than you'd think! So I've read........

[misu]

tell me more about the extra lights you want to add, I just ordered some mr16 LEDs to see how they fit but I'm looking for options and the best one just went out of business (nanotuners)

[Dakota9]

Turning the light bar from two LED lamps to four......

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/inde...st=20&start=20

Adding another white LED strip (already bought a blue one pictured earlier in this thread, will zip tie it to the lightbar opposite the blue ones)....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Custom-Made-...#ht_4958wt_875


These have a very neat, clean look.

I wish my blue strip would have been ordered one inch shorter so I could mount it differently, but these lights are GREAT! Well worth the reasonable price

[Dakota9]

If I were to utilize both these upgrades, I'd have about 12 watts of white Led and about 4 watts of Blue. The palys I have in the tank right now are fully opening, so they are getting enough light, by more than doubling it, I should be good to go.

I might reconsider the 4 led lamp mod, only because the tank is up and running and that mod would be tough at my desk........

Edit: It's important to remember the corals are only about 3 to 4 inches from the light source in these small tanks, so it requires much less wattage to sustain corals