My 120 is back in action

[mr294]

Well thanks to the efforts of Nate and Jay, I got my 120g moved to my new place on Friday afternoon. Some of my corals have drastically browned out in response to the move, and I'm not finished placing everything in its final position, but overall I'm happy with it. This is the best my tank has looked since the flood....

http://www.buddypants.reacura.com/images/newreef1.jpg

[Charlie Davidson]

What did you use on the bottom of tank? (between rock and glass)whats the thing on the right top? ( machoturbolater) Sorry about all the questions, but I have it (reefsickness) bad!

[bobherbertperry]

did you get the rock slide fixed, looks excellent. almost as badass as redneck zombies and Dead-Alive

[bobherbertperry]

Charlie, the black thing on his return is an aductor, it works similar to the stream, expanding the flow area. It works great, I have one on my 60 that you'll see at the frag swap.

[mr294]

I used eggcrate under the rock to help distribute the weight and prevent any slipping of the rock. It is a little unsighlty now, but the bottom of the tank will hopefully be covered in zoanthids soon enough :D

Heres a pic that shows the eggcrate a bit more.....

http://www.buddypants.reacura.com/images/newreef4.jpg

[manderx]

wow, i can't believe any/all of that made it 4 days without power. one of my friends had a 180 without power this summer for 24 hours and all the fish and acros died. montys and his bigger clams made it though.

[bobherbertperry]

oops, thats eductor, not aductor

[manderx]

did you have a sandbed on the tank when it lost power? i'm wondering if that's the difference. seems like a sandbed could get real funky real quick without any circulation...

[mr294]

Originally posted by manderx
did you have a sandbed on the tank when it lost power? i'm wondering if that's the difference. seems like a sandbed could get real funky real quick without any circulation...

Funny you should mention that :D I personally attribute how well the tank fared through the power outage to the minimal sandbed. I had at most 10 pounds of sand in a 4x2x2 120g. IMO if I had a sandbed with the accompanying population of bacteria and microorganisms, the combined respiration could have quickly depleted the entire tank of oxygen. I had prepared myself for a total loss when I walked into the apartment, and I was amazed at how much survived. All in all, I was quite lucky.

[AQUAN8TOR]

Not to take away anything from the bare bottom, as I'm doing my new 65 barebottom as well, but I wanted to share my most recent acquisition with all of you....

Tripp-Lite APS-612 automatic inverter/battery charger, and 3x 115 amp-hour deep cycle marine batteries.
I know there are threads about DIY inverters, but this thing was too good to pass up, and has a 2 year warranty, and was less than $290.00 shipped. Now the batteries, that's another story. They were about $80 a piece. Small price to pay for a mega-thousand investment in livestock.

www.pcnation.com

[AQUAN8TOR]

I meant to also share my experiences with sandbeds and loss of power. In 2002, I experienced a total meltdown due to an 18hr. power outage due to salt creep and a GFCI. I lost probably $4000-$5000 worth of livestock. Granted, I didn't pay that for it, as I get a substantial discount, and many of the specimens I'd had for years and had grown. That's just what I figured it was all worth.

I lost every fish save for 2 shrimp gobies, which swam to the top and rested on powerheads 1" under water (the only reason they survived, I believe). I found a 1/4" deep skim of dead copepods, amphipods, and spaghetti worms on top of the water. On the bottom was a similar layer of destruction with tiny scavenging bristle worms.

I now have less than 3" of sand bed depth in my 110, but won't go any lower b/c of my huge fish load and nitrate buildup...

suffocation sux

[cmoresps]

MR294, tank looks fat, great placement of acros, particularly that fat milli. Awesome idea about the zoos

My two cents on power loss, last year when I heard Isabell was coming (I had a 7 months pregnant red head for a wife), I got cold feet about the idea of suffering a power loss and stalked home depot until I got generator. $500 for 5500w, you can back feed the sucker through your drier plug, I powered 5 400 watt halides, all other tank equipment, and the rest of teh house (I admit I had to rub it in, on the second day of 7 with no power I turned on my external decorative lughts to kind of rub it in a bit, lol). Whats more, generators qualify under fema for full reimbursement, but I did not get reimbursed because I bought the generator thirty minutes too soon, it had to be on or after the date of the hurricase, hows that for beaurocracy?

To sum up, they are absolutely priceless as most richmonders know by now.

[Charlie Davidson]

Do you pull you meter when you back feed or just kill main breaker?

[cmoresps]

Just kill the main, people do have a concern that the power could come back on while your doing it, mine did while i had teh generator on, but with the main off, no problems. It is worth it to have an electrician install a through with a seperate jack for the generator if you are going to own your home for several years, but I have not, so far including isabell I have used it three times, plus, I hope to go whitewater sometime (i.e. you camp out), through a sofa in the back of a pickup, take the generator, and you could watch football just about anywhere ;)

[Charlie Davidson]

Funny how the subject gets changed- Brandon, Great tank- I am sure with such good friends, ( and I will will help IAWP) you will recover your losses! about the generator thing, I bought one during Isabell- but ran power cords everywhere- I am interested in other ideas!!!!!!

[drewby07]

Brandon,

Is one of those the Mille I gave you? I can't remember for the life of me what it looked like.....

--Drew

[mr294]

Unfortunately Drew that mille is one of the corals that didn't make it through Gaston :(

[mr294]

I just picked up three absolutely stunning bali pieces tonight. I will have to post pictures afte I finish acclimating!!

:eek: :eek: :eek:
:D

[mr294]

Pics as promised....

http://www.buddypants.reacura.com/images/bali1.jpg

http://www.buddypants.reacura.com/images/bali2.jpg

http://www.buddypants.reacura.com/images/bali3.jpg

http://www.buddypants.reacura.com/images/bali4.jpg

[mr294]

Forgot to mention, many thanks to Tom for the quality pieces! Charlie you should've made it out there tonight.

[Charlie Davidson]

@$@%, those are nice!!!!! I had been to the cooler way to many times and unsure about new toy. I was afraid it would suddenly change the ph and crash my tank.

[bobherbertperry]

charlie you certainly missed out, but its understandable. It was definately worth the trip. thanks again Tom.

[bobherbertperry]

oh yea, brandon those pieces are rad, had you not bought them, i would have, especially that granulosa and soli, so i guess its good you bought them

[mr294]

Just need to figure out where I'm going to put them now :D

[cmoresps]

Jay, I can always get more :D

[bobherbertperry]

and when you do i could be purchasing them!!!!