Kong's Restored BB (90g)

[Froggy]

Originally posted by King-Kong
Thank you very much for the compliments.

If you want, I can try to record a video of the tank. I do have a slight micro bubble problem (my return pipe isnt glued, so air leaks in), but the bubbles let you see the water movement better, so I've left it... it lets me fine tune the flow.

With live rock, less is more!

Kong, if you do not mind, I would be very interested in seeing a video of the flow in you tank. I bet it is pretty impressive.

Drop some Cyclopeeze in their for the video and watch the fish go nuts.....

[King-Kong]

Ok -- I will try to record one today.. I dont have a dedicated video camera though, so let's see if either my crappy still camera or my cell phone can create enough detail to see it :P. Maybe I can use the venturi trick.

[Froggy]

Originally posted by King-Kong
Ok -- I will try to record one today.. I dont have a dedicated video camera though, so let's see if either my crappy still camera or my cell phone can create enough detail to see it :P. Maybe I can use the venturi trick.

Cool ! Looking forward to it.

[King-Kong]

Originally posted by Froggy
Cool ! Looking forward to it.

Ok.. let me know if this helps.. if not, I'll try to re-record it with something in the water:

Video of my tank

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

Kingkong...did you try anyother positions with the vortechs? Like one on either end and one in the middle back? Or anyother variation?

[King-Kong]

Yup.. I have tried a lot.

I keep coming back to this orientation :-\

With the other methods, it didnt give me the velocity that I needed a long the bottom. The rest of the flow in the tank was nice, but not on the bottom. More dead spots.

[E-A-G-L-E-S]

I will be doing the same with 18" between side panes and outer vortechs and 18" on either side of middle one to the outer ones.
But I unfortunately cannot afford a third yet so I have my two on the sides and a ugh...korallia 4 and seio 1100 on the back until then The korallia 4 was just added today and moving the seio 1100 towards one side and the korallia on the other(both back pane) I have gotten trid of my 1.5 dead spot(s)...but they are so obtrusive and ugly compared to my vortechs.

Thanks for the vid too!

[hulley]

Cool video! That is some wicked flow! How and where do the fish sleep?

[King-Kong]

Hulley: Thanks!

My wrasses and Bartletts like to find a hard place to wedge themselves into to sleep -- they can still do that. My tang, and clowns didnt care before, and slept in open water. They still do that now... just behind the rock.

[Froggy]

Kong, that is a great video. Thank you for posting it. Tank looks even better in the video and you can really get the whole perspective of your aquascaping. Nice job. The flow is AMAZING !

[King-Kong]

Thanks froggy . Nice to see you can appreciate the layout more, too! Always feels difficult trying to convey that properly.

[MO Will]

Hi Kong

You said that you have many astreas - how many? I am getting ready to order my cleanup crew

THanks

[King-Kong]

Somewhere on the order of 25... but they sure do have heavy poop. Appearantly ceriths are great at eating/getting into detritus piles, so you may want to order a bunch of ceriths too. Only problem I've had is that my ceriths all die / dissapear very quickly. I have had these astreas since January of last year, but the ceriths died within a couple months, max. :-\

[hulley]

Kong, would you say your happy with the Vortechs? I'm looking to add a bunch more flow to my 180bb. I keep leaning to the Vortechs but thats ALOT of cash! I could add 2 more Tunze for the price of one Vortech. Or would I really be better off buying one Vortech and saving up and buying another Vortech later on?

[King-Kong]

I'm a bit mixed, Hulley.. here are some random thoughts on them:

I'm NOT happy that I've had to go through so many repairs with them.

I AM happy that their customer support is incredible and quickly fixes things for free (and will even send you replacements first, for free, if you ask nicely ). (The amount of repairs have dramatically decreased, and the first unit I bought from them in August 06 hasnt given me any issues for 6 months.

At first, I loved them, then became unimpressed when I still couldnt kill ALL of the detritus in my tank desipte having 3 going full blast.

Now, I am happy again, because of the new rock layout/starboard bevels / setup, I no longer have those detritus piles.

If i had swapped them out for Tunzes early on, I wouldnt now be loving them again for their incredibly small footprint and future controllability.

So, there you have it :P

Then again, you have a 180, so you have more space.Tunze/Stream style pumps dont look as horrible in bigger tanks, but in my 90g, they stick out!

[hulley]

Thats just it, the vortechs would be even less noticeable in a 180! I have my tunze in the left and right corners and am thinking about getting one or two vortechs and placing them along the back glass like your tank, then maybe replacing the tunze with vortech later on if I'm happy with them and have everything on a controller. I want a TON of flow!

[King-Kong]

The Tunze's will give you better flow across the bottom because they can be aimed down. That was how I experienced it with with my Seios, so there are good benefits to them.

[andyjd]

Good looking tank there KK, personally i think we now need less rock due to having skimmers that actually work.

My next tank will have no rock

Andy

[King-Kong]

Andy; No LR? Sound's very Japanese :P


General Update: I had to get rid of my extra large peppermint hog. I came home yesterday to find one of my cleaner shrimp stuck to a vortech, with it's head ripped off. The other cleaner shrimp had survived, but barely (some of its arms and antenna had been ripped off). Also, my Laboutei's fairy wrasse was in my overflow (it's covered with eggcrate), forced in there by the hogfish.

So, to the fish store he went.

The good news is, the LFS just got in 10 threadfin cardinals for me, so I am going to try again. I will give them a few days in their tanks to see which ones survive shipping.

[andyjd]

Yup no LR at all

hope to set-up a 40G shortly as an experiment for a big tank

Those Threadfin's look great, any idea what makes them so bad shipping?

Andy

[King-Kong]

The only study I found that mentions them said they are very succeptible to hypoxia.

It seems this is an issue with many of the cardinals, however :-\.

But then ive also heard once they acclimate, they are very tough.

[andyjd]

Originally posted by King-Kong
The only study I found that mentions them said they are very succeptible to hypoxia.

It seems this is an issue with many of the cardinals, however :-\.

But then ive also heard once they acclimate, they are very tough.

I wonder if they all come from the same place and its the way they are being caught, i take it they are not tank raised. I'm really interested in them as i would like "a fair few" in the tank with no LR, I'll do some more research as my wife is a marine Bio student, i might see what she can find out

[King-Kong]

Oo.. keep me posted if so.

Appearantly they showup in absolutely HUGE schools in the wild, so I cant really imagine it taking much to capture them.

..and whats worse, is that I dont think theyd be that hard to tank raise. Appearantly, those who have had them survive the initial shipment say that they always have several pairs carrying eggs.

[andyjd]

after a brief Google... one of the only interesting bits of information is

Threadfin cardinalfish will tolerate a few tens of ppm of nitrate, but little or no ammonia and nitrite.

I wonder if they need shipping in more than the normal amount of water...and possibly not being fed for a day before shipping... I'll see what else i can find out.

[King-Kong]

If my LFS's source doesnt prove any better, im gonna speak with LiveAquaria, and have them take extra special care in shipping me out a bunch