JP's 240. A decade of work.

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by rhdoug

Joe, are those ricordea in the lower left? If so, do they get a fair amount of flow?

Hey Randy!

Yes they are Ricordea, and I would describe the flow as moderate. I moved them 3 times. The first position was definitely high flow and the second position was definitely low flow. Originally I had about 6 polyps on a single rock and they simply wouldn't grow. Finally when I put them where you see them today they simply took off and I have now brought several mini-colonies to Greenwich Aquaria for sale. Don't know if it was flow or light that made the difference, but clearly they were particular in what they needed to thrive.

Thanks for asking!

Joe

[JPMagyar]

[mr9iron]

How did you control the CO2 in your basement? BTW, your tank is beautiful.

[rhdoug]

They are beautiful, Joe. I asked because I added a 13-pack of ricordea florida in February in similar locations in my tank and they have done so-so. Like you, I am not sure if it is light or flow or both but they are not nearly as happy as yours are. They have seemed happier in the last couple of weeks, so perhaps they just take a while to adjust to new surroundings.

[dallasg]

Joe, what a beautiful tank and setup!
really impressed that its been running for so long and looks so good

[Pallobi]

Two words... wow... and WOW....

GREAT JOB AND AWESOME COLONIES

[baws187]

Beautiful.

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by mr9iron

How did you control the CO2 in your basement? BTW, your tank is beautiful.

I installed a fan that removes air from the "fish room" in the basement and pushes it outside the house. Works great when the temperature is comparable between outside and in, but not sure what I'll do when the weather turns cold again.

The latest problem has been an outbreak of red slime on the sand. So far I'm combating it with simple manual removal, but I'd give my "eye teeth" to know why it occurs. Rob, from Greenwich Aquaria, thinks seasonality has an effect. He feels that the slight change in average temperature in New England tanks from winter to summer is enough to trigger red slime growth. Don't know but maybe . . .

[dark8nge1]

What are the dimensions of the tank? Sorry if I missed it somewhere.

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by dark8nge1

What are the dimensions of the tank? Sorry if I missed it somewhere.

No worries mate thanks for asking!

It's 48 x 48 x 24 inches (122 x 122 x 61 cm). I picked that size because a) the room it's in can support a cube and not look terrible b) a cube gives a little more diversity in aquascaping as compared to the more common rectangular tank c) I wanted to be able to reach every inch of the tank without having to resort to yoga moves so I limited the depth to 24 inches. Being able to work on any section at any moment is a HUGE plus in my mind. I'm not shy about rearranging or cleaning because it's all so relatively easy as compared to my first setup which was a more traditional rectangle . . .

[JPMagyar]

Leavin' for work this morning for a 3 day trip and wouldn't ya know it my CO2 bottle was empty so scramble scramble in my work clothes to get the other bottle out of the garage, disconnect, reconnect, adjust and hope everything is ok . . . ahhh . . . it's always something at the worst possible time


and yesterday cost me 3 hours of maintenance on my 1 real day off because I was behind on general upkeep . . . clean the glass, clean the sand, water change, skimmer clean, Tunze remove and replace and clean, and minor trim work. Phewww

[MikeG]

What is your routine for cleaning the sand?

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by MikeG

What is your routine for cleaning the sand?

Hey Mike,


When I clean the sand I use a simple half inch rubber hose to siphon the top layer clean. I usually end up with 3 or four cups worth of sand in the bucket and I simply replace that with new clean sand. Besides the siphon I also use a very small fish net to rake the top of the sand layer and remove any larger pieces of debris like snail shells or coral branches, and the timing varies but on average I'd say I clean the sand about every other week or so and maybe slightly less.

I'm not sure it's necessary for the health of the tank, but then the tank is such a central part of my living room that I can't stand to look at sand that isn't pristine clean. It seems like when warm temperatures arrive so does red slime. So the last sand siphon job was a little more than usual. The visual impact of clean sand is huge and being able to clean every inch of my tank easily was a big goal of the open top and low set tank. Another draw back though is that I have found I can't keep ANYTHING on the sand layer. It just doesn't work with my desired look and regimen so no more clams or chalices . . . oh well can't have everything

Joe

[JPMagyar]

So just came home from Geneva and found the float valve on my RODI was leaking. Good thing my RODI is in an unfinished basement room . . .

[kfisc]

What a great tank, certainly have enjoyed the pictures! Would you say there are any other factors here in New England you've noticed, such as water quality? My RODI blocks seem to need replacing much sooner than other places I've lived.

[jk1138]

Awesome, simply awesome!

[Db366]

Beautiful tank! keep the pics coming!

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by kfisc

What a great tank, certainly have enjoyed the pictures! Would you say there are any other factors here in New England you've noticed, such as water quality? My RODI blocks seem to need replacing much sooner than other places I've lived.

Without question the TDS coming from my well kill the RODI cartridges faster than a city water supply, and never mind the fact that I had to install a Radon removing system for the house, but I definitely believe different areas have different challenges to overcome. If I had to pick the biggest challenge for all of us I would hazard to say that excessive CO2 levels inside our homes would be number one on my list.

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by Db366

Beautiful tank! keep the pics coming!

Thank-you!

[tqpolo]

Originally Posted by JPMagyar

Can you tell me if you did any photoshop to this pic because it looks super sharp? Can you tell me how this pic was taken? Lens, settings, ect.?

[MrLeemr]

WOW! freaking amazing keep up the good work man,definitely an inspiration.

[JPMagyar]

Originally Posted by tqpolo

Can you tell me if you did any photoshop to this pic because it looks super sharp? Can you tell me how this pic was taken? Lens, settings, ect.?

Yes I used Photoshop to lighten the photo, but I did no work on individual elements only on the photo as a whole. In the photo displayed I used Canon's program to convert directly from RAW to JPEG and then uploaded directly to photobucket. It's a little different than the original, but only marginally so. Keeping color match from computer to computer is really, really, really hard. I take your interest as a complement and will say that number one my corals are THAT colorful and number two I spent many, many, many hours cleaning my tank and water before trying to take the photographs and then I took literally thousands of photos before I found a combination of settings that produced good results. Thanks for asking!

Camera Model Canon EOS REBEL T1i
Firmware Firmware Version 1.0.9
Shooting Date/Time 12/23/2010 9:54:19 AM
Shooting Mode Manual Exposure
Tv( Shutter Speed ) 1/80
Av( Aperture Value ) 11.0
Metering Mode Center-Weighted Average Metering
ISO Speed 200
Auto ISO Speed OFF
Lens EF100mm f/2.8 Macro USM
Focal Length 100.0mm
Image Size 4752x3168
Image Quality RAW
Flash On
Flash Type Built-In Flash
Flash Exposure Compensation 0
Shutter curtain sync 1st-curtain sync
FE lock OFF
White Balance Mode Auto
AF Mode One-Shot AF
Picture Style Standard
Sharpness 3
Contrast 0
Saturation 0
Color tone 0
Color Space sRGB
Long exposure noise reduction 0:Off
High ISO speed noise reduction 0:Standard
Highlight tone priority 0isable
Auto Lighting Optimizer 0:Standard
Peripheral illumination correction Disable
File Size 18820KB
Dust Delete Data No
Drive Mode Continuous shooting
Live View Shooting OFF
Date/Time(UTC)
Latitude
Longitude
Altitude
Geographic coordinate system
Camera Body No. 0370124612

[tqpolo]

Thanks for the info. I just shot in RAW and did some adjusting in Photoshop. It looks so much better, especially when I can adjust the white balance.

[JPMagyar]

Just came home from a trip and found that the timer on the LED blue lights was burnt out (can't imagine why, but that's for another discussion). Anyways, can't believe no one at home picked up on it while I was gone . . . then again I have no idea when the failure occured. For all I know it just happened tonight. Good thing I have extra timers hangin' around

[bif24701]

Originally Posted by JPMagyar

Just came home from a trip and found that the timer on the LED blue lights was burnt out (can't imagine why, but that's for another discussion). Anyways, can't believe no one at home picked up on it while I was gone . . . then again I have no idea when the failure occured. For all I know it just happened tonight. Good thing I have extra timers hangin' around

LOL, my wife was happy when I said I was building a reef tank. Now I spend so much time on it that she won't even look at it. I came home and my skimmer jug had overflowed and flooded the floor.

i love you tank and thanks for the photo tips!