Hart's 120 3/4" starfire expansion!

[twf0369]

Miracles Tanks

Will you be doing a build thread? (Or already are and I missed it?) That size is really going to be sweet, if I even wanted to go larger 6x2x2 would be my choice. Hope you put up some pics of the stand, I am really curious what those are like.

I will probably do a build thread eventually, I'm just doing the boring but necessary things now: tile work, installing GFI outlets etc... I'll definitely post some pics as soon as I get the tank, stand, sump delivered. How long, from the time you ordered, until delivery of your tank? I was quoted six weeks so I'm still 5 more weeks out.

I'm switching everything over from an older 180g Oceanic tank to this one. So technically I'm going from a 180 to a 165.

Keep in touch!

 

[hart24601]

My tank took about 8 weeks from the order to delivery. Is the size you ordered one of their regular sizes? Rimless?

Mine took longer than normal because of all the non standard requests I had. 24" height and not the normal 22 (normal 22 with rimless) with starfire glass, so that required stepping up to 3/4" on the sides and front, then about a week after the order I changed the back to the external overflow, so they had to upgrade the back glass to 3/4" as well and redrill and temper it... I really didn't mean to be a pain! I just forgot how much I like those external overflows!!

One of my pet peeves on other sites is how if anyone ever asks for tank size advise the response is almost always "Larger, larger larger!" Normally if someone is asking between two tank sizes people suggest even larger sizes the OP had already ruled out and tell them why their choices are not good enough. I don't consider a larger tank always an upgrade and your 165 from a 180 is a great example of it! Not that you said anything, jut one of my pet peeves, lol.

The waiting is the hard part! That and the bill!

 

[hart24601]

Outside air skimmer update: the past two nights the pH has not dipped below 7.92, previously it was getting in the 7.8-7.82 range so it seems to be working. Of course it could be simple coincidence too, but looking at the past week and a half of apex data the last two nights were the highest pH I am calling it a success. I will try out some soda lime for fun too, I am not worried about pH at 7.9, but I have the buckets, might as well see the effect and how long it lasts.

 

[hart24601]

With the outside air mod being pretty easy I wanted to try soda lime too, all I had to add was 2 empty BRS containers for the media so it's easy to do and easy to remove if I don't like it. Tried calling airgas for soda lime, but they never got back to me, amazon is on backorder so I ordered some from BRS. Hooked it up in 2 containers one right after the other - similar to the photo above but the intake line goes into the bottom of the jug. Curious how long it will last, hopefully using outside air prolongs the media's life. Results after only a couple of days look good. You can see the graph and the post above. The soda lime looks to be helping as well, keeping night pH a bit higher and increasing the daytime pH as well.

 

[jeremy]

Looking good! Following along.

 

[gettaReef]

Wow, very nice! That's encouraging

 

[hart24601]

Water had some particulate matter in it from feeding, but I had some time and wanted to try a few pics. Bazooka joe chalice that I have had a long time, a big corky finger gorg, some acro and the orange monti. I keep trying to get better at photos!

 

[hart24601]

I will try and get a pic when I get home, but happy to see colors coming back well. The acro I am using for the grow out contest really got brown before the transfer as I took gfo offline for space to play with the big skimmer. Now it's getting a nice purple back in the tips. Very happy to see that!

 

[hart24601]

Water had some particulate matter in it from feeding, but I had some time and wanted to try a few pics. Bazooka joe chalice that I have had a long time, a big corky finger gorg, some acro and the orange monti. I keep trying to get better at photos!

Haha, just noticed you can see the fathead anthias peaking out behind the bubblegum monster! Even the longnose had to peek in there! The fathead has been pretty shy, hard for me to tell how well he is eating yet, but the tank get autofed pellets 4x/day and I feed rod's 2x and sometimes mysis too.

 

[hart24601]

Some lackluster iphone pic over lunch, but can see the colors back in the tricolor and the bazooka joe just because I like that pink!

 

[hart24601]

I was reading some bare bottom threads and I forgot to talk about this before if anyone ever checks this. In the 65 I just put the "rock" on the bottom glass. I have no problem doing that, but I decided before I did this one to order 8 cut 1/4" thick 2"x2" starboard to put under the ceramic. I am not concerned with hurting the crazy thick glass, but I found that even on BB crud still got caught under the rock. So I decided to put them on several 2x2 pieces that are only a quarter inch high for flow and serpent stars to get under. Even fish sleep under it as the surface isn't totally flat. So far it seems to be working great, I blast the rocks every waterchange and have not noticed any detritus gathering under the rocks. Happy it worked!

 

[hart24601]

I don't think this thread is checked much, so it's probably not the best place for a question, but one of my acro has a white spot on it that developed overnight! No clue what happened, of course this is my growout contest one... I can't tell if the tissue is bleached or dead, but watching it yesterday and overnight it has not spread. I thought about fragging it since it's just on a tip before it could spread to a base, but I am not sure. I don't see tissue pulling off but I can't see polyps on the white part - but those are hard to see if it's just a bleached spot too. Any ideas? Great PE last night from it, so no clue what is going on.

 

[twf0369]

Is the white on the tips? Could it be growth? Post a pic.

 

[hart24601]

Some iphone pic, it looks worse in person, very bright white. Not like any growth I have seen.

 

[revhtree]

Corals look great!

 

[hart24601]

Corals look great!

Thank you. Hopefully the white spot on the one acro doesn't kill it! I keep watching it...

 

[twf0369]

Did you experience any type of cycle when you transfered your tanks? I'm doing a lot of research now so if you have any suggestions please share. New tank is about 4-5 weeks out. Waiting sucks. Lol.

 

[hart24601]

No major cycle that I could tell. I didn't test ammonia, but watched everything pretty close. I did add a little prime once just to be sure though.

 

[hart24601]

I bought a 365nm uv LED flashlight a while back to detect my girlfriends cat peeing outside the box, but it's really cool for reef use. You can see what corals fluoresces under it and even what spots of the corals, some only glow where they are in the greatest contact with the light. Anyway I was using it to try and see the white spot on the acro, if a coral is bleached generally it will still glow a bit, when if it's all dead the look will be different. I tried to take pic with iphone, they didn't come out great, the 6+ is too large for 1 hand photos here... but it looks like the tissue is still there for most of the spot and there are polyps at least in parts of the white.

 

[hart24601]

They looked much better before blowing them up to a computer!