bob
Community Member
Bob's 23x23x16" Cube - livestock transferred!
Hi everyone! I've been running a 34 gallon solana for about 8 months now and have finally decided to upgrade to a 23x23x16 custom cube. I was tired of getting my entire arm wet so I got something a bit shorter. I'll outline the build of my solana, and finally I hope to keep the thread updated with my progress on the new tank.
I had a bunch of rock/equipment from a tank I had back in 2005 so I figured a small all-in-one type unit would be simple and easy. I found a 34 gallon solana in great shape for a great deal from a local reefer. This was going to be my first 'good' lighting system so I was quite excited.
I eagerly unpacked my old rocks and started to plan my scape
which ended up looking like this:
With a tiny seed rock the water quickly greened up. Apparently rock sitting in storage for 5+ years can still have death on it waiting to decompose! Anyway after the seemingly forever 3-5 week cycle I finally added some livestock. First inhabitant was a bicolor blenny, and a few soft corals. Most notably my eagle eye zoas and a watermelon shroom:
The tank stayed like this for a while, until I realized that there was just TOO much rock. I decided to remove a bunch of pieces and go with a more minimalistic/island look:
This allowed me to see all of my inhabitants at all times, and just had a better feel to it.
A few months later my MH bulb began to diminish. The previous owner said I only had about 8 months left on the bulb so I knew this was coming. One major problem living in vegas is the heat, and the 150w MH put out a ton of heat. It was here that I started to investigate LED options. After all was said and done I decided to splurge a bit and get an Aqua Illuminations Sol Blue unit - the only problem was that no one had them! Needless to say I was on the backordered list for a good 2 months while my MH bulb continued to die. In the time that the fixture was on back order I decided 2 things: that I was going to order a new ApexJR to control my newly aquired MP10 and AI Sol, and that I wanted a new tank.
I'm a relatively short guy (5'6") and in order to reach to the bottom of my solana I have to soak my entire arm - which discourages me from doing it. Because of this snails don't get turned over, frags don't get uprighted when my conch runs them over, etc etc. Another thing I did not like was the Aqua-C Urchin skimmer I had sitting unused in the garage. All of these things led me to calling up TroyLee and putting in an order for a new tank. While waiting for that to be build I got my AI unit installed; since I was waiting on the Apex to control it it had to be hung rather high since it was running at 100%. And I wanted to hang it so that it would be directly above my new tank - but the air vent was in the way so I had to do some improvising:
After replacing my ailing MH bulb with these LEDs I haven't seen a shred of problematic algae - my tank has never been cleaner. Granted I have to clean the glass daily, but it's a small price to pay for a healthier system. Once the corals got acclimated to the new lights all new colors and growth started happening. Here are the eagle eye zoas from earlier:
And here's the watermelon shroom:
And here are some other frags of mine that are doing well under my LEDs:
duncans
orange monti cap
Hi everyone! I've been running a 34 gallon solana for about 8 months now and have finally decided to upgrade to a 23x23x16 custom cube. I was tired of getting my entire arm wet so I got something a bit shorter. I'll outline the build of my solana, and finally I hope to keep the thread updated with my progress on the new tank.
I had a bunch of rock/equipment from a tank I had back in 2005 so I figured a small all-in-one type unit would be simple and easy. I found a 34 gallon solana in great shape for a great deal from a local reefer. This was going to be my first 'good' lighting system so I was quite excited.
I eagerly unpacked my old rocks and started to plan my scape
which ended up looking like this:
With a tiny seed rock the water quickly greened up. Apparently rock sitting in storage for 5+ years can still have death on it waiting to decompose! Anyway after the seemingly forever 3-5 week cycle I finally added some livestock. First inhabitant was a bicolor blenny, and a few soft corals. Most notably my eagle eye zoas and a watermelon shroom:
The tank stayed like this for a while, until I realized that there was just TOO much rock. I decided to remove a bunch of pieces and go with a more minimalistic/island look:
This allowed me to see all of my inhabitants at all times, and just had a better feel to it.
A few months later my MH bulb began to diminish. The previous owner said I only had about 8 months left on the bulb so I knew this was coming. One major problem living in vegas is the heat, and the 150w MH put out a ton of heat. It was here that I started to investigate LED options. After all was said and done I decided to splurge a bit and get an Aqua Illuminations Sol Blue unit - the only problem was that no one had them! Needless to say I was on the backordered list for a good 2 months while my MH bulb continued to die. In the time that the fixture was on back order I decided 2 things: that I was going to order a new ApexJR to control my newly aquired MP10 and AI Sol, and that I wanted a new tank.
I'm a relatively short guy (5'6") and in order to reach to the bottom of my solana I have to soak my entire arm - which discourages me from doing it. Because of this snails don't get turned over, frags don't get uprighted when my conch runs them over, etc etc. Another thing I did not like was the Aqua-C Urchin skimmer I had sitting unused in the garage. All of these things led me to calling up TroyLee and putting in an order for a new tank. While waiting for that to be build I got my AI unit installed; since I was waiting on the Apex to control it it had to be hung rather high since it was running at 100%. And I wanted to hang it so that it would be directly above my new tank - but the air vent was in the way so I had to do some improvising:
After replacing my ailing MH bulb with these LEDs I haven't seen a shred of problematic algae - my tank has never been cleaner. Granted I have to clean the glass daily, but it's a small price to pay for a healthier system. Once the corals got acclimated to the new lights all new colors and growth started happening. Here are the eagle eye zoas from earlier:
And here's the watermelon shroom:
And here are some other frags of mine that are doing well under my LEDs:
duncans
orange monti cap
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