The Frogman Commeth... Or starteth

[csreed]

Thank you, Jeremiah! You've given me great information - I've spent waaaay too much time on the Internet trying to figure this out! Unfortunately, I may be too late - went looking for mine today & don't see it. Since I'm still cycling a newly re-started tank from a friend, there's not much in it yet. Hope the little guy didn't starve. I did an algae-attacking scrub of the walls & some of the rock today, so hopefully he's just sulking. I'll let you know if I get a positive ID on him!

 

[frogman_reefer]

When lighting is switched to actinic, put a oz of cyclopeze, or zoo plankton in the tank. Come back in about 20 min with some mysis shrimp. If you see it, spray it with the mysis. They can close up so small that they look like they disappear at first. Try this, if you feed it every other/third day, it will reward you with offspring and grow into a nice little colony. Kinda like mine did. They are really a cool creature!

Good luck and don't hesitate to post questions in the forum. There are some brilliant people here. I'm always impressed with everyone's willingness to teach (and tell you you're wrong too).

 

[frogman_reefer]

Also, start a tank thread and let me know, ill follow it...

 

[csreed]

Thank you on all counts! Actinic bulbs are expected Monday, so it sounds like I've got a fun experiment coming!

I'll start a tank thread as soon as I figure out how to start a new post...

 

[csreed]

Figured it out :)

 

[frogman_reefer]

Figured it out :)

Link once youve got it up...

 

[frogman_reefer]

Figured it out :)

Feed it! This is my reward for feeding my one hitchhiker it's growing like mad. And such a cool coral

 

[frogman_reefer]

Awesome! Will do, that's good. Trying to still build my reeding network here in SA.

Appreciate the offer.

Hahaha. I'm a doof, reefing network. Forum talk on an autocorrecting iPhone can get frustrating!

 

[frogman_reefer]

Ok so a few more pics, trying to improve quality, but I'm also taking multiples to track changing color patterns n some of my corals as lights and my setup continues to change.


This was during a recent water change.

Guess what coral this is?

My Garf bonsai, from Sally Jo at GARF. Miss Leroy Headlee, God rest his soul. Do you all realize it's been three years since he passed on?

Munumum my Setosa. (Some will get that)

Going to raise the lighting up after a few suggestions from fellow reefers. Thinking about building an open back canopy with piano hinges all the way around.
Feedback on that check out my led vs halide thread on the lighting forum.

Ok. That's enough, I should get to work. Be well all and be blessed!

 

[frogman_reefer]

Tank additions and "plug"
@AquaSD

Go check out this guys sales. I'm very impressed with the device, excellent communication and freebies!

Gotta love those :-)

Some of the things I got in on the order.
Freebies...

Poor pic, but purple paly's and Rastas.
Some ricordea

Mushrooms for my "mushroom corner that's being put together...




Another freebie

And my favorite piece. Double Star!


Go check out his store. His sales rock.
And I gotta give credit, his shipping was awesome. You won't be disappointed.

 

[frogman_reefer]

So I added a couple fish but due to the crazy heat here in Texas, I haven't had any more corals sent. But I do have an awesome TKC Pikachu, goldrush, and ultra smurf something or other coming in when it cools down a bit.

I'm also gonna search for a thread on creating "in line pod farm" to help propagate some additional pods for my manderin, scooter and six line. They are all eating frozen which is a bonus, but I want to make sure they all stay nice and fat without raising my nitrates.

New fish:
Fire Tail Blenny can't get a pic tho, dang thing won't sit still for me.

New Manderin Dragonett

Scooter Blenny

Tile star should be coming in tomorrow to my LFS hopefully it arrives in good shape.

Here are some pics.

 

[frogman_reefer]

Ok so I've made a few changes to the system that I hope are going to prove beneficial.

1. Added an ATO. I'm using a Hydor system that was given to me and so far it works great. No snails in the sump so that helps from what I've heard.

2. Changed bulbs and updated my ballast. Bought two new icecap ballasts and new 20k bulbs. Much more uniformity on my tanks overall coloration.

3. Added corals. Got some killer sick sticks in from Dan at @The Coral Kings and the pikachu is a little angry with me right now. But the smurf tenuous, the goldrush and the color on the TJC field of dreams is awesome. Beautiful pink coloration.

4. I also won the Radion Pro (Partner Member drawing) so I'm gonna rebuild my 56 gallon deep tank to house more variety.

Only have a couple pics. So I'll need to take more when I get back from my trip.
Nice little blasto having some dinner

Out of focus, but a cool little neon leptospirosis
And getting much better coloration since the changes were made.

More to come...

 

[frogman_reefer]

Ok. So how do you gain popularity in a tank thread? Pictures. But not just pictures. Great outstanding pictures.

Yeah, still not there yet. But is coming along. Got in a few additions.

Powder Blue Tang
Red Dragon Acro

Terrible iPhone pics.

Yellow suharsonoi - I fragged off a small piece and stuck it in a higher light area to check and see how color and growth will do. Hoping the little frag loves its location.

Also moved some corals to their latest positions. So here is an overall updated image.


There is more light the. It seems in the pic. This looks really dark but it's not

 

[frogman_reefer]

Adding a canopy.

Being that this display tank is located in my living room, I wanted to make sure that it has a well done and finished look.

The tank overall looked ok, but my old IceCap fixture and the automatic feeder, and my overflow, and my feeding ring, and my chiller return all poking out the back looked somewhat... Well like crap!

While many people who came over gave me great comments about the coral and fish, no one ever said that the "tank" looked good. Now perhaps that is just semantics but it really hits you.

Here on R2R I see some of your rimless tanks, floating Radion Pro LED, drilled and flawless looking systems and I am always impressed. But, I can't drill my tank. My Radion is on my smaller tank and only having a limited budget, I have to very carefully pic and chose my upgrades. Now I completely understand that everyone here gets that... And we can honestly say at the shagrin of our significant others... We expand our budget for our tanks. Sometimes at the cost of date night which I'm guilty of. So this upgrade needed to impress my wife. It needed to scream, FINITO! Even though we all know it's far from over.

So how could I give my system that $5000.00 look and keep it in my 500.00 budget? So the wheels of creativity began to flow.

First step was to find someone who had mad skills in woodworking. My skills consist of general repairs, cutting and drilling. But I am no craftsman. So I was introduced to a local reef shop owner here named Allen. He has the craftsmanship background I was looking for and the partnership began.

I needed to find ways to cut costs and keep it in my 500.00 budget. So the first step was to think about cooling the canopy.

I looked online and researched various fan systems. There is a pretty good selection out there, but I need to move some serious air! These halides get hot and I can't have my tanks temp rising too much. My chiller is a little too small for this tank, so I don't want it to work too hard.

I found these particular fans at a local computer repair shop. They are pretty beefy and run off 110, they have a little more noise then some other models, but they are a fraction of the cost. I also picked up the metal casings for the outside to help dress up the holes I would have to drill.

Next was the color, the old pine look of the base just didn't go well with the house decor, so I needed to fix that. I went to Lowes and picked up Mixwax stain (Red Mahogany) this is the color selected for the canopy. So I set to staining the cabinet. Just doing that was a huge improvement.

About 5 days later the wood working was completed on the canopy. It looked better than I had expected and for only 279.00 was well on the way to keeping my budget online. So now it was time to install the fans.

This process took about 45 min and a little effort but was not at all hard.

So after all this, what did I end up with?
Before:
After:

Overall improvement cost: $455.67

Depending on heat, I might buy 2 more fans for the right side to allow for more airflow. That will run me another 45.00 and put me right on budget.

End result??? My wife Loves it and said the tank looks so sharp and really accents the room nicely. What are your thoughts?

 

[frogman_reefer]

Ok, so not much happening on the tank, but here are a few purchases I've made and a couple images to boot.

Special thanks to Troy for his offering to set me up with some different items. Dudes a stud!

Oregon tortusa
Cali tortusa
Fire digi
chalice (can't remember what kind)
Green frog skin acro
Mystic Blue acro
And a tribal blenny


Recent purchase from Dkray. Nice little frogspawn


Acans not open in the shot

Blasto

Moon coral acquired at LMAR

My red "fishin"

That's it for now. I'll try posting some more stuff later

 

[frogman_reefer]

Ok. I've been meaning to update this for a while and show a few updates on what I've been working on.

1. Got a new light. A friend on a local forum was selling her Coralife pro light 72, and while I had the 48 inch version of the light and it worked just fine I had darker spots on the sides. So I needed to upgrade for the sake of lighting the whole tank


Previous light

New light. Much better coverage!
While thenMH are now 150wt 15k bulbs vs the previous 250wt 20k MH. I should start seeing better growth. The slight color shift on the left is due to the sand.

The second thing I am doing is creating a Blastosmusa garden. Here are some of the goodies I have aiming in after the holidays.


Finally is the addition of a coral pack from @The Coral Kings have I said how much I love thier sticks!?!? So ready for my after the holidays delivery!!!

Oh sweet babies, come to papa!!! This was a 4 person buy as we plan to cultivate and build multiple colonies to ensure survivor ability of these beauties!

More to come later

 

[frogman_reefer]

Playing with the tank, feeding and placing some of the babies :-)

love this CC Volcano Shroom!!

 

[frogman_reefer]

RR Blastosmusa waiting for a little coloration.

@The Coral Kings. Field of Dreams
RR Frogman.

RR Planet Earth! Love this piece.

TKC Goldrush

 

[frogman_reefer]

This alveporas HUGE!

Also got a couple cool goodies coming in today. @AquaSD looking forward to my delivery :-)


Oh yeah, and
Sexy!

 

[frogman_reefer]

Lighting Update:

So I just upgraded my lights to @SB Reef Lights and I wanted to share my opinion, updates, videos, pics (pre/post) etc...

You will be able to see how my schedule runs, % of powers at times of day, ramping and even offer suggestions and insight too!

I'm also going to work on programs for my Reef Angel Controller to see about creating seasonal programming, proper moon cycles, sun rise and sunset based off real time clock and allowing for seasonal shift. (That's a long way off) especially since I wouldn't even begin to know how to connect these unless I do it through a wireless channel.

Anyway... If you see something and it sounds dumb, tell me! I'm new to these lights, I'm not a pro... Just want to help document the change.