High Tide Aquatics

90 Gallon Mixed Reef

Today we got the crown molding tacked on. All there's left to do now is put on the fluted trim and some other detail trim pieces on the stand and canopy.

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Yesterday we finished up some minor work and sprayed the entire canopy/stand with water to raise the grain a bit. We'll be doing some finishing sanding and then staining. The stain is going to be a dark "espresso" type of look. Pictures to come.
 
Thanks for all the kind words of encouragement on the stand/canopy build part of this tank. I hope getting the tank up and running will go as smoothly as the woodworking has gone..
 
Finally getting around to posting some more pictures of my tank build. A lot of progress has been made since I last posted. The plumbing was the biggest PITA for me and I probably killed some brain cells after breathing all that purple solvent.. Anyway, pictures below.

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Lights all ready to be mounted in the tank. I couldn't wait to see how they'd look with the tank filled with water.

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Back of canopy with extra bulb for sunrise sunset effect

Here comes the mess...
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Tank is up and running!!!
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Plumbing is running smoothly with no leaks :)

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Dosing pumps and my Reefkeeper II mounted up there somewhere for dosing control

Even though I don't have many frags, I'm looking forward getting out the the frag swap in February to meet the club and fellow hobbyists. i was planning on attending the meeting in January, but my sister in law had a baby, so my hobby agenda somehow became secondary:) Thanks for looking!
 
slim_jim989 said:
Hey I got a question where is your brothers shop and how is he with price wise. I got sorta a big project for my next tank.
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His shop is in his garage. He lives about five minutes from my house.

What do you have in mind?
 
Well I live in mountain view. I was gonna make a stand for a 36x36 cube. But on either side of the stand was gonna be attachable desk about 3 to 3.5ft for each desk. Basicaly it's like a wall piece but in incoporates our computers to lol.
 
Added a GFO reactor and got a larger ATO reservoir:

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So far this skimmer seems to be pulling some good skimmate. Although I have nothing else to compare to other than my nano Tunze 9002 used in my BC29. Any thoughts on the Octopus NWB with Ocean Runner pumps as opposed to others?

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Attempts at taking pictures of some newly mounted frags.

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Purple Tort?

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Some sort of Acro?

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Ponape Torch from DBTC - Thanks Eight.

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Green Digitata - I've seen it look much better than this in my BC29

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Red Acans

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Miniature Toadstool with Green Polyps - Using this little guy as a barometer for my tank right now..

Thanks for looking.
 
Re-plumbed my fluidized reactor. I used to have the reactor plumbed off my return pump, but found as the GFO/Carbon media became "clogged up", it changed the return flow rate, and I had to constantly adjust my gate valve. I now have the reactor plumbed to a MJ900 which is throttled way back.. At least I now have an extra John Guest valve that could potentially be used for a calcium reactor.. Still haven't decided if I'd like to go that route, rather than the balling method I'm currently using. I'd have to plumb another RO/DI unit off my refrigerator icemaker water line (other side of wall from tank) and punch thru wall to tank, in order to get rid of ATO reservoir and make room for the reactor/CO2 tank. It would be nice to not have to get my RO/DI water line from the garage to fill an ATO reservoir every so often.

I hope my 8 watts of T5 and reflector is not underkill for the task of growing macro.

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Thinking ahead, I went and mounted some fans in the canopy. I'm VERY pleased with the outcome and noise level of these fans. I went with the 120mm Antec Tricool (Double Ball Bearings) fans from Fry's Electronics. I've got a whopping four fans mounted over my 90 gallon, pushing a max of 78 CFM at 30 dba. I tried out the Silenx fans and they just weren't pushing enough air, so I returned them and went with the Antecs. Very happy. I did a test and under the current weather conditions, my temp dropped .2 degrees in about 10 minutes!! This is running the fans on 9 volts rather than the max 12 volts, so very happy with the cooling performance. During the summer months I can always up the volts to the max 12 and push more air (of course the fans will be a bit noisier as well). I don't think I'll need to crank them even in the warmer months ahead. I'll probably do some more testing at lower fan speeds (lower volts), and try to see if I can quiet the fans down even further. The aim of my tank is to run the most efficient/stable tank that I can, so a chiller was not an option. Check out the pics:

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My T5s
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Back of canopy with fans mounted angled down ever so slightly
 
A current FTS:

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I also took two panels off the back of my stand because my cabinet doors started to bow from the moisture of the sump. While I had my sump removed, I decided to go ahead and swap my Mag 9.5 return pump out and replace with an Ocean Runner 3500. I'm happy I made the change.

Mike
 
Sfork said:
Nice, those fans have switches too don't they? Makes it easier to turn them up during a hot day or w/e
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The fans have switches for three different speeds. I don't use the switches to control fan speeds and have all four fans on the highest setting. If I want to control fan speed, I use my variable volt power adaptor, which makes it easier to change the speed on all fans. My fans are also connected to my ReefKeeper II aquarium controller, so I don't turn the fans on or off manually. When my water temperature reaches 79.5 the fans will turn on and then back off when the temp reaches 78.5.

My tank has only reached 78.3 at the end of my light cycle, so my fans haven't been used at this point. I'm sure they'll see some use in the warmer months to come. At the fans low power consumption and noise level, I'm not sweatin' it.

Mike
 
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