Garage Coral Farm & 10' Reef Tank

[PjFish]

Hows the 10 doing any updates?
Not sure been a minute but the stealth black reflectors I believe came with tempered glass splash shields..the silvers ones didn’t which made alota sense lol. Also them bulbs are supposed to stay warm so if using no splash guards don’t have any fans blowing directly on the bulbs otherwise will shorten their lifespan or may cause a color shift..blowing on fixtures are fine.
I still run plasma tv’s which double as room heaters Ha.. There are still reefers who still run plasma probably Gavita made some good LEP ones in the past

 

[iani]

Man I remember burning my eyes a bit after less than a minute once with double ended metal halide bulbs.

 

[Darkxerox]

Man I remember burning my eyes a bit after less than a minute once with double ended metal halide bulbs.

The double ended bulbs were unshielded without glass in the way right? Mine caused my acrylic to crack in the corners where it leaked out through gaps in the glass. All that UVC coming out.

 

[iani]

The double ended bulbs were unshielded without glass in the way right? Mine caused my acrylic to crack in the corners where it leaked out through gaps in the glass. All that UVC coming out.

Yup, glass needed to block uv.

 

[psidriven]

If I remember correctly it had to be tempered glass, not regular. Something about tempered filters uv while regular doesn’t. Also regular glass might not stand the heat and could shatter.

 

[PjFish]

Tempered glass or heat resistant glass (Borosilicate glass ) will work fine but tempered glass would be safer.

 

[Turkeysammich]

I can’t tell you what type of glass it is. But it is different. In the early 2000’s I ran the 250 double ended ones. I had them a little too close to the water. Water splashed on the glass when they were on. It exploded the glass. I thought it was just glass so I went to OSH. Had them cut me a piece of glass. Nope. Burned the crap out of the corals. And exploded that piece to just by the heat.

 

[Bryce.martin23]

Glory days of reefing . Single ended bulbs the way to go so you don’t have to worry about any of this.

 

[Cody Ramirez]

I finally got the 10-footer filled earlier this month. I’m currently battling the ugly stage from the new rock, which was expected. The system is plumbed into the garage with 2” drains. Flow is handled by four Maxspect XF350s mounted on the back wall.

I’m running temporary T5s for now until I build out the permanent lighting. The plan for this tank is primarily LPS and softies.

Last weekend I put together some trim board and an open top canopy. Next step is adding white acrylic panels along the bottom to clean things up and hide what is currently serving as toy storage.

 

[popper]

Ga dang. Those are big fish. Finally yeh!!!

 

[Kensington Reefer]

they keep banging their heads on the ceiling


that's what they tell me...

 

[Cody Ramirez]

Been a while since I last posted an update, but everything’s been going great with the systems. I’m finally past the ugly stage on the 10’er and it’s starting to come together the way I envisioned.

I ended up getting rid of the DSA tank in the garage after a failed seam and swapped it out for a CDA peninsula. Definitely loving the peninsula setup and the extra viewing panel. Still running halides, and I upgraded the frag tank to halides as well. I’ve been trying out 65K bulbs the past few months and have definitely noticed a solid increase in growth.

I also started dosing kalk alongside the CARX. It’s been a lot of fun learning more about kalk, and so far I’ve been really happy with the results.

As for what’s next, I want to put a lot more focus into the 10’er. The original plan was to keep it mostly softies and LPS so guests would have a nice flowing reef to look at… yeahhh, I got bored of that pretty quick. We’re officially transitioning it into a sticks tank with halides and a lot more flow.

That’s all I’ve got for now. I’ll try to post updates more regularly as things progress… or regress.

 

[Cody Ramirez]

Finally upgraded the lighting over the 10’er yesterday, originally had some cheap T5 fixtures, now running reefbrites w/ their 14K twin arc bulb. Time to add some sticks with this extra PAR!

 

[Kensington Reefer]

That tank seems so shallow for tangs…
(I must be a horrible critic)

 

[clownvan]

That tank seems so shallow for tangs…
(I must be a horrible critic)

tangs are all from hollywood. they like shallow #tangmaxxing