300w Mh Lights Overkill?

[AK77]

Hi Rob,

I have no idea mate. It was a standard white bulb that came with one of the lights. It didn't give the rating on the packet. Just a bog standard Osram white bulb. When the damsel swims under it, hes just a dullish blue. When he swims down the left hand end of the tank, he turns electric blue due to the 14k bulb. I had contemplated going 20k bulbs initially, but after seeing the damsel under the 14k's I think they are sufficient.

 

[robbhp]

thanks mate, defo going for the 14k , who are your bulbs made by ?

 

[AK77]

I ditched the boxes on the 14k's. I'll let you know what brand they are (if any) when the new one arrives tomorrow. I got them off ebay. I'll find the vendors details and PM if you like.

AK

 

[robbhp]

yea mate that wuld be great

 

[SkiFletch]

Well, for all your stories of problems the tank looks great AK

 

[AK77]

Thanks Ski.

It's starting to get there. All the basics are now in place and so now I can begin getting some eye candy in the tank. I might get another few kilos of LR and then some corals.

I did a little aquascaping tonight as I'm planning on getting a dragonet. There's now loads of hiding places for him and some inaccessible parts too so that the copepods can flourish. I got bitten by the blue damsel fish for my trouble, so he got no supper.

I was having problems with the powerheads. I'd attached the hydor deflectors to them to create more of a wave effect, as a combined 5000 LPH from the jets of the two Hailea pumps was a bit strong for my 180L tank lol. Unfortunately, after 5 minutes I'd see a black object whizzing from one side of the tank to the other as the deflector was blasted out of the 2500 LPH pump.

Typically, this would happened after I'd hidden the pump behind/under the live rock, so I'd then have to move everything again to reattach them. After about the 5th time of doing this, I got a bit cheesed off to say the least. Initially I'd tried wedging them into the powerheads. As that failed miserably, I decided to try adhesives. I had some solvent cement but it wasn't obviously wasn't bonding correctly as one surface was PVC, the other rubber and I'd still find the deflectors lying on the sand and the clownfish wondering what the hell was going on as a powerful stream of water appeared out of nowhere. Silcone faired no better.

I purchased 3 x M3 nylon nuts, bolts and washers from ebay. I put the pumps with the hydro's adaptor on my press drill. I drilled through with a 3.5mm drill bit, then threaded the bolt through. No more deflectors being launched across the tank.

As the bolts were only 3mm thick, they don't affect the flow as the Haileas are 2500 LPH and the deflectors reduce that down to 1600 LPH anyway.

 

[SkiFletch]

If you really want mandarins, I actually might suggest sticking some clumps of chaetomorpha in your back corners to encourage the growth of pods

 

[AK77]

Great minds think alike Ski.... although dirty ones do too. I've got loads of the stuff growing in the sump/refugium at the moment. What I was planning on doing was a weekly rotation system, whereby I put one clump (roughly the size of those mini footballs) of it behind the rocks in the main tank, leaving the other 5 balls in the sump for the copepods to get their "thang" on and breed. What do you think?

 

[SkiFletch]

Great minds think alike Ski.... although dirty ones do too. I've got loads of the stuff growing in the sump/refugium at the moment. What I was planning on doing was a weekly rotation system, whereby I put one clump (roughly the size of those mini footballs) of it behind the rocks in the main tank, leaving the other 5 balls in the sump for the copepods to get their "thang" on and breed. What do you think?

That'd be exactly what I'd suggest

 

[AK77]

Hi guys,

Just a few updated pictures of the tank and corals that are now going in there.

Frogspawn coral. Different from the one I thought I was getting but its pretty cool all the same. One head died in transit. Ones out doing fine, the other 3 don't seem to know what to do at the moment.

Next up we have some green star polyps. These have taken a few days to emerge and they still aren't all out either. There is a bigish aiptasia on the lower part, so some Joe's Juice shall be ordered soon

Next is my little green mushroom. He only cost me £2 which wasn't bad at all.

This is probably my favourite coral so far. Although you can't see it, its actually growing over an old snail shell. The clowns don't seem to be interested in hosting that either.

Next up is a Kenya tree. This has taken a few days to to upright itself again. It got pretty squished in the bag. I didnt think it was gonna make it personally, but glad its recovering as its a lovely mint green.

Some Zoa's. Not the prettiest in the world but not a bad addition. Just wish they'd open up a bit more.

All that remains of the turbo snail I put in the tank 3 days ago

Finally, a tank shot. I must get a better camera and turn the sodding date stamp on this one too in the meantime

Hopefully I'm gonna get over to the LFS this weekend and see if they have anymore goodies. I'd ideally like some colourful mushrooms and make a galaxea or brain coral.