Slowly starting a salty tank

[myjohnson]

Nah, I have the drains high enough to where it will drain maybe 10gal of water into my refugium, and its a 29gal fuge, so I should be good without one

I would only use one of the drains and out a ball valve on it.

Put and elbow on the other so it acts and emergency valve.

+1 on the less flow is better. Noise from a SW set up can be tricky. Less flow normally means less noise.

[Andrew_B]

Sounds like a plan, I bought the supplies for that. Right now im just trying to get this stupid fixture to stay upright on my tank. Its way too top heavy for this poorly designed clamp. And the tanks little plastic flap that holds the glass lids up isnt strong enough for clamp

[Andrew_B]

Repainted the stand - Turned out pretty good. First time using Krylon glossy black. Normally I just use Satin.


These clamp fixtures won't work on this tank, so need to sell them and get something with 4 legs unfortunately.

[dead wait]

Stand look's real good. Nice glossy finish.

[Andrew_B]

Painted the back and stole a little trick from John (fshfrk) and using layered painters tape on the back to protect paint from scratches and water run off.




Next up is making the sump, or finding someone with a manufactured one.

[Darbex]

Looking good.

[Andrew_B]

A lot of the light fixtures I'm looking at have 4 power cords. Is there some kind of fancy controller that can digitally set up timers with multiple outlets? Or would I basically just have to get a handful of those cheapo dial timers for each cord.

[Darbex]

Question is how much do you want to spend. There are controllers my fav being Neptune Apex controller.

[Andrew_B]

Good deal. Those Neptunes are pretty awesome! - Looks like Coralife has some power strips that may work. Reviews aren't great though. I'll keep looking. Seems that a handful of lighting fixtures have built in timers, but not sure how programmable they are

[Darbex]

Those coralife and similar power strips only come with a day/night feature. So if you are fine with only have certain lights on at a given time with the others being off during that time then its fine. But if you want something like mine where I have 5 lights coming on and off all at different times then you will need to get something more sophisticated like the Apex or RKE.

[mgarrido]

A controller is the best investment that you can do for a reef tank. I like reefkeeper controllers since they are more modular and you can start with the basic for control temp, your pumps and lights for 120.00.

[Andrew_B]

The one Im looking at currently http://www.aquariumguys.com/aqualight6.html says it has 3 outlets for day, 2 for actinic, and 2 for lunar. Should be able to manager a full 24hour system from that.

This one from RKE seems really nice too. http://www.digitalaquatics.com/saltwater/RKL Trying to figure out how it works / receives information from lights/heater/pumps etc etc. Seems like it's too small to have fixtures plug right into it

[Andrew_B]

Nevermind, looks like it comes with 4 outlets

[Bedlamer]

Like the guys above posted you are better off spending your money on a controller than you are wasting it on a bunch of timers. A controller will let you control all of your lights (with ramp up (depending on the light) and seasonal variations if you want) plus as much monitoring as you want to program in and pay for optional probes/modules. Most will run at least pH, temperature, and ATO functions as a base unit. Also if you hitch it up with the right gear, your tank can text message you if it starts to go out of parameters. It’s like something from the Jetson’s--lol
Here are a couple to look at...
http://www.neptunesys.com/#4 about $159?
and
http://www.reefangel.com/Default.aspx $200 for the basics?
mgarrido above has multiple beautiful and very thoughtfully equipped tanks. I have no hands on experience with controllers yet. I have however spent the last couple of weeks reading up on controllers. From what I have read, I would never purchase a Reef Keeper from Digital Aquatics for myself due to a number of factors. Most people find that the customer service from the Apex people (Neptune Systems) much, much better than DA. NS allows more backwards compatibility with their modules—so if you upgrade down the road some of your stuff you buy now might still work with the new system. The DA folks seem to have way more quality control issues. NS brings new features to the market in a timely fashion, instead of up to 3 years behind when they say something is coming out. For modularity the Full Apex system has a 8 outlet power block while the Reef keeper Elite would use 2 separate 4 outlet power blocks—which is often touted as being a better setup. The basic NS Apex Jr. above just has 4 outlets built in—you add more if you need them. The other consensus I found is that no matter what brand you end up with—as long as you get a system that works—the owners all say it is the best money they ever spent on their tanks.

[photogdude]

Where did you get the stand? I like it

P.S. The gimp finally bit it.