medi

Lol....well.....Who's gonna build mine if I am building everyone else's?

Thanks Brooks

Hmm...I think I may want to build one. Anyone interested in buying supplies together since we could build multiples out of the amount of supply we'll have to buy?

Thanks Jeremy. I do have one question though. I reduced my photo period with my MH in half due to the increase in light, but is that really necessary since the bulb wattage is the same?

Thanks for the compliments!

This is a very nice setup. I'd love to jump on it if I had the money.

Due to the deep dimensions of my tank I was not getting adequate lighting to the front or back of my tank and instead had a super bright spot right in the middle. I decided to build a new fixture that would utilize Lumenarc Minis to hopefully spread the light more towards the back and the front. I definitely didn't want a canopy that sat on top so I decided to build a hanging canopy. Specs: 2x250W Reeflux 12K MH driven by Lumatek Dimmable ballasts in two Lumenarc Minis 2x39W T5 ATI blue plus 2x39W T5 UV 454 All T5s are in Tek II reflectors and are driven by an Icecap 660 Thanks to Matt, Mhart032, we were able to wire in all the lighting and get it up and running this evening. I must say this thing is awesome! In fact it may be to bright. The wife is already making comments about needing sunglasses and a hat while sitting in the living room. I'll have to figure a way to remedy this, but for now we can all deal with it just fine. The light spreads perfectly across the water surface and there is not a dark spot in the entire tank. I am going to try and lower it down over time, but I don't currently run a chiller so I might have some heat issues if I go to low. Now for the only part anyone cares about.....Pictures! The first three pictures are of the tank with the old fixture. The rest are the new fixture and it running. Also, as always the pictures don't do this any justice.

lol...well I'm glad you figured out why it was leaking.

Just got the following email: This is forwarded to you by the State of Texas State Operations Center (SOC). Mid-Afternoon Update: ROTATING OUTAGES DISCONTINUED BUT CONSERVATION STILL NEEDED ERCOT has issued a notice that rotating outages are no longer needed at this time; however, there is a strong possibility that they will be required again this evening or tomorrow, depending on how quickly the disabled generation units can be returned to service. Please note that some consumers are still out of power due to the winter storm conditions. Energy conservation is still critical during peak demand hours this evening between 6 and 10 pm. We will continue providing these updates when new information is available. Noon Update: CONSERVATION IS STILL CRITICAL AT THIS TIME ERCOT is urging all consumers who can reduce their energy consumption to do so at this time. Severe weather has led to the loss of more than 50 generation units – more than 7,000 MW, and additional units are continuing to trip offline due to the extreme cold temperatures. ERCOT Grid Operations has asked the utilities/transmission providers to implement rotating outages until the load is reduced through conservation and restoration of generation units. Conservation is very critical at this time to reduce the load on the system. Rotating outages are controlled, temporary interruptions of electrical service initiated by each utility when supplies of reserve power are exhausted. Without this safety valve, generators would overload and begin shutting down to avoid damage, risking a domino effect of a state-wide outage. As of noon, 2000 MW of the rotating outages had been restored, and 2000 MW is remains under rotating outages. One megawatt is roughly enough to power 200 homes in extreme temperatures.

hmm....that's strange because I just got that updated email about an hour ago. Hopefully the media is right, but I wouldn't count on it.

Also, my county email advised that this will continue until the power consumption returns to normal, and could increase in frequency and duration. I guess we all better get prepared.

WHY does this kinda crap happen only when I'm at work and have no way to do anything about it? Hopefully everything will be okay until tomorrow morning.

Tough to tell for sure from the pic. Maybe snail eggs?

Not at this point in time. I'm going to let everyone else be the guinea pig for LEDs before I invest in such an expensive tech. I don't like the way the current fixture distributes the lighting around the tank. I have almost no light in the back, very little in the front, and a blindingly bright spot in the center. My current fixture has very small reflectors so I am building a new hanging canopy that will house 2x250 MH Lumenarc Minis and 4 x39W T5s in hopes to diffuse the light across the entire tank. I've kind of gotten lazy here recently so I haven't been working on it much though.

Does anyone have a Tunze nano wavebox that I could borrow for a couple of hours? Due to the shape of my tank I'm thinking about adding a second nano box and want to see what difference it would make. Thanks

Well I wish I could say there was something to update. Everything is just slowly growing along. I'm going to change lighting soon so we'll be updating with pics and more details then. For now how about a few crummy iPhone pics. Sorry I couldn't do better I was running out the door when I took these.

6-7-11

Maintaining proper water conditions is the best way to prevent nitrates, but if you already have the problem then the best way to eleviate the situation is with frequent water changes. I would change 20%/week until you get the NO3 to a range you're comfortable with. Also, are you skimming? If not then I would suggest investing in a good protein skimmer and skim heavily. Lastly, watch how much, quantity and frequency, that you are feeding your fish. Too much food equal high NO3.

I know exactly what you are talking about. I have never seen the API kit say anything but 0.5 Nitrites. As stated before it's unreliable at best. I wouldn't worry to much about it.

Fishy stole my answer....The only way my wife would like my tank is if it was being carried out of the front door. I've tried all of the above with no success. To quote the Mrs. "I love your tank, I just want to love it at someone else's house." Although, I do have an idea that would work. Figure out a way to make this hobby cheap, and I mean dirt cheap. Then she might like it.

Keep in mind that you really don't need the cables adjusted at all four corners, rather you just need to be able to adjust the mid point where it attaches to the ceiling. Once you have the midpoint centered it should be able to tighten to keep it fixed there. I have this one and it looks nice, simple, and is awesome. Height is adjustable but not something you'd want to do every day (you have to offset the fixture weight while you adjust it) kit I use Take a look here for other options: hanging kits The kit you use looks like it could work well for what I need, but marinedepot doesn't really give any details about it. How long are the horizontal cables? My fixture is over 24" wide so I need one with longer cables. I thing. Thanks

That sounds exactly like what I want. Keep me in mind if you happen to remember.

It's still not full?? What size RO unit are you running? 25GPD? I filled my 100 in just over a day.

I am building a new hanging lighting fixture for my tank. I am going to suspend the fixture with 1/8" steel cable. As you can see in my horrible sketch I am going to have two cables attached to the ceiling, and then each cable is going to split and connect at four points on the frame of the fixture. I need the fixture to be able to adjust vertically so I can raise the lights off of the tank, and I also want the cables to be easily adjusted at the four connection points on the frame so that I can easily level the fixture. Also, this is in my living room so it needs to look aesthetically pleasing or else my wife might kill me. I've got a few different ideas of how I'd like to accomplish this, but I wanted to throw this out there and see what everyone else's thoughts are. I am open to all ideas so throw it out there. Thanks