With a little help from Jen, I hung the light fixture last night. It went smoothly. I got it level on my first try, when I slid the legs out I was surprised.
I put the background on the tank yesterday with Jen’s help. I’m going to hang the light fixture from the ceiling this week.
I picked up a desjardin sailfin tang today, when I was out to get a new hydor pump and a black background for the aquarium. The fish is a juvenile, so I should have it for years before it needs a bigger tank.
I ordered this fixture on December 02/07. I just got the package of replacement lights / legs yesterday. I think that’s the last time I buy a light off ebay. So far, I’m really happy with it. It runs silent due to the design, so that’s a really nice change from what I’m used to. It’s 2 x 54w T5 high output, 2 x 150w metal halide hqi and has 2 led banks that can be angled/rotated.
I think the anemone will move lower in the tank now, it’s been stretching to the surface for months.
The lack of rock is very obvious now, but I’m not going to be getting any until after I move. It’d just add to the difficultly. The skimmer has pulled out more skimmate in the last day than the Freedom Filter did in what, 2 months?
All it did was collect food, and generate enough nitrates to fuel nuisance algae. Last weekend I picked up a new Coralife skimmer (125gl) for the tank and tonight I set it up. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with that useless filter now; I had the chance to RMA it and I chose wrongly in keeping it.
Anyways, the tank looks pretty empty now that there isn’t a large black box taking up a good amount of space. Once the skimmer is broken in I’ll have to take a picture of the new setup.
I’m still waiting on the replacement parts for the HQI/T5ho fixture, sigh.
After work I picked up food stuffs. I was in need. I also picked up 2L of coke x2 for mix, with rum. Dave and Chris came over; to get their drink on. We were celebrating, uh .. the picture? Bahahahahaha. Fuck if I know what we were celebrating, but it was fun. Much weed and rum later; Chris left and Dave departed maybe an hour later to go meet up with some chick.
The light fixture arrived with 3 of 4 bulbs broken and the T5 reflectors scratched. Kinda shitty. The overall build quality is quite impressive.
With the fuge in place, everything appears to be doing well after a few days. The new light fixture should arrive tomorrow, so that’ll be a huge light upgrade. After that, it just needs some more rock and time.
The fuge arrived this morning, so I picked up some chaeto macro algae at lunch and let it float for a few hours while I mixed some water. Getting the air out of the U tube sucked, but once it was gone the flow worked itself out quickly.
I’m impressed with the build quality.
The skimmer finally appears to be breaking in and removing a good amount of wet skimmate. I think this combo will be a nice minimalist approach to keeping a reef.
I also purchased a pair of replacement hqi bulbs for the light fixture; which should arrive monday from WGNLite via ebay. That company produced quality 8000K bulbs, so I’m confident their 14000K will have great spectral peaks and a nice color.
I came home around 8pm last night (work to a friend’s) to find my dottyback dead on the floor in front of my tank. Open tops come with a price it seems. Poor guy.
