aquarium photos! dial up should most likely beware!

[pugsly]

yeah still weighing up the exact watts as buck said cost is the concern and the reason it aint up now..

500w would be ok but it depends on what corals you are keeping i love the acroporas so need at least 4 - 6x the gallons of water in the tank as a general rule of thimb. So thats 120G tank x 4 or 6 = @500-800 watts or thereabouts annyway. So ill be saving a bit longer expensive buggers!

 

[SLACkra]

As I said I no longer have it running. The tank had 3x400w halides so that along with the pumps etc. was costing me a fortune to run.

pumps? your return pump or your powerheads? should have gotten a tunze they are cheap as to run, and they say a reefer takes his tunze to his grave! the pumps are STRONG and are less than 50watts. they make a current instead of a blast of water.

500w would be ok but it depends on what corals you are keeping i love the acroporas so need at least 4 - 6x the gallons of water in the tank as a general rule of thimb. So thats 120G tank x 4 or 6 = @500-800 watts or thereabouts annyway. So ill be saving a bit longer expensive buggers!

4 x 6 times the size of the tank for metal halide!?!?!?! woh. ok not to be mean but, no. its 4-6 watts per gallon for fluorescent(no/ho/vho/compact) to keep softies and lps. metal halides like 3 watts per gallon. depending on the depth of the tank and how low on the rock work you want your sps.

my plan for an sps tank was a 2ft X 18" X 18" tank. with a 150watt 14000k coralights de kit. course the cost of the tank and stand and hood(that a coralights 14k de kit can fit in) is like $390 or $490. will try to get my dad to pay for most of it!

the main challenge with sps is to keep your calcium and alkinity at the correct levels so they can grow. there is a saying: sps = sustainability promotes sucess.

andrew

 

[buck]

Pugsly, forget about the watts x water volume. It's an old method and really good for nothing. I suggest you go to the site that Slackra posted, I am a member there and trust me when I say it will save you a heap of $$.

As a guide; 1 MH light covers a 2'sq area. The wattage is determined by the depth of the tank or position where the corals will be positioned. Basically 150W for 12- 18", 250W for 18"-24", 400W for 24"+. My tank was 6x2x2 and the 3 x 400w's enabled me to put pretty much any coral wherever I wished.

 

[pugsly]

i understand all that mate, i remember getting a quote and some guy was tellin me that normal flouros would cover that area HA! dont think so.. yeah of course the hard corals and the top and softies lower and lower etc.

so many variables. its all good

ill get there 1 day!

 

[buck]

pumps? your return pump or your powerheads? should have gotten a tunze they are cheap as to run, and they say a reefer takes his tunze to his grave! the pumps are STRONG and are less than 50watts. they make a current instead of a blast of water.

I was running the Tunze TS24 kit. The MH, return pump, skimmer pump,Tunzes,fans all adds up...... actually it adds up to around $700/quarter!!!!

 

[dobermanmick]

Was that your total bill or just for the Aquarium ?

 

[buck]

Yeah sorry that was a little misleading. That was the total bill but I have to say that we have gas heating/water/cooking and the bills used to be around $200-$300 before.

 

[snakeasaurus]

Nice frog pick slackra. That frog would look good in one of those tanks, so would a croc. he he

 

[SLACkra]

once everything settles down i either want to get my sps tank or a softy fragging tank. 2ft x 12(tall) x 18"wide with 110watts of pc floro lighting and a 2ft herp setup with 2-3 underwood milli or thick tailed geckos. they look like a good starting point! any recomendations, i would like to try to raise some babies. is the paperwork for the babies complecated?

oh ya anybody know the guy who runs www.snakeshow.net ? he came to my school and did a presentation to my grade. it was awsome. he had 4-5 poisonous snakes wriggle around his BAIR feet. he even jumped up and down and nothin. he also had children pythons andother pythons and shingle backs, blueys and dragons.

andrew

 

[beknluke]

Oh WOW!
I have been 'saving' for a marine aquariium for YEARS!! But damn these bargain herps that keep popping up!! :lol:
Beautiful tanks guys - you should be VERY proud!!
Can I just ask, how much time do you find you spend maintaining them each week??
Bex

 

[beknluke]

BTW: are you guys members here:
http://www.masa.asn.au/phpBB2/

 

[SLACkra]

yep i am a member of RTAW(if its on an animal forum and the names SLACkra its me 8) )

i find i spend more time on my tank during the weekend. however during the week you have to top up the tank with freshwater to make sure the salinity dosen't get to high, maintain the equitment if nessesary and feed em. then on the weekend i do water change clean it up a bit ect. right now the tanks looking a bit daggy, not enough time on it. why i want my next tank to be very VERY low stocked. maybe a couple clown gobies that it (and thats not alot). i definatly prefer the coral part of the hobby though!

andrew

 

[SLACkra]

UPDATE TIME!

ok everybody here are some new pics! finally got a decent pic of my leather coral who is doing fantastic and has grown more in the past 2 weeks than since i got it, no idea why though... anyways i am also going to through in a picture of my newer coral my open brain coral along with a nice macro shot of my brown button polyps which i have fraged, so if you got a saltwater aquarium and want some free coral just drop by!

here are the pics:

i would post a full tank shot but my tank looks like a hole when i do that, i prefer taking small macro shots of the good parts of it :wink:

also for an idea of how fast the stuff grows heres a pic of the colony when i first got it, back when you could actualy see the rock :roll: :

cheers

andrew