29 Gallon Build

[SkiFletch]

One of the species of leopards only gets to 4-5". They do eat pods, but they also eat frozen foods. When they are smaller (about the size of a mandarin) they usually won't eat frozen. When they get larger, often times they readily eat frozen. Lynden is right though, there are some which will not eat frozen, but typically the mature ones eat frozen much more often than mandarins IME.

As for the pseudos, I never knew that. I haven't ever seen my springers bother peppermint shrimp, and it's about 2" now, decent sized.

 

[showjyr]

Wow Ski, you said "eat frozen" 5 times in 5 sentences. I do like the Leopards....I'll see when the tank gets established.

I need to decide how to set up my stand. With the Osmolator do I need to worry about siphoning? I plan on putting the top off tank above the sump.

 

[showjyr]

I can never get my camera to focus on small things in my tank the way I want. I had a magnifying glass looking at a few things and got the bright idea to take a picture through it. Not bad. The camera is only a Fuji Finepix Z5, 6.3 megapixel.

 

[showjyr]

I am, without a doubt, building the stand this weekend. I need to know if I have to worry about the Osmo syphoning.

 

[SkiFletch]

Having never made one I can't be SURE, but something tells me the German engineers that designed it made sure it won't siphon . Tunze makes too good of a quality of product to overlook something as obvious and simple as back-siphoning

 

[showjyr]

That's just the reply I was looking for. With any luck my Marine Depot order will be here before Saturday, but if not I'm going to wing it and hope for the best.

 

[showjyr]

It's been a while since anything new. The stand is all framed up and it's just waiting for the tongue and groove facing and paint. I also got my order from Marine Depot. The heater is HUGE. I had to remove the small corner chamber in the sump and put the heater in at an angle to get it below the water line. Also got the a Mag Float and reef glue. The best thing in the box was my Osmolator....that thing is freakin sweeeeeet! I managed to order a 6 stage RO+2 DI unit too.

I'm down to the last of it. I just need to finish the stand and order my LR.......then I can spend oodles of money on livestock and corals.

Total so far.... I stopped keeping track around $1000 I'm probably near or over $1300.

 

[showjyr]

Well, I finally got the stand built. It's framed with 2x4s, facing is tongue and groove pine, and the trim is 1x4 pine. The door is a folding red oak door I saved from a nice computer desk that got broken. You can't see it that well in the pics but there is a 5.5 gallon that sits on the bottom for RO/DI top off water. Just above that is the 10 gal sump with fuge, pump, heater, skimmer, and Osmolator. I'll post a few pics tomorrow after I paint the stand and tank. The pics look a little funny because my 30 gal planted is sitting in back of it.

 

[SkiFletch]

Nice work on the stand, looks good

 

[showjyr]

Thanks. I got it done today. I did have one casualty....I cracked a bulkhead, bad. I've got another one coming along with a digital power strip and reef epoxy from Marine Depot. Aside from that little mishap everything went as planned and is ready to go. It'll be a few weeks before it has water and live rock but the hard part is over and the fun can start. B)

Here are a few pics. They don't do it justice, all black and shiny does not photograph that well.

 

[SkiFletch]

That overflow's gonna be noisy if you don't put a tee on the back as opposed to a right angle . Remember, tee, one end going down, other going straight up. Cap the upward one and drill an 1/8" hole in it so that it can grab some air and auto-siphon

 

[showjyr]

I'm pretty limited for space behind the tank and cant find a tee that will screw into or onto the 3/4 bulkhead. Could I install one of these just below the 90 and get the same effect?

 

[SkiFletch]

Hummm, so long as the other portion of the wye is extended and capped above the right angle level then it just might.

 

[showjyr]

Awesome, I'll pick one up this weekend and give it a try.

 

[showjyr]

Wow, It's been a long time since I've updated this. It got stalled for a while and I'm just now getting back into it. No water yet but it will most likely be up and running in a few weeks. I just need to tare down my 30 gallon planted as I can't seem to sell the whole setup.

I got my arch constructed tonight and was disappointed at the amount of light it eats up. What does everyone think...rip it down and do a regular old tank? I really wanted a nice big arch.

The second pic is with just my LEDs on.