xxBarneyxx
Fish Aficionado
Note: For those that dont want to read a bunch of boring text just skip this post and wait till I post the next one with some pictures.
Pre-journal waffle
Well as most of you know I'm currently planning a big reef setup (and have been for ages). This is still in the works but realistically isnt going to be anywhere exciting until after christmas (I'm looking at a couple of different places that make large tanks right now and still researching building the cabinet as it needs to hold about 3/4 of a ton!). That combined with being really busy at work right now means that it is moving forward pretty slowly (it is still moving forward though
).
I like doing the journals almost as much as I like setting the tanks up so heres the start of it.
Anyway I was in my LFS today with the plan to pic up a few bits a bobs (salt, couple of RO containers, etc) and as always I took a look at all their tanks. They have a 45L Orca set up in there which always caught my eye so seeing as i have just enough room betwen my Planted tank and the cupboard for one I thought "why not"
This is initally just to give me a taste of a marine set up before going for the big one (if I can keep the water parameters stable in a 14g a 150g will be easy ). I was planning on moving it later and using it as a frag tank but I actually quite like having it in my bedroom and it is a nice contrast to the planted tank next to it.
No pictures yet but I will take some tomorrow (though its only of an empty tank )
Equipment bought:
Orca 45l tank+stand
Koralia Nano Power Head
25Kg of IO
X1 5g RO can (need to get another one)
Hydrometer (will be replaced with a refractometer and kept as a backup)
20lbs of carib sea white sand
Sadly because my car is only a 2 seater and you can bearly fit a box of matches in the boot I had to do two trips to get it all home. As the store is about an hour away this was a big PITA. I also damaged the muscles in my shoulder last week and while they where starting to heal all the lifting today has made it worse then it was (well worth it though ).
Things I still need to get:
Master test kit (all my test kits of FW).
Refractometer (going to get one of the deltec ones online).
Live rock - If I worked it out correctly I need about 8-9Kg. I was thinking of going half and half LR/BR but for the sake of £30-40 I might as well just get all LR. Will probably go and get 5KG next weekend and see how much space it takes (I dont finish work early enough in the week to get it before then).
Set up
Yesterday I finally got round to plumbing in my RO unit and after an incredible stupid 5 minutes of thinking it should be producing 75gallons per hour and wondering why it was going so damn slow someone much wiser kindly came to my rescue and put me straight without once using the words moron or idiot (thanks AK77).
Today betwen driving around and doping myself up on perscription pain killers about all I have managed to do is get the tank set up and full of water. It does look very cool though and I completely take back earlier comments I have made about not likely blue lighting 9it looks so much better in person).
The Orca system
The skimmer didnt seem to be working. After messing about with the foam block and air hose though I got it going (seems to be a common problem that the air hose gets a kink in it when it is made).
The top of the stand is only a couple of mm bigger then the tank, the problem being that there is nothing to hold the tank in place. While this isnt a problem when it is full of water I still prefer to have something there to stop the tank from being push off the stand buy accident (Similar tanks I have had used little pegs to stop the tank from being able to slid on the stand).
The fans that are wired into the light circuit are cheap and I think they will end up getting really noisy. I will probably rip these out and replace with better quality ones later.
The water flow in it is crap and you do really need to have an extra PH in there (I'm going to bodge the top off one of my old fluval internal units into the water return section to add a bit more as well).
The instructions are rubbish and do not explain how anything works.
All that being said it is a very nice tank and so far I would recommend it. Really looks the business and feels very high quality. The lid design is genuis and makes working on it really easy. For only a 45l it also looks suprisingly big. the little touchs like the fans to keep it cool when the lights are on and the LED moon lights really add to the product. For someone like me that is new to Marine setups it really is very simple to set up (if you go on the internet and read about other people setting them up ).
The Nano Power head is very good (at least for the few hours it has been running). The magnet attachment system is very cool and so far the PH is very quiet. I think I will get one of these for my FW as well as it could use a little bit more flow in there.
Whats next?
Well other then getting some LR I have no plans at all for this tank. AFAIK it only has about 36w of light so I'm not sure what kind of corals this would be good for? I dont plan on having many fish in here, probably just a goby of some sort and a firefish. I was thinking of getting maybe just GSP and 1 leather coral in there with some macro algae.
Any suggestions on stocking would be cool.
questions
Should I rip all the filter media out of the back compartments? (pretty sure the answer to this is going to be a yes).
It has a big foam block over the pump that feeds the skimmer so I might cut a small peice of foam to cover just about 1/4 inch space above the pump.
The section with the heater has bio balls so I will probably just take these out and not put anything more in here. The return section has bio-rings so in here I will probably just put carbon/phosban.
Ideally I would like to use one of these sections as a fuge but I'm not sure if they get any light or not.
Mixing the salt. Anyone know roughly how many cups of salt you need in a 12-14g tank?
Anyway thats the boring part over. From now on there will be a lot less text and a lot more photos
Pre-journal waffle
Well as most of you know I'm currently planning a big reef setup (and have been for ages). This is still in the works but realistically isnt going to be anywhere exciting until after christmas (I'm looking at a couple of different places that make large tanks right now and still researching building the cabinet as it needs to hold about 3/4 of a ton!). That combined with being really busy at work right now means that it is moving forward pretty slowly (it is still moving forward though
).I like doing the journals almost as much as I like setting the tanks up so heres the start of it.
Anyway I was in my LFS today with the plan to pic up a few bits a bobs (salt, couple of RO containers, etc) and as always I took a look at all their tanks. They have a 45L Orca set up in there which always caught my eye so seeing as i have just enough room betwen my Planted tank and the cupboard for one I thought "why not"
This is initally just to give me a taste of a marine set up before going for the big one (if I can keep the water parameters stable in a 14g a 150g will be easy
). I was planning on moving it later and using it as a frag tank but I actually quite like having it in my bedroom and it is a nice contrast to the planted tank next to it.No pictures yet but I will take some tomorrow (though its only of an empty tank
)Equipment bought:
Orca 45l tank+stand
Koralia Nano Power Head
25Kg of IO
X1 5g RO can (need to get another one)
Hydrometer (will be replaced with a refractometer and kept as a backup)
20lbs of carib sea white sand
Sadly because my car is only a 2 seater and you can bearly fit a box of matches in the boot I had to do two trips to get it all home. As the store is about an hour away this was a big PITA. I also damaged the muscles in my shoulder last week and while they where starting to heal all the lifting today has made it worse then it was (well worth it though
).Things I still need to get:
Master test kit (all my test kits of FW).
Refractometer (going to get one of the deltec ones online).
Live rock - If I worked it out correctly I need about 8-9Kg. I was thinking of going half and half LR/BR but for the sake of £30-40 I might as well just get all LR. Will probably go and get 5KG next weekend and see how much space it takes (I dont finish work early enough in the week to get it before then).
Set up
Yesterday I finally got round to plumbing in my RO unit and after an incredible stupid 5 minutes of thinking it should be producing 75gallons per hour and wondering why it was going so damn slow someone much wiser kindly came to my rescue and put me straight without once using the words moron or idiot
(thanks AK77).Today betwen driving around and doping myself up on perscription pain killers about all I have managed to do is get the tank set up and full of water. It does look very cool though and I completely take back earlier comments I have made about not likely blue lighting 9it looks so much better in person).
The Orca system
The skimmer didnt seem to be working. After messing about with the foam block and air hose though I got it going (seems to be a common problem that the air hose gets a kink in it when it is made).
The top of the stand is only a couple of mm bigger then the tank, the problem being that there is nothing to hold the tank in place. While this isnt a problem when it is full of water I still prefer to have something there to stop the tank from being push off the stand buy accident (Similar tanks I have had used little pegs to stop the tank from being able to slid on the stand).
The fans that are wired into the light circuit are cheap and I think they will end up getting really noisy. I will probably rip these out and replace with better quality ones later.
The water flow in it is crap and you do really need to have an extra PH in there (I'm going to bodge the top off one of my old fluval internal units into the water return section to add a bit more as well).
The instructions are rubbish and do not explain how anything works.
All that being said it is a very nice tank and so far I would recommend it. Really looks the business and feels very high quality. The lid design is genuis and makes working on it really easy. For only a 45l it also looks suprisingly big. the little touchs like the fans to keep it cool when the lights are on and the LED moon lights really add to the product. For someone like me that is new to Marine setups it really is very simple to set up (if you go on the internet and read about other people setting them up
).The Nano Power head is very good (at least for the few hours it has been running). The magnet attachment system is very cool and so far the PH is very quiet. I think I will get one of these for my FW as well as it could use a little bit more flow in there.
Whats next?
Well other then getting some LR I have no plans at all for this tank. AFAIK it only has about 36w of light so I'm not sure what kind of corals this would be good for? I dont plan on having many fish in here, probably just a goby of some sort and a firefish. I was thinking of getting maybe just GSP and 1 leather coral in there with some macro algae.
Any suggestions on stocking would be cool.
questions
Should I rip all the filter media out of the back compartments? (pretty sure the answer to this is going to be a yes).
It has a big foam block over the pump that feeds the skimmer so I might cut a small peice of foam to cover just about 1/4 inch space above the pump.
The section with the heater has bio balls so I will probably just take these out and not put anything more in here. The return section has bio-rings so in here I will probably just put carbon/phosban.
Ideally I would like to use one of these sections as a fuge but I'm not sure if they get any light or not.
Mixing the salt. Anyone know roughly how many cups of salt you need in a 12-14g tank?
Anyway thats the boring part over. From now on there will be a lot less text and a lot more photos
