Miss Wiggle And Big Ian's First Marine Tank!

[SkiFletch]

Nice

Musta had a good night myself, my head feels about 3 times its normal size right now

 

[Miss Wiggle]

yeah i felt seriously rough yesterday, spent the day cleaning as well which was joyous

least i've got an extra day off today though

 

[Miss Wiggle]

well were getting towards sorted now

got our nice new 250w MH today, just got it rigged up, bolted to the wall and running. it's bloody massive though, none of this fancy proper lumiere stuff for us, oh no, we have a giant security light it's alright though, it was cheap cheap and it works!

can't wait to reclaim our coral's from the lfs tomorrow.

unfortunately even with Ian's own special brand of modification (hacking bits off it) the existing hood simply isn't gonna fit. So Ian's downstairs now sawing up bits of wood to make a new hood/surround type thing. Should be quite good we're just building it up round the two edges and front and leaving the back and top open, it'll be tall enough to disguise a fair bit of the ugly light, tall enough so that any jumping fish are really gonna have to go some to get over the top of it but with plenty of ventiation so the new MH hopefully won't burn the tank up.

1 question... actinic bulbs... just how essential are they? our existing one is the length of the tank, now to put this anywhere it'd be right under the MH which were guessing is a really bad idea! but the MH is the same width as the tank so we've not really got any leeway. however we do have room at each and and can mount small ones there, would that be alright? do we need to aim for a certain wpg or anything like that? or do we actually need them at all?

anyway it's all change, gonna get some nice pics for you lot in the next few weeks when everythings looking how we want it

 

[SkiFletch]

With a 250watt halide, actinic bulbs are primarily there for color supplimentation. They give off a few wavelengths that the haide does not and thats beneficial for most zooxanthellae, but you dont need a ton of them. What actinics do provide however is a nice phosphorescence of the tank. Really brings out greens and purples for a fantastic look. Dunno if you noticed the difference in my tank from when I switched from the PCs to the halide/actinic setup I currently use, but its a lot bluer now . I went a little overboard since I used a more actinic spectum halide too, but you dont have to go that far. I have the same problem you guys do. My halide fixture is too wide and doesnt leave me room for a full-length actinic tube. So I just put two PCs kind of at an angle on either side of the halide for a little supplimentation .

And tell Ian not to get himself zapped with all his bodging

 

[Miss Wiggle]

With a 250watt halide, actinic bulbs are primarily there for color supplimentation. They give off a few wavelengths that the haide does not and thats beneficial for most zooxanthellae, but you dont need a ton of them. What actinics do provide however is a nice phosphorescence of the tank. Really brings out greens and purples for a fantastic look. Dunno if you noticed the difference in my tank from when I switched from the PCs to the halide/actinic setup I currently use, but its a lot bluer now . I went a little overboard since I used a more actinic spectum halide too, but you dont have to go that far. I have the same problem you guys do. My halide fixture is too wide and doesnt leave me room for a full-length actinic tube. So I just put two PCs kind of at an angle on either side of the halide for a little supplimentation .

And tell Ian not to get himself zapped with all his bodging

cool, that's sort of what we thought, we do like the colour spectrum you get from it and intend to get some actinic's on there soonish. But it's good to know the whole tank's not gonna crash if it takes us a couple of weeks to get the cash together for them. as you can imagine all these problems rigth after xmas has left us a little short of cash.

ooooh it's a good thing Ian likes you..... bodging??? he's a proper builder and always fixes things properly, no bodging in our house






yeah right


got the new hood painted up and on the tank last night and all our corals back, it looks amazing, the black of the hood and stand really shows off the tank, that combined with the much brighter lighting is ace.

the xenia has come out an amazing shade of green, the finger leather has opened more than it ever has before and everything looked really happy. the only problem is we found the new light is now too bright for the acro to be where it was before, after just a couple of hrs you could see it starting to fade so we've moved it across and down so it's not getting blasted so much, we'll just work it back to the top gradually, think it needs to get acclimitised to the stronger light.

also we got our pyjama cardinals last night and they seem pretty happy, hid for a few hrs then came out exploring. mr grumpy the firefish was in hiding all last night so I don't know how they've got on, poor thing it's a lot for him to deal with all the tinkering on the tank the last week or so. Luckily for him it's gonna be a good few weeks before we can even afford to buy anything else so he'll hopefully have some peace

both really pleased with the tank now, spent most of last night just sat watching it

 

[BigIan]

Bodge..... me

I have to figure some way of fitting some attinics in the tank yet but theres no rush.

personally i think the next expence should be a fuge, that way the nitrates will be down to 0 and i get a manderin goby

 

[Miss Wiggle]

Bodge..... me

I have to figure some way of fitting some attinics in the tank yet but theres no rush.

personally i think the next expence should be a fuge, that way the nitrates will be down to 0 and 6 months later i get a manderin goby

no, you never bodge owt do you

 

[SkiFletch]

Lol, I just love getting to use the word "bodge", cause you brits know what it means. Man I watched way too much Junkyard Wars .

 

[Redstratplayer1]

Lol, I just love getting to use the word "bodge", cause you brits know what it means. Man I watched way too much Junkyard Wars .

I loved that show I sent in a idea once and they used it .(Paintball shooting romote control plane)

 

[BigIan]

Bodge....

I don`t know the meaning of the word, no where is my duck tape?

 

[boshank23]

my personal favourite is bodge it and scarper. then act all suprised and say "ohhh what! who done that"?

 

[demonmagus]

what do you want to end up keeping in it fish wise?

 

[Miss Wiggle]

what do you want to end up keeping in it fish wise?

we currently have a firefish and 2 pyjama cardinals

we want a pygmy angel of some sort, i thought i'd decided on an elibli angel but i changed my mind cos i found out they're one of the biggest ones and we think it would be a bit cramped (suggestions for any other pygmy angels.... not coral beauties would be appreciated everyone!), Ian wants his mandarin goby once the fuge is running.

other than that we've no definate plans, room for 1/2 other small fish in there so we'll just wait until we spot something we really like.

tbh it's not even the fish that interest us, we want more corals!

 

[Matthew5664]

sounds like the tank is comming one well!

Bodge it and leg it isn't it? good name for a building company I've always thought?

What size is the HOB fuge?

As for pygmy Angles, I have a Coral beauty but I would say that a potters angle, althoe a bit pricy would be my first choise.

PS could we have some more piccys please??

 

[Miss Wiggle]

the hob's a couple of gallons, not sure exactly.

hmmm we saw a potters angel a few weeks back in an lfs, they're quite nice, didn't really catch me though.... might not have been the best specimin or something.

yup piccies definately soon..... i got a new camera phone recently which is better than my digi cam.... but i've not yet worked out how to get the pics onto my pc.... soon as i do you can have some pics