The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread

[shilala]

I'd be more afraid of them leaving it standing upright.
My kids could screw up an anvil with a rubber mallet.

[Jefft72]

John, Several online dealers that are well established are MarineDepot and drsfostersmith.

You can search online for pricing to compare, but if you can get into a store to check one out that would be even better just so you can get eyes on it if you are new to biocubes or aquariums in general.

Depending on your location finding a local fish store would be beneficial so that you can discuss with them what you are looking to do. They can give you guidance and if they are good they won't try to sell you everything in the store (I know this that 'good' is hard to judge without having some history).

[Wolfgang]

Im finally drawing up my new tank. I just started working for a custom acrylic tank manufacturer so the sky is the limit now. Ill hopefully get something drawn up in the next couple weeks. WOO!

[Jefft72]

Wolfgang,
Good luck with the project! Sounds like a great opportunity to get in on designing and building your own aquarium. Not to mention all the other cool stuff that you can build working in an acrylic shop (frag racks, refugium, sump, etc).

Originally Posted by Wolfgang

Im finally drawing up my new tank. I just started working for a custom acrylic tank manufacturer so the sky is the limit now. Ill hopefully get something drawn up in the next couple weeks. WOO!

[Jefft72]

On a positive note, I have made the commitment to keep our reef tank and have already procured 8 48" T5 reflectors along with a couple more Icecap 660 ballasts to run the whole get up. Maybe this weekend I can build an aluminum frame assembly to mount all the lights. I still need to buy endcaps and bulbs before I get to wire it all up.

Since my last water change my corals definitely seem like they have a bit more life in them with apparent growth around the rims of the hard plating corals and new branch buds on the branching type corals.

[Wolfgang]

Im actually in the process of drawing up a frag rack to make out of all our scrap acrylic. If you are looking for one let me know ill be looking for testers.

What size would be preferable?

I built a beer mug today.

[Jefft72]

Sweet project there!

We had 'built' some frag racks out of acrylic at a club meeting a while back. They had cut everything to size and drilled it prior to the members arriving. Once we arrived at the shop we got to bend and then sand and polish the acrylic with a torch. Pretty simple and I still have yet to buy some magnets to use it properly.

Dimensions are roughly 8"x 3.5" and has 15 holes. But I do love a good corner rack that has a recessed place to inset a rubber coated magnet. 6x6 in a triangle shape or something that looks like a baseball home plate would be nice. Plenty of holes spaced evenly and the there would be space for 4 magnets to hold the weight.

I need to suck it up and order some good rubber coated neo magnets so I can finally mount this frag rack.

[Wolfgang]

Originally Posted by Jefft72

Sweet project there!

We had 'built' some frag racks out of acrylic at a club meeting a while back. They had cut everything to size and drilled it prior to the members arriving. Once we arrived at the shop we got to bend and then sand and polish the acrylic with a torch. Pretty simple and I still have yet to buy some magnets to use it properly.

Dimensions are roughly 8"x 3.5" and has 15 holes. But I do love a good corner rack that has a recessed place to inset a rubber coated magnet. 6x6 in a triangle shape or something that looks like a baseball home plate would be nice. Plenty of holes spaced evenly and the there would be space for 4 magnets to hold the weight.

I need to suck it up and order some good rubber coated neo magnets so I can finally mount this frag rack.

Ceramic coated magnets work fine as well. Thats what my current fragrack has on it.

Ill draw something up on monday.

[shilala]

I fed my tank last night and turned the pumps off as I always do. I didn't turn them back on and created the perfect storm, even though I had my diatom filter on the tank.
I killed at least one cleaner shrimp and two fish. The blood shrimp, my favorite, is hanging on by a thread. I don't expect him to make it.
I'm sure out yellow tang is dead, he was big, he couldn't have made it.
All the corals are fine. I'll reassess when the lights come on and I start pulling out the dead stuff.
Stupidity definately comes at a cost.

[LostAbbott]

Wow Scott that is rough, I am sorry to hear. Sounds like an easy mistake to make... hope your one shrimp left makes it.
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[shilala]

I lost a firefish goby and, I'm assuming, both my harlequin shrimp. I only recovered one, haven't found the other yet. I can't get the yellow tang dug out from behind the rock wall, I'll have to wait for him to rise.
What a morning. I don't think I could possibly be more bummed out. It's like my dog got run over by a car, and it's never bothered me when I lose fish.

[Jefft72]

Wow Scott, sorry to hear about the losses. That is definitely tragic and unfortunate. I have the same fears each time I feed the tank and unplug the main pump. One day I will get a proper controller, but for now I just have to rely upon myself to remember to plug it back in.

There are some inexpensive controllers on the market that would do the basic jobs of main pump, lights and temp control. A controller will probably be my next big purchase....some way down the road.

[shilala]

I actually have all my stuff on timers so everything will come back on. I over-rode that because I'm an idiot. I don't like to use my timer controllers because then I have to remember to reset my wave-maker.
Heck of it is, now that I'm thinking about it, the wavemaker will just default to a different pattern when it comes back on, which doesn't really make a difference.
So I'm actually extra stupid.

To be honest, I haven't gained much faith in my timer controllers because the first two I got were bad. I haven't taken the time to set the new ones up properly because I've been just shutting everything down. I just created a bad habit. It took a big problem to teach me a lesson.

[Jefft72]

Unfortunately that's they way most of us learn lessons. Sucks that it had to come at the loss of your fish. I recently lost one of my clowns for reasons unknown to me. It was the smaller of the pair. One night I was feeding and all was good and the next I found it on the sand bed as snail food. All other inhabitants are doing great.

Time for you to choose some fish to replace?

[shilala]

Yup, I'm gonna have to go fish shopping.
Fortunately there's nothing left in there that'll cause a problem with adding fish.
All that's left are a pair of clowns, a blue damsel and a pajama cardinal.
I need a bunch of snails anyways, I'll try to find a place that's close to Cleveland so I can overnight.
I'll probably have to go with Foster and Smith to replace my Harlequin shrimp, I'd imagine.

[Jefft72]

Scott, for snails I would take a look at Reefs2Go. Specifically their sale going on now

They also stock harlequin shrimp. Bundle it with the saltwater algae crew linked above for free shipping on the whole she-bang.

[shilala]

Originally Posted by Jefft72

Scott, for snails I would take a look at Reefs2Go. Specifically their sale going on now

They also stock harlequin shrimp. Bundle it with the saltwater algae crew linked above for free shipping on the whole she-bang.

That's a good deal.
The only problem is that they don't sell their Harlequins in pairs. The whole fun of having them is to watch them pair up, hang out, feed each other, hunt together, that whole thing.
It does look like they're worth looking into, anyways.
Thanks, Jeff!!!

[shilala]

I went with reefs2go, the free shipping didn't fly. I did get a pretty good break on shipping, though.

I decided to do something a little different. I went with some fish that will develop shoals, just like on the reef. 8 green chromis, 3 bangaii cardinals, and 4 pajama cardinals. I got a pair of harlequin shrimp, a couple peppermint shrimp, a firefish goby, a flame angel, a coral banded shrimp, a tiger conch and a bunch of snails.
I'm looking forward to seeing how it works out. I'd like a bit more color from the fish, but I'm far more interested in watching them school.

reefs2go is on the ball, they're supposed to ship tomorrow. I ordered all this stuff early Monday. I only got part of my order from them, the rest was from Aquatic Connection. I haven't even gotten shipping confirmation from AC yet.
They ganked me for $60 shipping. If they can't get the stuff to me, I'll cancel that order and go with someone who can. I sense they'll pull a "send me 1/2 the stuff" deal like Foster and Smith does. So far I'm not real confident in them, and I paid top buck.

I'm having some sort of crash. I lost a mounding Porites and a pineapple type hard coral, both very large and old. All the softies are doing fine, if not too well. Fish, mollusks and crusties are ok. Water tests fine. Water change had no effect. Lamps are about 6 mos. old. All the filtration stuff is working. Maybe a disease got them.

[shilala]

They didn't get too hot, did they? I don't know if you guys are having an unseasonably hot spell like we did, or did recently, but I had to watch my tank and open the lids because it was getting wicked hot in here and the air conditioning wasn't on.
That's just a wild-ass guess, I thought maybe it hadn't crossed your mind.