chimera

Well, as some of you may have seen I have just sold my 2 x 250W halides. Currently I have 2 x 250W's and 1 x 150W in the middle. The main reason for selling is two reasons 1. while they are good, they are large and make accessibility to the tank a little difficult and 2. the return plumbing to the seaswirl and the seaswirl itself make it difficult to get the lights closer than about a foot from the water surface. I am planning on initially going to 3 x 150W's (retaining the existing 150W 10K in the middle) and 2 x new 150W 14k's on the outside. This will be supplemented initially by 2 x 54W blue T5's. After next pay day I will add another 2 x 54W white T5's. The advantage of doing all this I believe is being able to get the lights closer to the water surface thus better penetration into the water. It also means easier access to the tank as the existing 250's are bloody large and heavy! Other than that I want to give T5's a shot So, it will be interesting to see how the difference in lighting (and lighting setup) adds to the growth of SPS. So initially I will be going from a total of 650W to 558W, then after the next 2 x white T5's are added will bring the total back up to 666W. Similar to the existing wattage but again, much closer to the water surface and perhaps a better "spread" of light over the surface area of the tank too. Will show comparison photo's when its done (probably in a weeks time)

and you would call black what? underpowering?!?

sounds like a spot of good marketing "the ultimate wavemaker"

ahhhhahahaaaaaaaa!!!! true THAT! and she's pregnant. all she needs is the barefeet... i wear plastic gloves, when i can be bothered. everytime i dont wear them my fire coral gets me a goodie. and fire coral + open cuts are just naaaasty.

yeah, tis an awesome colour and looks sharper than the photo's do it justice. immitates nature well. i cant remember the exact brand of paint for mine - although i do recall getting it from a taubmans shop. black is good too as it can provide a nice contrast for coral colours. imo blue is a bit more natural looking (strange that) even though the distant water looks black when you going diving sometimes :lol:

looks painted, i'd guess marine blue

interfectus... im sure you are the only one here who took it that way. the idea was to SUGGEST that someone may wish to design their next tank based on that ratio, not that tanks ONLY look best if based on this number. if famous historical buildings look pleasing to the eye because its based on this ratio, then just maybe a tank will.. somebody PLEASE give it a go!!! brianano, give it a go

i thought that was your favourite part alan? would explain a few things

so true. yeah that too doc, what are the two bulkhead fittings up the top/back for? do you have a closed loop running?

ask yourself this... whats the purpose of a reef rack? to allow flow under the rocks and stop detritus that would otherwise sit under the rocks and kill (suffocate) nitrifying bacteria that lived there. next question, is there sufficient water movement in the tank itself to provide flow under the rack? do you have a spray bar under? if not, then detritus will lie under the reef rack and eventually act like a dsb. that dsb will end up crashing (likely to be years down the line but it will happen) I was speaking to Nick the other night from the side of his tank he can see about 4 inches of crap under the reef rack! (no closed loop) How quickly this happens depends on your maintenance, whether you have closed loops and whether you have a BB tank or not. I can see areas under my reef rack where flow from the spray bar doesnt reach, a build up of crap (not much yet, but you can see it starting!) I tend to agree more with reef on this one, there is not enough rock really to worry about a reef rack. So long as the rock is sitting on the tank bottom and not the sand should be sweet. Even a 2" high reef rack would be good but not too much point if you dont have decent flow under it. I think it looks awesome (similar layout to cookie's), just another thing to be aware of make sure there are enough hiding places for the shy fish!

As in 20mm @ $23 each and 25mm @ $33 each? If so thats about right. Thats less than retail.

dont forget the teflon tape

thats nice, where are the pictures!!!

110 volts... and transformers suck yeah, but with the AP902 I can be the envy of all my friends and we can have whose got the biggest deltec parties...

yeah, the external skimmers like the ap702, ap902 etc

wicked, that shark one is unreal

no, my turbo model uses eheim. all new turbo's come with aquabee though. probably deltec get better buy price on the aquabees.

no idea. why would anyone bother replacing pumps that function perfectly well? (and we all know how reliable eheims are) all that needs replacing is the impellor shafts which are slightly worn. the pin wheels are perfectly fine. it skims bloody well. im not necessarily selling, as i stated on the first post, i want to get an idea of what it would cost me to go from TS1060 to an AP902. AP902 is $2k+ so its not a cheap upgrade. always on the look out for an AP902 second hand, if one pops up, i'll take it!

the upper end of reef's estimate,... or more not looking at selling it for a little while yet, got the house being extended/rennovated at the moment so there's 6 figures already against my name

Not necessarily. Just wanted to get a gauge on what it could go for if I were to upgrade to an AP902. If it's going to cost me too much (which it looks like it will) I'd be better off putting the extra $1k+ difference somewhere else, like in upgraded lighting.

You cant judge it on a "5 foot tank". It depends on the size of your sump too. Eg: My main tank = 540 litres, Refugium and sump = 460 litres. If someone just had a 540 litre 5 footer with 160 litre sump, then there's 300 litres difference. If it's a soft coral tank, then you could go even larger. Pfftt! I tend to agree more with reef. It's 3rd hand but it still skims a damn sight better than any brand new skimmer you could buy for $500. They are $1,600 new (or thereabouts) from HFF and Jansens. For $500 I'd rather keep it I recall seeing a Deltec (I think AP850?) second hand get sold on TradeMe for just over $1k, bids on it by reef and jetskisteve up to around $800 from memory. This is same rated skimmer but in-sump model. A skimmer doesnt get "worn" and will last one hell of a long time.

Question, just out of curiosity, what do you think a 2nd hand Deltec TS1060 would be worth? Thats the in-sump model run by 2 x Eheim 1250 pumps. Rated up to 1,500 litres normal stocking or 1,000 litres heavy stocking. http://www.deltecusa.us/turboskimmers/turbo1060.php

i have two eheim 1060's - one being held for someone already but you can have the other for $120. does 2,280lph, flow rate under what you've asked for but perhaps still sufficient for what you want? in good condition.

have to win lotto first

you know what i meant. jeeez!!! such a basic post stating something so simple and everyone gets carried away about a frickin' shape. it's only an irrational number that theoretically could make an aesthetically pleasing shaped tank for #!@#$ sake!!! i have a mystical and magical number 234788912734897 it's a whole lot of random numbers i just typed on the keyboard... BUT, simply read this number out loud to everyone in your office while standing on one foot and thee shall receive one weeks worth of good luck...