Light Demo

I thought I would show you a quick light demo. The lights have a preview setting that shows the lights going from off to moonlight to sunrise to midday then to sunset and back to moonlight.
as everything is speeded up it might look a bit "jerky" but in its normal cycle the transitions are much smoother, plus you can tailor make the transitions, the vid shows the factory setting

The Lights in action

I hope you like them

new lights

Well I thought if Im going to be spending money on new wave makers in order to make a more natural environment then I may aswell upgrade the lighting to. Now I have been using three aquaray LED strip lights which were a mix of blue and white lights, they have been working good, give a nice shimmer effect, but using them limited me to keeping just fish and a few basic corals. So I decided to go again with LED but this time something more powerful so that I could keep any typ of corals that I wanted to. I also decided that if Im going to do this I may aswell get something that like the wave maker makes things more natural for the fish. This means something programmable and something with a full spectrum light spread. This means the corals get something more sun like than normal LED's and some florescent lights. The lighting system I decided to get is called a IT2080, it is fully programmable so I can set different light lvls every half an hour and I can set the intensity of the moonlight, sunrise, midday and sunset and back to moonlight again.
It is also full spectrum so it has three different typs of white light and blue lights, it has both red and green lights also.
So I guess I should show you a few of the pics ive taken so far

clingfish!!

I got my new fish today a clingfish !!
They are really strange, they look like a mix between a very big tadpole and a pleco/louch combo but its a meat eating marine fish.... It also her a "sucker" like a pleco but instead of it being part of its mouth like a pleco its made from fused pelvic fins...

Its a very shy fish so far tho thats to be expected as its in a new environment but it has eaten its first meal in my tank so im very happy with that.
I also took a small vid of him eating brine shrimp ( thats the small things floating through the tank)

clingfish eating his first meal ( click here)

new additions

I have as the post title says a few new additions to my tank. I bought a few snails, some hermit crabs and a sand sifting starfish. I have a few pics and also two small vids, one of it walking along the sand ( so cool) the other of it sinking into the sand like magic ( even cooler!!)

 I also found a hitch hiker that must have come in on the live rock that I bought. A cute little starfish !!

And here are the two vids I mentioned

Starfish walking (click me)

Now you see it.. Now you dont !! (click me)

wavemaker update

Well its been a little while since my last update so here goes
In my last update I said about the new wavemaker that I had bought, well its been a month or so now since ive had it and im still playing with its settings lol, but I have had some good flow through the tank and as you will see from the pic its made some interesting designs on my sand bed lol. To me it looks like I would imagin the sand in the sea would look like from the wave action

new wave maker

I  got my new wave maker the other day, it only took 4 days for delivery from hongkong !! so I was well pleased.
I took a few pics and some vids, unfortunately I lost the vid of the old power head working to show you the difference between the two. When I get some time I might hook up the old power head just to take a vid to show you ( there really is a big difference)

old power head on left new wave maker on right

As you can see the new wave maker is slightly smaller than the power head but the difference in water flow is amazing. The reason I wanted the wave maker is because in the sea the water moves around randomly and not in a constant straight line like you get with a power head style pump. The wave maker has 7 different settings that you can use and different power lvls for thoes settings and you can even adjust the pulses of the pump to get the wave action that you want.

very short vid- click me please

I will also make a longer vid and show you some of the other settings. Not only is it making waves on top of the tank, its making better water flow though the whole of the tank which is the important part, because corals and fish prefer a more natural and random typ of water flow

some sand pics

I thought I would add some pics of the sand that im using. As I said before its "special" live sand that already contains all the good bacteria that a healthy tank needs to thrive. As its sand from the sea bed it has bits of coral and sea shells making everything more natural. In one of the pics you can see where something has been moving across the sand but I have no idea what it is yet lol. You can also see the "shimmer" effect that you get from using led lights, something you cant get from the light tubes alot of people use.

more updates

Have some more updates. When I added the sand I realized that I didnt have enough so I had to order more lol but only 10kilo this time.

Nooo cloudy again..

Ahhh thats better

I also bought some stuff for the refugium that makes it work much better.I added some live rock rubble to help with the biological's. I also added some copepods  which will live amongst the live rock rubble and also as they breed and colonize some will escape into the main tank and help to feed the fish giving them a nice live boost to their feeding. I also added some cheato which is a alge that grows in the sea, its used in marine tanks as away to use up the phosphates that can occur coursing the pain in the butt alge to grow. the idea is that the cheato absorbs it all instead, there is also a light that sits on top which encourages it to grow and will be added once the refugium is put back on the back of the tank

Old tank

I thought I would show you some of the new fish in my old marine tank. Two black domino damsel fish and two blue damsel fish. The blue ones like to hide in caves in the rock.

live rock

OK I got my live rock and got it all in the tank and added the special live sand. Its all a bit cloudy at the moment but is starting to slowly clear. Ive also added the mineral mud and sand to the refugium and waiting for that to clear also lol.

 

 

 

Live Rock

One side of the tank

Other side of tank

Lol yes I know the glass looks dirty but thats the water markes from dipping my hands in and out of the water all the time

Rock? What Rock??

Oh... There it is...

And I also have two little hitchhikers that came in on the rock. One is a baby crab the other is a four legged starfish.

Baby Crab

The Starfish before I added the sand

Starfish looking to see where all the rock went..  "Im sure I saw some rock earlyer.."

slightly out of focus and cloudy refugium

slight change of plan

Well there has been a slight change in plans. I had planned of getting the live sand first then the live rock after, but after going through different threads on a fish forum I belong to the recommended way is to add the rock first and deal with the aquascaping  and then add the sand all around the rock. This means the rock will be resting on the glass bottom of the tank and there will be no risk of slippage and possible falling of rock damaging fish and or corals, as some fish like to dig in the sand in order to hide or even to sleep...
So Ive ordered 20kg of rock to be delivered tomorrow. And as I write this I get called away to answer the door to find the special sand has finally arrived !!! lol so its a good job im buying the rock for delivery tomorrow. Only problem I can see is that 20kg of sand isnt that much when its wet... so I might end up buying more in order to make sure that the sand bed is deep enough, especially if I buy one of those special maximus clams ive had my eye on for over a year lol.

New Changes

Well its been a few years since I last posted on here ( wow !!! time flies !!! )
So I decided to make a few changes, first of all I made my Marine tank into just a Marine fish only tank and decided to start again with making a coral tank. So as I had lost a few Bristlenose fish due to old age I decided to convert the tank they were in a 50 gallon tank into a new Marine tank and as I would be doing it my self ( not like my first tank ) I figured I can customize it to exactly how I want it. My Bristlenose have been moved back to the smaller tank. ( there is plenty of room for them )
So here are the first few pics of my new build

Tank all cleaned out

Half full of water

The new Refugium

I need to be careful with how much water I add at this point as I will be adding a new sand bed ( 20kg ) which will raise the water lvl plus when I add the live rock that will also raise things. I should get the sand this week and hopefully the rock next week.
As the cabinet has no room for a sump which is ideal for a marine tank Ive decided to go a different direction. Its called a refugium, basically its a place where beneficial critters can grow safely and im able to add a plant called cheato that will help keep the phosphates down and hopefully the alge that can be a problem sometimes. As you look at the pic the water is pumped into the refugium on the right hand side it then circulates through the main chamber  which will have mineral mud and some sand and perhaps some live rock rubble all to help with the filtration and breakdown of the bad bacteria and crap and promoting the building of the good bacteria which will keep my tank healthy. The water then flows out at the top left which means that any of the critters that escape that way will stay alive and help to feed the fish/corals in the main tank. You can just see the two bags to the side that holds the mud and sand and also a led lamp to help the cheato grow and the water pump
Anyway I will keep posting more updates as they go along

Sadly

Sadly I have lost one of my corals, it has been eaten by something and I have no idea what did it. As you can see from the pic below this is what it looked like, as you can see its nice and healthy waveing its tenticles around in the water flow, even tho it gets most of its energy from the lights it still collects food partiles from the water or it did while it was alive






This is how I found the coral one morning, as you can see half of it is missing and a bit of it is lodged in the rock away from the main coral body. I tried to save what I could by moveingf it top a different location and had hopes for the next day or so as it seemed not to be touched but on the third day I awoke to find it totaly eaten, andI still dont know what did it as as far as I know there should be nothing in my tank that eats corals, Ive been very carefull with what I buy and put in there

feeding update

Well so far mandy the Manderin isnt using the feeding station so Ive now moved it to a different part of the tank thats more secluded in the hopes that the fish will eat from it there. Ive also started to breed copepods for the fish and will be uploading some pics of that at a later date ( dont want to post everything now lol cos I need tokeep you interested and looking forward to new posts lol)
Anyway Ive uploaded two small vids of mandy eating which I hope you will enjoy watching as much as I enjoy watching her.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8R4Sug_aSM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2n5ppOZYjM

new experiment

Well the title says it all, I was talking to this guy on a fish forum about feeding manderin fish andhe said about this new typ of feeding station he was testing and wanted feed back on how well it works, so I said I would help him so he sent me one and this is it. Its totaly clear so that you can watch your fish eat, it has a nice sized entrence for even the fatest manderin fish (lol) and a handy feeding tube in order to "squert" the food (copepods) into the feeding station. for the time being ive put the station in the middle of the tank with the entrence pointing to the cave like spaces at the back of the tank where mandy likes to roam for food, I will think about moveing it to the side of the tank thats more secluded if i dont see any sign of feeding. Ive only had the station a few days and although ive not seen mandy use it yet she might be useing it at night when im in bed for all I know. Anyway I will keep the blog posted on any updates with it

Ive also included two other pics, the first shows what looks like a "phantom" cat laying in the tank, no idea what caused the reflection lol becouse I dont have a cat.

Last pic is of mandy herself, its a pic thatshows off her colours much better than most of the pics ive taken of her so wanted to share