Zach's 75G Build

I'm definitely a metal halide convert at this point.

I've been running 4x24w T5's over my 30G for about 6 months. I thought they had good color and were bright. Well, today I started acclimating my corals to the MH in preparation for the switchover which will be happening next Friday. Holy crap. There was absolutely no comparison. The MH puts out an incredibly bright, clean, crisp whitish blue light (I never even turned on the actinics - I didn't feel the need to, the MH put out just the right color, I'll just use them for wakeup and shutdown) - the T5's are yellowish in comparison, even with the actinics running. I ran the MH over the tank for 1 hour and after I popped the T5's back on the tank, the Xenia and Zoas thought it was night and began their nightly process of closing up since it was darker in the tank. Now, I realize I had a 250W HQI over the tank instead of 96 watts of T5HO, but - I guess the Nova Extreme's aren't very good T5 fixtures as I thought they were.

And the shimmer is cool - I'll be glad to see that full time

 

Hey buddy, didn't known how I missed this thread. Keep up the good work..

 

Busy weekend. Me and my buddy finished building the stand for my tank, and I'm getting the framing painted and ready for the finishing pieces. Structurally, it's more than ready for the tank. I used the plans found here. I'm modifying them slightly, as I used another notched 4x4 in the rear and will be using different finishing moulding / pieces. Rock solid. To ensure the tank has good proper contact all around the frame and to relieve any tension due to imperfections I will be affixing foam all around the frame for the tank to set on.

I picked up all the lock line pieces today to make the returns, as well as my ReeFlo Dart pump and also the tank itself. I need to clean it up a bit and fit the lock line returns. Will be picking up all the PVC pieces from Home Depot tomorrow.

Everything is still a "go" for setup on Friday..

 

Tank - keep in mind I just picked it up and it needs a good cleaning.



ReeFlo Dart

 

Nice. Can't wait to see some pics of the setup!

 

You will really like that Reeflo Pump, they are ultra quiet. I run two HammerHeads and love them.

 

That's what I've heard, plus they consume very little power and have hardly any heat transfer. Excellent pump for the money, $230!

 

Nice, great purchases. Yeah, MH are awesome. I'm switching my 14000K bulbs out for 10000K bulbs and adding T12 actinics that will eventually be converted to T5 actinics. The reason for the 10000K bulb is that they put out better par values and the T5s can supplement the blue color I'm looking for. Maybe this is something you can look into seeing as you have the T5s already and would just need to purchase the actinic bulbs. Just food for thought.

 

Slight delay in the move, so I'm behind by one day. I'm on the road to TN, staying the night in Georgia. My poor fish have been in a rubbermaid container in the cab of the truck for 8 hours now with a heater and dual airPod airstone setup for aeration and some water movement. I put a few small chunks of LR rubble in there in hopes that they will help with bio filtration during the move (but not too large to crush anything). I'm doing a small water change in the AM with water saved from my setup. Should be able to start setup tomorrow night ... wish my fish luck, hopefully everything survives.

 

Oh yuck moving with lots of SW fish...yikes. Especially from Florida to Tennessee. There's supposed to be an amazing saltwater store in knoxville if you're ever up for a mini-road trip.

Good luck with the move. Let us know how everything turns out!