nyvw's 55g build Updated fts 11-13

sick tank.. but this is my build thread lol

 

New lvls.
Ammonia - .5
trite - 2
trate - 5-10

seems like the cycle is moving along nicely so far!

I turned on the skimmer for the first time a few days ago and its still breaking in but it already pulling alottt of gunk from the water.

also i found a starfish on my rock today, ill upload a pic in a few for an i.d.

 

hers the best pic of the star i could get, tough to take pics at an angle through the glass..



any idea what this guy is?




micro bubbles and algae anyone?

 

Cycle is almost there!!1
ammonia is just about at 0
nitrites are still pretty high though

 

Pretty big update here.. Lots happened in the last week both good and bad! I recieved another koralia from BRS, and an aquaticlife 4 blub t5HO fixture from 1fishyguy. ;D Then, as I was switching out a filter sock and something must have been sucked into the skimmer and it immediately stopped working. im pretty positive it was a peice of the decomposing shrimp i had in there... ugh. So i had to clean it out.. then at the same time realized i needed to redo my whole sump. I originally had just one small bubble trap with 3 baffles made from cheap 1/8" plexi.. obviously that didnt work very well. I made a trip to the glass shop, had some 1/4" panels cut, which was very expensive btw.. and redid the whole sump the right way and added a refugium section. I also had to redo all of the plumbing from the overflow to make this work. longg week lol heres a few pics.

New lights, and Koralia on the tank.



Cycle is Pretty much Done!!



New sump and plumbing design.. everyone loves fisheye shots



another of the lights



A fisheye fts



annnnd a quick shot of some rock

 

Looking really good!
Sooner or later, you had to get the sump corrected anyway!

Great images btw, I love my Nikon as well! (what lens do you use?)

 

Thanks! Well my new favorite lens in the 35mm 1.8. Amazing quality for the price, and i love the way shots with a normal focal length lens are.. I havent really taken it off my camera since i got it back in nov, and i do alot of shooting for work (newspaper). The fisheyes were taken with the nikon 10.5mm f2.8d lens. Another amazing lens if you have have use for it. I feel its about time for me to upgrade the d200 to a camera with better high iso performance.. above 800 the shots really arent usable.

 

I use the same Nikkor 35mm 1.8F! Id love a fisheye, but cant justify the cost at the moment. Have you tried using an extension tube? I have been looking into it and Im convinced that it can bring awesome results.

 

Yea extension tubes do work pretty good. I bought some from eBay that were really cheap but then you need to make sure you have an adjustable aperture ring on your lens. I have a tamron 60mm macro lens that I use that's pretty good also I got it from keh.com.

 

Do you have any sample photos of the Tamron Macro?