Redfishsc's 11g Shoebox Reef, LEDs, and a live beer bottle!

The tank is looking excellent. I like the addition of the sps, but I also thought it was an excellent softy gorgonian tank too.

 

Thanks!

Yes it's primarily a softy tank. I have a small collection of LPS (a few small blastos, two frogspawn types, and the crazy neon green torch), but the real stars of this tank are the softies.

There are two softies I won't put in this tank--- ugly common brown anthelia (the pink stuff is OK) and the ugly common brown "Kenya tree" which looks to me like someone pooped some asparagus and put it in their tank.

 

lol


So true, but they were beautiful and amazing when we first started. At one time I thought colt corals rocked the world.

 

I think my first infatuation was with cactus pavona (an odd one). It had started growing on the back glass of the tank at an LFS and had all sorts of crazy zigzag patterns in it.

 

I bought a palythoa frag today (pastel lime green "wagon wheel" types) that had 9-10 polyps on it, but had HUNDREDS of brown flatworms and a few dozen larger amphipods (the type that are suspected zoa munchers).


I gave the frag a very aggressive peroxide dip (50/50 mix of tank water and off-the-shelf 3% peroxide) for 15 minutes followed by a full-strength 3% peroxide rise (to remove the gummy suds that formed on it).


I'd guess there were at least 200 flatworms that came off of it. Most of them very small (half a grain of rice size).

I do have a sixline wrasse, so I'm not all that worried about the flatworms, but I'm hoping other pests will be dead from this.

 

Was not aware of this...I have lots of the larger pods...and I have been losing Zoas lately.. unexplained...until now.... possibly. Hmmm

 

I'm getting my 45g, 23" cube ready for the moving date (which isn't set yet).

Once we move I'll set it up as a reef. I've already made the rockwork, this stuff looks neat.

Shelf rock, DIY arago-crete. These all have a hole in them (reinforced with larger diameter PVC slices) that are holding them to the PVC standpipe, sitting on a large sturdy base (hard to see in the pic). There are two pipes, and the spacer-slices will eventually be coated with some sort of aragonite to hide them.



(invisible soda???)








teee heee.....

 

Oh that is very nice!

Can you come on over and make the same type of thing for me. So far I have failed in the rock structure department.

Seriously nice.

 

can I just call you "billy bad azz" nice work ...VERY nice work...out of the box for sure!

 

A testament to the toughness of LEDs.

About 6 months ago, I accidentally dropped this LED array INTO my tank. 2/3 of the LEDs went under water (saltwater!).

I immediately pulled it out, in time to see the solder points for each LED fizzing and bubbling. I'm not sure exactly what was going on there, but obviously some electrical silliness.



I immediately took some RO water and cleaned off the whole array with a rag. I let it dry for a day or two, and then plugged it in. It lit up like there was never a problem.



6 months later, the 18 LEDs are still working fine, except for 3 that started acting up (two Cree and one Rebel). I've removed the ones that died and replaced them. But seriously folks, any electronic that can be dropped in saltwater, while being used, and survive it for 6 months until the corrosion just got the best of it..... that's a pretty tough animal.


The driver never got wet, fortunately.