3reef.com Zetlight cup 2012

Discussion in 'Marine Aquarium Video Contest' started by Blue Falcon, Sep 12, 2012.

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  1. Blue Falcon

    Blue Falcon Fire Goby

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    Hey 3reef!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Here is my video submission.
    65g reef tank. set up for about 2 years. Thanks and hope you enjoy!.
    Sorry about the terrible quality video, hopefully the pics make up for it. ;D



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    Last edited: Sep 12, 2012
  2. Click Here!

  3. Matt Rogers

    Matt Rogers Kingfish

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    What a fantastic tank! 8)
    I would love to hear more about your maintenance routine.
    Great tip on ATS too.

    Thanks for entering the contest. This contest is turning out great!

    matt
     
  4. grinder37

    grinder37 Whip-Lash Squid

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    Great vid Blue Falcon,even sweeter tank,looks great! And good input on the ATS,i've been considering one myself.
     
  5. Blue Falcon

    Blue Falcon Fire Goby

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    Thanks Matt. My maint routine is as follows. Once a week I dose seachem alk and calc, clean the skimmer cup, scrape the algae from the ATS screen and clean the glass with a magfloat. Once a month I do a 10 gal water change and pull out handfulls of xenia.
     
  6. FatBastad

    FatBastad Zoanthid

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    great tank and vid
     
  7. Blue Falcon

    Blue Falcon Fire Goby

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    for those interested in my ATS. The box is open at the bottom to allow the water to fall directly back into the sump. I like to keep the water line up to the bottom of the ATS box to minimize splashing. The box is made out of acrylic sheets from lowes but i had to order the solvent online to bond the acrylic together. What you can't see from the pics is that the horizontal PVC pipe has a 1/8th inch wide, 6 inch long slot cut into it so the screen actually slides into the pipe. These pics were taken right after cleaning the screen so I'll try to take another pic in a week or so to give you an idea of the 3D growth. Pods love to play and breed on the algae screen. I've had this tank set up with a refugium of chaeto, bio pellets, and phosphate reactor. All three were over priced gimmicks compared to the ATS. just to throw out a disclaimer, this is what has worked for my tank. I know alot of people have had luck with reactors, I just prefer a more natural route. Algae is one of the oldest lifeforms on earth. Let's use it to our favor instead of fighting against it. A naturally balanced ecosystem is much more stable IMO than "advanced" "top of the line" filtration. I will say this, you must build the ATS to the right dimensions with the right lighting to go with those dimensions. My first ATS was overbuild with too big a screen. Guess I was so used to "overfiltering". It worked just fine, nitrates and phosphates were zero, I just wasnt happy with the amount and color of the algae growth on the screen. All I did was cut the screen to make it smaller to more accurately match my bioload and BAM, a week later I had perfect 3D growth. My screen is 6 inches by 8 inches. Let me tell you folks, some times I feed my corals so much you cant even see the back glass through the phyto. I take the bottle and squeeze it till I get a big cloud. no need to measure when you dont have to worry about overfeeding. lol

    Lighting for the screen is two cheap dome reflectors from lowes. I had to cut a hole in the side of the dome to hang my bulbs vertically because I didnt have enough room in my stand to mount the bulb pointing at the screen. Nothing a dremel tool couldnt handle. The bulbs are just 23 real watts each of the curly-Q compacts like you would get at walmart for your house light.

    I have the ATS lights on for 18 hours during the night while my DT lights are off.

    I actually ran my tank skimmer less for a few months with great results. I decided to put my skimmer back on for a few reasons. One, I paid alot of money for it and wanted to get my $$$ worth. lol. Two, I like the idea of having some mechanical filtration to remove particulates in the water (i dont like socks because they catch too much good stuff). Three, to keep my tank more stable right after cleaning the ATS screen so there is still waste removal until a bit of algae starts to grow on the screen again. (you can get away with this by cleaning only one side of the screen instead of both sides at once, but I'm too lazy to clean it more often ::) ). And finally, I like how skimmers put so much oxygen in the water for better biological filtration and happier fish.

    One more thing about the ATS, with all the extra food floating around in the water, the coral are fully extended much more often, especially the SPS.

    Any more questions I would be happy to answer them.

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  8. Click Here!

  9. riverchel

    riverchel Astrea Snail

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    Well, I was just about to buy a media reactor, but now I'm having second thoughts. The ATS screen you built looks excellent (and it looks like with some convincing I might be able to get my husband to build one). It's probably a lot cheaper to build one of those than to buy an expensive reactor and all the components anyway. I went to this website Algae scrubber - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia to see how they were built, and it looks similar to how you have yours built. The tank looks clean, so obviously it is working well for you. Congrats :)
     
  10. Blue Falcon

    Blue Falcon Fire Goby

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    Thank you. there are many different ways to success. I have seen many BEAUTIFUL tanks with reactors. I personally favor the natural aspects and efficiency of turf scrubbers. I'm sure whichever route you go it will get rid of nitrates. But there are many other benefits to turf scrubbers like the additional food in the water column. And yes, compared to most other filtration types, ATS's are inexpensive to build. I would recommend building some type of acrylic box around your screen. Alot of people skip this step and have problems with spraying/salt creep. If you dont keep the slot in the PVC pipe clean it will clog with algae and spray any and every direction under your stand. The acrylic box keeps everything contained so you dont have this problem. It also provides support for the PVC pipe to rest on if you build legs on the box to sit on the rim of your sump.
     
  11. Biocube

    Biocube Giant Squid

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    Nice tank & Scrubber!

    I love the pics, especially the clown pic!
     
  12. Blue Falcon

    Blue Falcon Fire Goby

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    thank you. They love that frogspawn.