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I'm setting up a Cadlights Artisan 50 tomorrow. I currently have a 12 gallon Aquapod reef that is pretty stocked with a ton of corals and frags. If anyone has any tips, feel free to share but this is generally how I will be doing this: 1) Build stand, connect plumbing. This part should be easy according to the dude at Cadlights. Everything is pretty much preassembled. 2) Dump 3 30 pound bags of Aragamax Select into the tank, press down and create a slight incline from front to back. 3) Remove all corals from live rock in the nano and place on the tiny bit of sandbed left. Move live rock from nano to Cadlights 50. 4) Spend next hour or so aquascaping. Will this hurt my live rock since there will be no water in the tank for a while? 5) Slowly fill the new tank with water using that bowl method. 6) Done? The owner of one of the LFSs I go to gave me a vial of this Prodibio nitrifying bacteria stuff. Usually I'm really skeptical about all this additive poo poo but he said this stuff is legit. He claimed I could move all of my live rock over and between that, the brand new water and the vial of Prodibio, I should be able to move my corals over pretty soon. Is this accurate? I shouldn't much of a cycle right? Feel free to throw out any tips or advice.
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Sep 15, 2012 00:22
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An hour or so of your rocks being out won't cause enough die off for a cycle. You should be fine, just treat it like the smaller tank for a bit until the bacteria has a chance to populate the new rock. Make sure you don't reuse the old sand.
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Sep 15, 2012 03:28
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Internet Explorer posted:An hour or so of your rocks being out won't cause enough die off for a cycle. You should be fine, just treat it like the smaller tank for a bit until the bacteria has a chance to populate the new rock. Make sure you don't reuse the old sand. I wasn't going to use all of the sand from the nano but I was planning on using a cup or two to seed the new tank. Is this something I shouldn't do?
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Sep 15, 2012 03:33
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Seeding it should be fine. That's what I usually do, although I know some people don't seed it at all and just let the live rock repopulate the new sand with life. I'd highly recommend giving the Aragamax Select a thorough wash with RO before placing it in the tank. Even using the bowl method to fill the tank, I had a large Iraqi sandstorm to deal with.
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Sep 15, 2012 03:43
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Lusername posted:Seeding it should be fine. That's what I usually do, although I know some people don't seed it at all and just let the live rock repopulate the new sand with life. I was told by LFS guy that I don't really need to wash it but most of the threads on RC say it needs to be washed so I'm doing it in the tub In a 5 gallon bucket, This is kind of a huge pain in the rear end. People are saying they wash it until the water runs clear. I've rinsed this first batch like 20 times and it's still cloudy. I got rid of a bunch of the foam but it's definitely not running clear.
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Sep 15, 2012 07:40
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That's exactly the problem I had actually. I rinsed it at least a dozen times but the cloudiness wouldn't shift. I wondered if I had a bad batch of sand. In the end I gave up and put it in the tank. It still ended up looking like this: It took around 24 hours to clear up. As long as you've got rid of most of the foam, that's the best you can do. If you're more careful as you put in the saltwater, it probably won't look as murky as mine.
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Sep 15, 2012 12:33
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I spent most of a day washing enough sand for my 60gal and it was totally worth it. Wear gloves if you like your fingertips.
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Sep 15, 2012 18:13
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When I set my tank up I put the sand in while it was empty, put a garbage bag over the sand layer, then pumped the water into the tank via a small rubbermaid container. It was almost perfectly clear, and this was with ~140lbs of new sand. There was a bunch of foamy junk from it that got skimmed out, but otherwise it worked really well.
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Sep 16, 2012 07:59
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Lighting suggestions for a 20L? I'm trying to stay under $200 bucks if that's even possible. I'd like to go LED but it's like speaking another language. I can't figure out what is enough light as far as LED's go. I found this ebay listing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/TaoTronics-...=item2ec1bf57dd Is that fixture ok? What makes it good/bad? How do I know how much LED I need for a certain tank size? Should I just stick to T5?
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Sep 17, 2012 21:10
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It's more than sufficient for a 20L. I do just fine with 24 3Ws on a 20H, so you'll probably want to run this one dimmed down a fair bit. I'm somewhat troubled by this though: quote:- Do not touch or knock the product when it's working;
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Sep 17, 2012 21:17
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I'd think that'd be too narrow to light a 20L. Why don't you build an array yourself? It will be cheaper, you'll learn how to solder and work with electronics, and it can be as wide as you need it without spending lots of money on an overkill light? The light I built for my Mr. Aqua 12, which is a tad bit narrower than a 20L. it cost me $16 total, I had the LEDs laying around, and the heatsink was $16 shipped. But the LEDs would cost no more than $50 if you wanted to do something like that. That's 48w of dimmable LED on a 25"x2" heatsink. Frozen Pizza Party fucked around with this message at 21:22 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 21:20
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Is there somewhere that explains it, along with a parts list and where to buy them? I'm not against DIY, I've just never done it before, and all the DIY kits I see are like $250. I'll happily piece it all together myself if it saves money.
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Sep 17, 2012 21:44
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http://www.cadlights.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=42&products_id=216 I need a new light for my 50 cube. What do you guys think of this light? Is the non name brand stuff all cheap Chinese crap? I don't really feel like spending $600 on a fixture.
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Sep 17, 2012 22:13
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U.S. Barryl posted:Is there somewhere that explains it, along with a parts list and where to buy them? I'm not against DIY, I've just never done it before, and all the DIY kits I see are like $250. I'll happily piece it all together myself if it saves money. No, but if you want info I'd be more than happy to help you out  There's this for starters, which is what I used for my 40br (but the 72 LED version) http://www.aquastyleonline.com/products/Aquarium-14-LEDs--DIY-Dimmable-Kit.html This is 14 LEDs, 7 blue, 7 white @ 3w each totaling 42 watts, a 5"x15" heatsink, a driver or two, wire, heatsink plaster and 60 degree optics. All for $75 + shipping. They also have a 24 LED kit, all the way up to 200 LEDs. And Ray is a great guy, always sends extra LEDs and stuff. And as far as wiring them up, there's an aquastyle DIY thread over at nanoreef that I followed, it's really simple, and of course I'll answer any questions I can. If you wanted to spec your own and get the heatsink elsewhere (heatsinkusa.com has good/cheap ones) then you could just order LEDs and a driver from Ray and then build it out. Also, just juxtaposed a picture of my tank from May 2nd and one from August 26th, holy growth batman. This is May 2nd, note the green slimer and orange monti cap:  This was August 26th: 
Frozen Pizza Party fucked around with this message at 23:49 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 22:23
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U.S. Barryl posted:Lighting suggestions for a 20L? I'm trying to stay under $200 bucks if that's even possible. I'd like to go LED but it's like speaking another language. I can't figure out what is enough light as far as LED's go. I found this ebay listing: http://www.ebay.com/itm/TaoTronics-...=item2ec1bf57dd The taotronics pendants seem to get some pretty good reviews from most people I've talked to. I have a source to get them for around $140 each, and they are dimmable as well. I'm thinking of switching over to them over my 90g at some point in the near future.
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Sep 18, 2012 02:29
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SaNChEzZ posted:No, but if you want info I'd be more than happy to help you out I have to second this option. I have the 48 led kit over my 45 and its fantastic. Super easy to put together if you can work a soldering iron, and they throw wiring directions and a few extra leds in the box
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Sep 18, 2012 03:10
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SaNChEzZ posted:No, but if you want info I'd be more than happy to help you out So, I'm looking at aquastyle, and I think I'm going to settle on the 24 led kit, since it's only 5 bucks more than the one you linked. That should be good for a 20L, right? What options should I pick as far as LED colors, drivers, and optics? Do these kits come with instructions for wiring and putting it all together? Do I need to solder? This website is not very informative, but has great prices.
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Sep 18, 2012 03:11
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U.S. Barryl posted:So, I'm looking at aquastyle, and I think I'm going to settle on the 24 led kit, since it's only 5 bucks more than the one you linked. That should be good for a 20L, right? What options should I pick as far as LED colors, drivers, and optics? Do these kits come with instructions for wiring and putting it all together? Do I need to solder? Get half royal blue and half 4500k white. Optics are going to depend on how high the light will be from the tank. I'm not sure if I'm correct on this so someone else feel free to chime in, greater then 12 inches from the top of your tank you'll want 60 degree optics, less then that 40 degree optics. If you are right on the water no optics at all. You will need solder and a soldering iron. Maybe a little extra wire although there is some provided in the kit. Directions are also included but its pretty easy.
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Sep 18, 2012 03:45
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U.S. Barryl posted:So, I'm looking at aquastyle, and I think I'm going to settle on the 24 led kit, since it's only 5 bucks more than the one you linked. That should be good for a 20L, right? What options should I pick as far as LED colors, drivers, and optics? Do these kits come with instructions for wiring and putting it all together? Do I need to solder? Yeah, I'd go with half and half, whatever the kit option is, it comes out to a very nice blend. And if you go with the 24 kit, you should do two strings, one of whites and one of blues so you can dim the blues to change the spectrum. As far as heatsink goes, I like a wide sink, and a 20l isn't too deep (from front to back) so if you could get like a 20" x 4" or something, with 60 degree optics you'll be good. It also might be cheaper to get the kit without the heatsink and order a custom one from heatsinkUSA. They're cheap as hell, and taking the weight of the sink out of your order will also cut down on shipping from china. Just my .02 Here's my tank: http://www.flickr.com/photos/11045674@N03/sets/72157626968497761/ And the thread which contains all of the build info including the light: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=289727 Feel free to ask any questions too!
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Sep 18, 2012 04:14
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So would you do half blue, half 10K white, or half 4500K white, or half 6500K white, or 50/50 4500 to 10K? I just wish I knew what all of these would look like before I pull the trigger on one. Also, what's the difference in the drivers? I'll probably go with the free option, but I'd just like to know why I would pay an extra $20 bucks for the other ones. I really appreciate your help with this, otherwise I may have spent double on this drat light.
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Sep 18, 2012 14:41
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U.S. Barryl posted:So would you do half blue, half 10K white, or half 4500K white, or half 6500K white, or 50/50 4500 to 10K? I just wish I knew what all of these would look like before I pull the trigger on one. Also, what's the difference in the drivers? I'll probably go with the free option, but I'd just like to know why I would pay an extra $20 bucks for the other ones. If you're using 4500k, You'll want 2:1 blue:white, I think mine are the 6500k, not quite sure, it's just whatever the kit came with with at 1:1 ratio. The difference in drivers is the meanwells are made here, and the maxwellen are made in china. I'm running 4 maxwellens and have had no issues whatsoever. ALso, the drivers support different amounts of LEDs, like the maxwellens either do 7-12 LEDs or 12-21 or something of the sort where as the meanwells offer different numbers, and are probably made with better materials. Frozen Pizza Party fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 16:50
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So I need some advice for my tank (now disaster of a tank). I was out of town for a few days, and when I came back, literally everything was dead. It looks like the green BTA I had died and destroyed the water chemistry. Prior to leaving I had fed the anemone and my clownfish, and did a water change and checked the ammonia/nitrite/nitrate etc levels and all was fine with everything looking healthy. I had my lights on a timer, and in the past I've been able to leave it for even 4-5 days with no problem. So basically I am trying to understand why this happened - is it normal for BTAs to just up and die so quickly? I have a decent array of LED lights so I don't think it's related to that, plus it was looking great for the month+ that I had him. Aside from the hindsight wondering what happened, my other question is what to do now. If I wanted to restart the tank, should I replace all the water, or will things balance out on their own eventually with normal weekly/bi-weekly water changes? Right now the ammonia/nitrates etc are high as hell and havent changed much in the past couple days. I am leaning toward waiting a long time(a few weeks or so) in case there are dead things I wasn't able to remove still decaying. In any case, I think when I start it up again I'm going to go much simpler/less expensive in terms of fish. Beyond just the sentimental loss, losing a 90 dollar clownfish, the 60 dollar anemone, and the various 20+ dollar corals hurt pretty bad on an economical level.
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Sep 18, 2012 22:35
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Your tank will need to fully cycle again, so that could take awhile. I would turn off all the tank lights and blackout the tank with construction paper or similar. Do water changes every 2-4 weeks, blow detritus in the tank off into the filtration and clean as much detritus out yourself in those water changes as possible.
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Sep 18, 2012 23:12
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I'd just start fresh, rinse your rocks, get new water and sand and start from stage one. Did the BTA wander indo a powerhead and get chopped up or something? Seems odd that it'd just up and die in 3 days..
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Sep 18, 2012 23:35
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SaNChEzZ posted:I'd just start fresh, rinse your rocks, get new water and sand and start from stage one. Did the BTA wander indo a powerhead and get chopped up or something? Seems odd that it'd just up and die in 3 days.. No, when I got back there was just a big tear in his body and he was dead in a cave, along with everything else. By rinse do you just mean that in a literal sense with just fresh water, or do you mean like an iodine rinse? Is it absolutely necessary to ditch the sand too?
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Sep 19, 2012 00:00
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Murphy Brownback posted:No, when I got back there was just a big tear in his body and he was dead in a cave, along with everything else. By rinse do you just mean that in a literal sense with just fresh water, or do you mean like an iodine rinse? Is it absolutely necessary to ditch the sand too? If your tank has been running for any amount of time the amount of nitrified poo poo in the sand will cause a year long cycle. And yeah, just rinse really good in RO water, if there was any coral on the rocks, try to scrape off whatever is left so it doesn't contaminate the new tank. Or just leave it and hopefully it will re-grow, as that's been known to happen. And you could technically keep the sand, but it'd require a hell of a rinsing. You may wanna keep a cup or so of the sand to seed the stuff once it's all rinsed. And if you go that route, as Arioch (api call girl, sorry used to the old name) said, it will cycle.
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Sep 19, 2012 00:12
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SaNChEzZ posted:If your tank has been running for any amount of time the amount of nitrified poo poo in the sand will cause a year long cycle. And yeah, just rinse really good in RO water, if there was any coral on the rocks, try to scrape off whatever is left so it doesn't contaminate the new tank. Or just leave it and hopefully it will re-grow, as that's been known to happen. Yeah, it's been running for about 2.5 years now so theres probably a lot in the sand. The only reason I want to keep the old sand is because I use black sand(tahitian black live sand or something) and my LFS doesn't carry that, so I'd have to order it again which is expensive. I don't want it to be cycling forever though so maybe it's something I have to do.
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Sep 19, 2012 00:18
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Ah yeah, just make sure you rinse it extremely thoroughly. But as I said, keep a cup or two to seed the rinsed sand once you start again. How many lbs of sand, or how big of a tank is it?
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Sep 19, 2012 19:49
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I have about 40lbs of sand in there now. I'll try and do the rinsing route and just start fresh eventually. This hobby seems to have the habit of making you feel like an idiot no matter how long you've been doing it.
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Sep 19, 2012 20:55
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Can't get an answer on RC about this. Most of my God drat threads get ignored there for whatever reason. Just gonna repost here in case I can get an answer On Sunday I started a new Cadlights 50 gallon tank. The goal is to move my 12 gallon nano reef over to this tank. I set it up with: - 90 pounds of Aragamax Select dry sand that had been washed - 55 or so gallons of freshly made reef crystals water - moved about 25 pounds of live rock over from my established nano - a vial of prodibio nitrifying bacteria that was recommended to me - All corals still residing in nano at the moment I was told to not expect much of a cycle. The water is crystal clear at this point and I just spent about an hour doing tests. Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and phosphates are all at 0, Salinity is 1.025, Calcium 460 and Alk is at 8. Am I good to move corals over at this point or is the water still in some weird in between phase or something? I'm not sure how long to wait here.
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Sep 20, 2012 00:41
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The sand was new sand, correct? You posted earlier in the thread? You should be good to go. Just make sure you treat it as if it was still your 12 gallon nano and stock it accordingly for a while. Did you put in any other live rock or dry rock? As long as the live rock wasn't out of the tank for hours you should be fine.
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Sep 20, 2012 00:48
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Yeah I had posted earlier. My water cleared up pretty quickly with the new dry sand. I literally picked the rocks up out of one tank, walked 2 feet and dropped them into the new tank. I think I will move half of my corals over and move my Kessil from the nano to the 50. If I leave some corals in my nano without a light for like 24 hours, will they be okay? How long can corals go without a light source? I think I've heard people recommend "lights-out" breaks where you keep them in the dark for a day or two.
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Sep 20, 2012 01:02
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Then yeah, you're fine. Are you planning on putting more rock in the 50? You may have to if you plan on adding more livestock. If you do add rock, be careful not to add live rock with die-off, or you may get a mini-cycle. The corals will be fine. Most can go for several days, if not a week.
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Sep 20, 2012 01:05
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Yep, hit the nail on the head. Even when using livesand I've never really had any mega-cycle when upgrading/moving tanks. As long as you have the rock to keep things going you will be fine, and it seems like you do in this case. Also, take some of your old live sand to help seed the new tank, wouldn't hurt to add some of those nitrifying bacteria back into the system anyway.
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Sep 20, 2012 01:24
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Yeah I tossed in maybe a cup of the nanos live sand into the new tank. I'm actually going on my lunch tomorrow to pick up some more Real Reef rock. I have no idea how I want to aquascape this thing. Suggestions welcome. Amazing that I can get more help here than on the fuckng reef forum.
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Sep 20, 2012 05:22
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The difference seems to be that outside certain special interest threads and forums, Reefcentral is filled in with shitposters circlejerking over snake oil instead of being helpful, while we try to distill that knowledge down in this thread.
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Sep 20, 2012 05:53
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Speaking of snake oil, have you guys seen this thread on RC: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2211981&highlight=chinese It's a continuation of another chinese light thread where basically one dude took over with his linking to some company in china that sells custom 120W 55x3 fixtures. He ordered one and posted pictures and whatnot. It took of from there with tons of people asking him questions and people placing orders. I'm pretty intrigued. I was about to pull the trigger on a Cadlights multichip based fixture until I saw that discussion. Here's the link to the light: http://www.aliexpress.com/store/pro..._587062331.html I'm trying to decide between trying my luck with one of these fixtures, or ordering a Maxspect Razor: http://www.marinedepot.com/Maxspect_Razor_R420R_LED_Light_Fixture_24_Inch_LED_Light_Fixtures-Maxspect-0M1131-FILTFILDTF-vi.html Thoughts?
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Sep 20, 2012 07:11
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visuvius posted:Yeah I tossed in maybe a cup of the nanos live sand into the new tank. How is the quality on your Cadlights 50? I want to pick up a 100gal next spring and Cadlights is on my list of possible manufacturers. Henchman 21 fucked around with this message at 19:09 on Sep 20, 2012 |
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Sep 20, 2012 17:24
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So far so good. For the price, its pretty great actually. I priced everything out and for a 3 sided starfire cube tank with internal overflow, sump, protein skimmer and stand and pumps, it would have been about $1500 on the low end. I got a bunch of quotes. I paid $805 for everything. It would have been $60 less but I upgraded to one of their larger skimmers, rated for like 75-150 gallons. The stand is obviously not that great but its just a simple black stand. The build quality on the actual tank is excellent as far as I can tell. Everything is clean and well put together. Everything went together smoothly for the most part.
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Sep 20, 2012 18:00
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Will my clowns get used to each other and get along? I have a maroon clown, had it for about 8 months now, and yesterday I bought a green bubble tip anemone and a gold stripe maroon that is about half the size of my current clown. The smaller of the two swam over to check out my original fish and was attacked on sight. It looks savage when the bigger of the fish goes after the smaller one. My original clown loves the anemone. It had been hosting in a patch of caulerpa from the time I bought it, but as soon as the GBT went in the clown relocated. Tank is a 46g bow front, I have a kupang damsel and a flametail blenny with some small corals and mushrooms. Just concerned that I'll have to rehome this new fish if things don't settle down fast. I've had to get rid of one fish already, neon blue damsel, for aggression after it killed a foxface. So far the only advice I've received is to place mirrors near the bigger clowns hosting area. I found that online, so of course results vary. Right now the small gold stripe is sticking close to the surface of the tank well away from the maroons territory.
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Sep 20, 2012 20:01
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