[Timezone Detection]
Create Account - Join in Seconds!

User Name: Email Address:
Human Verification

Please enter the six letters or digits that appear in the image opposite.

The JMAL Family 75g Adventure


Bookmark and Share
Page 1 of 7 1 2 3 ... Last
Results 1 to 10 of 62
  1. #1
    CR Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Tampa, FL
    Posts
    142
    Awards Referral Award

    Default The JMAL Family 75g Adventure

    I figured I would start a new thread to document this new project we've taken on. Since we started the 46Bow 6-7months ago, it's become a huge addiction for me. It has also been a crazy adventure and a ton of learning too. We learned the wrong and right things to do with the tank, who not to go to as in an lfs,(roughly $600 later with that shady lfs), and intern who to go to for help. Now that we have a decent handle on the first tank and recently coming into a good deal on a 75, we decided to take the plunge and go bigger.

    Tomorrow, 11/18/2010, we should have our new tank which is a 75g, deepblue, rimless and a marineland monterey stand in expresso. This will actually be our replacement tank because the first came in looking super poor but our lfs took care of us and got them to send us a replacement right away.

    We are now making ourselves crazy looking for the "right" fixture and so far just end up frustrated at the end of the night with there being so many options. The misses really wants a fixture with moon lights and so do I but I'm willing to purchase moon lights separately where she wants it all in one.

    We do want the best we can get but then run into the issue of heavy cost with some of these super expensive fixtures. We've got some really good info from a few of you reefers but still are not sure what to do. We don't want to run into the issue of not having enough light but don't want to cook our coral either. I've read a ton on others experiences and unfortunately it's been a little bit of mixed experiences for others with 75's. I am hoping by today to have chosen one and have it ordered so we can possibly have it by the weekend.

    We are going to eventually build a larger sump but we are hoping that our current 20 high sump will work fine and not overflow. My plans are to build a 30 or 40g sump with a larger fuge area and a section next to it to grow pods. I'd like to put sand in the fuge this time and plant the mangroves so they aren't just held up by the loose rocks in the fuge. I am also debating on possibly doing a small turf area since it sounds interesting to have one and I'm tossing up a few ideas on how to get less detritus and keeping random particles out of the fuge which always seems to get caught up in the chaeto.

    This time around we are not going to mess with tap water and I've asked a friend to help me with ro/di water and I would help him buy some membranes at least until we get our own ro/di. We will be using some of our current water so that hopefully it won't be a huge shock on our fish when we do get them transferred over. We are also switching from the black sand to white because the misses would like that better and as my brother would say, "happy wife, happy life." I do plan on recycling the black sand and using some for the new sump and then the rest will probably go into my future frag tank.

    Now all we have left is to get the lights, some rock, sand, ro/di water and then we'll be doing the transfer. We are super excited and once we get the stuff in, I'll start working on pictures and updating on the project.

    Thanks again for all the advice! We appreciate it all!

  2. #2
    ReeferRob - Reefkeeper CR Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    CORAL CITY U.S.A
    Posts
    3,367
    First Name
    Rob
    Awards Photo of the Month

    Default

    Very exciting, there's nothing better than setting up a new aquarium. What are the dimensions of the new tank? Are you leaning towards MH, T5 or LED's.?
    "We shouldn't think of an environment where livestock can survive, we should ensure an environment where livestock can thrive."-Rabidgoose
    "If it's gonna be that kinda party, Ima stick my ........ in the mashed potatoes!"-Beastie Boys

  3. #3
    CR Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Tampa, FL
    Posts
    142
    Awards Referral Award

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ReeferRob View Post
    Very exciting, there's nothing better than setting up a new aquarium. What are the dimensions of the new tank? Are you leaning towards MH, T5 or LED's.?
    Yea it is. The dimensions are 48x18x20 and as for lights, we are torn. I'm leaning towards 6xt5's and she wants either a mh/t5 combo or a 6xt5 w/moonlight set which hasn't been easy to find especially trying to order today and hoping for it to be in by this weekend. We would really love to do led's cuz they seem super cool but at the same time, it hasn't been out long enough for us to know if it'll be as effective and efficient as they say so we are going to wait and see. My biggest thing on the led's are the low electric consumption.

    I've had a few people recommend 4xt5's but i'm worried that we won't have enough light as our last tank was and I ended up having to buy a second solarmax which sit back to back on my tank and looks dumb. lol.

    We saw something we liked at marinedepot but they are east coast and we really don't want to spend an extra 50 to have it a few days earlier. The lights are the hardest for us to agree on too. lol..it's a fight every night.

  4. #4
    ReeferRob - Reefkeeper CR Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    CORAL CITY U.S.A
    Posts
    3,367
    First Name
    Rob
    Awards Photo of the Month

    Default

    Well if your feeling a little cautious of the LED as your main source of light, I would definitely go with some T5's. I've never been much of a MH guy my self. Four bulb fixture would probably be fine, but I would personally go for the 6 just for growth and versatility sake.
    ATI are the ones to have these days but I have found the Tek lights to work just great for me.
    With so many options out there and people with different tastes, its going to be tough to find one fixture with every feature you want.
    Personally I would add a ReefBrite LED supplemental fixture to anything you select to add the MH shimmering look and all your colors will POP nicely.
    For moon lights the ReefBrite will be too much, so I would get a single PowerBrite strip to be on at night or those $8 dollar water proof strips off fleabay.com and just use some double sided sticky tape to hide them in the fixture. (Thats what I did! and it looks amazing)
    "We shouldn't think of an environment where livestock can survive, we should ensure an environment where livestock can thrive."-Rabidgoose
    "If it's gonna be that kinda party, Ima stick my ........ in the mashed potatoes!"-Beastie Boys

  5. #5
    CR Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Tampa, FL
    Posts
    142
    Awards Referral Award

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ReeferRob View Post
    Well if your feeling a little cautious of the LED as your main source of light, I would definitely go with some T5's. I've never been much of a MH guy my self. Four bulb fixture would probably be fine, but I would personally go for the 6 just for growth and versatility sake.
    ATI are the ones to have these days but I have found the Tek lights to work just great for me.
    With so many options out there and people with different tastes, its going to be tough to find one fixture with every feature you want.
    Personally I would add a ReefBrite LED supplemental fixture to anything you select to add the MH shimmering look and all your colors will POP nicely.
    For moon lights the ReefBrite will be too much, so I would get a single PowerBrite strip to be on at night or those $8 dollar water proof strips off fleabay.com and just use some double sided sticky tape to hide them in the fixture. (Thats what I did! and it looks amazing)
    Yea, for sure. I Love the idea about the waterproof strip. That would look amazing at night. I think that'll be added to my list of goodies for this week. Well, I finally decided on an aquamed oceanlight 6x54 t5 set up with led moon lights. My buddy found it on aquacave and the price was good for 389.95 plus 20% off bulbs so I think this may be my best deal all in all. I almost convinced myself on an hqi fixture but then I'd need a chiller and I want to avoid that. It was a sweet looking fixture but also almost 700 and I'd rather save some money for other things.

  6. #6
    CR Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Tampa, FL
    Posts
    142
    Awards Referral Award

    Default

    Oh yea!! Our icecap came in!!
    43a3ad4c d058 6259 - The JMAL Family 75g Adventure43a3ad4c d071 9a68 - The JMAL Family 75g Adventure43a3ad4c d084 1b77 - The JMAL Family 75g Adventure43a3ad4c d09d b85d - The JMAL Family 75g Adventure43a3ad4c d0af d79e - The JMAL Family 75g Adventure43a3ad4c d0c2 f670 - The JMAL Family 75g Adventure
    43a3ad4c d0ec 1a67 - The JMAL Family 75g Adventure

  7. #7
    ReeferRob - Reefkeeper CR Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2009
    Location
    CORAL CITY U.S.A
    Posts
    3,367
    First Name
    Rob
    Awards Photo of the Month

    Default

    Nice, you gonna suspend it from the ceiling or put it on legs? What did you select for bulbs?
    "We shouldn't think of an environment where livestock can survive, we should ensure an environment where livestock can thrive."-Rabidgoose
    "If it's gonna be that kinda party, Ima stick my ........ in the mashed potatoes!"-Beastie Boys

  8. #8
    CR Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Location
    Tampa, FL
    Posts
    142
    Awards Referral Award

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by ReeferRob View Post
    Nice, you gonna suspend it from the ceiling or put it on legs? What did you select for bulbs?
    Thanks man! We want to suspend it from the ceiling but we will see. I'm a lil worried cuz it's bright and it'll be right behind our sofa. I'm Hopin the tank will pull that light in. Lol. For bulbs we got all ati - 2blue+, 2aqua blue, 1 purple+, 1 true actinic. Hoping that set up will work well with growth and give us a sweet blue glow

  9. #9
    Wy Renegade - Reefkeeper CR Member
    Join Date
    Apr 2010
    Location
    Wyoming
    Posts
    604
    First Name
    Randy

    Default

    Nice! You should definitely get a good blue glow out of that bulb selection. You might want to try a daylight bulb at a later time to improve you growth.
    I collect PEs, and I'm always looking to trade for ones I don't have yet.

  10. #10
    iyachtuxivm - Reefkeeper CR Member
    Join Date
    Feb 2010
    Location
    Flint
    Posts
    618
    First Name
    Jamie

    Default

    Ohh man you are going to love those icecap leds. They make everything pop! Your bulb selection should be really nice. All though you may want to drop your actinic in favor of another blue+ down the line much more par
    "The beatings will continue until morale improves."

Page 1 of 7 1 2 3 ... Last

Similar Topics

  1. Mini Reef Aquarium
    (35g-90g)
    Poseidon's NEW Adventure!
    By Poseidon in forum Member's Reefs
    Replies: 413
    Last Post: 03-13-2017, 02:18 AM
  2. Mini Reef Aquarium
    (35g-90g)
    JMAL 2011 Tank Build
    By JMALACHI in forum Member's Reefs
    Replies: 11
    Last Post: 03-16-2011, 09:42 PM

Tags for this Thread

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

About CaptiveReefs

    If you are interested in learning about reefkeeping or have a problem with your reef, our reefkeeping community is here to help. Feel free to ask a question or search our site. We have lots of experienced reefkeepers that are willing to provide free reefkeeping advice!

    Besides being a great resource for all levels of reef aquarium hobbyists, CaptiveReefs is a social experience that will enhance your enjoyment of reefkeeping. CaptiveReefs is committed to connecting reefkeepers with the support and information they need to grow beautiful coral reef aquariums.

Information

Connect with Us