49 Year Old Tank

Now the system is 100% done. I installed a pulley system that raises the LED fixture about a foot so it goes out of the way for maintenance. I just have to slightly tough it and it rises. The plastic container (counterweight) is filled with lead shot.
I love this stuff.
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I am happy to say that my reef is 5 degrees cooler than it should be for this time of the year. Outside it is almost 100 degrees and my tank usually runs about 87 degrees in the summer which is a little hot.
Now the tank is a comfortable 82 degrees which is fine.
The LEDs emit just about zero heat and you can put your hand right on the lenses without feeling anything.
 
Nice work Paul, can see you love doing all this stuff. :)

Would be nice to see some growth rates on one or two corals over the next few months under the LED's.
 
I re-designed my algae trough this morning. I thought my LED lights would supply enough light to the trough but they were not positioned enough above it so the hair algae in the trough died in a week. I bought a 4' strip of waterproof LEDs and mounted them about 2" above the trough where they illuminate it very brightly for practically free.
It took a while removing the screen from the trough as it was full of brittle stars and amphipods and I didn't want to lose any so I had to pick them out betwen the tube worms that grow all over the trough bottom.
You can make out the strip of LEDs here but I should have shut them off to take the picture as they wash out the photo.
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Here it is with the tank lights out
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I can't believe one of my powerheads croaked. Right after I wrote that I never changed a powerhead. What a piece of junk, it is only about 20 years old. I wonder if I still have the receipt. It started tripping the GFI then it completely died with no power going to the coils at all. I may have to autopsy it.
It was made by Christopher Columbus Powerhead company and came in a wooden box.
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An autopsy of the powerhead revealed that from the armature being so off center for so many years it had eaten a hole into the plastic that surrounds the magnetic armature exposing the coils of the stator. I could probably repair it depending on how severe the damage is but I already have a new pump and I think I got my money's worth out of this one.
 
Haha Paul, good sense of humour. :)

You seem to be a master of DIY, maybe you can help me out a bit. I have been trying to make some diy brackets to hang over the edge of my sump, I have been using acrylic and then heating it up with a heat gun then bending it into a square shape over a piece of wood, however it is then extremely brittle and snaps off with just a small amount of force applied, it is 5mm acrylic (5mm=0.2 inches). I was wondering if my method is wrong or if I should rather use polypropylene or polycarbonate (lexan), any idea's? Thanks.
 
I don't know why it is brittle, I do it all the time but I usually use 1/4" Acrylic. What you are using is pretty thin. Are you heating it enough so it bends easily and not forcing it? If you don't get sufficient heat the bent part will be under a lot of stress, heating it through re arranges the molecules and it is just like a new piece of acrylic.
 
To update my tank, for the last 4 weeks I have been adding some SPS corals because I changed the lighting to LEDs and increased the circulation.
I have some nice montipora's and some acropora. The monti's actually have been growing nicely for almost a year so I added more. The acropora's look good but it is too soon to see if they will grow in my rather "natural" tank. Many years ago it was all SPS but I liked LPS better so I had mostly those. I still like LPS better and don't like mixing all of this but I want to see what happens. Gorgonians seem to grow wild in the tank so they predominate.
This monti grew from a tiny frag that broke off the main piece. It quadrupled in size in less than a year.
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There are two of these, this one and a green one. I don't know the name and am too lazy to look it up but they have been growing for a couple of years also.
I only posted this because quite a few people said to me that SPS will not live in my tank because of my limited water changes and slightly "dirtier" conditions than many tanks
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Today I added some more acropora that I got for a good price. Now the tank has about half LPS and Half SPS. Well maybe 3/4 LPS, I don't know but I made a mistake tonight. I am diatoming the tank like I do occasionally and there must be a hole in the bag in the diatom filter so there is diatom powder all over the tank.
I just told the corals it is "Marine Snow" so they don't freak out. Now I have to take the thing apart and make a new bag. I have three of these filters and between all of them I can make one decent one. They are a horrible design and the engineer that designed them should be smacked. They are real bad in saltwater, they rust and they shock you also. I love designing and building things and I hate to see such a badly designed piece of machinery. I use them because the end product is what I am looking for and they have very good preasure, when they do not stall, over heat or just rust away.
Today I used it to blow preasurised water down the UG filter tubes, there is a lot of smutz under there. That is a polite word for detritus.
When (and if) I get time I will build my own diatom that will work much better than these things.
With my reverse UG set up I need something to stir up the gravel and canister filters don't have enough umph.
 
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Just a question, your candy cane in this pic looks swollen, do you know why. The reason I ask is that I have one and it was in terrible condition when I got it but lately is seems to be recovering. I think it swells up like that in an attempt to grow it's skin over the skeleton, can this be the reason?
When I got it. Bad pic but you get the idea.
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Swollen up.
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My Candy canes just ate which is why they look like that. I sometimes soak pellets in fish oil and feed it to them, you can see one of the pellets in the picture.
They get like that after they eat. I am not sure why yours look like that but they look kind of good. Have you been feeding them?
If they stay like that all the time I would imagine something is wrong because they need to open up to catch food, and light. I can't tell from here.
Paul
 
Thanks Paul, I do target feed them, and no they look like this in the morning.
I was wondering if I could use this in my tank.
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Paul, your a nutcase :thumbup: i always enjoy your updates and at the same time im learning something. oh and its real pleasure having you here on MASA!
Try and teach your corals to say Uncle :)
 
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Where can i get this in Cape Town RSA?

Seabass said:
Thanks Paul, I do target feed them, and no they look like this in the morning.
I was wondering if I could use this in my tank.
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Click to expand...
 
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