Syn's 850g.t.v Deep Brain system

[JuanGutz]

Looks great! I’ve always wanted a sea swirl, what’s the ocean motion though?

 

[SynDen]

https://www.oceansmotions.com/
Its basically a a 4-way cylinder that splits the flow on the closed loop, and it has a rotating drum inside that turns the flow on an off for one of the jets. The alternating flow and pressure helps create a more natural randomized flow pattern

 

[MuralReef]

Looks awesome buddy!


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[SynDen]

Time for a photo video dump.
Tank has been doing pretty good lately. Finally got the sandbed cleared up and looking like white sand instead of green and red lol.
I did recently add in 2 new sunburst anthias, but sadly I have not seen them since adding them. They did great in QT and no issues there, so Sstill hopeful they will show up at some point.

 

[SynDen]

Video on FB. https://www.facebook.com/angel.trud...7&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic&ref=notif

 

[rajah]

Looking good! That space invader pectinia is sweet. I picked up a small piece recently and can't wait to see it grow that big...

 

[SynDen]

Thanks. That one has been doing really well lately, as is the Rainbow pectinia in there (although its harder to see since its on one of the ends of the arch. ) Got the SI piece from @halmus a while back, and its been growing quite well since.

 

[SynDen]

Switching up my feed a bit. I still run pellets on an auto feeder, but trying more flake instead of frozen as a supplement to the pellets. Evan from Reefbuilders turned me on to this stuff from Brine Shrimp Direct. These flakes are what flake food should look like. These flakes are giant and certainly not your standard flake food. I have never had much luck with flakes before, but my fish go nuts for these. Highly recommend.

 

[flagg37]

Switching up my feed a bit. I still run pellets on an auto feeder, but trying more flake instead of frozen as a supplement to the pellets. Evan from Reefbuilders turned me on to this stuff from Brine Shrimp Direct. These flakes are what flake food should look like. These flakes are giant and certainly not your standard flake food. I have never had much luck with flakes before, but my fish go nuts for these. Highly recommend.
View attachment 361 View attachment 362

Interesting, let me know how they do on your po4. That’s the biggest reason I do frozen food. There’s a fraction of the po4.

 

[jda123]

When you take the water out of the different kinds of foods, the po4, protein, etc all end up being about the same, or roughly the same. If you don't rinse frozen food, then the "juice" can add things that you don't really need unless you have NPS and dry food can be a bit better. Pellets are a great way to get lots of protein, fatty acids and vitamins to fish that are harder to get in frozen foods unless you feed a large variety including brains, guts, etc. If you think of phosphate as a building block, it is there in relatively equal amounts in all food that can also be used to build tissue, so if your po4 stays low with frozen, your fish are also getting less of protein, fat, etc. too and lots of water.

Brine Shrimp Direct is underrated, IMO. Their Caribbean mix and mysis by the kilo are a staple at my house. NLS is still my go-to pellet although when I use my the 10 pounds that I have left, I might look at some others. Spirulina in flakes are far superior to Nori, IMO, although this is just based on my own experiences and anecdotes. I love this place.

 

[SynDen]

Ya I love Brine Shrimp Directs stuff. Wish the cost of shipping frozen wasnt so high though. Only worth it really if you ship a lot at once. Speaking of which, I may look into doing a group buy of their frozen food here in the next few months so that we can get a bigger order and cut down the cost of shipping a bit.

 

[jda123]

If you call them, it is usually around $20-30 in the winter for a larger box. The website calculates way too much. 2-3 day ground from Salt Lake City to here works fine on Dry Ice in the winter time. ALWAYS call them instead of using the website. The last few times that Scott and I ordered, there was dry ice left after the 3 day shipping and the stuff was still rock solid - the box that I got was so cold that I had to use gloves to put the flats into the fridge for fear of my skin getting damaged.

 

[SynDen]

If you call them, it is usually around $20-30 in the winter for a larger box. The website calculates way too much. 2-3 day ground from Salt Lake City to here works fine on Dry Ice in the winter time. ALWAYS call them instead of using the website. The last few times that Scott and I ordered, there was dry ice left after the 3 day shipping and the stuff was still rock solid - the box that I got was so cold that I had to use gloves to put the flats into the fridge for fear of my skin getting damaged.

That is good to know. Thanks

 

[SynDen]

Cleaned up the tank before I go on vacation to Japan, so figured I would shoot a little video of it since it was looking so good.

 

[JodiI]

Looks awesome!


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[SynDen]

Updated my lights finally. Did away with the 3x 150w mh fixture and replaced with 3 250w MH. Also finally put up the other 3 Nicobars I have had for ages and put them on a dimmer. I also made new canopy panels to hide all the lights and wires above the tank. They are real simple panels with 1/4" plywood and just made to sit on the top of the tank. Been meaning to add those for years and I think they make for a big change to the look and feel of the tank as a whole.

Moved some corals around and also mounted all the coral frags I have had piling up in the corner for some time. BTA decided to go for a walk recently and walked right into my euphillya garden so had to move a bunch of those to keep it from killing the hammer and frogspawns.

Diamond goby freaked out when I was moving corals and then promptly disappeared so sadly going to have to find a new sand sifter soon. Its about time for more fish in the tank anyway.

 

[SynDen]

My year end task.... Resurface the inside of my tank to remove scratches that have built up over the last few years. Kind of a scary task at first but looks so much better once you finish a section. General process; Using a wet automotive sandpaper. I start at a 240 grit paper and work up in stages to 10000 grit. I am using some t-squares taped to the panels to mark my section edges. Then I start sanding. I stick to a pattern of doing 2 time horizontally and then 2x vertically with each grit, except the first, I do a few more passes with the first grit just to be sure the scratches are even out and original scratches are gone.

Some of the scratches before the process


I made small pads for each grit that fit on my Tiger Shark Magnetic Cleaner. I just super glued a small piece of each paper to a piece of old tank cleaning rag.


Tried out the process on the smaller side section first and it turned out great. So now on to the larger panels


So on to the first of the big panels. I am dividing the panels up into 3 sections and doing about 1 section at a time. This is the first round with the 240 grit


About half way through


All finished


On to the next section now. Will post final shots once I finish both main panels

This the sandpaper I am using if anyone else needs to do this
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B089GLG3RJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

And you just sand right in the tank with the various different papers, no need to drain it? For some reason I thought people drained the tank and used cerium oxide

 

[SynDen]

ya, no need to drain the tank for this. Works fine with all the water in it. The oxide stuff is for glass, and that would need to drain the tank for, but this is acrylic so dont need any special compounds or anything, just some sandpaper and elbow grease

 

[JodiI]

Excellent progress!


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