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

[SynDen]

Did a major clean out of the macro/mangrove tank. Trimmed the mangrove down a bunch and cleaned out a 3g bucket worth of caulerpa. The mangrove had gotten to where I almost couldnt see the light anymore, it was all wrapped around it and covered about 90%. Looks much better now. Thinking though that I might want to consider mounting some light up in the rafters so I can give it a bit more room to grow as the light above it now is as high as I can make it. Of course would eventually have the same issue again with it growing up into and around the lights. Will have to think about it


Also finally finished printing my Dosing stand. Just need to get some ridged tubing and finally put this to work and stop manually dosing stuff.

 

[TheRealChrisBrown]

Sexy doser!

 

[SynDen]

Sexy doser!

Haha ya, I wonder where I got it from.
But ya it been sitting in the box all this time, as I couldn't figure out where I was going to mount it, so about time I actually put it to use

 

[Smiley]

just wow..... ive never seen anyone sand their tank like that... your arms must be freakin huge! tank looks great! that mangrove is pretty dope for sure.

 

[SynDen]

just wow..... ive never seen anyone sand their tank like that... your arms must be freakin huge! tank looks great! that mangrove is pretty dope for sure.

Thanks Fred. Longtime... how are you doing?

 

[Smiley]

im doing good man..its been a hard few years dealing with custody and everything...im excited to be back and back into reefing...

 

[SynDen]

So added in some socks Let me just say though, that I absolutely despise filter socks, but these things are a game changer. If you haven't seen these, they are new product for Rocky Mountain Fish Filter Company. https://rocky-mountain-fish-filter-company.myshopify.com/products/complete-set
Reusable and easy to clean. Just pull them out, unscrew the bottom on them to loosen the rings and then rinse them out. Take about a month or so to break in, but these should help a lot with capturing a lot of that floating detritus and mulm.

 

[SynDen]

Newest addition to the tank. Been looking for a healthy one for years and finally found one.

 

[N1tew0lf1212]

Newest addition to the tank. Been looking for a healthy one for years and finally found one.
View attachment 1348

Dream fish right here where did you snag it from?

 

[SynDen]

Dream fish right here where did you snag it from?

Ya, I have wanted one for ages. Got it from a fellow hobbyist who is taking a break from the hobby, and had him for more then a year. He is eating well and not shy at all. So far he has been eating flake, pellet and frozen. So kind of a unicorn imo

 

[SynDen]

Cleaned the new "socks" this weekend and took a few pic of the gunk they collected over the week which shows their effectiveness pretty well I think.
Around the outside of each was a lot of the bigger particulates as you can tell. And between each ring their was a fair amount of finer particulates. Overall very pleased with these so far.

 

[SynDen]

Newest addition to the tank. Been looking for a healthy one for years and finally found one.
View attachment 1348

Well this little bastard has turned into a coral eater...dammit...So far he seems to like my chalices and pectinias. Not sure what I want to do about it really. Leave him be, or rehome him? Defiantly turned into one of my favorite fish. He has great personality and very healthy, but already done a fair amount of damage to several corals

 

[N1tew0lf1212]

Well this little bastard has turned into a coral eater...dammit...So far he seems to like my chalices and pectinias. Not sure what I want to do about it really. Leave him be, or rehome him? Defiantly turned into one of my favorite fish. He has great personality and very healthy, but already done a fair amount of damage to several corals

Man thats tough and gotta say if i were in your shoes I would score a tank for him in a heartbeat to keep em. Also could grab a few other fish that you can't keep in a reef. Hope it turms around. Do you think it might be a diet issue? Maybe lacking in something so he is nipping? I see people with them in reef tanks and there has got to be a way to keep em at bay. Having a similar issue with our valentini puffer likes acros and nips the new buddings. If i keep him fed with clams on a half shell it diminishes quite a bit but still notice it every once in a while.

 

[SynDen]

He gets fed 3-4 times a day and a variety of different food including nori, meaty frozen, spirulina flake, Mysis flake, and tdo chroma pellets. He is quite the voracious eater and eats pretty much anything I throw in the tank. He just also really seems to like LPS coral too and since my tank is like 70% LPS its like a candy store to him. I ordered a trap and he will be coming out soon.
Going to put him in my macro/mangrove tank. He will likely eat all the macros in there too but I can deal with that much easier then him eat 1000s in LPS coral

 

[SynDen]

Had one of my T5 fixtures go out the other day. This fixture is the one I had over the mangrove tree and one I got from Premier many years ago for super cheap. When I got it had 1 ballast out but 4 bulbs still worked, so I used it as is. But last week all the ballasts on it went dead and it would no longer turn on. Luckily T5 ballasts are fairly cheap and super easy to change out.
The fixture had generic Universal ballasts in it but I replaced them with better HEP ballasts. The Hep ballast is slightly taller then the universals but they still fit in just fine with no issue. Wiring was all the same so it was a simple job to switch.
I opted to go ahead and put new bulbs in it too and went with some Giessmann Super Flora bulbs



After getting it all put back together the fixture fired right up with no issues. I even fixed the internal fans, so its basically running like a brand new fixture

 

[scmountain]

Syn, those filters look like they can be printed.... are you making your own yet?

 

[SynDen]

Syn, those filters look like they can be printed.... are you making your own yet?

The frame could be printed sure, but I don't think you could print the rings. The ridges on the rings are to small for most printers to handle I think. They also likely wouldnt be as durable or easy to wash if they were printed.
Either way the 4 I have work great. They just get a quick rinse once a week and they always take out a considerable amount of stuff each time.