Blog Comments

You could use foam board and affix it to the back of the tank with velcro. I've considering doing that with mine, painting it black.

Another member said he draws a curtain behind the tank. He can see through the curtain a little from behind because the tank is well lit, but can pull it out of the way when desired.

Absolutely beautiful, blennyman!!

very nice blennyman beautiful stuff

Thanks Cyano. You know, I started that montipora cap with a 4"x4" frag I purchased from a gentleman at a MASC frag swap for $5 about 8 months ago. I remember him having about 10 such sized frags from his main tank and a comment that went something like "Get this out of my tank - it has reached plague proportions!" It was a slow grower for me until I added my Ca reactor and now it's by far the fastest growing stony in my tank - really sucks the calcium out of the water. All of the shelves you see are new growth.

very nice, I love the Montipora Cap, I am a huge fan of the way those grow but mine grows so slow that I will probably be dead when it actually does something worth looking at how long have you had that one and what it it's growth rate? love the close up fish shots, i know that is not easy

I do not know or have heard of anyone doing that but you probably wouldn't have too much trouble pulling it off with a big pull down blind (like the type that don't let light through the window) paint it black or find one that color and its spring loaded so it will stay up and lock down easy when you need it to

hey send one of those my way! haha

I really like to see people build their stands with something other than the normal plywood, etc that you see everywhere

Thanks so much! Hickory is one of my favorites.

Welcome to RA Bryan! Look forward to seeing pictures of your setup

really nice like your choice of wood!!

FoCo. I've been to a few MASC get togethers - frag swaps and the like. I think they do the one at the budwiser event center - and they may have had the big one at the aquarium down in Denver a couple years back.

Reef angel is good if you have some C/C++ experience. The appeal for me was the ability to ramp up/dn my LED whites and blues separately and program it how I want. You can also use it as: pH protection for your Ca reactor solenoid, a rudimentary wavemaker if you have the proper powerheads, temp protection from your heaters, water level sensing, etc. It's fairly inexpensive and has a good support community with a reasonable codebase. It's not without its problems. the LED screen on mine is subject to interference so if I have a power cord too close, it will go black and need a reboot. I also wish there were more pwm ports - I had to multiplex mine by using a relay I picked up at the local radioshack. I also fused one of the relays together by gating on/off a couple of meanwell drivers. I'll chalk that one up to pilot error. If you are looking for an out of box solution that's fairly well polished, I'd probably look elsewhere - but if you have some patience, like to tinker, and want everything controlled just the way you like it, the Reef Angel might be a good option for you.

Bryan, where in northern co? I was in cheyenne for 6 years and part of MASC for 2 before moving to California.

That's pretty unique with using the hart wood and sap wood. I made a thick butchers block out of the same stuff. Very tough wood though. It really did a number o work my plainer and jointer. Looks really good.

What are your thoughts on the reef angel controller?

RA sure is growing! welcome Bryan !

Yes - that's my only complaint about the skimmer - I can't just go to Lowe's to get plumbing parts. I also wish the exhaust was a bit taller. I guess if I was looking for a custom skimmer, I should have made one myself. Boy, that's a lot of flow if you need to 'kick start' it. Are you worried at all about a power outage? I guess so long as you have your air intake sufficiently above the water line, you're OK. ...just lose the skimming ability until you re-start. I think I paid a similar amount for my skimmer a year ago - some crazy sale at saltysupply.

Yea I am going to do the gate valve also not a fan of the stand pipe adjuster that come on it way to touchy, also think that the out put could have been 2 or 3 in higher so im going to order a new metric union with the gate valve and try that the adjust on it now I have to keep almost completely closed and I have enough flow that I have to blow into the air intake to get it started. But its build like a tank and coralvue is good about customer service will diffidently continue to do business with them, I got mine new for 520 dollar from reef specialty was a great deal for that size ext skimmer

yeah - I meant bubble blaster. Mine had the overheating problem as well - talked to Jeremy at Coralvue and he took care of me. I sent my Askol back and got the bubble blaster which I think is hands down the better pump. More air bubbles and less power consumed. I started off with a used coralife super skimmer so you can imagine how pleased I am with the hurricone. Super skimmers aren't worth the plastic they're made of. I also did the gate valve mod on the output of the 2e, so it's quite precise on water level now. The 2e is now almost set and forget - and I get a lot of gunky skimmate - and the algae growth has gone from big problem to tolerable nuisance, even with a much denser bio-load.