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John's 10 Gallon Custom Acrylic tank build!


Islandoftiki

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Alright, alright, I'm home.

 

Here it is folks!

First impression: It's very well made.

8BE68E30.jpg

 

WOW... thats a potters wheel next to the tank!! Cool!! My second love that I have no room for!! I love it!!!

 

Nice looking tank too!

 

Coming along very nicely!

 

Beth

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Hammer and wood chisel just made that large rock on the left a little smaller. Wood chisel ruined--well, it's now officially a rock chisel. Fair trade, IMO.

 

D41DF050.jpg

 

Water is up to temp and holding steady at 77.6 degrees on a temporary Hydor theo 25 watt heater that will eventually take over heating in the 2 gallon pico when I disconnect it from the RKL.

 

So far, I'm really happy with everything. There's plenty of tweaking to be done, but this is a good start. Water flow in the tank is amazing and I haven't even messed with any of the special functions of the MP10 yet. I just put a ball of chaeto from my 2 gallon into the AC70 and filled the first chamber with filter floss. No chemical filtration yet. I added some Nite-Out nitrifying bacteria. Probably not necessary, but I'm pretty sure it can't hurt.

 

By the way, the sand bed is non-live medium-coarse aragonite about 1-1.5" thick. I'll probably steal a couple tablespoons of sand from my 2 gallon to help seed it just for fun.

 

As for lighting, this one is getting a 24" T5 HO fixture with separately controllable daylight, actinic and moonlights. Might add some LED's... we'll see. Lights are off for the next couple days.

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You might be able to save your chisel if it is worth it. A good sharpening will get it back to spec. I have chiseled things that weren't wood with my wood chisels and put them to a sharpening stone afterwards and you wouldn't know the difference. These days I use a large flat head screwdriver. I just can't get around to buying a cold chisel for some reason.

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You can put the Vortech into a short pulse mode and if you get the length of the pulse right for the size of the tank, you'll get a wave type of water flow in your tank. Apparently corals and fish LOVE this. We shal see.

 

The zoas and GPS I got on your live rock are very pleased with the new digs!

 

874AD0F8.jpg

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Looking great!! I always love setting up a new tank, i swear i get that itch like every month and seeing pics like this makes it worse! (laugh)

 

I use 2 MP10s on my 60gal cube and they do great. Here is a quick video that shows the wave i had going for awhile

 

th_100_3641.jpg

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Looking great!! I always love setting up a new tank, i swear i get that itch like every month and seeing pics like this makes it worse! (laugh)

 

I use 2 MP10s on my 60gal cube and they do great. Here is a quick video that shows the wave i had going for awhile

 

th_100_3641.jpg

 

Am I supposed to be seeing a wave in your video? I don't even see the Vortech's....am I missing something? (scratch)

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I've been reading up a little on this, and it seems like the prevailing wisdom is that you don't necessarily want full-on waves...

 

Both pulsing modes are probably the most useful. Short pulse is capable of creating waves in appropriately sized tanks, but it should not be tuned this way. The key in pulsing modes success is the fact that it gives large amounts of osculating flow then a break in between. If timed right the undertow during the break from flow can help to buffer corals from the backside and keep them from being damaged by too much flow from the front side. This is the best setting for a mixed reef because it can provide high flow for SPS corals without damaging LPS and soft corals.

 

Full Article: http://www.3reef.com/forums/filters-pumps-etc/elite-reef-vortech-mp10-review-103845.html

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oh man (icon) you vortech guys make me jealous

 

I know they're crazy expensive, but probably worth the investment in the long run. If I upgrade to a bigger tank, I can move it to the next tank--up to about 50 gallons if I recall. Plus, it should make the corals much happier, and over the life of the tank, you'll probably spend more on corals than you will on the Vortech. And if your corals are really happy, they'll grow faster, you can frag them and sell them to pay for your Vortech. Plus, in a 10 gallon tank, there isn't room for a bunch of big ugly powerheads, so this just seemed like the right choice even though I didn't like spending that much on it.

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