Islandoftiki

Hang on to your hats folks! Here we go! Equipment ready to be assembled! AC70: Media Basket in AC70: Next up, MP10!

By the way, the media basket is VERY nicely made. Laser cut, high quality. Worth $45 bucks? In my mind, yes. Some might disagree.

The media basket for the AC70 and submersible fuge light just arrived. 12V 10 Watt submersible halogen fuge light: I should get out of work a little early today, so I'll pick up sand on my way home and start assembling everything!

GSP's and zoas were open yesterday. No visible die-off on any of the rocks. Water parameters in the bucket are stable. If I can get out of work a little early, the tank should be set up tonight and I'll monitor it for a week or two to be sure everything goes well, then it's clean up crew time. GSP's Open:

GSP's and zoas were open yesterday. No visible die-off on any of the rocks. Water parameters in the bucket are stable. If I can get out of work a little early, the tank should be set up tonight and I'll monitor it for a week or two to be sure everything goes well, then it's clean up crew time. GSP's Open:

Well, not much happened with the tank today. It's been a whirlwind of activity at the fiance's house in preparation for me moving in. The garage is cleaned out, and we've nearly filled a 3 yard dumpster. We're working on cleaning out the basement right now, and are almost done. Tons of ads going up on craigslist for "treasures" that we no longer want or need. The live rock is sitting in a bucket with two small but powerful powerhead pumps to keep the water circulating, and my 25 Watt Hydor Theo that's going to take over the job of heating the Pico when I move the RKL to the 10 gallon tank. So far, the small colonies of zoas that came with the rock have opened. The GSP started to open, but I moved one of the powerheads and it decided that it was going to be pissy and close back up. It looks healthy though. I don't have any lighting on them at the moment, but they should be ok for a couple days with just a little ambient daylight. I just checked and no amonia, nitrite or nitrates in the bucket this evening. I'm hoping to avoid any die-off so the cycling of the tank goes quickly. Question: As there's probably not much bioload at the moment, should I throw in a bit of raw shrimp into the bucket to give it some ammonia to convert while I'm getting the tank set up over the next couple days or should I even worry about that? Maybe toss in a little bit of fish food? I'm hoping that I can get everything put together tomorrow and get the live rock into the tank. Here's a picture of the rock in the bucket. Exciting, I know!

Woohoo! I've got the live rock! Thanks to J-Dog, I have plenty of live rock for the tank from his established tank. I should have the tank wet by the end of the day tomorrow or Sunday if everything goes well. Hopefully the cycle will be fairly short. :-)

Alright, alright, I'm home. Here it is folks! First impression: It's very well made. Second impression: It's not only well made, but its extremely good looking. And here it is next to my 2 gallon tank. It's quite a bit larger. It's going to be amazing. I should be getting live rock tonight or tomorrow. :-)

It's killing me not to go unpack it right this very moment. I'd be surprised if it doesn't have water in it by the end of the night.

And so it begins! My tank and lights just arrived from Micro-Reefs.com this morning. I'll unpack it and take pictures when I get home from work.

It's interesting to see the vast majority of people on here preferring the Kent over the IO in the poll. Usually IO Reef Crystals beat out Kent in most polls. Looks like either one is a good option though. For those that chose Kent over IO, what is your reasoning and what is the application? Reef tank, FOWLR or other?

Yes. In fact, they went into bankruptcy liquidation. Which doesn't necessarily mean they're dead just yet. There are a number of large automakers interested in acquiring parts of the company. Time will tell. Not many of us in the Saab field hold out much hope, but it's not a done deal yet. It's too bad that GM ever got their grubby hands on Saab in the first place.

Ok, here goes... Here's the 1962 Mini that I restored in my teenage years. Sadly, I no longer have it, but some day I will have another classic Mini. It was crazy fast and drove like it was on rails. It was my daily driver for 3 or 4 years. For the past 16 years, I've been a professional Swedish car technician with Saabs being my main focus, but with Volvo also comprising a large part of what I do. This was my hot-rod Volvo 740 turbo. It had just about every imaginable performance modification you could get at the time... which was fairly extensive. I modified a Saab knock sensitive boost pressure controller to work with the Volvo's turbocharger. It had a rising rate fuel pressure regulator, performance cam and adjustable cam gear, big bore throttle body, 3" exhaust from turbo to tail including jet-hot coated header pipe. Transmission modified with a 2400 stall torque converter for a faster turbo spool-up. Poly bushings, Bilsteins, lowered, etc, etc, etc... Which brings me to my current hot-rod. A 2002 Saab 9-3. It came from the factory with 205 hp, and we did some custom software modifications to bring it up to around 230-240 hp. I've done some extensive suspension modifications to help control the torque steer from the massive torque to the front wheels. It's fun to drive, but a real handful. I really can't see putting any more power into a front wheel drive, so I've laid off the tweaking at this point, and I'd rather spend the money on my reef tanks! As I mentioned, I am a car person. I fix Swedish cars for a living. I am ASE Master Tech certified and also have my L1 Advanced level certification. I graduated from PCC with my Associate degree in Automotive Service Technology. Feel free to hit me up with car questions, but keep in mind that my specialty is in Volvos and Saabs. I'm always willing to give my opinion on things, and do have a lot of general knowledge. Prior to fixing Swedish cars, I did British car restoration work and have owned a 1962 Mini, a 1960 Bugeye Sprite, a 1967 MGB-GT, and a Rover TC-2000 sedan. Cheers! John