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Higher heights - 54L to 70L 'upgrade' rescape...

Blood sweat and tears :) I've chopped the internals out completely and bolted in the Arcadia dual-T8 controller bulb holders into the lid, then clipped the reflectors on to the bulbs. Pretty even coverage of light as the bulbs are spaced well, though space is tight - if I lift the flap for feeding I have to carefully drop the food past the reflector at the front.
 
Well, bargain of the century perhaps, was an Arcadia 2 x 24w T5 luminaire from eBay for £6! OK, it needs tubed, but even then and the faff of sorting collection, is well over £100 cheaper than one new!

I'm unsure if it'll work without too much glare in the room, nor if it may well be too much light, but time will tell, for the money it was worth a bid, almost feel guilty :)

Not sure which bulbs to fit yet, I'm tempted by one 880 Skywhite Osram and one Sylvania GroLux based on the article on here, though they're a bit more expensive than the Sylvania LuxLine which I currently have in the T8 version (if memory serves). LuxLines are £3 each vs. almost £10 each for the other ones.
 
I'm going to replace my hood with the beamswork led 24" unit. Be interesting to see how the tanks compare although mine is the 30cm deep. Good ebay buy!
 
I am curious on those, however the wattage seems very low - not a bad thing always though! I'll be keen to see how you get on with the Beamworks unit :)
 
Reading about the place and on reefer forums the consensus is that they're bright enough to allow you to look into the tank but not to grow anything, some people are suggesting not even bright enough for plants.

You got a right bargain on that over tank! Jealous.
 
Really nice so far. As stated before it needs a little more sloping. When water goes into the tank the length from front to back looks a lot shorter than it is. Sloping the gravel counters that.
52848bf5-83ee-2746.jpg
 
More than I already added in the last photo's?
 
Last picture didn't load so I'll repost it. This my next scape I'm working on.
5284f5e5-7274-a036.jpg

And I still think I could slope it more. I made the mistake of having it almost flat in my last scape and ive never been happy with it.
 
tim said:
think it looks good as is mate if anything id flaten out the left side at the back for more focus on the wood

I have a crypt to go there, it should stay a good bit lower and less densely planted than the wood/left hand side...at least that's the plan :)
 
Did a brief visual test on the CO2 bubbles distribution with the spray bar and the overall flow appears to keep the tiny bubbles in suspension for ages - the water flow moves across the surface, down the front glass, along the substrate then back up again, where it is caught by the spray bar flow again. I have a second TetraTec EX600 spray bar kit due this week so I can span almost the entire width of the tank which should give a nice even flow :) Already, the CO2 mist is visible all over the water column.

I'm hoping that I no longer need to use the Koralia Nano 900 I had in my old setup, which whilst giving rather good flow, it buffeted everything far too much - to the extent that once the CO2/Koralia went off with the timer, the fish all came out from hiding. I'm also going to guess that I may be able to reduce the CO2 bubble count a touch as well, as the bubbles stay in the water column for much longer. There is a slight build up of CO2 at the end of the spray bar but it pushes out every few minutes, hopefully nothing to worry about and may give a mild 'reactor' effect.
 
Postie will be busy this week, by the time they deliver the plants (despatched today, cheers AE!), the luminaire, the T5 tubes for said luminaire and a second spray bar kit for the filter so it will stretch the full length of the tank.

I'm guessing Thursday for the plants, though it could be tomorrow - T5's likely tomorrow, luminaire Thursday providing the courier collection goes well - the seller messaged me to say one of the light holders was cracked, but I am confident it'll be a job for some super glue - gives me a chance to try and see if I can get to the ballast to determine if it will run 2 x 14w T5NO's as opposed to the 2 x 24w T5HO's it is specified for. If it won't run the NO's then I am going to see if I can remove/blank off the reflectors as that should have a decent impact on light output - I feel 48w of T5 over a tank this size is overkill, but £6 for the luminaire was hard to pass on, even with £10 on tubes and £11 on a courier - retail is £150+, cost me £27 so far!

Itching to get the plants in, as then I'm closer to some fish - a tank seems so empty and wrong with no flora or fauna - I will likely go for 5-6 oto's at first, then add some bumble bee shrimp, there's an eBay seller doing 8 for £16 delivered which is cheaper than buying cherries etc. at the LFS :)
 
Luminaire is here, cracked holders repaired though no bulbs yet - despatched from LampSpecs on Tuesday but nothing here so far - rang them to check and they confirmed despatch on Tuesday by Royal Mail first class. I'd have assumed they'd be here by now, given AE sent my plants on the same day at a lower postage class and they're here...time will tell. For now I've put the old hood back on with the T8's.

Plants all in, I'll get some shots up soon!
 
Still waiting for the bulbs - I just missed a Royal Mail parcel today which I presume is the said items :)

A bit of a trek around the LFS today to find some oto's which resulted in 6 being added this afternoon - rather active little blighters, plenty of pooping going on so I'm happy they've settled in OK!

I also appear to have a good number of insect larvae moving around - I am assuming they're larvae, they look like this:

a2_wp3.jpg


Image above taken from:

http://acesap.fem-environment.eu/activi ... ironments/

They are the closest likeness I can find - they can move around the substrate, wood, plants OK etc. but in the water column they are useless, just wiggle a bit until they can get a grab on something. No idea if they came in on the wood which I had standing outside for a while soaking in a bucket or if a fly has been in the house, I'm going for the wood outside thing. They'll either sort themselves out or be eaten if I add some more fish before they turn into whatever they're supposed to! Can't think they came in on the plants as there were no signs of them in the water I rinsed them all in.

The spray bar has been lengthened and stretches the whole tank back now, giving a nice gentle ripple across the surface and blows the CO2 mist all over the tank in the expected pattern. Once the luminaire is on I'll post some shots up :)
 
Think my oto's have suffered from the seemingly common die-off of new ones...2 down overnight, one looking not too good this evening, the other three happy as Larry with good colour, plenty of munching and some nibbling of the blanched cucumber...
 
Kind of, the filter isn't new, one of them looked less than good when I got home, colouration all grey with poor fin condition too.
 
its a shame, great fish. how long did you acclimate them?
 
They got 40 minutes in the bag, adding a little aquarium water every 5 minutes, usual routine.
 
4 oto's going strong, the one I thought was looking dodgy has coloured up and seems to be back with the pack :)

Luminaire is working too, bulbs in this evening - it doesn't seem that much brighter in the tank than the twin T8's, probably a mix between the white reflector used in the luminaire vs. the mirrored ones from the T8's and also that the T8's sat ~2" or less above the water in the Juwel hood, the T5's are at least twice that.

Water change night then I'll see about getting some updated photos :)
 
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