Tony
Staff member
Patience is KEY in this hobby, something that I don't have a lot of unfortunately lmao. But, I'm making it work. And it wil get to looking better.
Here is yet another update on this since a LOT is going on right now with the tank (and my bank account... UGH lol).
Right as I was going to sleep this morning I heard the UPS truck pull into my driveway. Out came this very short little guy from the big ass truck carrying two large boxes at the same time. It was quite funny and I may post the surveillance video of him coming up to the door lmao. But he brought us our tank controller, SOL Blue LED Lights and my skimmer. And WOW, what a skimmer!
Lets start with teh skimmer.
I pulled it out of the box and opened the next box that had the skimmer inside. This thing is about twice the size of my last one. It's HUGE. Reading the box, this skimmer is good for tanks from 140 gallons up to 208 gallons. I guess 209 gallons is just too big for it hahaha. I have no idea why they say 208, but they do. Either way, my tank is only a total of 100 gallons give or take a couple gallons, so this should work very nicely.
I had to move a LOT of things around in my sump just to get this monster to fit in there, but I got it in there. The water level in my sump is actually too high for it, but I thought I would just let it run and let it break in before I did the final setup on it. So I plugged it in and the bubbles started flowing. Less than 10 minutes later, it was producing foam and pulling the crap out of the tank like it should. After only 30 minutes, I had some great nasty brown/green crap in the cup. This is pulling stuff out of it that my last one took a day to pull. I'm loving this skimmer and for the price, you just can't beat it.
Then, I decided to test out the lights that we ordered. The AI SOL Blue's in a black housing. These things are great. Cooling fans built in, great reflectors and very small. Since I didn't order a mounting kit, I just sat them on top of my tank glass tops and plugged them in then shut off my old LED's. Let me tell you, the color change is amazing from one to another. These things make everything look great! adn best of all, I now have a second blue color that I can play with. The colors in the unit are blue, royal blue and white. The white is pretty yellow at 6000K (that's Kelvin, not K as in thousand). The total color temperature of the lights is somewhere around 20,000K with everything on. Some like the blue, some don't and get the SOL Whites that are more around the 12,000K-14,000K. I like the 20,000K myself, and I can always reduce the blue to get down to 14,000k if I wanted to.
Then I started playing around with the different settings. The lightning function is pretty cool as is the cloud cover. All of which happen on a real reef. I love that the lights will ramp up and down with the timer just like sun rise and sun set. There is a LOT more setup to do on the lights, but they are working.
Right after I put them on the tank and I held them up where I was going to mount them, the wife told me that we needed to order two more bricks and the mounting kit. OMG, this is going to kill us lmao. But, it will make the tank look great. So, I will be making another order for two more lights tonight.
I didn't get a chance before coming to work to test out the Apex Controller, but I"m sure it will work just fine. Can't wait to get it on there so that I can clean up under the tank a LOT and have complete control of everything. I will even be able to control the tank from right here at the base if I wanted to. Yes, it connects to the internet on a private network. I can even run a web cam if I wanted to lmao. But I will be setting this up this weekend. After I swap my 20's on my truck for a factory set of 16's that a guy is trading me.
The wife also purchased some Neon Green Mushrooms the other day, adn today she comes home with a HUGE rock with Green Striped Mushrooms, Red Mushrooms, and maybe some purple mushrooms on it. AND she came home with a Green Bubble Tip Anemone.
So the tank is coming together nicely. I just hope like hell my electric bill doesn't go through the roof. But, it's about 1/4 of what it would be with other lighting options such as T5's or Metal Halide's. And the LED's put out a LOT more light. My SPS corals are LOVING the new light as well. As soon as I turned them on, they opened up. It was great.
I will try to get more pictures this weekend with the lights on and everything open. As well as my sump before and after if I can remember.
Here is yet another update on this since a LOT is going on right now with the tank (and my bank account... UGH lol).
Right as I was going to sleep this morning I heard the UPS truck pull into my driveway. Out came this very short little guy from the big ass truck carrying two large boxes at the same time. It was quite funny and I may post the surveillance video of him coming up to the door lmao. But he brought us our tank controller, SOL Blue LED Lights and my skimmer. And WOW, what a skimmer!
Lets start with teh skimmer.
I pulled it out of the box and opened the next box that had the skimmer inside. This thing is about twice the size of my last one. It's HUGE. Reading the box, this skimmer is good for tanks from 140 gallons up to 208 gallons. I guess 209 gallons is just too big for it hahaha. I have no idea why they say 208, but they do. Either way, my tank is only a total of 100 gallons give or take a couple gallons, so this should work very nicely.
I had to move a LOT of things around in my sump just to get this monster to fit in there, but I got it in there. The water level in my sump is actually too high for it, but I thought I would just let it run and let it break in before I did the final setup on it. So I plugged it in and the bubbles started flowing. Less than 10 minutes later, it was producing foam and pulling the crap out of the tank like it should. After only 30 minutes, I had some great nasty brown/green crap in the cup. This is pulling stuff out of it that my last one took a day to pull. I'm loving this skimmer and for the price, you just can't beat it.
Then, I decided to test out the lights that we ordered. The AI SOL Blue's in a black housing. These things are great. Cooling fans built in, great reflectors and very small. Since I didn't order a mounting kit, I just sat them on top of my tank glass tops and plugged them in then shut off my old LED's. Let me tell you, the color change is amazing from one to another. These things make everything look great! adn best of all, I now have a second blue color that I can play with. The colors in the unit are blue, royal blue and white. The white is pretty yellow at 6000K (that's Kelvin, not K as in thousand). The total color temperature of the lights is somewhere around 20,000K with everything on. Some like the blue, some don't and get the SOL Whites that are more around the 12,000K-14,000K. I like the 20,000K myself, and I can always reduce the blue to get down to 14,000k if I wanted to.
Then I started playing around with the different settings. The lightning function is pretty cool as is the cloud cover. All of which happen on a real reef. I love that the lights will ramp up and down with the timer just like sun rise and sun set. There is a LOT more setup to do on the lights, but they are working.
Right after I put them on the tank and I held them up where I was going to mount them, the wife told me that we needed to order two more bricks and the mounting kit. OMG, this is going to kill us lmao. But, it will make the tank look great. So, I will be making another order for two more lights tonight.
I didn't get a chance before coming to work to test out the Apex Controller, but I"m sure it will work just fine. Can't wait to get it on there so that I can clean up under the tank a LOT and have complete control of everything. I will even be able to control the tank from right here at the base if I wanted to. Yes, it connects to the internet on a private network. I can even run a web cam if I wanted to lmao. But I will be setting this up this weekend. After I swap my 20's on my truck for a factory set of 16's that a guy is trading me.
The wife also purchased some Neon Green Mushrooms the other day, adn today she comes home with a HUGE rock with Green Striped Mushrooms, Red Mushrooms, and maybe some purple mushrooms on it. AND she came home with a Green Bubble Tip Anemone.
So the tank is coming together nicely. I just hope like hell my electric bill doesn't go through the roof. But, it's about 1/4 of what it would be with other lighting options such as T5's or Metal Halide's. And the LED's put out a LOT more light. My SPS corals are LOVING the new light as well. As soon as I turned them on, they opened up. It was great.
I will try to get more pictures this weekend with the lights on and everything open. As well as my sump before and after if I can remember.
