On freshwater experiance:

I kept planted freshwater tanks for a long time. While that experiance helped, Salt is a completly different beast. If you can't toss out things you learned in freshwater, salt is going to go poorly for you.

Read a lot, talk to other GIRS members, and above all else do things slowly. In salt, it seems to me slower than watching molasses drip in January in Maine is the way to go. Let that life get adjusted for a couple of months between each addition, and things will go better.

And the most important thing of all for keeping a saltwater tank:

Join GIRS.

I have made my membership dues over and over and over again just on the raffles at the fests. Now add in the experts GIRS allowed me to talk to (Anthony freaking Calfo, among others), the immediate advice available from other members, the frag trading (often free if you are a member and not a putz), and the wealth of knowledge that other members have by making mistakes that you won't have to repeat (at &%%#^ huge $$$ to you) and that $20 is money so well spent it isn't funny.

Add in that I have met people that I don't think are drooling morons (a rarity in my experiance) who had good advice based on personal experiance....

Just join. I promise it will be worth it.

Posted By Strong on 09/13/2010 03:21 PM
so ya, do you plan on going swimming any time you want to get something off of the bottom or move something?

Tank looks kidna dumb in the sense that you have zero access to the bottom half and light penetrations will be very little.

Good luck tho.

Yep!  100% right.  Getting to the bottom of the tank is possible using aquatongs, (which I have used to move rock about); but it is silly to think I will be able to work in the bottom half of the tank.

The tank was originally intended to go into a resteraunt, and I have to assume it was intended to be a FOWLR.

Since I enjoy a challenge, and the price was seriously right on the tank, away we go .

I do have full SCUBA equipment (my wife and I are both divers) and I made sure that I have room to get in all the way to the bottom if needed while a regulator is in my mouth, I don't expect to do that too often.  (and yes, our regs work upside down.) The bottom half is planned for zoa's and palys, and will mostly be on its own.

Had money been no object, I would have bought the same tank on it's side.  Anyone wishing to contribute to a disabled Veteran purchasing a custom tank of this size, I'll send ya a paypal address .  As it is, I had to work with the cash I have, and I got this tank because it was turned down by the original purchaser... I simply couldn't afford something like this otherwise, so I'm winging this sucker .

on the Ice cap light fixture:

Not trying to grow anything under it yet, so more to come.

Currently, the LED tubes are way massive cool. I worry the 2 t-5's are not enough, even with the 250 MH added in. The fixture is short for my 5' tank, and hanging options went out the door when I realized that the previous owner of my home did not tack up the "barn panelling" to the joists. That makes it a long shot into a solid mounting point, so for set up purposes I have the legs attached to a small 1"X2" board.

The Blue LED's tho are a thing of great awesomeness. At night, I can read in the room they are in. While there is no life in the tank yet, I can see amazing detail, and am real happy with the look. Only time will tell if I made the right decision between MH and LED's, but I plan on having fun seeing what happens.

Hey at least you know how to program the apex now. I just bought one so now i know who to call lol.

This has been an enjoyable thread so far. I think that the complications of such a deep tank you're dealing with right now will be worth it after everything is established and running. Your fish will have a ridiculous amount of room to swim which will make the tank watchable for hours on end - and isn't that the point after all! Everything seems to be coming along nicely. The aquascapping looks pretty good, and I think it will look great after stuff starts to grow in.

I think you're spot on when it comes to saltwater, the slower the better. Just when you think you can't be any more slow and patient with your progress - slow it down a bit. I've had my tank up and running for a couple years now and I still consider myself a complete newbie! The only comment I would have to make is start planning now for eventually adding SPS. It makes a lot of sense to start with softies and some easy LPS but your success and enjoyment in keeping both will eventually drive you to take it up a notch. Plan for that day now and it won't be too much of a pain (or expense) when it arrives. Sounds like the most important thing you'll need to consider is where to place it. Might think about reserving some space up high for just that purpose.

Again, this is an awesome thread so far. Keep up the good work and best of luck!

Posted By fmsill on 09/13/2010 10:31 PM
Hey at least you know how to program the apex now. I just bought one so now i know who to call lol.

Happy to help .

That manual that comes with it is terrible; get the unoffical users guide and your life will be easier.

I poked at it for a couple of days, and once I realized it was mostly if statements that reminded me of basic programming, it went real easy after that.
The profiles threw me for a bit until I set up the Tunze powerheads...by sticking my hand in front of the powerhead with different set ups, it made sense real fast.

Here is the link for the unoffical manual:

reeftech.webs.com/Apex New Users Guide.pdf

Oh yeah, if you have a dc8, after you add it in modules, it won't show in the list of modules...but the outlets show up in the outlet programming section.  It took me some time to figure that out.  If you have all eb8's, no such problem.

A few shots of my friend Chris doing rockwork.  Cell phone pictures so the res is awful low, but you can see the donut pillar in construction.

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So, I put water in, cured the agrocrete, replaced water a couple of times, then added salt. Rigged the sump and all that fun, and added live rock. 3 weeks after that, 7 blue green chromis. The tank is cycled and ready to add some fall fest frags (after QT, of course).

I'm looking forward to the photography lecture at fall fest, because every shot of the tank itself came out terrible. Here are a few of How things are today.







I'm real bummed about that purple sea whip....I can't find its scientific name, so I'm having trouble figuring out why its unhappy.