[dougc]

It's been a while since I took any pictures of the tank. The flash on my old Casio point-and-shoot died and we bought a new one while is Dallas for my son's music audition at SMU las week. The camera is a Canon SD800 (ELF 7.1 mp). It is a great carry anywhere camera, but lacks manual focus. It does have an "Aquarium" mode, which seems to work pretty good, at least in terms of color balance. If I turn off the LCD, the response time on the shutter is good enough to get some fish shots.

First, a full tank shot.


Some zoanthids (close to the glass):


My long-tentacled plate coral:


My Starkii damsel. Great community fish.


My crocea clam:


Some SPS under actinics:


A recent find. This was chocolate brown a few weeks ago, but I could see the potential. It is coloring up nicely:


One of the frogspawns. The other, I can't seem to get a good shot of.


This is tough to get a focused picture of with this camera. It is in the back at the top of the tank.


I'll have to get some better shots with my son's Canon 5D when I can get his attention. He is a photography student at the Art Institute of Philadelphia and he/we just acquired the camera, along with a couple of heinously expensive lenses. He did not get a macro lens, but he just got an adapter to allow him to use his Nikon lenses, including a macro lens, with the camera. I'm sure we can get some better shots with that setup.

[zhenya]

Looking really good, Doug. I love your aquascaping with the three distinct isles, lots of potential in it. If you need some frags, or anything else please let me know. I have really large hammer coral that needs some fraging and of course the acros.

[charlie]

Thanx for the update Doug. Just for grins, can you go thru what you are using for flow in there.

[vtec si]

Great looking tank Doug!

[Poseidon]

Lookin' Good Doug.

That 5D is a heck of a camera, I am thinking that may be the next body I buy for my wife. (Rumor has it that a 5D mark II is coming soon....)

[dougc]

Flow consists of my returns and a pair of Tunze 6100's. The returns are two GenX Mak4 (PCX40) pumps. One return is split off to feed my frag tank. The overflows can only handle a combined 1200 gph and I have the returns running just under that. The returns are aimed to angle off the back glass in an effort to push detritus to the front of the tank for easy removal. The tank is bare-botton, so this strategy works fairly well.

The Streams were a constant maintenance headache until I found instructions for proper cleaning on the Tunze forum on RC. I was cleaning them once a month before I found out that it is critical to remove the back bearing and o-ring when cleaning. There are little channels on the back of the plate that get plated with calcium deposits and clog up. This makes the pump run hotter, which accelerates calcium deposition.

The 5D is indeed a heck of a camera. I cringed yesterday when I went into my son's room and saw it lying on the floor. I have to get him to coach me on the ins and outs of it as there are way too many controls and options for my feeble brain. I don't think I'll find time to do this until my younger son finishes his college auditions. He wants to pursue a degree in percussion performance and the whole process might just kill us. It should all be settled by April and, hopefully, we can take a deep breath and relax. Until then, it is a whirl of lessons, rehearsals, auditions, and performances.

[charlie]

Hey thanx for the heads up on the Tunze cleaning. I am looking at a pair of 6200's for my 300. Are yours on a controller?

[dougc]

The Streams are on a 7094 multi-controller. I think that the current version is the 7095. The 7095 has some features that are useful if you want to run a "tidal" mode, but I just have them on an alternating cycle of short duration.

Even with a six-foot tank, it takes some strategizing to find the best location for the Streams. For a long time, I had them in the front corners, aimed toward the middle of the back, but it left me with some zones where nothing could survive the flow. I currently have them in the back corners now, which still leaves a small area at the upper right where I cannot place any corals, but the overall aethetics are better.

I originally tried using the Deco rocks to hide the Streams, but that just took too much valuable real estate and I quickly scrapped them. The need to clean the pumps means that you can't grow much on the "rocks" and they have a pretty large footprint. They have to be accessible for removal, so they must be on top.

Located in the back corners of tank, the pumps are fairly unobtrusive. They are quiet and don't add much heat to the water. They have been in operation for about 2.5 years and I hope they keep going for many more.

[charlie]

I was thinking of mounting mine in the frontcorners, pointed the length of the tank. I actually can't wait to play with them, but it may be awhile. Got a list of honey-dos to take care of first.

[Poseidon]

Nice update Doug! I am debating on selling my Tunze 6060 in favor of 2 of the smaller 6025's. I am finding the 6060 is just to big to run in the 90, now that I am growing out some nice size SPS colonies. I agree 100% on the DEATH zones of to much flow, I placed a coral to high the other day, and it blew the polyps right off the top!

As for the camera being on the floor, don't sweat it to much. The 5D is very well built! You should have seen what I did to my 1D, this year 3 of 4 playoff football games were in the RAIN! I'm talking rain like the superbowl! Here I am out there FREEZING, clicking off a couple hundred shots, more worried about ME then the CAMERA.

[dougc]

I guess the 6025 is the new mini-Stream? They should be nice. Do they run on the same controller as the larger pumps?

If worst comes to worst, at least I know that Canon service is pretty good. My digital video camera stopped working and, after a quick phone call to Canon, they emailed me a shipping label, I sent it back, and they fixed it for free. There was a service advisory on the CCD's that were used in my camera, so there was no charge for the repair even though it was out of warranty. I had the camera back in just about a week. Pretty quick turnaround.

[charlie]

As far as I know, the new 6025 streams are not on a controller, but am not real sure.

[Poseidon]

Nope they are not Charlie. I think I had my mind made up for me tonight, the 6060 came off the mount somehow, and buried my Blasto in a matter of a few seconds. I think if I get the same GPH from 2 places I will be better off then if it all comes from the same spot.

Another option is to put my return on its own pump, and run some sort of wave maker on multiple outputs.... (SCWD, ocean motions, sea swirls, etc...)