a local TOTM progress....

[surfn]

this guy in our local club has had some great reef success, using minimal equipment and hunsbandry which proves you dont need tons of equipment, money, and chemicals to have a great reef.

2004 TOTM (40g):
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-01/totm/index.php

2005 120g @ 1yr:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=637834

2006 120g @ 2yrs:
http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=7948116#post7948116
the color is his pics are way off in this thread. he must have taken the pics with the flash on or something. the real thing looks much more like the pics he took last year. ashame he had to get rid of that gigantic toadstool mushroom. that thing was wicked.

 

[AngieN.]

A very beautiful tank!

 

[Azurel]

That is awsome.....

 

[twon8]

i cant believe he only uses kalk to top off, he must use vinegar with it. what about magenesium supplements?

 

[MarvinsReef]

wow..

thanks for sharing this with us..

 

[surfn]

i cant believe he only uses kalk to top off, he must use vinegar with it. what about magenesium supplements?

yeah, its mind boggling he only doses kalk from a trashcan. i dont even think he has a "dosing" pump. just a maxijet on a timer i'm pretty sure.

not sure about magnesium, but i've asked him multiple times and he says nothing besides kalk. he goes for the "natural" method which is what i try to do also.

i only put in CaCl2 and baking soda. nothing else. although i've run carbon and phosban from time to time to see if it helps (havent really noticed any differences).

we *think* the reason why he gets away with only dosing kalk in such a huge sps system, is that his house is up in the mountains, and they get their water from well water. and its the assumption of someone else who moved into a house near him, that the side of the mountain sits on a lime deposit and has very hard water that seeps into the wells.

just a theory though.

 

[twon8]

does he have/use and rodi?

 

[surfn]

does he have/use and rodi?

i would imagine so. and you'd think that would take out any lime deposits in the water. but manderx used to use straight well water from time to time also. only has a tds reading of around 10ppm apparently. i'm not sure i like that though cuz you never know what chemicals have seaped into the ground water.

 

[Raskal311]

dam that looks like a zeo tank dam nice.

 

[jessiesgrrl]

He's a really nice guy too, or seems to be from his pm's. I like the tanks even better when cool people own them.

Laurie

 

[surfn]

He's a really nice guy too, or seems to be from his pm's. I like the tanks even better when cool people own them.

Laurie

haha you've been talking to him? yeah, he's super cool guy. he's actually a professor of interior design here at VT. hence the great aquascaping and fung sheu (sp?)

 

[jessiesgrrl]

I did send him a PM a while back, when I first saw your other thread. I hope to do some trading with him at some point when I have more time to pursue it. It takes real dedicationa nd talent to runa tank like that naturally- I have ALOT of respect for that!!


Laurie

 

[Raskal311]

I don’t know if being an interior designer has anything to do with it. I called a guy over a year ago about buying a stand and canopy from him. He mentioned a numerous times that he is a interior designer and that the stand and canopy was design and built my him and that it looked "awesome and very custom". Well when I came to pick it up it was a vomit green with ugly molding on it. It looked like it was build buy a 5-year-old girl. Ok it was dam good if it was a 5-year-old girl but it wasn’t.

 

[jessiesgrrl]

Hahaha, ther are good ones, and then there are the others... Some of those design shows on TV comeout with some butt ugly rooms, but then some come out awesome. Luck of the draw who you get, like any profession I suppose! I mean, there are nurses out there that I know that if they approached me with an IV line, I'd run screaming into the night AMA (Against medical advice)...


Laurie