My wife has demonstrated again why i married her. For my birthday, she bought me a 100 gallon long aquarium. It measures 6 feet long, 1.5 feet tall, and 1.5 feet deep. So this is my upgrade: 10 times. For a while, the only thing in it will be my little arabian dottyback. Man that thing will be in fish heaven.
As for the layout, i have a drawing i would like to share with you. I designed it using Adobe's InDesign, since i don't have the money to actually set it up yet. You can grab it from my .mac account at http://homepage.mac.com/astrivian/
It is a rather large adobe PDF, so you will need Acrobat Reader 6.0 or 7.0 to open it. When you do, click the "Layers" tab. I saved each item (sand, LR, coral, etc.) on a separate layer so you can turn them on and off. If you click the eye to the left of the layer name, it will make the layer invisable. This way, you can choose to see only what you want (plumbing for example).
I am working on the stand right now, almost have it finished actually. My plan is to leave the front of the stand open so you can see the fuge and algae at night. If it turns out to be too loud, i can always put a door on it instead.
As for equipment, i am thinking of a DIYMH + PCactinic lighting system (TY ROB! the series is helping me a lot on this). Since the tank is so long, i might go with 4 MH and 2 actinic. Maybe having three plugs: PCs, 2 MH, and 2MH. This way i can really control how much light i send into the rather shallow tank, possibly helping the acclimation of some corals.
Stocking....hmm i am still on the fence about this actually. Here are my ideas so far:
To start:
1 Snowflake eel (Echidna nebulosa)
1 Marine betta (Calloplesiops altivelis)
1 Velvet Wrasse (Cirrhilabrus luteovittatus) maybe
3 Threadfin Anthias (Nemanthias carberryi)
1 Flying Jet Gurnard (Diplogrammus xenicus)
1 cleaner wrasse
some mermaid's fans (Udotea sp.) and shaving brush algae (Penicillus sp.), in the display Montipora capricornus Acropora Lokani
Maybe later:
2 "reef-safe" butterflies (Orange tail, C. mertensii, or Lemon, C. miliaris)
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
Reaching my 70th BD, I realize that I cannot help but grow old. However, I refuse to grow up!!! My wife would tell you, "He may be 70 but, He's going on 17". Life is wonderful with a woman like that.
Okay, i just updated the homepage with a newer version of the pdf. Rob suggested ditching the macroalgae in the display. Sure...i can go with that i guess . I also added lighting to this one and simplified the layers and made the file a bit smaller. I am thinking of going with 4 70watt MH's (10K) with 4 36" PCactinics. Why so many lights? Well, if i can afford all this, i want to disperse the light more rather than having one or two really strong lights, since the tank is so long. It will also only be about 16" deep, and i don't want to burn corals or fish with watts. Check the pdf for more on this.
Hey peeps, do i need a ballast for eachMH light? Please say no.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
My dumb digital camera broke but i do have one pic. This is the tank relative to housecat size. I have already started making the stand, which i should have done this week. I will see if i can get some pics of those up soon.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
Sam, why not go with T5s, instead of PCs? They're much more energy efficient!
Also...in terms of the MH lighting, I personally prefer 14K or 20K, because they are less yellow-looking that the 10K. But, it is all based on preference. If you were to go with the 10K, then you could get the ocean blue actinicT5s, which round out the color nicely.
In terms of the fish, I would wait with the Diplogrammus xenicus, since they are a bit like Mandarins - they need a very mature tank with lots of live rock in order to satiate themselves on all the micro-crustaceans.
Yes christi my wife is very popular with me right now
yes i was looking at T5s just recently actually, I think i might go with those. Oh great comment about the ocean blues rather than actinics, i will have to see some tanks with different setups to get a visual. Personally, i don't mind a little blue in the tank, i think it looks more natural given that red light doesn't penetrate that far into the water.
Oh, and yes the "housecat scale" did seem rather universal. Since there are many people on line from metric-using countries, i needed a culturally-neutral scale for measurement. Cats work well
The stand is almost at the point of being finished. I will have some pix up this weekend of it. If i can find the wood i am looking for, it will be really tight.
The next step is to order the RODI filter next week! I am going for the same one you have rob the Aqua-safe maximus (100gpd).
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
Samuel's new HUGE tank 
icon under their name to add to their reputation. 
. I also added lighting to this one and simplified the layers and made the file a bit smaller. I am thinking of going with 4 70watt 
