Reefkeeping South Africa » Items by Mad_Max

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Items by Mad_Max

Marine Aquariums of South Africa

• 

  Looking for aluminum sheet in PTA

  Posted: January 5th, 2012, 7:58am CST by Mad_Max

  Hi,
  Where can I find aluminum sheet in PTA. I am looking for 30cm x 41cm and 27cm x 27cm.
  
  Require it for heatsink platform.
  
  Thanks
• 

  Zoa Frags, yellow buttons.....

  Posted: June 17th, 2011, 10:04am CDT by Mad_Max

  Hi,
  Looking for some small, 7 - 10 heads per frag (blue, yellow red, orange, purple...NOT GREEN) for a Buyo 550. Willing to pay. Has to be in PTA area. I wish the LFS will frag some small ones for guys with nano's.
  
  Thanks
• 

  Skimmer stoped working

  Posted: June 5th, 2011, 11:15am CDT by Mad_Max

  Hi,
  I have a DIY skimmer that has been working very good over the past year. It produced thick brown scum that I empty every week.
  
  A few day ago I added a Phosban reactor with birghtwell media and now the skimmer is not making scum. It usual does this when I do a water change, but only lasts about 1 hour, then all back to normal.
  
  What is going on, will this resolve itself. Has anyone seen the same?
• 

  Two Little Fishies Phosban Reactor 150

  Posted: May 24th, 2011, 10:34am CDT by Mad_Max

  Hi,
  I am looking for a 2nd hand Two Little Fishies Phosban Reactor 150 or something similar. Does anyone have one for sale? My DIY reactor keeps on leaking.
  
  Thanks
  
• 

  Food for thought!

  Posted: January 10th, 2011, 10:04am CST by Mad_Max

  Hi,
  Some background.
  I have a Boyu TL550 with 2 BTA’s, 2 Clarki, 1 Bicolor Blenny, Zoas, pulsing xena, button’s, hairy mushrooms, 2 SPS, leather, Kenya tree, star polyps and some orange shrooms.
  I do a weekly water change of 5l and add buffer and some brightwell minerals. The tank has a huge DIY protein skimmer plus a DIY phosphate reactor.
  
  So I was away on holiday for 3 weeks and had a pleasant surprise when I gat back. My neighbor fed every second day and added RO top up to keep levels right.
  
  So 3 weeks no water change, but the corals went into overdrive. The zoa’s are looking better than ever and doubled in size. The SPS corals added 1cm in length, pulsing xena doubled in size. BTA’s look great. The only thing that looks as if it was taking strain is the shrooms. They look a bit wilted.
  
  Why? Are the weekly water changes not causing more stress, or could it be that the corals stressed and tried to multiply to ensure survival? Almost like BTA’s split when stressed?
• 

  Plating monti frag not mounted

  Posted: July 6th, 2010, 12:38pm CDT by Mad_Max

  Hi,
  Looking for a frag or two plating monti in PTA East area (size R5 coin). As title shown preferably unmounted. Will pay, or if anyone willing to donate some chips please PM me.
  
  Thanks
• 

  Mad max boyu tl550 (upgrades)

  Posted: July 5th, 2010, 1:46pm CDT by Mad_Max

  Upgraded from a TL450 to a TL550.
  
  So, bought a few weeks ago Manic's tank which already had a extra 24W PL in the hood, as well as 2 PC fans mounted in the hood (check out his thread My Boyu TL-550 (With Mods) - Marine Aquariums of South Africa) plus a DB board with timers.
  
  The first things done was respray the hood. There was some paint chipping off, so spray painted it mat black. I have to say it looks a lot better than the standard brown/gray.
  
  
  So next on the list was adding a extra 18W PL in the hood. I moved the PC fans that were mounted in the opening slot for feeding outward to the corners. It was a tight it, but it worked. DIY the globe in the opening and works great.
  
  Worried about the heat buildup, even with fans running I decided to move the magnetic ballasts to a external box. Simple job, open hood, unscrew the ballasts and build in to a PC power supply box that I has lying around (nice thing the box has lots of vents, so does not over heat at all.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Next thing was cleaning the inside of the hood.
  
  Next build a DIY phosphate reactor. Used 50mm PVC pipe. Mounted end caps with 12mm elbows segmented in. Used X 2 5l water caps drilled with lots of holes plus thin layer of sponge to ensure the media stays inside. Added a 800l pump to provide flow and works like a dream. You can just hear the media hitting the sides of the chamber, so i assume this is how it should work.
  
  
  
  
  
  No for my DIY skimmer. I had a WG 308 and WG 310 running duting the initial move. First played around with building a bigger wersion of the WG 310, but eventualy gave up, as the smaller pumps hava a limit how deep one can mount them inside the chambers and still pull in ait through the ventury. A big issue is if one finds a pump that will ditve the ventury, the foow is too much, and the skiller has to be raised obove the water level. I was not going to cut a hole int the hood for that. Eventualy decided to go the hang on route.
  
  This is what is managed to build.
  
  
  
  
  The chamber volume is 4 liter, collection cup is +-220ml. The pump is a Reeftek OTP-1000 Pump with a pin wheel. I ran the skimmer in (1 week testing) on my small tank that was sitting in the corner. WOW, there was a lot of crap in the water.
  
  Last thing to do was mount it on the tank. I built a stand that I bolted on the the stand, 5kg of skimmer hanging on the the tank only by 20mm pipes was not going to last.
  
  1st week of skimming looked as follow.
  
  
  I have noticed that the skimmer produces good foam for 2 days after a water change (do my weekly mineral dosing), then it lessens a lot. It produces a lot of bubbles, but foam disappears. Only conclusion is my bio load is small (3 fish and a few corals). Anyhow I am happy with my skimmer.
  
  Here are a few pics of my TL450 before and during the move to the TL550.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  You can see I love my BTA. Believe it or not, that is under 2 X 18 PL. The photo's do it no justice, but the color is great. I am however battling with its clone the last 1.5 years. It keeps on hiding under a rock, so stays bleached. The deal is as long as it takes food every 3rd day, I will keep it.
• 

  Skimmer Upgrade for Boyu (thinking out of the box)!!!!

  Posted: May 20th, 2010, 9:51am CDT by Mad_Max

  Hi fellow Boyu owners,
  
  We all know the skimmers for the TL450 and TL550 (WG308) are pretty useless, right! I recently bought Manic's TL550 and decided I need to do something about the skimmer before I set it up.
  
  I have a TL450 running, and about a year ago upgraded the standard skimmer to the WG310. It seems to work better, but now I doubt it. The reason being is the WG310 chamber is shorter and has a smaller radius, thus less volume. So the contact time of the bubbles in the chamber will be less than the standard TL450 skimmer.
  
  PLUS the standard TL450 has a impeller in the chamber to slow down the water/bubbles. The WG310 and WG308 has no obstruction to slow down the bubbles. It has a valve, but this only helps with fine tuning water level in the chamber.
  
  I read up how to build a DIY skimmer and did the following. Unfortunately this will only help TL550 owners, as the height restriction of the TL450 is the problem.
  
  The main aim is to give the bubbles more contact time with the water. There are 3 ways to obtain this:
  1. Slow down the bubbles in the chamber,
  2. Increase the length of the chamber,
  3. Increase the diameter of the chamber
  
  I opted for 1 and 2.
  
  I used the standard pump and chamber from the TL450. It seems to produce better micro bubbles as it is a needle wheel impeller with a venturi air intake. It also is able to draw air in at a lower depth than the WG308/310 pump. The lattre is also a normal impeller, plus it can not draw in air past a certain depth.
  
  I extended the chamber using a plastic glass tumbler and connecting it to the top chamber of the WG308 chamber (chamber height from 14cm to 34cm). I added a outlet to enable me to adjust the water level in the chamber. I will post some pics/video clip soon to be judged.
  
  All I can say is this is more like it. It produces scum like never befor. I tested it in a bucket with tap water and scum starts overflowing withing 40 seconds.
• 

  Setting up NEW TANK (HELP!!!)

  Posted: May 14th, 2010, 2:11pm CDT by Mad_Max

  Hi,
  I just bought Manic's tank in the For Sale Forum called: Bargain Sale!!! TL-550 for sale: JHB.
  
  So now the problem. I have a TL 450 running for +- 3 years already and want to transfer all to the new tank. How do I do this to minimize a new cycle in the new tank?
  
  My idea is:
  1. Setup new tank.
  2. Add 20l new SW. Run pumps + skimmer from old tank.
  3. Transfer some live rock and 20l from old tank. Run for a few hours
  4. Transfer rest from old tank and run for a day.
  5. Fill up with new SW.
  
  Am I over complicating things here?
  
  Or should I take is slow?
  1. Setup new tanks fresh with new SW and live rock. Add 10l water plus cup of sand from old tank and let it cycle as normal.
  2. After +-4 weeks (parameters pending) transfer rest from old tank.
  
  Current stock in old tank is:
  8kg live rock
  Pulsing Xena
  Zoas/Buttons
  Kenya tree
  Small frag of Monti
  Shrooms
  Harry mushroom
  2 Ricordia
  1 BTA and a baby clone BTA (Had them for 2 years already)
  1 Clarki
  1 Bi-color blenny
  1 hiding mantis
  
  I am mostly worried for my BTA's as they require mature tanks.
  
  All help will be appreciated!
• 

  Boyo 450 Topup

  Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 11:57am CDT by Mad_Max

  This is for the guys, and galls with small Nano's. How much evaporation do you have during a week, thus how much liters do you top up with? I have been running my nano (15 galons) since Jan 2008. I have a mark to where I fill the tank every week during my 10 % water change.
  
  A friend of min has a 12galon nano, and he tops up with 3 liters a week. My comment was where is the hole?
• 

  Mad_Max NANO

  Posted: February 26th, 2008, 12:31pm CST by Mad_Max

  Hi,
  Thanks to everybody using this forum for sharring the good and bad.
  
  I bought my son on 5 Jan 2008 (well that was my explanation to the boss) a BOYU TL450 nano 58l It looks to be a nice little setup seeing what has been posted so far. I have about 15 years of fresh water experience, not that this seems to be of any use when looking at salt water tanks (especially the filters).
  
  The tank after doing some aquascaping.
  
  
  Cycling took 5 weeks. The wait was long.
  
  
  Added a turbo and hermit crab. Water parameters were:
  Ph = 8.2 NO2 = 0, NO3 = 20, KH = 10, NH3 = 0.5, NH4 = 0.003, Temp = 26, Salinity = 1.0240, Light = 5-6 hours a day.
  
  A week later added 2 clowns
  (Ph = 8.2 NO2 = 0, NO3 = 0, KH = 10, NH3 = < 0.5, NH4 = <0.003, Temp = 26, Salinity = 1.0240, Light = 10 hours a day.
  
  A week later added some polyps (@R120), leather mushroom (@ R170) and tube worm (@R60). I think I got a bargan.
  
  The tank is starting to take shape. Polyps starting to open once light is switched on. The clowns keep on bumping in to the leather mushroom witch causes it to close a bit. Is that normal?