Blog Comments

Interesting, Can you tell us what the specs are for that transformer? It may be a lot cheaper if you bought it at radioshack.

thanks for sharing now i have to build it

can you build one for me? i will pay!

Well, I have a fairly common name. Nathan Smith. So way back when I started messing around on the internet, I could never get anything similar to Nathan Smith. I started to think of a username that I could get to go through, no matter where I went.
Since I love the band Pearl Jam so much, I decided to pick out 2 of their most obscurely named songs, and combine them. So I chose the song Lukin and the second song was called Rats
So, Lukinrats!

In recent years, I have also been using another one called Cropcord, but mostly I like to go with Lukinrats

Later,
Nathan

My name is Phil, I've lived in Alaska for 20 years. Since there were other Phil's on some of the other sites I frequent it seemed to set me apart a bit. Alaska also presents some challenges for reef keeping, mainly shipping costs and transporting live stuff home from the LFS. I'm probably the only one that grabs an insulated cooler to bring fish and corals home with only a 15 min drive.

I have never had a Tunze pump so I can not say much about them. I have one MP40 in my tank now and I love it, one day I will get more hopefully. I will say when the thing ramps up you can definitely hear it. My tank is in the basement and currently I have it set to reef crest, but at first I had it set on a long pulse from max speed to min and man every minute or so you could hear it speed up through the floor into my bedroom. I also do love the fact that it is not to much of a eyesore.

Originally Posted by lesd

I love this idea! Being an Electrical Engineer I'm tempted to try it myself on the few majanos I have that are always avoiding the Joe's Juice. Could also be useful for controlling green star polyps.

One question - I assume that the wires you are putting into the tank are copper wires. Any worry about copper poisoning your inverts? I'm thinking it might be worthwhile to find some aluminum wiring for the wires that go into the tank.

Its definately a fun toy.
For me, the copper isnt a worry at all. I only burn off 1/4" off wire on one side (typically it loses its strength because its thin and not totally disolved and I cut it off) after about six uses, or 20 aptasia. I only use it every other month to kill four or five of them and do a 20% WC monthly. OK so lets say 10% to be realistic. So, 10% WC's over a years time is 120% clean water for my total volume for a quarter of an inch of wire that became thin. To me its negligable.
For someone with a 40 breeder going on a rampage and killing 40 aptasia, I'd be just as worried about the massive spike in nutrients from killing so many pests than I would the copper. I'd recommend a big WC anyway

I love this idea! Being an Electrical Engineer I'm tempted to try it myself on the few majanos I have that are always avoiding the Joe's Juice. Could also be useful for controlling green star polyps.

One question - I assume that the wires you are putting into the tank are copper wires. Any worry about copper poisoning your inverts? I'm thinking it might be worthwhile to find some aluminum wiring for the wires that go into the tank.

Don't you think it would be easier to just connect a car battery to some steel wool???

Ingenious. I'd love to see a video.

That's some interesting results! I have a smaller system with only a single 250 over it. I'm adding a few T5 actinic bulbs but all and all I don't have the options you have. When I step back up in tank size (year or two,) certainly something to think about!

looks like fun

I'm glad you like it. It's definitely not the norm for this hobby.

To be honest, Ive increased my T-5 lighting by one hour on each end of the MH light cycle so I dont have only VHO's and one MH on for so long in the day. But today I was glad when the T-5's finally turned off. Im getting used to it and starting to like it more. Having only one MH on gives the tank a true shimmer effect in the areas not directly under the lit one that is very pleasing to the eyes. Even my wife like it and usually she could care less about my tank. Im sure in a matter of time I'll use the T-5s like I did before. For two hours a day only for a certain look.

That's very interesting how so many things were affected by the one adjustment.

Does it bug you that your MH are staggered when looking in the tank, or can you live with it? I wasn't sure at first, but I like the lighting phases over my tank.

meh.

Just kidding, sort of. I've never seen the need to direct flow in my reef tanks, other than the return nozzles. I've used Maxijets and Tunzes and tried to orient the flow where I felt it should be, but once they were positioned I never moved them again. Same with the Vortechs.

Roger was very good in responding to any repairs I needed, every single time. Tim at Ecotech has done so as well. Either is a reputable company to deal with.

Oh on a side note my skimmer never did go crazy on the third day like everyone was talking about how it will. If anything it didnt make really any the whole time the lights were off.

Yep I will take some tomorrow when the lights come back on. Maybe I have some super rare freaky cyno in my tank that is black out proof.

That's very odd, I'm surprised. Can we see some pictures of the situation?

You can't beat Tunze's ability to direct the flow output as well. Once your tank grows out, it is a nice feature. I have 2 6100's, a 6200, 2 waveboxes and a nanostream. Certainly satisfied. I've dealt with Roger on 4 different occasion to address problems and I've had botique service.

Well I tried everything thing else for my cyno so I thought that I would give a black out a try. I went three days full black out then on the fourth day the lights came back on. Well today is day four and I just got home from work. I run over to my tank to see how everything did durning the black out. As soon as I rounded the corner to where my tank is my jaw just dropped. Its back and it dont even look like it even made a dent in it. Well back to the drawing board on this one to try and figure something else out. The only thing that comes to mind is C4 and thats kind of hard to get ahold of it. But I do have conections if I really tried.