Construction

It seems like lately most of my blogs seem to be about the Apex.  I'll try to work on that and add some other things in here from time to time.

The Apex saved my home. Sorta. For the past couple of days, I was getting Power Lost alerts from Fusion, yet everything was on. The reef was normal, tv was normal, internet was normal, the only thing I was seeing was the lights in the bathrooms would flicker a little and I assumed it was brownouts.

A few months ago, I was hired to build a big custom sump for a 400g system in Wylie, Texas. It's an all-in-one sump that is nearly 8' long, and needed to be built with 3/8" cast acrylic to be strong enough for longterm use.  For me, a minimum of five years is my goal, but the owner was thinking 15-20 years. 

I ran up to Home Depot today to get some new router bits, and as I was walking down the main aisle I spotted this awesome adjustable-height workbench.  The table's surface is completely smooth, unlike many I've inspected.  I need one that is 100% flat for my acrylic work, and the fact that this one could be raised up nice and high was even better. 

A few years ago I had to drill some holes in a 40g breeder aquaarium, and filmed / photographed the process.  A couple of computer upgrades occurred and I lost track of those files. Last month I was happy to stumble across them finally, so this week's video provides a decent tutorial of how it's done.

Since MACNA, I've really enjoyed the mated pair of Golden Dwarf Moray eels I brought home.  They are quite active and out any time food hits the water.  While they live in the rockwork most of the time, one or both will swim in the open looking for food.  Sometimes they'll take up space in the Vortech pump since I shut it off during feedings, so I have to always check before turning it back on again.  They like krill, but I've also observed them eating sinking pellet food off the substrate.

The 400g reef has been up for 30 days. Water quality looks excellent. The fish are happy in their new home, swimming out in the open the way I hoped they would, contrary to their previous home filled with corals. I added over 20 new frags to the tank, including a couple of pieces I picked up at Next Wave last week. 

Two new goodies have been added to my online shop, so if you want to see what they are, this is the page to visit:

Melev's Reef Shop

And here's a bit of eye candy...

The newest page added to my site is a propagation tank I built recently.

90g prop tank

This tank is going to be used at each Next Wave conference, allowing us to display the corals offered in the raffle. 

I was recently asked to build a 4' x 3' propagation tank for DFWMAS, and after a little thinking and a little more time building, this is what they got.

While visiting Lunchbucket's reef in South Dakota, I noticed his Calcium Reactor bubble counter was moving in slow motion. It was really neat, and later at Goodwin9's home, I got a bottle of the mystery syrup.

I noticed my bubble counter was empty again as of yesterday (it either evaporates or bubbles the liquid up the airline tubing), so I cleaned it well and filled it up with this oil.