jestep

Wow, terrible to hear. Some of the first corals I got a decade or so ago when I went from FW to full reef addiction were from Brooks.

Not saying it's completely gone, but facebook has sucked the life out of many discussion forums, for the worse IMO as well.

The live live rock has always amazed me. Stuff is always interesting without even adding anything to it. I think I remember seeing a thread where someone had an octopus hitchhiker with some even.

That's awesome, reminds me of the Julian Sprung mangrove refugium.

FB groups have quickly and unfortunately taken over many local clubs. It's really a shame as well, since there is no posterity and no accountability for content, it's almost impossible to search them as well because Facebook's goal is interaction, not quality, which results in so much bad information out there and then it's gone, then regurgitated again on the same question a few weeks later. I've brought a thread up about this in the past, I got out of the hobby for some time due to personal reasons, but it was really sad seeing this club lose so much attention. It's really an incomparable resource for the hobby. Big forums of many different topics are suffering similar losses in interest as well.

The simple and relatively cheap answer is just get a generator. I have nothing against battery based systems, cost aside, but IME, nothing is going to be easier than a generator with a good engine. A good 4 stroke fuel injected engine is crucial though since ethanol in gasoline makes small carbureted engines almost unusable if any storage is involved. I went all electric with my push and riding lawn mowers because I got sick of rebuilding briggs and honda engines. Unfortunately many of us have PEC for electricity, about 30% of Austin total, who offers exactly zero rebates or incentives on solar. I believe their buyback rate is close to or at zero now as well, they did have a promo period about 10 years ago where they offered decent terms on solar buyback, comparable to COA, but now I think it's less than wholesale even, which is like $.02 / kWh. I've got about 2500 sq ft of south facing roof, I would be all over solar if the break even time / cost wasn't about 25 years for me.

For freshwater, the classic eheims are unbeatable IME. They can last decades, I've run one in the past for like 10 years without even changing filter pads and it was fine. For SW, definitely wouldn't recommend one either. Most of the denitrification is done in the tank itself. Canisters just make a good way to create a large nutrient storage container.

Check the Austin Reefers FB group, there were a bunch of really nice ones posted today or yesterday.

Just found this by accident, but Ryobi makes this 300W inverter for their 40V lawnmower batteries, which I have since I got a battery powered mower a while back. They also have a smaller 150W one for their smaller batteries. https://www.homedepot.com/p/RYOBI-300-Watt-Powered-Inverter-Generator-for-40-Volt-Battery-RYi300BG/308736685 The cool thing about this is you can run emergency tank equipment for a really long time since lithium batteries are so much better than the lead acid ones in normal UPS's at running low power drawing equipment. With minimal equipment you could be good for more than a day on a single battery which beats any normal UPS and you don't have to deal with a generator. For example a Vortech MP40 on a lower setting could do as much as 80 hours on one 6Ah battery, anyone who has dealt with a UPS on their tank can attest how crazy that is. Some of the other brands may have them as well but a super useful product for aquarium emergencies and general power backup without dealing with gas, especially if you already have a mower using the batteries.

Didn't realize it was you who posted this on FB, but this is handedly the oldest one I've ever heard of in captivity, and fromias aren't far behind. I don't think most make it even a year.

Due to a whole load of personal stuff, I don't get on the forum frequently. But, I wanted to suggest to the mods / admin, maybe combining the subtopics back into the main ones at this point. I know there was a bunch of splitting about 4 or 5 years ago because it got overly complicated to keep track of everything in one forum. Was just looking at the general lack of activity these days and it's depressing for sure. I know facebook has sucked up a lot of the daily what/how/where posts, which is really unfortunate because it's a god awful platform for something as complex as reef keeping, or aquarium keeping in general, but just wanted to make this suggestion to maybe make it a little less difficult to see all the posts without having to click through a bunch of individual forums. I try to push people to this forum as often as possible. Facebook is just one and done, never see a topic again, so you get the same questions all the time, with weird incomplete responses and what I can only describe as some sort of fanboy up-votes frequently on incorrect advice. There's no accountability or posterity in using facebook for advice that can cost people hundreds to thousands of dollars as well as significant emotional stress when someone accepts s*** advice from someone. I also think the theme or platform change from the past hasn't helped. I don't use a phone, most forum software has much more user friendly ways to track topics that a user subscribes to, which this one used to, but that's been gone for years now. For an example, vBulletin forums have a settings page which shows all personal recent topics, it's absolutely the best page on the forum with all subscribed threads and subscribed forums, and this one used to have the exact same page, but no longer does. I can see my own activity, but it's not organized in a way that allows me to see threads with new replies at the top. Anyway, just wanted to throw that out there. I'm trying to get more involved again, but this has been one of the best resources I've ever seen including the huge reef forums, for quality advice that sticks around. Is a shame to see the activity down so much.

Looking for an Apex Energy Bar 8, preferably lightly used, if anyone has one they are wanting to sell. I have one freaking out on me.