afgun

I'd like some of both as well. Some anthelia and all of the cheato you're willing to part with (gotta restock my fuge after some over-zealous crabs tore mine apart). I'll ping you this afternoon. Thanks!!!

I'm also interested in algae and xenia. Will pay reasonable amounts, esp if available today!

--andrew

Unless you have a healthy live pod population you need to feed that mandarin often! That said, you can establish a good population by getting several different types of pods (we have bought from several LFS and online vendors) and super stocking your tank. Ours tend to congregate in low-flow low-disturbance areas, meaning our sump and at the bottom of the tank in the rockwork.

I'll jump in line if the deal falls through!

We ordered from them last fall. 3 engineer gobies all died within the first day. 2 other fish likely did as well but they simply disappeared. The cucumbers were much smaller than advertized. No honor on their guarantee if you can't send them a photo of the dead fish within the guarantee period (with a large tank like ours with lots of LR and scavengers, the dead fish disappeared quickly - use a QT with no hiding spots is my recommendation). Also their guarantee is a credit on future order, not a refund. Buyer beware.

We had bubble algae on our new frag plugs. Turbo snails and blue-legged hermit crabs ate most of it. We only have mature emerald crabs and they didn't seem very interested.

I have a TON of gorilla crabs if you want em. ;-)

GREAT deal here (we paid $600 for our craigslist 210 of same dimensions and didn't get a nice stand (trashed it) nor a fancy fixture.

I used the black foam. My rock wall is under a weir and behind lots of rocks, so the black foam shows differently than the rocks. I tried epoxy and sand on the foam, but lots of it has come off (I have a very enthusiastic CUC). I'd recommend multiple layers of epoxy and crushed coral on the foam that remains exposed if there's a chance it won't be sitting in the light.

PM me

The other thing you have to remember is that even when the float switch stops the rodi water from being made, the supply line is still pushing and sending it all through the waste line. So you might get a valve on the intake and out take to turn one when you want to make water to refill, and turn off when you don't need it to make water. just a thought, that's one thing I didn't know when I added that same type of float switch in my resevoir.

If you have a one-way and an auto-shutoff valve (I didn't see one in the pics above) that will shut off the supply when the float valve closes. That's what I have today.

On my 55 gallon barrel, only a gallon or so gets used before the float switch kicks down enough to start the RODI. I'm ordering another latching float setup to do it, allowing for more like 5-6 gallons (that's what I plan on setting it at anyways).

I haven't seen a pic of your doors, but if you're concerned about lighting your fuge, perhaps you could paint the inside of them black? If you get a nice even coat on them it shouldn't show through to the front, either...

Good idea! The only problem is there are quite big gaps around the edges of the glass doors. They don't notice when it's dark inside, but once I stick a light it there they'll look a bit blurgh. I have also considered adding some sort of curtain/blind on the inside of the sump to shield the light. Now that the rocks are going a little green I've been getting the itch to chuck some chaeto in the sump, so I may do one, or both of these things at some point.

Perhaps some black foam rubber weatherstripping between the doors and stand? Just thinking out loud here; don't want you to put anything ugly on your beautiful setup, but trying to help

I haven't seen a pic of your doors, but if you're concerned about lighting your fuge, perhaps you could paint the inside of them black? If you get a nice even coat on them it shouldn't show through to the front, either...

We started with dead rock (the rock wall plus some leftovers) and dead sand; fed it ammonia daily until the cycle started, then ordered our live rock and sand. It cycled again, but since we had 100 lbs of rock wall and 50 lbs of sand with bacteria already started, the cycle went pretty fast. After that finished we got the second shipment of live rock and the other stuff (anemones, sponges, crabs, etc...).

Same here. Boost mine to 90 and it works just fine. Find your mfrs paperwork to get the maximum pressure to use. Membranes work better at higher pressures anyways.

Our sponges from TBS have been slowly dying off (a couple are still with us but the saguaro looking ones are almost all gone now) but the tunicates are doing great. We put kent products as well as rod's food and reef chili in the water, which I think is doing a pretty good job of feeding them.

Awesome. Has anyone tried using screens over their powerheads? At least that way the worst that would theoretically happen is they'd get stuck to the powerhead rather than pulled into it. Or would that block too much flow?

We have a couple of sally lightfoots and a lot of porcelain crabs. Both kinds are very nice. We have a bunch of hermits that eat waste and algae; by and large they don't harass anything. We also have a lot of gorilla crabs. The small ones are OK but the larger seem to have predated smaller life forms. We constantly find little ones and relocate them to the sump. We've also got some mithrax. They seem to harass the anemones by pinching them, but mostly just eat algae. Then there's a couple of what appear to be rock crabs. We have one huge one that we catch sight of every so often. Usually in the rock work. Never where there's an opportunity to snag him without dismantling half of our rockwork. I think that he's eaten a lot of our fish

Crabs (esp the gorilla) have eaten a number of snails. We have a lot fewer than we used to. Observed gorilla crabs going after our nassarius on multiple occasions.

Wow. NICE purchase!

I'm interested in a chunk of it. PM details.

--andrew

Word of caution if you're getting rock from the gulf rather than a tank... pests. We had 5 mantis shrimp in a 400# order of live rock from TBS and about a zillion gorilla crabs (still finding little ones). I'd suggest putting the rock in an isolation tank and/or washing them off with some freshwater to get as many pests out as you can if it is indeed coming from the ocean.

Welcome to the hobby!

I'd recommend that you get yourselves a RODI system and make your own saltwater going forward, since in the long run it's a LOT cheaper. Easy to plumb one in. I can help if you guys need guidance on that as I've set up a couple.

I recommend that after you get the system filled, even though you bought "cured" live rock, that you test water parameters rigorously and wait for a cycle; you're bound to have at least a small one occur, and it doesn't make sense to risk any livestock. We started our tank with dead rock and fed it with ammonia (if you do, buy the pure stuff, without any surfactant or scent!) until the ammonia readings dropped to 0 in 12 hours. Then we knew that we were ready to start putting life in.

Great start; I look forward to seeing more of your tank!

The blue spot fairy wrasse we bought at the sale has gone MIA... don't know if he died or was murdered by our evil crab, but he's fish food now. The 6-line, strawberry pseudo and naso tang we bought are all doing well though...

No guarantee on SW from them, unfortunately.

Sure we'd consider a GBTA. We haven't had a lot of luck with anemones so far, but willing to give it another shot!

One gone, one to go!