Entropy

Are you sure on the wattage of the PC's? Most I have seen are either 55w or 65w per bulb. A workhorse 5 will power 2x55w or 65w pc's for about $30. I am using one to power a T5 currently.

I think your success will hinge on competition. I am not sure the exact area mandrins come from, but the other fish in the area must suck at hunting pods, because just about everything I have seen hunts better than a mandrin. If you can target feed them without competition I think you will be fine, but if you have hungry mouths all around I wouldn't get your hopes up.

I think a few went under, but it does look like we also lost some. Money is tight.

Are you feeding the octopus with the drain? I am using about half my drain to feed my 150 and what is left comes out pretty much bubble free. The way I did it was to run the drain outlet parallel to the surface of the sump half way under water so there is not much splashing. I actually liked the filter sock, but I got tired of cleaning it.

The dimensions equal a 110g.

What color/brand are the bulbs?

Sounds like a what you have pictured. There are a lot of variations. I almost got a brown tang (spotted cheek is the name I saw), but I settled on a powder brown instead. Both are cheap for tangs.

I am just enjoying (well not really) watching my 401k going down and then back up every other day. Think long term Rich, long term...

My rule of thumb for crabs is if they have pointy claws, they are probably better off in someone elses tank. The only crab I would trust would be the scralet hermit crab. Most of them hide all day anyway.

I think with two out of three of the main guys taking down their tanks, and the third downscaling significantly it kind of took the wind out of the sails for the club. That is my guess anyway. It takes a tremendous amount of effort to keep a club rolling when there are only a couple of people pushing, and if any of those people take a break the rollings comes to a stop. With school starting as well I imagine a lot of people are busy getting back into the swing of things. That is my experience from my old club anyway.

Every tank is unique and that will have a lot to do with how many clean up critters your tank will need or for that matter support. Generally the better your water quality the less clean up critters you can have. If there is nothing for them to eat they will starve. Realistically the average tank doesn't have this problem though so you can pack plenty of clean up critters in there. I have 20 astreas and about a dozen nassarius snails in my 135g which is obviously way too few, but they are so darn expensive that I haven't gotten around to adding more. I need to get in on the next group buy. In my old 150g I had more than 1 per gallon though so you can easily do it. I had about 100 margaritas, 50 astreas, 50 or so scarlet hermints, 6 peppermints, a tiger pistol shrimp, a bunch of cerith (too many to count), etc.

The Penguins are probably what is getting your nitrate readings up. By design they are supposed to be nitrate factories, with the thinking behind it being nitrate is safer than nitrite for your tank. Those filters are primarily designed for fresh water applications where nitrate levels can be higher. I think you will be better off removing those and replacing them with powerheads for water movement. A sump is just a container of water lower than your tank. Water flows to it via a drain (external overflow, or internal overflow) and is pumped back to the tank via a return pump. The beauty of a sump is that the water level in your tank remains constant while the level fluctuates in the sump where it cannot be seen. A sump also allows you to hide equipment like your skimmer, heater, return pump, test probes, reactors, etc. A refuge is basically any space where something (either pods for food, or macro for nutrient export/food) can grow without being hassled by the inhabitants of your tank. A refuge is commonly added to a sump so that it is hidden. You make a chamber in the sump and add a light (if growing macro). The macro sucks the nutrients out of the water in order to grow and you prune it from time to time to keep it in check. The algae you remove is full of nutrients/nitrates and by havesting it from the refuge you physically remove the nutrients/nitrates from the tank and promote the marco to keep growing which absorbs more nutrients. It does the same thing as carbon and other media, just more naturally and for the most part for free (less the cost of the light). Several companies sell refuges that you can hang on the back or side of your tank if it is not reef ready (drilled with an overflow). You could also make one yourself pretty easy if you are good with acrylic. You just need it to sit a tiny bit higher than the tank and then have a small pump feed it and let it overflow back into the tank. Your fish/inverts/misc critters cannot get into the refuge to distrub the macro and it will pull excess nutrients from the tank.

I was using one with carbon for a while, but the media is so expensive that I stopped using it. Even carbon gets expensive when your on a budget.

Sorry it is sold.

I bet you could wait table at a smaller (ie: privately owned) club/restaurant completely under the table, especially if you offer to work for no actuall pay, just tips. Depending on how good you are, you could probaly turn $20+ an hour pretty easy part time.

Thanks for the skimmer James. It is SWEET!!!

Most people I know spend a good amount of time trying to eliminate bubbles. I would never add them on purpose, at least not to a reef tank anyway. No airstone is going to be close to doing what your skimmer does anyway, and I agree with versace that bubbles lead to mess (salt creep).

Personally I think sand is evil. If it didn't look so good and if there weren't so many cool little critters that bury themselves in it I wouldn't use it.

I am not positive but I suspect the sand. What is probably happening is the critters in the new sand are probably converting something in the old sand and releasing nitrates. I know on my old tank I used sand from the tank before it and I got a pretty big nitrate bloom about two months after switching over which was followed by a big algae bloom. The intersting part is that I kept all the old sand on one side and new sand on the other and only the side with the old sand went crazy. The other side stayed nice and white with no algae. I don't recommend using old sand unless you wash it really well and then let it sit dry for a long time (basically kill it).

Well thanks encouraging! Now I just need to find some GSP hopefully growing in low light already.

I would suspect the sand bed, since your nitrates came down after the water change. That tells me the new water has less nitrates than your tank water at least. Did the sand bed come over in the move dry and did you leave it in place or was it removed and then replaced?

I think I am going to give it a try. I suppose I can always bit the bullet and get new halide bulbs, but I just don't have anything in my tank currently that justifies the expense (other than the GBTA) and I would love to switch to cheaper lighting yet still keep a few low light corals.

Mine sits at 8.1 most of the time, but usually drops to 7.9 at night. I think anything in the 8-8.4 range is fine. You have no reason for a low PH, so I would suspect your source water.

I am thinking about going fish only and am looking for a weed that will grow in low light (2x32w T5 actinic, and 3x13w 5500k flourescent). I figure mushrooms and maybe gsp might work. Anyone keeping GSP under low light?

Used AquaC Urchin with MJ1200 pump. It is in pretty good shape and is working well on my current tank it is just very unpowered for a 135g. Would be much better on a 75g or smaller. Must be used in sump (or in tank would work but be ugly). $50 obo ** SALE PENDING **