Timfish

If you can find some tubing that fits between the walls you can amplify the suction power by attaching a 18" piece of it to a 9/16 ID hose and syphon it out maybe.

This addage has been around for a while: "nothing good happens fast in a reef aquarium" Remember there is a difference between "cycling" a tank which can be done almost instantaniously which properly cured rock to a 6 - 8 weeks but "maturing" a reef ecosystem still takes 8 - 12 months. If you can get a copy of Nilsen and Fossa's "The Modern Coral Reef Aquarium" Vol I on page 167 they have an excellent chart of the algae cycles during the first 3 - 10 months when setting up a reef system. You will see different types/species of algae appear then disappear during this time. With regards to the ammonia did you test immediately after doing a water change? If you used tap water some dechlorinators will give a false reading for ammonia. If you are using RO it does not remove ammonia so you should see some ammonia immediately after as water change. To get an idea of what happens and some benchmarks next time you do a water change test your new saltwater before adding it to your aquarium. Also test your aquarium before and after a water change. A couple of studies I've seen have shown API is as good as other brands but with any test kit the reagents may go bad so it's a good idea to do some comparative testing with other kits and make sure you don't keep them to long.

Kevin is right but it doesn't hurt to "seed" or "cure" your sand and crushed gravel if you want. ipsf.com carries stuff like that.

My vote is a bleached BTA also. Unlike Jesteps experiences I've had unpredictable splits with my BTAs. Especially in a tank with many clones some may keep splitting and stay small while other clones may not split and get much larger. Follow Mike's advice for getting it to recover (although normally I don't bother feeding BTAs). Don't expect miracles though, recovery can differ dramatically in a group of BTA clones and there are definitely differences in the different variants, see one of my experiences in this thread: http://www.austinreefclub.com/topic/22733-well-i-just-dont-know/?hl=timfish#entry163871 And in addition this winter I had a Teal and Pinktip BTA bleach out when a tank dropped to 70 degrees but the Brown BTAs seemed to be fine.

That looks like a bacterial infection. Sorry but outside of feeding garlic there's nothing you can do for it in a system with inverts. In a empty quarintine tank you could treat with antibiotics. It also looks like one of the Neoglyphidodon spp. of damsel which are nice looking as juviniles but grow fast and are ugly as adults and are VERY mean and territorial, personally I would euthanize it.

I've been happy with dimmable buckpucs from LEDsupply.com (but the LEDs are cheaper from RapidLED.com). I would use more LEDs colors though after seeing the corals pop with the 400nm LEDs on BuildMyLED.com "Super Actinic" and rereading Dana Riddles articles on florescing pigments on AdvancedAquarist.com. At the very least now I would use an equal number of 400nm, 450nm and 470nm and maybe cyan as well. Another option you have is to use one foot fixtures from BuildMyLED.com, a one foot "Custom Reef" and a one foot "Super Actinic" would light up that tank and give you the option of dimming either/or.

This may be late but like (Bio)3 said you should go by BuildMyLED.com's shop. They have a 36" tank set up with thier edge mount brackets that let's you rotate the light fixture. Their "Super Actinic" also has equal numbers of 400nm, 450nm and 470nm so it has plenty of uv/violet to make flourescent pigments pop.

I would strongly encourage you to get the third volume of Delbeek and Sprung's "Reef Aquarium" They are the only authors I have found who explain the different filtering methodologies that are being used in an unbiased manner. Unfortunately you will find individuals that promote thier methodology as the only way to maintain corals. You will also find people who like thier toys and it seems thier setups are more about figuring out how many gadgets can be added. I have been keeping saltwater since 1988 and maintaining aquariums professionally since 1995 and have seen a multitude of different setups. One thing I realized early on is success depends on patience, intellegent selection of animals and propper maintenance. Having the best equipment in the world is pointless if the system is not maintained or poor judgment is used in the selection of animals. Systems can be very simple, this one is a filterless 240 gallon system with 2 250 watt DE MH and two Korralia 2 and two Aqquaclear 70 power heads for circulation. Water changes total 60 gallons a month (20 gallons every ten days) using tapwater. The only supplements are aragamight and very occasionally superbuffer. Most corals were added as small frags. This 500 gallon system is much more complicated with multiple lighted and cryptic refugiums. Equipment is seven 250 watt DE MH, 2 main pumps pushing 6000 gph through the whole system and multiple power heads adding another 20X internally along with both calcium and kalkwasser reactors, no skimmer. Water changes are 30 gallons weekly with RO/DI water. One advantage of forums like ARC that I have found beneficial is the huge experience base it makes available. Like I said I've been keeping fish and corals for 24 years but I have found this forum still has been very beneficial and I'm quite comfortable saying it has improved my skills as an aquarist. There is so much going on in our aquariums and on reefs it is impossible for a single person to have exepierence with every animal available and every piece of equipment. Welcome to the club!

How's the smell? One thing I've noticed is sometimes when the water is left low for a while you can get an algae smell like you smell at the beach sometimes.

The wall outlet is probably on a 15 amp circuit breaker or might be a 20 amp circuit. Assuming it's a 15 amp circuit multiply times 120 VAC and you get a max wattage rating of 1800 watts total for ALL THE OUTLETS ON THAT ONE CIRCUIT NOT ONE OUTLET. It is generally reccomended to use a safety margin of 10 to 20% lowering maximum total wattage for all the outlets on the circuit of 1440 watts. Total wattage needs to be added up for the circuit not total number of plugs in a power strip or outlet. In some municipalities it is illeagal to daisy chain power strips together (generally not a good idea anyway) in businesses and businesses are inspected periodicly. Also the fine print on the back of most powerstrips say they are not to be used for aquaria. My own experiences some electricians are honest and take pride in thier work and some some of them will use peoples ignorance of the electrical code to do unneccessary work. I had one electrician that tried to say I needed seperate circuits for each pump and MH fixture and insisted a seperate electrical subpanel had to be installed to accomodate all the additioanal circuits. I had to email the city's code inspectors and show the contractor the electrician was trying to do a bunch of unneccesary work.

Lots of buckets. The corals should do fine without circultaion but it won't hurt. Can you have a holding system already setup and running? That would give you more time to setup your 300 the way you want without being rushed.

I'd recommend you to replace that center white with a UV instead of a blue. Based on what I've seen and my experience with my EVO fixtures. If you look at the 10 gal I did you can see it. Looks like a solid 14k-16k. If you are just going to be using just a single fixture I would add a 400nm UV like Juiceman said. The 400nm catches a lot of the flourescing protiens that absorb lower wavelengths than the 450nm and 470nm LEDs. If you are going to be using two or more fixtures the BML superactininc is using a good mix of the 400nm, 450nm and 470nm LEDs and I would not bother changing the LED combination of the "Custom Reef" spectrum when those two are used together. If you look at BMLs video of four different lighting configurations for reef tanks they give you the LED combinations for different "color Temperatures". The "Custom Reef" looks very much like the light you would get from a quality 12000K MH.

You all should have plenty of opportunities to raise some fry! I've got a female Percula that's been going strong for over 15 years. Only time she took off was about a 8 - 10 months when she had to get her 2nd husband up to speed. You can tell by the eyes when the eggs are getting ready to hatch. The day before a few of the embrios will have silver eyespots, all will have eyespots the day they hatch and that evening after the lights turn off out they start popping out.

My experience most BTAs will stay in one place for a long time but sooner or later will move and there's no predicting it (look at Ozarkawater's thread from a couple of weeks ago). I have had one notable instance where a Teal and Pinktip BTA dissappeared in the rockwork of a 200 gallon for a couple of months then reappeared on the other side of the tank very pale but recovered to continue terrorizing the other corals.

Since the Protomont stage crawls around and attaches to rocks or glass or whatever when they encyst algae eaters that scrape the surface eating algae like some urchins and hermits or Sallylightfoots may kill a fair amount but it only takes a few cysts in a crevice to keep the lifecycle going. Here's two good articles on the ich lifecycle: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa164 http://www.int-res.com/articles/dao/1/d001p019.pdf

BTA wins. So far the only coral I've seen not bothered by BTAs is Blue Coral, Heliopora coerulea. Or at least it's not killed by BTAs, the polyps usually don't come out but that may just be from physical contact causes them to retract.

I solved that problem by not using a skimmer.

I really like the Custom Reef spectrum and along with the Super Actinic will work well on most of my tanks. Nick,I am curious if you can test the color temperature of existing bulbs? I have a tank with both 14,000K and 20,000K MH and would be more than happy to volunteer but they are from two different manufactureres and the 14,000K actully look bluer than the 20,000K. Just one of the frustrations with MH I'm glad I'm phasing out.

2nd picture is really nice.

Ahh, it's normal for corals to change thier flourescing and chromoprotiens to adapt to changes to the light field, either differences in spectrum or intensity or both. If your zoas are looking healthy and reproducing that would be my guess here.

Fascinating article!

Bummer! Electralisys may have put enough metals in the water to kill the animals. I would encourage you if you can do some large water changes with water from a healthy tank. It will help dilute what may be left in the water and the bacteria will be beneficial.

Just don't pet them

I like Yellow Tail Damsels, Chrysiptera parasema (there's another "yellow tail" that iget much larger and is not the same bright blue), because they don't get large like most of the other damsels and if you have a group they usually are to busy arguing with themselves to bother other fish. I've never had it happen but they are sequential hermaphrodites like clowns so you could get a dominate female that is a black widow.

Caught these two Yellow Tail Damsels laying eggs on a Frogspawn colony right after the lights turned on. I am wondering how long they've been a pair. If they had waited another 15 - 20 minutes the Frogspawn would have inflated and they would not have been visible laying the eggs.