jestep

Some offer threshold shipping. If you consider it costs roughly $50 - $100 for packing and shipping fees to send a single reasonable size overnight package of fish, I'm somewhat surprised that free shipping is offered at all for livestock.

We have really good fish stores around here so it's usually fairly easy to get good fish locally. Most will special order as well if there is something specific you are looking for.

As far as online retailers go, live aquaria, divers den specifically are still very good. Vivid is good in my experience. You'd probably want to get more input or just research some of the other vendors to see people's experiences with them.

Anecdotally, some people have had success with running UV either continuously or after they have a confirmed outbreak. I don't think I've ever seen an actual study trying to confirm it though but there seems to be enough examples that it has some merit. If your fish are out of the tank, I'd just save the money and skip the UV unless it starts coming back.

6 weeks for marine ich.

There's some people, myself included, that think that many pathogens can remain in a tank or even remain infecting fish but they don't display any symptoms until they are stressed and the pathogen has the opportunity to spread. I've had fish get ich without a single addition to the tank in a year or so. I can't think of any other way that they could possibly get sick other than the parasite being present in the host, but not displaying any symptoms. Powder brown tangs and some others are notorious for getting ich and other diseases arbitrarily. Definitely wouldn't hurt to run UV if you have very sensitive species.

They're very opportunistic and will eat anything if their favored food is missing, or if they don't feel like looking for it which is the case most of the time. Sleeping fish. Coral. Other inverts. Anemones. Not really much not on their menu.

Somewhat limited in quantity unless you plan on doing a ton of water changes.

I'll just post my personal list of nano compatible community'ish fish. By no means do I suggest adding all of these in a 30 gallon tank.

Percula or Ocellaris clowns - single or a pair

Springers Damsel - no more than 1 and do not combine with other non-clown damsels and chromis

Talbots Damsel- no more than 1 and do not combine with other non-clown damsels and chromis

Royal Gramma

Chalk Bass

Assessor Basslets

Most other candy or swissguard related basslets, but you may never see them

Candy Hogfish

Neon goby's

Dwarf golden moray (As long as there aren't super small shrimp or fish, and aquarium is tightly sealed)

Possum wrasse

Prawn or yasha goby (Awesome when paired with a shrimp)

Firefish

Caution list:

Dwarf angels (Almost all will start eating coral at some point. Some are extremely aggressive)

Chromis (Unless you just have 1, they bicker until there's only 1 remaining)

Dottybacks (Most are overly aggressive, orchid is best bet)

Midas blenny (Can be aggressive)

Combtooth blennys (Can be coral nippers)

Wartskin Angler (Will eat anything it thinks will fit in its mouth. They're not smart...)

Cardinals (Conspecific aggression. Some of the smaller (nano perfect) species are notoriously difficult to keep long term)

Jawfish (aggression and jumpers)

Filefish

Watchman Gobies (Can get large. Potentially territorial but usually ok)

My do not add list:

In addition to obviously inappropriate fish due to size (ex: tangs, or foxface), temperament, or habits (puffers)

Clown Gobys (they starve and can damage SPS)

Mandarin Goby's (they starve)

Catalina Goby (temperate water only)

Anthias (Too difficult to feed in a nano tank)

Any algae blenny in the Salarias family (they starve)

Seahorses and pipefish (diabolical feeding requirements)

It should work in one of these: http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/clear-refillable-cartridge-for-di-resin.html

Otherwise, leave it in the bag.

You want aragonite based sand which is basically crushed coral and shells (calcium carbonate), not silica based sand which is what you find at HD for sandboxes, landscaping, or masonry.

I second the dry special grade reef sand. Particle size looks great but it's large enough not to get blasted around like the oolite oir sugar size sand that's also available. I do think these sands look amazing, they're just really tedious to work with in a reef tank.

The live sand they sell for tanks is fine, but it's just a little more expensive and has is usually in water already. It doesn't need rinsing like dry sand though. Dry sand will produce a ton of dust in a tank if you don't rinse it well.

Just rinse the sand if you plan on reusing. Move the rock as is. You can swish it around before removing if you want to remove any detritus on it, but you don't have to.

New sand is inert so it won't cause a cycle, it just needs to build up bacteria which is will do on its own. You don't need to mix any old sand with it.

My vote goes for New.

It takes an absolutely ridiculous amount of rinsing and there's still a chance for enough sandbed die-off to cause a soft cycle. The live rock is the primary source of nitrification so it usually works as long as you rinse it enough. But, "enough" is just a heck of a lot of work. Especially in the case of this size tank, it's not like you have to buy several hundred dollars of it, so I'd save the time and slight risk, and just get new.

No idea why this isn't selling. Might try ebay at this point. Several have gone for $300+ in the past few weeks on there.

The airline valves won't work. They constantly get clogged so go with something else.

I have the same problem. They constantly clog, get about 2 days at best from them.

Don't know if you can get this one locally, but if your outlet is 1/4 OD: http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=32220&catid=662

Without regard to price, just throwing some ideas out there that will work for SPS...

If you prefer more of a full coverage look, like you would get with T5's, BML strips are pretty amazing. The 20K has outstanding color and intensity. Would have no problem growing SPS in that tank with 2 strips. The benefit of strips for SPS is they grow much more uniform compared to single point fixtures.

A 250MH fixture would be great for that tank. They're dirt cheap nowadays and you can probably find one with supplemental T5's or LED to get more actinic / blue in the tank.

LED's, ^ radion would be great.

AI makes some good fixtures that would work for that tank, AI SOL, or Hydra, or the newer ones.

Kessil A350's would work great on this tank, but you might need 2 of them for coverage.

What are the dimensions, footprint mainly?

Are the miami vice and dragon eyes on the rock in the above photo?

One more bump. Reefbrite strips are on ebay for about double the price here but will still honor this price if anyone is interested locally.

To summarize:

ADA 48 gallon rimless tank w/peninsula style overflow - $200

24" actinic LED strip $75

36" 50/50 daylight/actinic strip $75

Vortech MP10 ESW $150

Par38 (Cree LED) refugium lights $20. Have 5000K and 3500K available, 5 total. All grow macros very well.

I can bring any of this to my office near south mopac and 290 if you want to pick it up during the week. Will be gone the next 2 weekends, otherwise can typically meet on Saturday or Sunday within a reasonable distance.

Need to make it a close race between you and Ty to finally pass Mark for most ARC posts.

This would be a great setup even if you didn't put plants in it.

Are you going the discus route with it?

We're about a quarter mile from a water tower and measure 90#+ as well. I get better than 1:1 with a booster pump on a 200GPD system, but tend to get chloramine carryover.

Bad thing about super high pressure is how much water you can lose if there's any leaks. We had city of Austin out last year to help figure this one out which was only running for 15 minutes once or twice a week.

These are what I've broken several times. I think the bad ones were the BRS ones, but can't remember for sure.

^ Exact same setup here, but I just used a ton of teflon tape. I then have my ro tubing going through the wall into the garage. I have septic so my drain line goes through the attic and connects into my AC unit's condensing drain.

I will say that some of the plastic threaded faucet to RO line adapters are really poor quality. I've broken 2 or 3 just trying to hand tighten them.

I do not have access to RODI so I will have to use distilled.

Thank You

If you don't mind hauling, most of the LFS's have RO water for cheap.

I recommend Distilled or RO/DI.

There are people who successfully use dechlorinated tap water, but in my experience it's a lot easier running a tank when not introducing nutrient rich tap water into it.

Welcome. Most of us keep / have kept nano size tanks so if you have anything specific you need help with, there's plenty of experience with them.

Only suggestions compared to keeping a 75 is take everything much slower. It's way easier to create an imbalanced system in a small tank. Stock and feed lightly and make sure to stick to a good maintenance schedule.

Is it the normal solana pendant? I have a pendant from the 150W MH disco ball fixture you can borrow. I can bring it to my office if you want to pick it up tomorrow.

I'm more in the doubt it will work group but I think it depends on the clowns. I tried, but can't keep any other clown with my darwin ocellaris pair.

The length still isn't enough to get some good distance between them. If you were able to add them all at the same time it would probably be fine. An established pair may think the whole tank is theirs. Is the established pair hosting something that you could locate far to one side of the tank?