Kingfish

A. echinata have the ability to have fused coralites at the fringes of the coral polyps where A. lord coralites do not fuse, but spread as individual polyps. Their flesh makes both appear similar similar, but echinata is more colonial.

If your fittings are still leaking, replace j.a.c.o fittings with John Guest fittings from lowes.

Since so many people got green slimer frags of roughly the same size lets hold a contest. If you got a frag, bring a picture to the next meeting and we will compare color and growth. The person with the best picture will be crowned reef master of the universe!

I'll talk to andrew about it. I wonder if it would be better to hold the auction at meeting, or a few days b4 somehow. This would give a little more time for planning. We will start to hash out details.

I was thinking that at the next meeting, we could start it by having a raffle (selling tickets to raise money) then building a sump for the winner in conjuction with a DIY acrylic class that I could teach. We will donate the materials. Thoughts?

Great meeting. What a cool tank, with great color and rockwork. I certainly hope we can have one in 4 weeks or so. I am trying to talk my friend into hosting it so we can check out his 600g sps tank.

I guess my previous post will only make sense to those that have have tried to do acrylic work before. Any interest in an acrylic workshop at the next meeting??? i saw a cool underwater camera box at macna made by melev that I can dudlicate.

Great posts, so I think that the consensus is that the coralvue Reeflux 12,000K bulbs without actinics, (or with if you like it extra blue) is what most people are using these days.

Macna tip: When building tanks/sumps with acrylic using weld on #4, glue joints indoors with the A/C set to 70 degrees for 4 hours to cool down the glue and materials. Then using 15/1000's piano wire to add a little space to the glue joint, add the weld on #4 with a syringe through capilary action. Then after the glue is in the joint, remove the piano wire from one end to another for a bubble free glue joint. When using the two part weld on #40, cut the material at a 5 degree angle and inject the WO #40 into the joint using the piano wire method. Then , once dry, route off dried glue with a laminate trimming bit.

I like the current dual daylight alot, but i have found that their dual actinic (which is a good bulb) is not enough to balance out the dual daylight enough to give you that crisp "12000K ish" look that everyone is looking for. i would suggest that you buy an all true actinic that peaks at 460nm. Yall will have to bear with me on the technical posts, its just that at macna everybody talked like a reef geek and it just rubbed off on me.

I have installed a few super skimmers of each size, and I have noticed that the work well as long as the water level is kept as constant as possible. And I agree with Gabe, the 220 is worth the little extra.

Word!

Hair algae growth can often reduce nitrates, but are usually sparked by elevated nitrates, go figure?

I said this before, but i'll say it in a more controversial way; Borneman's salt study sucks, and is not that applicable to a reef. The study should be called: How various salt mixes effect small tanks with virtually no live rock. Live rock introduces so many chemical and biological factors that are not taken into consideration in this study. The biggest flaw that i see in this experiment is that the test aquariums are two 48" 55g tanks divided into 4 cubes with 48" light bulbs over the top. Fluorescent bulbs are much more intense in the center than at the ends. So, the cubes in the center recieve more light and may have shown higher algae growth rates. Plus, it is irresponsible for any scientist to post inconclusive results from a study that isn't even finished. (I am still switching to tropic marin though) Gosh i'm such a hippocrit.

I just picked up a few Coralvue reeflux mogul based metal halide bulbs that I absolutely love. The color is great and it is quite bright. Anybody else out there using these? If not, what does everyone like?

This type of algae is very common. It is a simple single celled green alga or dinoflagellate. This may or may not be the case, but it is common in aquariums where fluorescent (or esp. PC) bulbs age and begin to emit more of a yellow to red spectrum than the blue/violet spectrum. If your white bulbs are over 10months or actinics/blue over 8 months I would suggest you change them. ' Check phosphate and run some carbon. These simple algaes can often bind to activated carbon. (Good carbon that is, like hydrocarbon2 by two little fishes)

My bad the CS8-2 is now called the CS165, and it still sucks!

Euro reef may be a great alternative for some/most people. There are some issues with some of their products. First and for most customer service is not very good at all. The company has grown very quickly over the last 2 years, and they have become very busy. It can often take 2 weeks to get a response and thats for vendors! Try calling as a hobbiest. The CS6-2+ (now CS135) is awesome I love it so much sometimes I often talk to it and tell it how beautifull it is and how much I adore it. But the CS8-2 (CS135) is the most overpriced piece of junk on the market. As is their 12" diameter skimmers over 2' tall. Euro-reef was not an option for most aquarists 4 years ago when they all ran on expensive eheim pumps. After switching to sen, sedra, then finally dolphin pumps, people could finally afford these skimmers. All of these skimmers are now discontinued!!! You may be able to get one for a few more months, but then the new model kicks in. All new Euro reefs will be recirc. skimmers with EHEIM pumps, which is great for performance, but I think that we will all see a drastic increase in price. Sorry, i am starting to rant, i'll shut up now.

Q1: I am just regurgitating things that I heard at macna, again. But what Bruce at rowa recommends is that you do not constantly remove and add phosphate absorbing resins. You regulate the phosphate in your tank by adding a small valve to your 2 little fishes or kent reactor. You adjust the flow while testing both the tank water and the water coming out of the reactor (the effluent), much like you would a calcium reactor. Q2: And yes, I worked at Aquatek for about 6 years during college. (and yes I went to college for 6 years) Q3: The tank that I am finishing up on is about 600 gallons, it is a custom made acrylic tank that is 96"x48"x30"tall. It is home to mostly stonies, clams, and lps. Due to time and budget constraints, the tank and support stand have been set up for some time, but I am just now getting to finish building the cabinet and canopy. I will post a ton of pics in 2 weeks when it is done.

Coralvue's new HOB looked good yet cheap at macna http://www.coralvue.com/hob.html

Seachem makes superior supplements to kent. There I said it. The seachem line is great and I love it. The products have been used and tested for about a decade. Their salt however is less than a year old. I believe that in time, they will refine their salt mix, but currently i am not impressed. I have used a total of 4 x 160 gallon buckets and had consistently low alk, as well as sediment at the bottom of my mixing drum. Additionally, on one bucket, I experienced precipitation on the walls of the container. Once it has used in the tank, all was great, polyp extension etc. Some minor diatoms occured after a 33% water change.

Eric Borneman's study on reef salts was not very conclusive, and the experimental design is not well suited to aquariums that contain live rock. It would take to long to sum it all up, so is are some superficial conclusions that i drew from the presentation. Instant ocean is the lowest quality mix of the study group having produced the least coral growth and most cyano bacteria. Oceanic is average to good all around Tropic marin ranked very high, having good growth and the least amount of algae. Tropic marin pro (to my understanding) is reserved for those aquarists that use calcium reactors, yet maintain a high and unbalanced borate alkalinity (really high Kh). According to the Tropic marin rep. "just because pro is more expensive doesn't mean that you need it, if you don't know exactly why you need pro, then don't use it." His words not mine.

I second the testing. After a long conversation that john and i had with Bruce from Rowa-usa I have a good understanding of phosphate in a reef. Here it goes: A reef aquarium stony or not needs between .008 and .01 mg/L of organic phosphate. This PO4 initially binds with free calcium ions released from a calcium reactor, or participates in the bonds between calcium hydoxide (kalk), or calcium chloride (liquid ca). The zooxanthellae incorporate this calcium phosphate molecule into their cells where the Ca-PO4 bond is cleaved supplying the skeleton with Ca and the algae (zooxan.) with the necessary phosphate. So in short, a tank without any phosphate can have trouble with both color and growth.

PS. The new Deltec HOB skimmer that I saw at macna is available and can handle a 90g tank for $239 http://www.deltecusa.us/proteinskimmers/mce300.php

This hobby is like any other, you get what you pay for, period. But to play devils advocate, a skimmer is just a clear tube with a pump and some air bubbles. The reason expensive skimmers are such is due to materials and engineering. Cheap skimmers use extruded rather than cast materials. They are press molded not hand assembled. But most importantly the pumps used on cheap skimmers such as: Via aqua, Rio, Cap, etc have thinner layers of epoxy covering the copper coils in the pump head. These thin layers of epoxy can easily crack leaking stray voltage and copper into your aquarium. Just an FYI.