C Lo Slice

The light fixture I have on my 60 gallon is a 4-bulb T5 Coralife with 4 lunar LEDs. I've had this on the tank since April 28th, but I'm growing to dislike the bulbs. Currently, it is just the two 10,000K daylights and two actinics that came with the fixture. This is a 54-watt light. What I don't like is that the daylights give off too much of a yellow hue and the actinics' shade of blue is too light for my taste. I'm wanting to eliminate the yellow tint and get an overall deeper blue when all 4 bulbs are on. I read up on the T5 knowledge that The Grim Reefer (Steve Larsen) had to offer on his site ( http://home.comcast.net/~stevelarsen00/site/?/home/ ) yesterday and started doing some research. For a 4-bulb fixture such as mine, he suggested on his website the following combo, in order of front-to-back: 1) Any blue lamp (I'm thinking ATI's Blue Plus) 2) Fiji Purple or ATI Purple Plus 3) Aquablue Special 4) Any blue lamp (Again, ATI Blue Plus) He says this should put the tank around 15,000K, giving the tank a bluer look, and I'm assuming better PAR than what I currently have. I have heard nothing but good things about ATI bulbs, so I would like to give them a shot. Being that the bulbs I have are coming up on nine months in operation, I figure now would be a good time to go ahead and begin shopping around. Larsen also suggested using a UVL Actinic White instead of the Fiji Purple/Purple Plus if you want a warmer color with a purple tint. My problem is that I'm too inexperienced in the hobby and with lighting in general to really know what any of this will actually look like. I found a website yesterday in which I can get the 4 bulbs above for $85.80 plus 10% off and free shipping, bringing my total to $77.22, which is considerably cheaper than any other site that I came across. I have a little extra money right now, but $80 for bulbs that I may end up not liking is a steep price to pay for me. I'm just looking for any advice that you guys may be able to provide for me before I pull the trigger on this. The only SPS I have is a large Superman Monti about a foot below the lights, and I currently don't intend on adding anymore SPS (at least for the foreseeable future). I would like to add an anemone soon, though, because my clowns are hosting in different corals, causing them to die off. When they kill one, they move on to a new one. I get about 3.6 watts of light per gallon and I know that's a little on the low side for a nem, but I don't know what else to do with these clowns. Any and all help/advice is greatly appreciated. Thanks, guys.

The skimmer is an AquaC Remora HOB with Maxi-Jet pump. I know 130 pounds of LR is quite a bit, and I didn't intend on adding that much when setting up the tank. Some of the corals I have bought from other members here were on medium-large rocks so that kinda added to what I already had. The majority of the rock is dense and heavy, with only one piece being fairly porous. Regardless, they are all very large pieces. My initial CUC consisted of the following: 30 Dwarf Ceriths, 17 Florida Ceriths, 9 large Nerites, 7 small-medium Nerites, and 15 assorted Hermits. Those were all added on May 5th, which was 25 days after the tank's initial setup. My tank also has 3 Peppermint Shrimp and a Fire Shrimp. There has been considerable die-off on my CUC over the months and I was actually planning on boosting it back up in the next couple of weeks. Diatoms have been non-existent for a few months now, and the cyano has receded considerably as of late. GHA is my chief concern right now. I assume my skimmer is skimming efficiently, but it's my first one so I don't know how to tell if it is skimming inefficiently. Also, nitrates have never been above 5 and nitrites have never registered on any tests. I don't have a phosphate test, but may see about taking some tank water with me to my LFS on Saturday. Thank you for the help, bimmerzs

I'd like to get a tally of who all is interested and the amount they plan on getting. Remember there is a 10% discount, and I believe free shipping is $250. John has some new items, for those of you who haven't seen his latest post on the forum. It looks like I'll have enough extra money on my next paycheck to purchase some things. Let's get this thing rolling ahead of time.

I may be interested in this for a Sea Hare and a couple other things. Keep me updated. Where abouts in Kyle are you?

That's good to know. I have been researching new bulbs lately, as I want a little more of a blue tint to the tank anyways. I think with my next paycheck, I should be able to afford it. I also do probably need new RODI filters. I don't feed flake; only frozen, which is rinsed well in RODI water and defrosted before actually putting into the tank. I'll look into GFO. Thanks for the advice, buddy

My apologies. I have posted a ton of problems with my GHA and I assumed the majority of people here knew about it. But, I guess you know what they say about when you assume... I have been doing this since about mid-late August. My 60g has ~120-130 lbs of LR. I just added a skimmer a month ago, and I have a RODI unit installed that I use for my top-off and WCs. You are correct in that my tank is not super heavily stocked. But since August, I have had GHA issues. I bought a Sea Hare a couple months ago, he did his job, and I passed him on to one of our sponsors. I'm looking to grab another one and possibly trying to keep it longer, with substitute feedings of nori after the GHA is gone once again. The first time I got rid of the GHA, I did not have my skimmer so I'm hoping for different results this next time around. I have not tried GFO. I had a canister filter on there since the tank's birth in mid-April until about two months ago when it sprung a leak. Since then, no filtration whatsoever other than two powerheads and the month-old skimmer. RCA suggested I had enough LR in my size of tank to be successful without a sump or canister filter. When the canister was running, I did have carbon bags in there. My 4-bulb T5 has not had the bulbs changed since I purchased it, which was probably around mid-to-late May. I wish that were the case, Robb. As stated above, I have had this issue for about four, going on five, months now. It sure gets tiring and tedious picking all that excess algae off by hand

It looks like the only thing that died while I was away was a Red Footed Moon Snail. I had GHA issues before I left, but it has never been THIS bad. Temp was fine; I had a heater installed. No sunlight, just my 4-bulb T5 fixture which is on a timer. I did a 10 gallon WC (60 gallon tank) and cleaned the skimmer about an hour before leaving on the 23rd. I'm assuming the outbreak was due to lack of control while I was away. I typically do two 5 gallon WCs a week in order to keep GHA under control. I pick off as much as I can while I siphon with a 1/4" airline tubing.

Sounds good, man

Alright let me wait for my next paycheck around the 11th of the month to see if I can still afford an order. I'll post something around then when I know more, since it looks like this has started gaining more interest

My wife HAD to spend 9 days in Dallas visiting family over the holidays. I didn't have the option of staying home. She also doesn't trust anyone in our home that we don't know, so hiring someone for tank maintenance was out of the question. I had everything on auto-pilot while we were gone, except ATO. This is what I came home to last night. Second pic is my $90 Sunny D frag. I'm hoping after suctioning the GHA and cyano off, I can find a living polyp. At least all the fish are alive. Time for some MAJOR tank cleaning! Lesson learned...

Still have the urchin? What kind of algae are you seeing?

Thanks, Andrew! And congrats, Mike

Sorry, Kim, but this just hasn't garnered enough interest. I ended up just getting a couple things from RCA. Definitely in another month or so I'll look into getting this going again.

Wow, thanks for all the info Tony. I really appreciate it.

A few (slightly) better shots

I WISH I could have that leather in my tank! That thing is gorgeous. But, yeah, sometimes I think my mom is more addicted to the tank than I am. For some reason, though, she refuses to put one up in her own house. Now that the lights are on and the corals have come out, it's obvious what they are: a colony of beautiful mushrooms and a LARGE colony of zoas. The shrooms are a reddish-orange with green specks and thick white stripes on the outer rims. The zoa colony has a few different types of polyps on it, but are predominantly all green. The details on them, however, are really pretty. The pic doesn't do it justice. But she also picked up 4 snails that have an orange rim. These guys are huge, and she said the guy at RCA told her they'll mow down my GHA problem. Can anyone ID these?

Hey Jake - I sent my mom by on her way home from work today to get me a sand sifting Goby. She came back with that and 3 other things that she had no clue what they were. Hoping you could identify them for me? I'll shoot you some pics in the morning when the lights come on.

Sorry, man. The cost of gas has just been killing me lately.

I'm looking to get the ball rolling on this thing. I don't mind being the coordinator if everyone is willing to come pick up their stuff from my house in Buda (or at the Cabela's off 35). For this to happen, though, everyone's order will need to ship on a Monday so I can be home on a Wednesday to receive it. Unfortunately, wednesdays are the only day I'll be able to stay home all day to wait for the shipment and dole out everyone's stuff. $250 is what needs to be hit for free shipping. My order is only going to be about $30 (I just priced out the stuff I want). I need to know ASAP who is down for this order and just a rough estimate of the order total you anticipate so I can contact John at Reef Cleaners. Let me know guys. Otherwise we may just have to do individual orders. I gotta get this stuff before I go out of town the week after next. PM me if need be.

On reefcleaners.org there is a section describing how to do a group buy. And I believe free shipping is at $250. My order will probably account for between $30-$60

Awesome, looks like there's some interest. Would anyone want to take over coordination? I've never organized a group buy before

I need to bolster my clean up crew. Just checking to see if there was any interest in a group buy.

Here are a couple of pics of the shortened tubing from the drain fitting into the tank. There is still nothing anywhere near the collection cup.