Mcjudge

Have to say if there was a battle of the ada tanks, scaping, corals colors... I lose. Hats off my friend well done. Amano himself needs to put your tank in his display. For anyone who is not suscribed and wants to know what true aquascaping is about... http://www.youtube.com/user/aquadesignamano Take a look! -M

I love the sketchup work and the rendering. The idea is fantastic as it is very unique and allows for a wide range of creatures... The only thing I might bring up and please don't take this as a criticism, is the tanks orientation in the room. I would venture to say the original tank shown in the picture, works best as a peninsula. I would just have a hard time looking at that tank from the sofa... I would feel like I was always looking at the system from the side. 2 ways to correct it for me would be switch the orientation of the shelf/ and or drop the front side of the 1st shelf down. Its hard to describe but you would in essence be making a side shelf and a front shelf. If that is the goal of the entire tank, then my apologies as I just missed it but I thought I would throw it out there. Our tanks are our centerpieces. Cheers

Here is a problem I ran into. I bought live rock that came from Florida via Aquadome. I spent so much on the rock budget wise i had to wait to buy sand. All of my rock was in the display. When I started adding sand (a month later) I noticed there was substantial more worms and live stuff happenging in my display than in my DSB in my refugium(because I didn't add any rock to the refugium). You can seed it yourself by transfering sand to and from your display but you run the risk of disturbing your dsb and releasing bad things into the water. I really think you need Live Rock just for the worms and other flora/fauna to seed your dsb in your refugium. I have been up and running since august with zero algae problems and no cyano issues. I bought a mix of dead argonite and live bacteria sand. (not live sand from someones tank) You can also seed your sand/refugium with an order from http://www.ipsf.com/. Make sure you get the mama mia worms because they are so cool looking. I would also recommend having them all up and running together, in fact I would even say it might be smart to have your refugium running before your display. The die-off will give your macro algae the nutrients it needs to get a good start.

The only thing I remember from my research into both is that with the apex you can "control" stuff remotely via web interface. With the reefkeeper you can log it but you can't control it remotely. I have no experience with either so take that with a grain of salt. If someone can confirm that please let me know.