Robb in Austin

Cool on your rocks. Only you can answer your coral/fish question for sure, but I'd add a wrasse of some type, maybe some chromis(I'm partial to the blue reef chromis but they are pricey), a lawnmower, gramma, maybe an angel. I tend to like more "common" fish vs exotic; 1)cheaper, 2)they tend to be common because they do well in tanks.

Yes. The reason is so you can run a Magfloat back there to clean the glass. Also, as Derek mentioned, it's nice to have flow all the way around to keep detritus from pooling(which will happen within the rock structure but you know what I mean).

I like the caves. I'd suggest not having it touch any glass, but it may be too late to change. Got a girlfriend/wife/sister? Have her scape it. I've never seen one by a female that hasn't been outstanding. Aquatek has some really nicely coralline encrusted rock in all sizes. It's expensive though. RCA still has some of their last shipment in stock, it's pretty nice too but not encrusted.

+3 on Tunze if the price is the same. Don't forget to factor in the price of a controller, Tunze or other, if you want to control them.

Oh yeah, forgot to mention. It's not that blue in person. But, yeah, yea! Do I qualify for the longest build in ARC history? What do I win for it? We need a ruling here Andrew!

Who has the best selection in town? Fairly certain I need 3/4".

Yeah, probably wont hurt it long term. But, to address your idea. Remember that salt doesn't evaporate, only the water, so you run the risk of inadvertently raising your SG by doing that. I just try to clean it up from time to time with a wet rag. If some falls in I don't worry about it, but I don't add it intentionally.

The safe way would be to check amonia, nitrites, and nitrates and watch for the cycle to finish. But, if you add a little at a time I think you should be ok. Little like 1-5lbs at a time.

A tank is born.... I added roughly 60lbs of Caribsea Seafloor Special Grade sand yesterday and ran a few HOB filters to help clear the sand storm. I added a handful of rubble rock that I got at Aquatek and some old snail shells that were laying around in the 58 to help seed the fuge and sandbed. The Koralia is in there temporarily. The white tube you see on the right is my BRS Two-way GFO/Carbon reactor that is currently on the 58. I'll probably leave it as is until next week and then move everything over.

Here are some that worked well for me. The GIMP manual is a good starting point, but a bit 'meaty': http://docs.gimp.org/2.6/en/index.html This really helped: http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials.htm And Melev's site has some basic info that really helped too: http://www.melevsreef.com/pics/demo/ Basically, just sit down with it and play.

Anyone know if any of the LFS have Ti heaters and how much they run? I just threw an old Visitherm Stealth in the 75 and it doesn't seem to me working; set it to 79, tank is at ~72.

I should clarify; Levels/Curves do basically the same thing as each other. Not the same as brightness-contrast. I'll give you some links later, when I get on the desktop, that helped me. Don't have them bookmarked on my lapper.

Gotta love GIMP. It's what I use too. When you have the pic uploaded, go to the Colors tab and Brightness-Contrast is under there. Also, play around with Levels and Curves(they both do basically the same thing).

So, after approximately 18 months this thing is finally taking off. But first a brief update: After I started my build thread, I restarted school and then started in grad school in Jan 10. The net result is that the build was put on hiatus once again. In the fall of 10 I got around to working on the tank again and with help from CafeRacerMike got the plumbing done. I managed to get the tank in the house and water tested it and then more delays. In late Nov of 10 we decided to get our foundation fixed which caused further delay. In the last few weeks of 10 and first 2 weeks of 11, lots of progress was made(relatively). On with the show... As outlined in the thread, I finally added SW to the tank this week. I added Stability, my old MagFloat which had been in the current tank, and 180mL or so of old tank water to get the tank seeded. Today I added sand and have some HOB filters running to help clear the sand storm that has occurred. Hopefully, tomorrow I can add a rock from the current tank that is covered in GSP to help get the tank running. I'll try to get some pics up soon.

Good start! The only real issue I see is that most are underexposed. Usually you can use post processing to bring up the brightness and "get away with it" but there is a limit to what you can do.

My move will be on the order of 3 ft and out of water time should be seconds. Thanks for the warning though. We'll see.

How about a 6line instead?

Once I get the sand in I will throw in a rock that is covered in GSP. I'm hoping that between the Stability, using same rocks, and proximity of the move will reduce the risk.

Hey Mitchell, You might poke around RC and MAAST for GreenMako's build thread. It's a number of years old, but he built a false wall around a large tank that might provide some ideas. I'd also suggest looking at Melev's current rebuild thread as his is well documented, look on Reef Addicts for his. Of course, I'm sure a few people around here have built ins and can provide lotsa of assistance too, as you have already seen.

Fixed your post Mama.

Return pump should be going on tonight, Stability added already. Sand should go in tomorrow along with a small GSP rock to "test" the system.

The water is 66? What about a small heater in the back? http://www.fosterand...87&pcatid=12087 http://www.fosterand...44&pcatid=18444 or maybe this in a pinch though it might be hard to plumb in http://www.fosterandsmithaquatics.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3743+11369&pcatid=11369

Exactly how cold do you keep your house(or, how cold do your parents keep their house to be completely correct)? Run it a few days without the heater and see what it runs.

Pics or it didnt happen.