pbnj

Some more tank shots for you.....

.....by the way, the price above includes all plumbing (75g sump not included) and live sand as well.

I've entered into an agreement to buy Brian's entire 180g set-up. I went to see it yesterday and it's truly amazing.

He mentioned that some of you are interested in certain items, but at this point, the only things I'm willing to sell are the tank/stand/canopy, which I'm selling for $650. I'm positive I can take them home, clean them up a bit and sell them for significantly more. The solid-oak, custom stand (40" tall) and canopy alone are worth more than that, and then you have a solid, Kingfish reef-ready brick tank on top of all that. As a matter of fact, this set-up is so nice, I debated long and hard yesterday about swapping my 135g for the 180g, even though my 135g has only been up and running about 6 months.

If you're interested in the tank/stand/canopy.....

I don't want Brian inconvenienced with requests to see the tank. I'm going there next Sunday afternoon (June 5th) to take all of the livestock/liverock (1st of two planned trips) and Brian has been gracious enough to allow those of you who are interested in buying the tank to stop by at that time. If you like/want it and have cash on-hand, it will be yours to take. I'll be there from about 1:00pm-3:00pm, so please stop by at that time.

Please respond here or PM me if you want to be put in line to buy the tank/stand/canopy, because if more than one person is interested, it will go in the order of who responded first. I'm giving 'Woods' the first shot at these since he showed interest first.

Thanks,

Pat

Oh, sheeza nice one!

PM'd you.

Start by watching this video to learn how to cycle a tank:

The black one's an elephant snail and the other two look like stomatella snails.

Based on what you've described, I think taller standpipes are your quickest/safest bet.

Do I get a discount on livestock for identifying the cause correctly?

• If Power Apex OFF 030 Then OFF

......this worked, thank you.

I just added this command to all my light outlets in case of a power failure. The idea being to keep the lights off for 30 minutes after power is restored:

• If Power Apex ON 030 Then OFF

As I updated each outlet with this command (and saved them), each light turned off. I figured the Apex base unit's power was detected as "ON", so the lights turned off and would remain off for 30 minutes. However, it's been over an hour and the lights are still off.

What am I doing wrong?

That exact thing happended to the first reef tank I set-up (btw, also here in Round Rock). Being a novice, I used tap water from my refrigerator filter. I got the neon green, coralline-looking algae. It eventually goes away, but it takes time.

.....wow, my frogspawn has gotten huge since then!

I like my water surface to be rockin'. It creates a great shimmer effect with the halides.

Pretty, but grass should be grown in a yard, not a fish tank.

I'm sure Aquatek will move it for you for a price.

For ballpark estimate purposes, I'd say....

$0.75-$1.00 per gallon for a used tank.

50%-60% of retail price for used equipment.

$2.00-$3.00 per pound for live rock.

50%-75% of retail price for corals.

75%-100% of retail price for fish (fish usually go for a premium because an established tank fish is worth just as much, if not more, than a retail-bought fish; proves they're hardy).

If your calcium gets too high, calcium carbonate can start to precipitate in your tank, i.e., it will start to look like a "snowstorm" in your tank:

....it is possible to disturb the balanced relationship between calcium and alkalinity and cause a sudden precipitation of calcium carbonate, commonly known as a "snowstorm", which can have tragic ramifications. Spontaneous precipitation of calcium carbonate occurs when pH levels rapidly climb beyond a certain threshold, which causes crystalline carbonate "snow" to fall out of solution in an essentially insoluble form. The tragedy of the event for a system suffering from this condition is that the reaction must run its course before corrective measures can be taken. The addition of buffers in an attempt to counter the declining alkalinity serves only to feed the precipitous reaction. An aquarist is resigned to watch the spawn of his error to completion, which leaves the buffering capacity of the system at a dangerously low level. The stress of the sudden change in water quality can be significantly harmful to marine organisms as well. Water changes and any methods of damage control that insure stability in the environment will be necessary.

Yes, that's high. You want it between 420-450. I'd suggest some waterchanges to bring it down.

When I was considering controllers, I really knew very little about them, so I based my decision almostly exclusively on customer service feedback. DA had horrible CS reviews and Neptune Systems had excellent CS reviews, therefore I went with the APEX Lite. I've only had one problem with the LED display dimming, but I sent it in for repairs and got it back within 5 days working perfectly.

I don't want to beat a dead horse, but I'm really getting a kick out of watching ugly SPS corals come to life under these bulbs. This is an SPS frag I purchased from the dapettit's at last April's ARC frag swap. While it did have hints of purple tips, the frag was kind of brown and only became browner in my old 75g:

VHOs:

PlusRites & VHOs

By the way, those purple branches are all new growth since January.

Having collect several hundred pounds of live rock from ARC members, here's what I did:

1) Dried it all out in the sun.

2) Proceeded to soak the dried rock in water & vinegar baths (with powerhead). I had to change the water on one batch about 6 times because the first couple of baths created really foul-smelling water.

3) Dry it all out in the sun again.

It would be best to test the bath water for phosphates to see when enough is enough. Keep-up with the baths until all the phosphates are gone (or minimal) or you'll end-up with algae problems in your tank.

Some comes off easily and disappears forever.

However, I once had a coral with some bubble algae on the base. I took the coral out and scrapped the area down to the skeleton, dipped/rinsed it, and it still came back. I must have done that about six times before it finally disappeared permanently.

• DSA Neo 185 is 60x30x24 (brick) and runs about $1100 at the LFS.
• Marineland Deep Dimensions 200g is 48x36x27 and runs about $1300.
• Marineland Deep Dimensions 250g is 60x36x27 and runs about $1500.
• Glasscages.com has both your dimensions (190g/195g wide) and each run about $900 (plus overflows).
• Ocean View will give you the best price on a decent, custom-built tank. That is, unless of course you want to go TOTL and order a custom AGE tank through Kingfish, but be prepared to spend $$$.
  Jake at RCA will give you a 10% discount on DSA/Marineland tanks with the ARC membership card. Plus, they'll deliver the tank to your house for a very reasonable fee.

Dave from Vivid offered this response on RC. If you think of it in terms of maximum fish bioload capacity, it makes more sense now:

Hi Guys,

Adding another 1500 gallons of volume on top of the 850 gallon display allows my customer to pack the main display full with a lot more fish than he could without the added volume.

As for the flow there are two 1/2 HP Wave II pumps pushing 8500 gph each into the main display from the sump. This means the entire display cycles through the sump 20 times per hour. When the video was shot there was only 1 MP 60 which we had just thrown on to test out (that's why it wasn't mounted yet). Currently we are running 6 - MP60's in addition to the two 1/2 HP pumps. With each MP60 capable of pushing 7500 gph this tank has potential circulation of 62,000 gph when everything is on full blast. For now the MP 60's aren't turned up all the way. As the corals grow out we can increase the flow as needed.

Thanks,

Dave Burr

Vivid Aquariums

__________________

Vivid Aquariums

www.vividaquariums.com

San Fernando Valley, CA

Interestingly enough, there's a thread about this tank on RC (Large Reef Tanks) and they're starting to debate the same thing (extra water volume & stability).