Enigma13

Do you still have this fixture? I am interested in using for a refugium.

I have the Current 1/4 in-line on my 144 reef. Works great to keep temp at 78 or 79 depending on the season. I have had it for two years with no problems. I would definitely recommend.

My solorenis was my favorite fish for about a year and a half until he managed to commit suicide on Christmas day. I am thinking about getting another one soon. Congrats with yours. I know you will really enjoy it.

I have an extra 100 gpd RO/DI system. Shoot me a PM if you are interested. There are many types of DI resin with different life cycles. There is color changing DI resin that will literally change color when it needs to be changed. It seems that the life cycle is about 200-300 gallons. This resin also has always seemed to me to be lower quality. Then there are semi-conductor, medical, or nuclear grade resins. You determine when these have to be changed by using a TDS meter. When it starts reading more than 1 or 2 it is time to change. I have gotten 500+ gallons out of such resins. I would recommend using a refillable cartridge and using such resins. Like resins not all carbon filters are created the same. Some of the cheaper ones will not catch all chloramine, but most will.

Steve, Deposition ran far longer than I expected. I will give you a call Sat. morning. We should be heading up to N. Austin tomorrow.

This was my thought on both accounts. What is the chance that all four bulbs are faulty (two from each set). And what is the chance that both ballasts are bad. Also don't understand how they work with one set of bulbs and not the other. I know certain bulbs are not compatible with pulse-start electronic ballasts, but have never heard of bulbs not being compatible with magnetic ballasts (especially XM bulbs). Anybody else ever hear of something like this.

Thanks Steve. I am stuck in a deposition right now (thank god for laptops to kill the monotony), but I will give you a call later this afternoon.

I am having some problems with my MH lights on the reef tank. Changed bulbs to XM 250 DE 10K from the original Current bulbs. The XM bulbs only seem to be reaching 75% intensity. I returned the initial set of bulbs to Hellolights, but the replacement bulbs look the same (only 75% intensity). Starting to think the ballasts (magnetic M80) may be bad and not defective bulbs (though the ballasts fire the original Current bulbs at full intensity). Is there anybody who has an extra 250 ballast laying around that I could use to run a test? My ballasts are still under warranty so I really do not want to buy another ballast yet, but I would be willing to pay a convenience/rental fee for the hour or two I would need the ballast. In the alternative if someone has a used XM 250 laying around I could test that to on my system to check things from the other side of it. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks BTW- Lighting system is a Current USA Outer Orbit HQI/T5 combo. The one w/ 2-250W DE MH and 4-54W T5 actinics. Has anybody else had any experience with this fixture or heard of similar problems?

Thanks for finding this information and sharing it with the club. I had never even thought of this possibility before, but I think I will be changing all of my non-controller power strips as this sure makes it easier.

Also remember that the higher your salinity the longer the acclimation process probably needs to be. Most LFS or online fish shippers tend to run salinity a little bit on the lower end of the normal range. Therefore, if you are way high there is more shock to the fish.

Part of the problem (probably not the whole problem) is that the last couple of days have been warm and humid. As the humidity rises tanks evaporate less which is the primary means by which they cool. I know that my chiller has been running like crazy on my reef the last two days. Most things will be adversely effected by temps at 85, including the zoos. I would get some fans over the tank ASAP. That should help considerably.

If it stays closer to 9 than 10 I should be able to help. I will monitor the thread and confirm later in the week.

If Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate have been 0 the whole time you have not cycled yet. What you should see is the ammonia spike and come down. At about the same time the ammonia comes down you should see the nitrite spike up. It will then come down with a corresponding tick up in nitrate, which will slowly decrease. I find it hard to believe that with two fish dying in the tank there never was an increase in any of these parameters. What kind of test kit are you using? I would give the tank a little more time. Feed it and let the food help with the cycle. Look for the spikes and declines discussed above to let you know the cycle is actually occurring.

One of the better local dive locations is Aquarena Springs. You have to take their special course and can only dive when you schedule to do so, but my understanding (never actually done it) is that visibility is wonderful. You can find a lot of info if you just Google Aquarena Springs and diving. Obviously, while not exactly local, two popular places that are at least in or around Texas are the Flower Gardens off the Texas coast and Balmorreal S.P. The local dive shops all have fairly regular trips to both. We have been planning to do the Flower Gardens trip for quite a while, but are waiting until the kids get a little older since it requires leaving them with friends or family for the weekend (two-day liveaboard is the standard way to dive this area).

Just wanted to see if those who had volunteered in the previous thread were going to be able to help out. Please shoot me a PM if you can help. Thank you again.

My yellow will give new fish some "extra attention" for a couple of days, but has always settled down. I have added a Regal and Achilles Tang successfully with my Yellow. In fact the most aggressive the Tang has ever been is when I added my barred rabbitfish (S. Doliatus). The Yellow, Naso, and Achilles are all from different genus, so that should help. I really wouldn't recommend an Achilles in anything less than an 8' tank. It isn't their size, but their nature that is the problem. My Achilles did not make it much to my displeasure. You can check any board and find the difficulty of keeping an Achilles long term.

A naso will need a bigger tank at some point and an Achilles would need one to start with. I think that they can be compatible in the right setup, but that setup is not one under 240.

We will be moving my new 240g setup from Donny's home in SA this Saturday (Feb. 2, 2008). I definitely could use some help unloading once we get it here to Austin. Probably four people will be sufficient in addition to the help I will have here at the house. I expect that I will get the tank to my house in the range of 2-3 p.m. I am located at 11716 Hobbiton Trl., Austin 78739. Several people have already indicated that they may be able to help, but if you could confirm now that I have time and place that would be great: Shooterqs Lurker Tomanero Joseph Le tentatively-GKarshens I will happily be providing snacks and beverages for all of those who come out to help. Thank you all. Jason

I have never had a conch go predatory on snails before. It is usually my larger hermit crabs who will take out the weaker snails or those that find themselves upside down. Even having seen what you did, I would still place the blame on the crabs for some of the snail death.

I am trying to figure out the same thing. I guess a key question is what is your color preference. Do you prefer brighter white lighting or cooler blue lighting?

Welcome to Austin. Good luck with the 8g. I'm sure people around here have a good number of frags to get you started again.

Thanks, Lurker. Hopefully he helps my tank out. It looks a lot more like seahorsejl's tank then bananaqs's at this point.

If he gets your tank algae free and you are worried about starvation, I would be happy to house him for a while and allow you to recoup your purchase cost. Then I will pass him on to the next person in need. A tank move and re-set in January has caused a large algae bloom in my tank. Took two years to get it perfect and now it looks worse than it ever did.

I really like Eheims and used one for quite a while. The downside is that they do not have a pressure rated pump that can handle the head pressure of a chiller and still deliver good flow. Therefore, I used a Japanese motored Iwaki RLT. It is quiet (unlike many of the American motored Iwaki's), reliable, and works perfectly for my tank.

It was Tropic Marin normal. I had one batch that tested really low (similar to your results, ~300), but most batches were between 380 to 400. Given the number of batches I made during the months I used Tropic Marin I threw out the low result as an outlier or possible human error. Similarly I had a low Ca batch the first time I used Red Sea Pro. I rolled the bucket around the next week before mixing and the last two batches have been around 400. Low alkalinity and magnesium have been the much more consistent problems for me.