Enigma13

I will be there. I definitely need some tips on photographing my tank.

Thanks for the great frags and enduring my children while we were there. The new tank is looking great. It was a pleasure meeting you and Christina. An added benefit for me of our visit, is that after seeing your setup my wife says that she will stop giving me a hard time about my much smaller and simpler setup. Looking forward to seeing you at the frag swap next month.

Nothing better than a razor blade to get coraline or other hard deposits off of glass. If your tank is especially deep I would recommend a Kent Marine Pro Scaper Metal. It has made cleaning my tank much better. For some of the softer cleaning I just use a MagFloat and an AP Cleaning Pad. Don't have any acrylic tanks yet so I can't comment on that.

Sanjay's page on lighting is probably one of the most informative references for the quality of bulbs/ballasts and the PAR they deliver. http://www.reeflightinginfo.arvixe.com/ He has conducted numerous tests on many of the popular bulbs and ballasts. T-5 are a great addition to the hobby, but I do not think they are a replacement for MH in all circumstances. In fact, I think the two technologies complement each other well for combined use in many applications.

Bangaii Cardinals are cool fish, but don't work out well in a school long term. As they get larger one (or a pair if you are lucky) will achieve dominance and eliminate the rest. Pajama or Glass Cardinals are also attractive and are true schooling fish. I would highly recommend one of the fairy wrasses for any of tank of sufficient size (I think 65 would be OK). I got mine (a solar wrasse c. solorenis) with the plan that it would be a nice splash of color and complimentary to the fish I really liked. It is now my favorite fish in the tank. Attractive and a ton of personality.

I'll take the lavender w/ green skirt zoos and light blue w/ green skirt zoos. I have sent my phone number PM so that we can set up a convenient time.

Welcome to come by and take a look. I will also try to get some pics up tonight.

I have a couple of frags that are ready to go. This is all fairly common beginner stuff, that is just overgrowing the space it has been allotted in my tank. All frags are attached to rubble pieces. a. Green zoos (15+ polyps) (dark green centers, brighter green rings, green fringe)- $8 b. Orange/Green zoos (~5 polyps) (orange centers, green fringe)- $5 c. Xenia-Multi-stalk colony- $5 d. Green slimer acro- two small branches (~1" each) mounted and encrusted on piece of rubble)- $10 e. Anthelia-$5

It is a Pyramid Butterflyfish, Hemitaurichthys polylepis. The are fairly hardy (really hardy by butterfly standards) and totally reef safe. They are planktivores in nature and seem to be fairly omnivorous in captivity. Mine eats just about everything I feed (which is a very large variety of foods that I rotate). He also nibbles at Nori with my tangs and rabbitfish. Here is a link with a decent writeup on the genus: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/Hemitaurichthys.htm

Thank you all for the kind comments. It was a pleasure hosting the meeting. It is always fun to be able to share this hobby with others who have a true appreciation and knowledge of what goes into these tanks. I hope that down the line if I host another meeting I will be able to show you all amazing growth and progress on this tank and being showing off my new FOWLR too. I wanted to thank Mike and Clint for sharing their experience and knowledge regarding AEFW. I can't imagine the anguish of having lost all of that investment (financial, time, and emotional) and keeping the positive attitude you guys have had throughout this ordeal. Thanks for using your experience to educate the rest of us and hopefully prevent our community from ever experiencing such an event again. Much thanks as always to Andrew for making this whole club run smoothly. And of course I have to thank Kingfish for helping make this tank happen and then getting me up to speed and making sure I didn't ruin it. Jason

Still have it. Its yours. Just drop me a PM and we will work out pick up/delivery. If you are going to be at the meeting tomorrow that would be easy or I could just bring it over to you one day after work.

Looking forward to hosting the meeting this weekend. I will not have any home smoked brisket unfortunately, but we will have some finger foods to pick on. We're trying to get our tank back to looking its best before the meeting, so hopefully any embarrassment can be restricted to my television performance. See you all on Saturday.

I have decided to switch over to Tropic Marin salt and I still have one unopened bucket of SeaChem Reef Salt. The bucket usually goes for around $55 at most LFS, so I was thinking that $40 would be fair since it has never been opened.

I have a bunch. You are free to pick up anytime or if you are going to attend the meeting next weekend you can just get it then.

Hope things work out. I have sent you a PM regarding my experience. I forgot to include in their to make sure that your drain line is large enough in diameter to easily pass your fish. I have a PVC drain that is 1.5" ID, so it was no problem once he got past the 3/4" ID bulkhead and connection with the PVC. If it had been 3/4 all the way to the sump I am not sure he would have made it, but it all depends on the size of the fish. Best of luck.

Brian it is great to have you here. For those who are unaware, Brian is a great contributor of knowledge over on MAAST and it will be great to have his input and participation in our club as well. Welcome!

Here is a link to a thread at RC regarding getting these guys to eat. Hope it helps. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...threadid=695884

Looks like the Mag 18 is turning over 1800 gph and can handle pressure up to about 20' before shutdown. That puts the volume a little outside of the range of any Eheim. Even the 1264 only moves around 1200 gph and shuts down around 11' of pressure. Otherwise, I would second Mike's suggestion. I use a 1262 to return flow to one side of my tank, while an Iwaki 55 RLT heads to the chiller then returns to the other side. I do not find the Iwaki too loud, but I know that many others do. I know that it is infinitely quieter than the chiller. I am looking forward to the cooler temps and not hearing the chiller or paying the accompanying power bills.

OK. Don't really know how this got so out of control, I thought that I communicated with everybody and things were cool. However, I think everybody wants each other person to be happy and things will work out. Mike- Garret has relinquished any claim to the frag and it is yours per his request. I thank BB and Garret for their interest and hope there are no hard feelings between anybody here forward.

Addboy- I should have been clearer in labeling the pictures. That is the mother colony which is about 6-8". The frag is a good size, but nowhere near that size. LMK if you are still interested. I am going to try to get some better pics tonight when I haven't just cleaned the tank.

I have a couple of frags for sale or trade. Red Montipora Cap- approx. 1"X1" (accidentally broke it off tonight while cleaning the tank)-$10 Red w/ purple spot mushroom rock; Approx. 4"x2" with about 10 or so polyps- $30 Anthelia- unattached frag (I have a bunch)- $5 for a large frag (1X1 at base), $10 for what I would consider small colonies (2X2 at base). I will try to add some pics tomorrow night. The cash price listed will obviously work. Also I would be interested in trades for any of the following frags: blue ricordea polyp stylopora green rasta leather

I have read in several different sources that the worst situation is a sand bed between 2" and 4". It isn't deep enough to get the benefits of a DSB and it is too deep to properly vacuum and keep stirred. I think that John's post has this sort of implied, but I wanted to make sure it was stated clearly. That said I agree that 1.5" inches sounds great. That is about what I have in my display. Seems to be plenty for aesthetics and to keep my nassarius and sand sifting star happy and it is easy to vacuum when I do water changes.

Foam level should be about 1" or so into the cup tubing. Usually skimmers make foam like crazy when they are brand new which is why you often have to turn them all the way down at first. Now as far as getting skimate in the cup, I would give it at least a day to see what you have.

I will be there.

I would remove the bioballs in thirds. Take out one third, wait about a week and half of what is left, and then in another week remove the rest. In answer to a question further up, I think you will get differing opinions regarding large water changes, but 50% is definitely within almost anybodies safe range. Anthony Calfo recommends weekly 70-90% water changes under the mantra that if you are doing water changes to export nutrients why not take out as much as possible. I don't think that is for everybody, but Calfo is definitely a trustworthy source.