NonSequitur

The only one I've tried is garlic xtreme from aquatek.. I bought it as a way to try and coax my mandarin onto frozen food.. it didn't work, but the rest of the fish just attack anything I soak in it. It was pricey, so I'll probably try one of the extracts from HEB when I run out, which seems like it'll be a good while.

My rabbitfish absolutely loves caulerpa, even the grape caulerpa that someone told me was the dreaded racemosa. He completely devoured every speck of it in my display (hitchhiked in on some LR), and every bit I tranfer in for him from my 12g that I'm currently using to grow macro for him.

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I've had similar results, usually when I add too much salt at once or leave it circulating for more than about 24 hours after mixing, so now I add a cup at a time (I guess that's a benefit of a smaller tank, I only have to do a 5gal change to do 10%), leave it overnight, test, amend, then use it.

I've noticed trochus snails eating it (or at least disturbing it so it isn't settled on the rocks) in my small tank, and had a fuzzy chiton that seemed to eat quite a bit of it off of a stubborn spot on the rocks in my big tank (had a k2 pointed directly at the spot and it wouldn't clear up). I haven't had the trochus snails for 24 hours yet, though, so I don't know how well they will do long term, and the chiton has a relatively small patrol area (I've only seen him on two of the rocks in the tank and never on the sand). This is just anecdotal, and I'm not suggesting either of these animals will totally control cyano, particularly a bad infestation of it, but it might be worth looking into a chiton to help with particularly stubborn spots.

I'd love to take one if you still have them.

Right now I'm running 2x175w SPS 14k lamps with no actinic supplementation. I thought about adding t5 actinics (no room in my hood for t12), but I decided to do away with the hood and switch to pendants. I like the look pretty well, better than the ushio 10k lamps that I started with, but I didn't run the ushios long enough to compare coral growth. When it's time to replace the lamps I'll probably go with the iwasaki aqua2 lamps, which are advertised at 15k but supposedly have a higher PAR rating than most 14-15ks.

I have a 175w MH ballast and lamp that you can borrow if it helps.. I don't have any reflectors or anything, just the ballast, socket, and lamp, but if you can find a way to make it work I'd be happy to lend it to you.

Thanks Garrett! It was good meeting you, and the rock looks great.. haven't put it in the tank yet, but I took it home, added a pump and heater to the bucket to keep it alive, going to arrange it tonight.

Do you still have some, or did I miss out?

Is the sand gone as well? I could use some if you still have any.

With a pair of 175w MHs my tank costs about $25/month in electricity to run (that's the entire tank, incl. pumps, skimmer, heater, cooling fans, etc.), but like muddybluewater said, unless you're going to use actinic supplementation you won't see a big change going from 324w of t5 to 400w MH, at most 100w difference when you figure in ballast inefficency, which could be offset by changing out 2 60w incandescent lamps in your house with 13w CF lamps if you want to look at it that way.

I'm in as well.. If possible it would be best to get someone central to accept the delivery, since they don't guarantee overnight shipping to Cedar Park or Georgetown.

I'll be there as well. I have a decent digital camera, but just can't seem to get decent shots of my tank. Looking forward to learning!

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Yep, I freaked out the first time I saw this, after reading so many stories of anemones self destructing in a tank I panicked, but he was back to normal an hour or so later.

Yes, you should be able to use the same mogul bases, just swap out the lamps and ballasts.

I took the i-10 route through ft stockton once.. not a bad drive, and as Mark said, the speed limit is 85 much of the way once you get out in the boonies. I don't remember if we took I-25, but when we went we spent a night in Roswell and saw the UFO museum, which was rather underwhelming, but the drive between Roswell and Albuquerque was gorgeous!

I haven't dosed vodka (someone in the family is in recovery, so no alcohol in the house), but I tried dosing vinegar, which is supposed to work similarly. I ended up with cloudy water and a cyano outbreak, so I stopped. I was likely overdosing, since I didn't really pay a lot of attention to the dosing (approx. a tbsp mixed with each gallon of topoff kalkwasser), but I won't be trying it again.

I've got one I can lend you, I lost the instruction sheet, but I'm sure it can be downloaded. Just let me know.

Meanwhile, the purple pincushion urchin I got from Christian is making himself at home as well, pretending to be a nori clip:

Hey now! Quit giving him ideas!

It's definitely helpful to be able to reach behind, particularly if you're going open top or if you're using a hood that is open in the back.. I've had to rescue several fish that jumped during acclimation, overshot the water, and ended up on the floor behind the stand. Alternately, if you want more room to work without it looking silly, I've seen some setups where they put a bookshelf or cabinet beside the tank that can hide the space between tank and wall, but can be moved out of the way easily if you need to get into that space.