NonSequitur

How much are you asking for the galaxia?

The easiest way would be to try another bulb.. maybe someone has a lamp that is operable, but beyond its usable life that they can spare for troubleshooting. If that lamp won't strike, I'd suggest working backwards from the lamp socket to the ballast to make sure there aren't any shorts, open circuits, etc. Also, if you have (or can borrow.. I don't have one, but I'm sure someone on the forum does.) a non-contact current meter, you can clamp it on the supply wire for the ballast and see if it's pulling any current. The ballast should pull some current even with a bad lamp, or with no lamp at all (at least when it's first plugged in.. it wouldn't surprise me if some electronic ballasts shut themselves down to conserve power if there is no lamp present). This is one area where electronic ballasts are more trouble than magnetic.. magnetic ballasts are very easy to troubleshoot, since they only have 2-4 main components. If you're comfortable and experienced working on such things, another thing to possibly check is the voltage between the two lamp contacts. A lack of voltage reaching the lamp would indicate either no power reaching the ballast, or something wrong inside of the ballast.

I'm not sure what voltage the stock fan in the biocube uses, but if you can get fans that operate at the same voltage you can probably splice them into the existing fan circuit, but the easiest way is probably what mhart suggested, plugging them into the same power strip as the MH fixture, then plugging that into the timer.

I don't run actinics with my MHs currently, so I run 14k lamps to get the blue look. Eventually I'll probably switch to 6500k or 10k lamps and t5 actinics so I can have a sunrise/sunset effect, but for now the system works fine with 12 hrs of 14k MH.

In my experience, as long as the lamp is more than a couple of inches from the plastic it should be ok. . If the light is immediately over the plastic, it will definitely melt it, but the way you have it it set it should be ok. Daniel makes a good point about the proximity of the lamps to the water.. the closer the lamps are the more heat will be transmitted to the water, and the more salt creep you'll have to worry about cleaning off of the lamp (or uv filter glass in the case of DE lamps)

My other suggestion: invest in some sort of auto top off and embrace evaporative cooling. Way cheaper than a chiller both to set up, and in electricity costs to run it. About $50 from autotopoff.com will get you a single float swich and an aqualifter pump, and with appropriately sized reservoir for topoff water you won't have to worry about evaporation. I'm probably going to go that route to automate my top-offs/kalk drip once I have some more cash in my tank fund.

I suspect you'll need at least one more fan (and possibly more), blowing on the surface of the water and promoting evaporation to keep everything cool. Doesn't have to be anything fancy, though.. an old computer fan connected to an appropriately sized wall wart transformer will work in a pinch, as will one of those cheap clip-on fans they sell at walmart (just make sure it doesn't fall into the tank, thesanfords lost almost everything in their tank when a 120v fan fell into their tank.) You can always experiment this way, then make it permanent/pretty once you see how much airflow you actually need in your application.

Yes, a heater is helpful to keep the temp from dropping too much when the halides are off. When I first installed mine, I was seeing daytime highs around 84-86 (too high, IMHO), dropping to 78 at night. This was too much of a swing, so I added more fans to the tank during the time the lights are on. This kept the daytime temp around 78, but the nighttime temp has been dropping to 74 or so lately since I keep the house cooler when the outside temp is cooler. Still too much of a swing. Now I run a small heater (50w) set at 78 at night, plus added a bigger CF lamp (26w 150w equivalent) to my fuge on an inverse photocycle to add heat to the tank when the halides are off and the room temp is lower. So far so good.

That sounds great! I'd love to, but the whole family is down with the flu, so disappearing for a day wouldn't go over well.

Ion exchange softened water has it's place, but IMHO it's place isn't in a reef tank, at least without further treatment. As mentioned above, the resin in the system exchanges sodium (or potassium in some systems) for calcium and magnesium. This really cuts down on scale (calcium carbonate and calcium bicarbonate mainly if I recall correctly), which helps appliances (including your water heater) last longer, increases the effectiveness of soaps and detergents, etc. Clothes come clean with less soap, showers stay cleaner, water heater elements don't have to be replaced as often, and RO membranes last longer since since the hardness minerals have already been removed before the water hits the membrane. This is all well and good, but as Muddybluewater and Pat mentioned above, all a softener removes is calcium and magnesium. There are many other things in water (particularly well water) that we don't/can't test for, that aren't removed: chlorine, heavy metals, silicates, phosphates, purification by-products (in municipal water supplies mainly: trihalomethanes and haloacetic acids), herbicides and pesticides, volatile organic compounds, etc. Some of these act as food for undesirables (cyano, hair algae, etc), others are poisonous to fish and inverts. These are almost all removed by a quality multi-stage RO/DI unit. Can you get away with running well water in an aquarium long term? Probably. I'm sure it's been done (seems nearly everything's been tried by someone). Is it ideal? Depends on how you define ideal. You could consider raw well water a purely natural ingredient, and expect and adjust for the impurities Once again IMHO, if you go this route your best bet would be to go with as many natural means of nutrient/contaminant export and detoxification as possible: Macroalgae, DSB, mangroves, seagrasses, liverock, just to name a few. Each has a role in nature that, with proper research and understanding, can be utilized in our captive systems as well. I personally am experimenting with a hybrid natural/technological system: a largeish refugium with an even larger sump containing all of the things I mentioned above, plus a protein skimmer and occasional use of carbon. I expect to rely less and less on the technology as the natural means mature. As above, there are many ways to do it: you can add plenty of gizmos and gadgets: reactors and skimmers and filters of all sizes, or you can do your best to duplicate what nature's been doing pretty successfully for quite a while. The approach you take is up to you.. just do what Brian Boitano'd do: "make a plan and follow through" (South Park movie reference for anyone that didn't catch it) Ack. Now I'm rhyming, and badly. I think the espresso's wearing off, it's time to sleep. Anyway, just my two bits.

Thanks Dena! I've already mixed some up and started working on my alkalinity problem.

Thanks! Yes I will.

I'd love to take them if nobody has beaten me to them, I've been thinking of trying something like this rather than continually buying bi-onic bottles.

They're great looking plates.. mine was inflated and colorful by the time I got home from work yesterday, and snacked on the mysis that I fed the fish in the evening.

I'd be happy to share some sand from my established 12g (probably a cup or two, since it's a pretty puny tank), and would love to get a bit from the finished product when you get the tank up and running. I also have a few bits of LR rubble with some unidentified green and red macro growing on them that grow pretty well in my sump, but I wouldn't recommend in the display since it tries to take over. If you're ready for it, I can bring it when I pick up my reefcleaners stuff tomorow.

If the above doesn't work out and you're in a DIY sort of mood, the habitat for humanity re-store usually has a few 175 and 250w MH fixtures that you can salvage ballasts/sockets out of. You'd have to build/modify a reflector and something to mount the lamps above your tank, but that's doable. I got my 175s for $10 each (not including lamps), and now I'm eyeing the 250s they had last time I was there.

Just put in my order for $15. Thanks for organizing this group buy!

I'm not familiar with the model you have, but the instructions for my euro-reef skimmer mention that excessive foam is usually caused by something dissolved in the water (water conditioner, ph buffer, etc). They recommend running activated carbon and/or using an airline control valve to partially close the venturi air intake until the skimmer removes whatever is in the water that's causing excessive foam.

Thanks for all of the replies. I'm pretty sure these are b. merletti, since the polyps are pretty small, about the size of a dime when fully extended. I moved them to a lower flow area to see if they like that better. Tonight after the lights went out I target fed some mysis mixed with some reef roids. They didn't come out, but then I did just move them, so I'll try again tomorrow. (The other LPS corals really seemed to enjoy the extra meal)

This past weekend I picked up a small frag of blastos from Aquadome. They were open in the store, but haven't opened since I put them in my tank. Are there any particular conditions I should try to create to make them happy? They had them in the small frag tank under MH lights, but to my eye it didn't look as bright as the lights in my tank, so I put them low. How sensitive are they to water flow? I have a few areas without a lot of flow I can try if that's what they like, but those tend to also be low light areas as well. Water params as of 12:00 today (API test kits): ammonia: 0 Nitrites: 0 Nitrates: 5 (not sure I believe that one, since i'm currently dealing with a cyano bloom) Calcium (seachem test kit): 420 Salinity: 1.025 (two swing arm hydrometers averaged) Temp: 78-82F

I'd love to take some that isn't on the rock, and since I need some more rock anyway, I might be interested in some that's on. Let me know what you'd like for a smaller piece.

I've contemplated doing a similar thing using a bunch of x10 hardware that I have around but got distracted building some MH lighting... need to add it back to the top of the list.

Nevermind, Shane at fishy business is going to order a pair of sps 14k lamps for me. I figured it probably isn't wise to go cheap with lamps.

Have any of you tried the reefoptics metal halide lamps? I just set up my ghetto-rigged dual-175 MH (habitat re-store is a wonderful thing.. m57 fixtures for $10) and now I'm looking for lamps. I'm currently running a pair of way too old ushio 10k lamps that look great, but one doesn't always start the first time. I came across the reefoptics lamps on ebay and was wondering if anyone has tried them. They're somewhat cheaper than the major brands (under $40/lamp shipped on the website), but if they don't work well I'll just spend the extra cash on a major brand.

I'd be interested in 10 or so lbs as well if you're willing to sell that small of an amount.