caferacermike

I could care less if a fish store, or any hobby store for that matter, has a "real" website. So is the nature of hobbies, the stock will constantly change. This isn't Home Depot listing the price of tools, tolls that they will always have in stock. These are real live animals. Not to mention I'd be super pissed if I wanted that "one specific thing", only to find out it was sold a few hours ago or days ago. Big whupteedo if they update that shipments are coming in. Come on folks this is an ever changing hobby, shipments come in EVERY WEEK. It's not rocket science that the best part of a hobby is the search part. Who in the world would ever want a hobby that is instant gratification? Then it would be a "hobby" it would be "stuff I bought". The only website I feel that any of the shops need are ones that state phone numbers, any services beside selling items, and hours of operation. I guess what I'm saying here is, I love getting off my *** and going to the stores themselves when I'm cash positive, coral negative. On the other side of this question, it has been answered many times that the Dome are great people. Gary, Terry and Hunter all care about the charges they keep custody of and they also keep track of most of us hobbyists. They've been around for many years, one of the 2 longest running shops in town. I'm getting this vibe that something happened and you are looking for a way to bring it up?

Huh, I found emerald crabs to be so much better than any other clean up critter that I removed as many of my fighting hermits and replaced with 24 emerald crabs. My algae disappeared and my tank has never looked so healthy.

I think Prof has a few 6091 controllers. In fact I saw some over his coral tank today. He could probably switch to a 6091, you might contact him to see if you guys can work something out.

He just passed on, about an hour ago.

No more RED!! My Aussie green Acans.

I was perusing some of the group order threads and felt that it could be found to be a large annoyance to have to read through 4 pages of clutter only to find out that the buy has already taken place. Personally I feel that the thread should be closed or "locked" the instant the order is placed. I think the order taker should then create a new thread when the items come in and need to be distributed. And to that I think it would be nice if we could generate another area of that forum for pickup/delivery arrangements like that of "DIY" being incorporated into "Reef Keeping". Anybody else feeling this? I really began to feel this once I saw all the multiple group buys from the same retailer going on over and over.

There is absolutely no benefit from using sch 80 or even 40. The color means nothing. We do not use pressurized systems so I cannot fathom why anybody would spend the extra coin and install very restrictive pipe. Sch10 will flow almost twice as much water at the same pressure as sch80. I'm not a pipefitter or anything like that. You did good by saving money that you can use elsewhere.

Just search through my old posts for info about my tank, hint I installed 3 solar tubes to light it. Kona bar and grill has what I think to be about an 750-800g tank. From what I could see when they installed it, it was 2 of my tanks side by side and then sealed together. The tank has a large trim piece right through the middle. BOOOOOoooo........

400g in my living room. Roughly 7'x3'x3' There was a 560-600g in North Austin at one point that was beautiful but I remember it being sold away.

Yes. The $35 cartridge type from Buckeye will work perfect and come pre-filled. Simple plug and play.

Your clothes will never notice.

I have 2 250w magnetic ballasts that are raw and ready to go. $60 for the pair.

Just clicked on the link to the "Water General". Just a tip but those DI canisters are worthless. Very little, if any, water is forced through the resin in that configuration. Instead the water just skims right over the top of the resin. At the very least remove them, buy some extra tubing, and mount them vertically so that the water must be forced from the bottom up. That will help. When replacing the resin make sure to pack it into the canister as tightly as possible to prevent the water from forming channels incorporating the path of least resistance.

My worthless $0.02 on the subject. In essence it actually is cheaper to buy your water from the shop then to really mess with RO/DI unless you are using hundreds of gallons a week. I found that when I was buying water I would need 5g a week for top off and once a month I would need an additional 20g for water changes. All in all that was 40g or about $10 a month. However I used to buy so much coral and fish that most shops would allow me to get the water for free to keep me coming back and taking my real money. If you do the math a good RO/DI unit runs about $200. At $10 a month for water you can easily run for almost 2 years for about the price of an RO unit. But keep in mind that about every 6 months you need to replace about $12 in prefilters, and about once a year (or even more often) you need about $20 in DI resin. You can get about 2 years from 1 RO membrane. So that is an additional $32 a year in filters. My guess is that it would have taken me close to 3 years to "break even". This does not include the $250 I spent on my water storage container. But when I bought my 400g tank I figured I finally needed an RO/DI unit so I bought a 300GPD unit. I really like the convenience factor of having the water ready in the garage at a moments notice. I also like that I no longer need to fill up 4 jugs on Friday for a water change on Saturday and then refill them on Sunday for top off purposes. About the waste water, oh well. I ran about 100' of tubing out of my garage and into my yard. My waste water actually waters my grass and Sago palm. If I was really concerned I'd put a barrel or 2 on pedestals in the yard as my "rain catchers", filling them with my waste water and run hoses out of those when needed.

Seems to be working just like my authentic Tunze. What pump did you use?

Or as I say, and do, if you felt so strongly then you should not feel "shame" for saying it and should have left your reply alone. How are you so sure that my reply was even aimed at you? I think you jumped the gun on that one as my reply was not meant for you....

Or you can buy it for a fair price from one of the gracious sponsors right here in our hometown. Not only are you supporting them, but in return it supports all of ARC. I have yet to see Marine Depot step up to help the club in any way. Personally since the average is $50 anywhere for a bucket of salt I cannot fathom why you wouldn't just pick it up from a sponsor and thank them for being there for the club. I just want to point out how threads like this can be a slap in the face to those that choose to help each and every one of us local reef keepers.

Build it from acrylic. So much easier.

Well he appears to be fine now. I'd say his demeanor is about 90% of what it was before. He seems to sleep a lot more and is a little more distant to us then he was. We don't take him to the vet every night anymore. I think it's as good as it gets.

Yeah I fed mine pellets.

I would tell anyone not to do it. We all know Texreefer Mike down in Shertz was big on the stuff. He built his first tank out of plywood and used Great Stuff to decorate it. Seems the Great Stuff did a remarkable job of adhering to the plywood. Later on he decided to get a much larger tank, of course he used foam all over in it. The new tank is a typical glass tank. Last I heard the entire tank went to crap and took out a huge amount of his highly collectible SPS with it. Seems that it kept breaking up and floating away disturbing the tank. He was having some troubles with it the second time around. It might all be under control again but I always ask other reefers why in the world do they want to make the hobby harder and less rewarding then it is? I'm all about the keep it simple plan.

I'm leaving for New York in a few hours. Driving straight through and sleeping in the truck when I get there Friday night. Sat morning I load a bike and drive to Ohio, load a bike, and continue driving all night until I get to Oklahoma sometime Sunday morning. Load another bike and then drive back to Austin.

My understanding is that there is no UV shielding, it's just that glass is a natural UV shield. When you need to buy glass for your lights it needs to be tempered to protect it from expanding and shattering when heated. All I've ever used was plain old tempered glass. It usually takes Binswanger 1 week to make a custom piece of tempered because they come in from a plant in Houston once a week.

Most folks that keep SPS do not keep softies in their tanks together. Advanced reef keeping says that the softies exude a slime into the water that can and will settle on SPS. The slime coat can cover and prevent SPS corals from extending their polyps and can also contain chemical agents that are meant to kill off surrounding corals.

You know... the more I think about it 400w does not seem like that much more light than a 250w. If we were comparing a 70w halide to a 400w then sure it's a huge difference, however we are only talking about an additional 150w. That's not even double. Not trying to argue about who is right or any other fun stuff, just thinking out loud as I read those replies.