caferacermike

Nicely put, and I feel the same way as you can read in my reply above. Plus no fighting about who skipped the line, who played favorites, etc...

You can buy from Kent for about $15, or make your own, Kalk drip. It's basically a an IV for your tank. All the parts come from the medical world. It's just a handy plastic jug that hangs inverted, the nice part is that there is a hang hook on the bottom, actually the top, of the jug to hang it from. Then it comes out through some silicone tubing and the drip is adjusted with a little sliding lock thing that they use to adjust an IV drip. Just mix up some Kalk water in a bucket, wait about 5 hours for it to settle and fill the Kalk drip with the clear water from the top of the bucket. Set it to drip about once every other second and it should last for about 2 days. Drip it into your sump near the return pump. They are also handy for dripping both parts of a two part solution and for adding many other trace minerals such as Mag, Strontium, and even phyto.

I'm all for the old school method. Simply put, make plans via PM or a phone call to visit as many other reefers in your lifetime as possible. Bring a little of what you got and beg/persuade them for a little bit of what they have. I've not yet been able to understand why anyone would need a super complicated system to do that. Actually my best gut theory is that people have a fear or or lack of social skills and look for a quick way to hop on. At least once a week I try to visit somebody elses tank and either trade frags or just pay a little cash for them. The last meeting we had, another reefing family was beyond kind and brought a huge cooler full of frags for everyone to take home. There were at least 3 frags per person. So better than organizing a complicated method that might take months to pay out, just network.

Living in TX, and especially in this drought, the best possible answer is to pour it down the drain so it can be reclaimed and brought back to us. Pouring it in the yard, street drain, or evaporating it robs each and every one of us of a very precious resource.

Can't ice fish in TX. I need to get back to Michigan for a few winters.

I was getting near 450 after sediment filters in Round Rock with about 16 as my total RO output on a few months old membranes.

There is a plain steel shaft in the osmolator that will rust solid in kalk in about 2 months. That's how long the 2 lasted when I attempted to add a small amount of Kalk powder to my make up water.

I've never bothered with adding dead things to my tank to cycle them. I prefer to just let the sand and rock do what it does best and then add inhabitants one at a time over a long period.

It can also be beneficial to do fresh water dips from time to time during the QT as it will cause any ich near the surface to immediately let go of the fish. There is the added benefit of the fish shedding it's, slime coat. The ich will be pulled away from the fish as the coat is shed. There is some truth in what you've read. I just haven't heard the part about leaving the fish in low salinity for an extended period of time. What you've read goes along with common knowledge that ich can take 3-4 weeks to create a true life cycle.

Now that this thread has been split into it's own topic area I will say a few words and then no more about the subject ever. There are a lot of meetings held everyday, everywhere. It is not my duty, nor my job to search each and every club, business, scout troop, Red Apple Sale, Hill Country Cichlid association, Hill Country auto touring, Austin Road Runners Club, Austin Home brewers, Pist-on-broke, Moped Army, BMOA or any other meeting. Austin in general is full of clubs that will and do conflict with our own meetings, that is one of the many things that makes living in or near Austin so wonderful. Some members will be forced to decide if coming to an ARC or MAAST meeting is more important. Some will feel forced to decide if their green thumb gardeners club is more important. Some members will have a Birthday party on the same day. I rarely ever get a day off from work, about 3-4 a month, in fact I'm home sick with the flu today and they asked me to still come in. So by helping to put together a meeting I've now lost one of my free days that I could be rebuilding a motorcycle or flying my plane, or better yet doing a water change. I will not apologize for overlapping a meeting that I had no idea existed. If another club had expressed interest in extending their meeting to us they would/ should have made a thread or at least sent me a PM. If you somehow feel that the other clubs would/will resent me being the ARC meeting coordinator thereby not asking us, just ask me to step aside and offer your service to the club. It would be foolish and childish of any club to feel that any differences could not be put aside to put together a meeting, or at the very least invite members of this club to join in on their meeting. My personal thoughts on this subject are that there was no reason to bring this up other than in another thread. Mentioning, and or questioning the logic behind the meeting seems to only have derailed the kindness and hard work put in by those that are only trying to help give back. Personally I had to take a step back and ask myself why would I bother continue to attempt to coordinate meetings in the future if the intent will always be questioned. There were not just 1 or 2 replies questioning the event but 3. And in each reply a rebuttal was made that possibly the other meeting would somehow be greater than our meeting, which I am humble enough to say might be a worthwhile event to attend. But was it a necessary evil I ask? It has taken over 8 months to get ARC meetings back on track. I was somehow jumped in to this position like a gang initiation. Because I like our Admin as a friend as well as an online member, I accepted when he asked me to help out. I did not ask for this position, I did not overthrow anyone for the position, I do it strictly voluntarily. I ask that if anyone else feels that they could do a better job of asking members to host a party and to nail down a working date please feel free to take over.

I've heard a lot of good things about Elos. One thing I did hear was that they were another test kit repackaged and sold with far greater distribution than the original. Might be that the Lamotte test is the same?

Personally I say we leave it just like it is. Reason 1: Many of the members that had already committed to coming probably are not regular MAAST members, or like myself, could care less for MAAST and what they put together. Until someone told them to go to another meeting instead, they were more than happy to go to our meeting. Reason 2: Not every member will be heading to the MAAST meeting, it is a choice as to what meeting they attend. No choice is more right than the other. Calfo has attended several meetings within the area over the years and for all we know some had chosen to attend the ARC meeting based upon the fact that they've already seen a Calfo presentation. Reason 3: There might be several members that for whatever reason are not interested in making a trip to San Antonio but Cedar Park/Leander might be in their backyard. So the meeting might be smaller if many choose to attend the MAAST meeting, and that's fine by all of us. The only way I could see a conflict of interest here would have been if MAAST had invited ARC at all. Remember the old days when they'd start a thread inviting the good folks at ARC to join their events?

Thanks for keeping me in mind. I'd like a small clump of heads not mounted to a plug if possible.

Just to be spiteful. No honestly our meetings will be held whenever our gracious hosts offer to open their doors for us. I haven't participated at MAAST in over 5 months so I had/have no idea when their meetings are. Besides what is the point of bringing up another club's meetings? If our members want to go to the ARC meeting, let em. If our members want to go to the MAAST meeting, let em. If MAAST members want to come to the ARC meeting, let em. James has a very busy schedule and had expressed a desire to host a meeting early on but only when the weather would be good for hosting outside as his home is smaller and he wanted people to be able to choose between the living room and the back yard. March was decided upon and a few dates were vollied back and forth until James picked the 21st as his preferred date. I'd like to take this opportunity to once again thank James for offering to host a meeting for us and for picking a date that works well for him.

Kyle I have a bunch of chillers, I might be willing to part with one. We need to look at the one I've got in mind as it's been used for other purposes. I was able to get a lot of chillers once that were used to cool water in laboratory equipment. These sold for thousands of dollars but have since been replaced. We need to look at the fittings and such to make sure it is something you'd like. It might be a fixer upper on the outside, but the cooling works flawlessly. I just need to get down to South Austin to my other storage unit and pick it up.

That's what's fun about "common names" everyone I know would just call that Kryptonite candy cane or trumpet. The moon corals I've seen were in reference to favite brains with small compact heads. That coral is very easy to frag. You should be able to find individual, or groups of, heads with exposed skeleton near the base. You just nip it there with a pair of wire dykes or bone cutters. No need for healing time at all unless you tear some flesh. I'd be interested in trading cash for a frag when you get there.

higher electrical bill, but hardly noticeable. I'd think that the noise would drive you insane.

Oddysea is Jebo

It'd be great if you can post a pic of the coral or a link to a similar one so nobody confuses a common name. I believe you are referring to a brain coral like a favite with small heads tightly meshed together. If so the answer is yes. They do well if you cut them cleanly with a tile saw and then allow them to heal for several weeks in the tank they were doing well in before offering the frag. Chisels will work but can tear the tissue creating a delay in the healing process.

Welcome. There are many members that live around you, and of course many of them have the Army in common. I can remember off the top of my head that Jay-Roc lives in Killeen and posted pics of his great looking tank in the picture threads.

Years ago I had a friend that was bringing in the Jebo line of crap. When the units arrived they had no identification on the unit, on the box, nor instructions. The reason was simple. The manufacturer wanted the sellers to do all of the marketing, hence the cheap price. What he did was order a thousand metallic stickers with his brand name on them, printed a thousand 8x11 labels for the boxes and ordered 1,000 UL LISTED stickers from a Chinese distributor, and also printed out 1,000 instruction sheets with his company name address and phone number. In essence he sold junk under his name. He actually was able to take advantage of the controversy of Jebo units catching on fire. He countered that his products were superior in every way to Jebo products and that his were even "UL LISTED". It was a total scam and he was able to rake it in. Just try and remember, you get what you pay for. Generally it's just not worth it.

Yes but who wants 10 timers and all the cords necessary for them. Also a bunch of timers cannot control your PH level in your calcium reactor nor can they watch over your chiller/heater with double redundancy. Plus you'll only have "1" timer instead of 3 for your lighting needs. It also sucks if you lose power and have to reset all those timers. It was a well thought out idea if those are your needs. Everyone's needs will be different. As I don't care much for computer stuff, I still find it difficult to upload pictures from my camera and then add them to a post, I wanted a simple user friendly system and that is exactly what the Reef Keeper gives me. I'll add this as well, we can all agree that most of us look up to the guys at Kingfish, well they sold me the unit and recommended it based upon what I wanted in a controller. I doubt that they would have sold me junk, not to mention it's what they used to control the tanks in their shop. If you just absolutely cannot live without being notified every minute about what your tank is doing then this might not be the controller for you. If you want an easy to program, easy to interface instantly, easy to adjust, easy to read, and trouble free controller then this is the unit for you. Research X10 controllers and you'll quickly understand why I refused to choose any unit that uses them to turn my tank appliances on and off. They are beyond universal. They can be overwritten by TV remotes, garage door openers, etc.. To much chance for error. And yes it's been reported several times.

250 is perfect for 45g. I run 2x 250 on a 75g,

Gary and Terry are just as awesome or even awesomer since they took a chance and hired Hunter. Dome, Tek, and River City. The only shops to bother visiting while in town. There are others but I wouldn't waste my time at them if I was on a time schedule.

Sounds just like a John guest fitting to me. Your set up is just how I have mine. I got my connections at HDepot.