TROLL

I'm working on setting up 330g and still collecting live rocks whenever I see good deal on them. The price on rocks has soared in last 7 years. I remember I used to be able to buy live rocks from Congressional at $4.99 a lbs and now, they're $8.99 :( Anyway, I've been working on an idea of buying up all dry base rock and cultivate them in small holding tank with few pieces of live rocks. So far, one month into cultivating the first batch- life has migrated over to new rocks but coralline algae still haven't developed yet... I'm very interested in exploring the option of buying approx. 200 lbs of dry base rocks and cultivate them. One negative factor behind dry base rocks that are bought commerically from LFS is their size and shape sucks! I know I can buy some directly from importers however, the cost is probihitive. The price may break down to about $3.99 per lbs when combined with shipping while LFS goes between $1.29 to $1.99 per lbs (feller river rocks) Do anyone think I should invest more on dry base rocks and fill the tank up- I'll buy some big structured live rocks from Dr. Mac to define the reefscape. Is it wise to place so many dry base rocks in tank, I am not sure if those rocks might have different reaction to saltwater since they've been out of water for a while. I have almost no fund to buy rocks especially when they're over $2.50 per lbs... I just bought a new 120g because my old 50g sprung a leak. :( If anyone can help by letting me know of great source to buy LR at very reasonable price- please do!!!!

WELL SAID! I've met number of people that sells frags for life and looks very much like vendors!!!!

I've been looking into commercial enterprise as may call it. I spoke with a bud who is in legal and he clearly stated that to be commercial enterprise or vendor, the person must first have business license or tex exempt. He said that my site still falls in personal website category until there are sufficent income that will validate one's site as business purpose. So far, my website is still personal in legal's eye and since it will be dedicated to assist conservation by donations- There's nothing wrong with owning a website and help others by raising funds that goes toward charities, organizations, societies, researches, etc. I've been discussing with one of WAMAS officer and he has expressed the interest of converting my membership to vendor but this is an idea still in work. There was no in detail information that might define my site as actual vendor. I'm still considering the possibility but nothing in place yet. Lol, now- I know you're a man with teeth Just hopefully your bark is worse than your bite. Frankly, that is a very good idea! However, the problematic nature behind the percents are: 1. All auction will have seller fee of 10% not the bidders, that is to protect the bidders' interest in auction due to the fact it is the sellers that sell the items not the bidder. Also, it will prevent the sellers from using wide known exploit by registering several names and forcefully increase the bid and entrap the bidders which in effect, is at no cost of the seller and their action. 2. Why 10%? It is pretty fair and common rate among auctions on the site and in real world. Consider this, if auction ends at $10, that means the fee is $1 for the sale which covers all cost such as picture, featured listing, etc whatever might seem appropiate. There might be a small fee to cover the pictures- that is to cover the bandwidth cost. 3. Why not any higher than 10% due to members' perference? Unfortunately, the programming does not allow that due to possible exploitation where the people working for site may adjust the percent fee for individual. This just open so many issues involving favorism and malices aganist specific sellers. 50% could be good but it isn't favorable to the seller, I.E. if his/her coral (rare orange zoo) or that butt-ugly tang (Sorry, just love Dave's comment!) sold for $1,000 and he/she will have to pay $500 and that is just way too much cut. Not everyone will want to lose that much money just to donate, 10% is much more reasonable and easily manage. 4. If members are interested in donating more beyond the standard 10%, he/she is free to do so. I will see about what I can do to revise the programming to allow such option as long as it doesn't interfere with fee. Maybe I'll have dedicated pages added to the site where person can go and place desired donation as they may deem fit. Heh, sounds like normal MD/DC crowd to me I've grown up around this Tri-State area, I'm from Delaware myself and moved to MD recently. Nevertheless, still interesting bunch of crowd. Thank for welcome! I actually signed up for WAMAS last summer but somehow I lost the access to forum by either forgot my original user name or due to forum maintainence. Yes, that is what I should've said however, that triggers some questions from potential members- main question will be, how much? Without stating the amount, it can be only a few cents per month and the site takes in rest of fee. I believe honesty is the best policy so everyone deserve to know what is going on with fee rather than paying for fee without knowing where those money goes to.

Some people don't interpret others' comment the same as everyone so they all have different perspective. What Raf did was normal reaction to what he suspected to be a forum abuse especially with spammers hanging around the forum lately. He has all rights to voice out what may seems to be out of place but might should've exercise a bit more discreet such as PM'ing the moderator to inquiry first. I don't personally know Raf like Emissary do so I cannot justify his comment- I won't know for sure till I meet Raf for real and judge from there. Maybe it was a friendly head-up of who is who so I don't get mixed with wrong crowd....

Ooooh! Count me in for a nice small frag, bro!

I've been to only few stores in MD. Which store is BRK?

Dang!!!! Is Dave selling frags of his birdnest??!! Been meaning to ask him to get a frag of that pointy one!

Understood! There's too many scams out there floating and unfortunately, they're harming the very reputation of honest sites and hinder the growth of new sites. I've worked with many site, I'm a web designer on side business, they're having so much trouble clearing through due to scams, spammers, etc. Unlike 2-3 years ago, spammers, scammers, and more are spreading so fast, like hair algae in phosphate laced tank. Thanks for the compliment, I worked hard past week to revise the template that will sit comfortably with everyone and familar layout. The company that design the program never really give it several templates to choose from and site owners have to modify the template. Also, how do you like the color and picture? I think that is one of my favorite work ever since I started web designing 2 years ago. Sure thing! Matter of the fact, I only live 10 mins away from Dave and will gladly to discuss a few things over with him if in person conversation is necessary. I see him once in while and maybe will again next week or 2.

It's good to see commited reefers! Sadly, can't say the same for skeptical views but I cannot blame them because they're only acting on good behalf of which to defend the intregity of forum and site. I'm not a vendor, I wish I was because that'll mean I'll be making decent money. When I was growing up, I've always dream of making huge I mean, HUGE, difference in environmental cause. There is not so many people out that share the same feeling or thought for such cause. To clarify a few issue with the idea- I won't be making any actual profits. As of this time, the software I am using doesn't have feature of obtaining any fee of sort except I was able to revise the program a bit to accomdate the paypal donation to obtain the software update. After the software update, I'll be including fee, percentage to conservation and percentage to reef auction only to cover the site cost, bandwidth, hosting, and domain fee. If there is any problem with the site, please let me know and I'll be glad to answer more questions. Right now, I'm thinking about 20% to conservation and 80% to cover the site fee but will glady to revise percentage if too much money is left from site fee I may do standard 10% fee from each auction so means 2% from each auction goes to conservation and 8% to site. It's an idea that is still in work- First I need to evaluate and see how sale are going on site after new software is place.

1k for that tang??!! He's ugly- sorta like shar pei equalivent of fish world, lol! Like Dave said, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" I never spent more than $30 per fish. Anything over that, I have to buy a coffin cuz wife'll KILL me esp if fish dies after few weeks...

I use dechlorinator. I have a tap water filter but that only do 60g max per canister... Thinking about RO unit but that seems to be costly option and not sure how many gallons it will process till membranes expire.

I think it's just polyps changing color due to difference in lightings. Nice birdnest, tho!

Oooh, looks like a forum war coming! lol

Yes, I got weld-on but I've been thinking a lot and was going to sell off my tanks and downsize to 120g. I got 15 tanks!!!! As for 330g everyone been hearing about, I'm definitely keeping that! It'll be softy only tank after it is up and running and 120g will be SPS/LPS only.

Get visitherm heaters as back-up, that will help a lot at next controller or probe failure. I don't use controller, I've trusted visitherms for over 7 years and they serve me well.

Hey, great tank!!!! I just bought a new 120g, 5' long model. Beacuse I have to replace my corals quickly since my best frag tank sprang a leak a few days- my favorite tank but it's well over 40 years old and that's considerably pretty good for acrylic!!!! Anyway, I see you're using Amiracle prefilter, the 600 GPH model? I have the same prefilter and looking into making a sump out of 29g tank. What GPH pump are you running? I'm planning to use SCWD with Mag 9 as return flow but I know that 900 GPH vs 600 GPH might be unfair advantage but SCWD might bring the return flow down more... Any advices would be appreciated, I'm setting it up and hopefully that I'll be able to transfer all corals out to the new tank by the end of week.

Eeek! Not polyurethane!!!!! You don't want that thing getting mixed into water! You might want to go with fiberglass resin instead.

I wish my shower have that much pressure!!!! Anyway, that's pretty too high pressure for the R/O unit and might damage the membrane quickly...

Sounds like a faulty probe, maybe your probe is encrusted or damaged. I've encountered the same problem when I was working at NAIB. Right now, I have a controller with heater, 500w version for 330g but since 330g have not been set-up yet so the heater is not in use. However, I can see the design is somewhat simple and may be subjected to general technical flaws.

I'm surprised Dave know my other handle Anyway, all other sites doesn't really do percentage donation to conservation organizations etc. I don't care about profits, I just want one valid place for everyone to meet and trade instead of roaming all over the other sites and trying to get whatever you need without missing chance. Beside, most auction site are about profits, some do charity but not the right charity you would want to have your money going to, I.E. Breast Cancer Research etc. We seriously need to refocus on reef conservation especially today, it is starting to fade into background and we need to keep going because gobal warming, removing wild stock, and many more is having serious impacts on reef.

Recently, I was driven by a very idea of keep conservation going and creating a common place for people to trade, sell, and buy corals and accessories. So, I've established a new auction site dedicated to the purpose of percentage donation to societies and organization. Anyway, I'm looking for members of WAMAS that might be able to help with jump start the site. I've listed a few items on my site and hopefully, earn enough money to afford appropiate software which has more feature that allows for fee to be earn through each sales on the site. Also, there's a whole a lot more features such as webstore, payment option, buy it now, etc. Once I get the necessary amount of money to purchase the software- I'll revise some codes to add option bar that choose the specific organizations to have percentage donation from all fee. Right now, my site is 100% free for all sale fee. Registration will always be free. If any of you would be interested to help out by either post items for sale or donation. Come visit my site, thanks! P.S. I see that WAMAS have held an auction previously and maybe it'll be great to have US wide auction later on- I'll check the site admin feature and see if I can waive all fee so the WAMAS will recieve all money toward its' respective organization fund. Reef Auction