TROLL

It was rather interesting for me! Seeing so many people and it's amazing to know how many people can fit into a LFS like Scales. It's a great turn-out and I've met a few members; Valeria, Scott711, 143Gadget, and a few more. It is a quite challenging for me to communicate with the members, paper and pen method is crude but effective at some point. I was glad Dhoch, Rsaavedra, Chideloh, and Anthony was there to introduce me to members and made me feel like part of the crowd. Hopefully, we'll have more events like this, very benefical to both organization- trade frags, socialize, learning experience, and many more. Anyway... Unfortunately, my night didn't went good afterward... No, I didn't get busted for DUI. My truck have decided it's time for it to make a journey to Auto Valhalla. About 10 mins from Scales, it died. I was left standing outside trying to flag someone down and attendant at Shell station was difficult to communicate (he tried to sell me a jumper cable when I asked for jump)... I called Raf as he's the only person in the area that I have phone number. The unluck streak struck again, he was unable to find me, apparently I was so deep in heart of rural rockville. Finally, after long negotiating with gas station clerk and he came to sense to give me a jump. Truck miraclously came to alive and back to normal. Drove about 2 miles down and my truck start having a death rattle. I had to pull over at someone's house as my truck stalled there, just right on time I turned into the curb. I gave my wife a page and see if she could call a towing truck for me... She didn't know what to do so she called her sister who in turn contacted the father-in-law. He's only a few minutes away but he's usually intoxicated after work. Talking with him is out of question and have him driving is dangerous. I end up standing outside for 2 hours and to make it worse, my truck wasn't warm at all after sitting in cold for a while... I was battling the decision of staying inside or outside and remain mobile to prevent from freezing. A moment later, around midnight, I see flashing light at intersection. It's father-in-law driving so slow, I had to get him to move. I wasn't comfortable with him driving out especially when he just had a few drinks. Lucky, it was a few drinks- not enough to qualify for DUI. I got in, gathered all corals and fishes including a few things I got from social. I drove instead for safety sake. Finally, I got in warm house and had a hot dinner. My hands still shiver badly even few hours inside the house. I finally got to home at 3am, all livestocks were doing well- thank god I had hand heat packs that I could place inside cooler to keep them all warm. Yes, I sacrficed my hand heats just to keep them all alive. It wasn't the first time I have ever been in freezing weather so I was used to it but very painful to be oustide for 2 hours in 20 degrees without a coat. I forgot to bring a coat, I'll make that a note to keep a coat in truck next time. Raf, you tried your best, bro. Appreciate it a lot and hope I didn't delay your trip back home. I owe you a beer for trying Thanks all for great frags and hope to meet you all again at next social or meeting Maybe Intro to Reef II only if my truck changed its mind and decide to stay alive.

Not exactly frags but I'll bring by 58 1/2" reflectors (T-5) for Scales social, $15 each if anyone interested. I got more than 20 in storage. Willing to trade for frags, tho

That tang was probably bad and owner decided to punish it... Or he really hates that tang from Finding Nemo... Well, he loses money anyway. Waste of good tang- Was that tang $29 or more?

Update on dry base rocks: They all have passed the copper test and copper is at 0 ppm! Right now, they're soaking in fresh water to allow for any remaining organic wastes to dissolve away. Next step will be culturing them in live rock curing vat to allow for life to migrate and colonize them. Hopefully whole procedure will be completed by early spring and place those rocks in my system. They all have awesome shape and will create some of beautiful architecture. Thanks all who submitted their idea and help with potential issues behind 2nd hand rocks.

Try Flame Dragon Goby- Way beautiful but $149 each!!! Reefer Madness sells them sometime.

I ordered 2 polyps of superman mushroom- I got 7 or 8 They're small frags on rocks but 2 are large so I can't complain. As for the clam, it's doing awesome

Use special mantis shrimp trap- you might be able to trap the shrimp and transfer with the goby. Hope your goby'll pull through, he may be traumized by the incident. Put him in small section, like betta cage and hang in 120g, so that way you can keep him under close observation. Clownfishes are usually not aggressive toward tankmates that are different species but like Jason said, the eggs may be the factors. Mothers will be extremely aggressive as in genetic makeup to defend the procreation of species. They'll be naturally aggressive...

Ok MacGyver- you make everything so complicated It's always good to have heater esp during the cold weather- the house temperature usually drop a few degrees without noticing it.

Way around it, mean put the container up to tank water level so the siphon don't continue past the double point when you forget about it?

Yes, I got a lot but some of them are for my driveway Is magnesium absolutely necessary or not? I have liquid supplement which cover magnesium. I am not sure if magnesium as described in recipe is necessary as in to stablize the mix or convert the mixture into non-lethal mix. Walmart now have other driveway de-icer brand- called Road Runner, $6.93 per 50 lbs bag, has both calcium chloride and magnesium chloride. Maybe I'll follow up with Randy and see if he has experimented with this brand and if the mix of both elements are within appropiate amounts as given by his recipe.

Inna and I have same method Good old accimilation process that you can never go wrong. Except my way (for corals and sensitive livestocks), I let it double then pour 1/2 back then continue to drip till double and release into tank. Like Inna says- quaratine the fish, I cannot stress enough but no one really practice that nowaday... Seems like a lost art but it's absolutely important to do this plus you would be able to treat fish for various aliments that were brought on by transit. Also, in quaratine- you can always change the water with your main tank old water and cut the accimilation process down to just temperature accimilation.

This is very normal behavior of feather dusters- mine have lost head several time due to water parameter change and always grow back. I think one reason for losing head is it wants to relocate, lol. They can abandon their calcerous tube to move to other spot and create new one.

I used to be canister man but after meeting several reefers all over- I've noticed they lack one thing, canister filter. I asked them and they always say, Skimmer will do job. After this, I researched a lot and found skimmer would do job equally. It's good to have canister filter as back up in case your poisonous livestock spew toxins or corals get stressed and release toxins. It's very useful when nitrate, nitrite, and ammonia spike occurs but have to be careful like Howser said- people forget them and it turns into nitrate farm. Red sea skimmer will do magnificent job. Some of reefers I've met gave me their own "golden rule" Go with skimmer that is rated 50% or more for your tank. I've been running Seaclone 150 on my 30g cube- works well. Also, not all skimmers out there are properly rated, some will underperform while some will perform as they are rated for their tank... Keep that canister filter handy so you might need it someday in case something happens. As for fishes, if you want to keep SG high- go with red sea fishes, they're adapted to high SG and not easily affected when SG goes down.

It's an epoxy and only will glue not meld together like weldon. So, better going with weldon for acrylic to acrylic and form real good seal.

I just got 2 bags of prestone driveway heat from wal-mart, $7.93 per 20lbs. What is the exact recipe? I've read a few recipes and all of them include magnesium. Is magnesium required for the mix? How much of the mix should I use for 120g and how often do I dose the tank?

I put eggcrates on bottom of my 55g back in 2000, doesn't have any kind of impacts except it help with stablize the live rock structure plus reduce the pressure and impacts from rock aganist the glass bottom. Especially when you have rock slide, by urchin, large turbo snails, etc.

I use old castle white sand I bought from wal-mart- if you need some, I got plenty

I use liveaquaria.com for all fact sheets on fishes plus compability chart. Used to be flyingfishexpress.com. They doesn't always have all info but cover pretty much of common fishes you find in store.

I just glue them all to rubbles- just put them in dents and crevices, they'll just attach naturally with glue as "support".

Hmm, seems like you have plenty of ventilation... Not sure what might go wrong- ask the icecap rep. Nice hood, by the way

I got a lot pendants and ballasts for 150w DE on sale in Sell board- If you are interested, let me know.

Owchie!!!!! That must sucks big time! I'm surprised to see how rapidly your livestock declined over 14 hours. That shouldn't be happening till about 24 hours, you'll start seeing that signs. Hope you'll recover soon and up running again. Have an certified electrican come in to doble check your electrical system and make sure whole thing is wired right. That's truly a lesson for us all to learn. As for 200 gph pump, I always have a maxijet 1200 handy in case those thing happens.

Holy Grail of Frag

What tank size would you test this monster on? The skimmer alone must hold 50 gallons of water!