Big Country

Yeah, I saw the same thing with using the Red Sea salt that the alk is much lower than using IO, I had issues keeping my alk below 11.0 using IO, keep it in the low 8's with RS.

Are you still using the Red Sea Salt? Seems I saw somewhere in one of your build threads that you had switched to IO

It doesn't just unzip, last night it got multiple tears with chunks flaking out, pretty sure I have enough from the last piece I ordered to replace the screen for the half that ripped. Tonight I pulled on the netting near the edge, it felt salty but didn't rip like it did under the light. Wonder if it would be good or bad to take the screens off and rinse them in freshwater every once in awhile and put them back on the tank after the lights go off at night.

Don't know, don't see it on the BRS website either, was hard to just find the netting since they redid the website. When I get home I'll look and see if there was a label on the last netting I bought in the package that I might still have laying around

The water level in the tank is not very far below the netting since it sits on the inside rim of the tank, with the returns and power heads stirring up the surface of the tank there is always water very near the netting with bubbles I'm sure the netting is damp most of the time so it may just be a combination of the water along with the heat degrading the netting. I don't know what I did last night moving the screens around but I ripped a big hole in one of my screens and the rip is directly below the bulb. +1 since the black bird netting at Southern States or HD is much cheaper than ordering the BRS clear netting.

I do not have the glass on my fixtures, they are SE fixtures, I may be wrong but I thought it was only the DE fixtures that had UV issues and needed the glass. The bulbs themselves, not the bottom of the fixture, are about 17" above the netting.

I have my tank covered with the clear BRS screen, problem I have is that the screen doesn't last but maybe 6 months before the MH's make it brittle enough that it starts to tear apart when you touch it wrong. Is a real pain having to order new from BRS all the time. I may try the black from the local Southern States next time and see if I see a difference.

They don't get much below the surface of the sand. Never had one bother any of my snails, crabs, etc. I got a nice big Sand sifting star from HOT last weekend and it's doing fine in my tank.

My power went out around 8:45 last night but the neighbor brought in a generator and let me hook up to keep the flow going in the tank, the tank got down to 75.5 deg but it's warming up now. Power came back on this morning while we were out with friends for breakfast around 1030. Friends power went out last night and his wife spent the night bailing out their sump pump, I took a deep cycle battery and inverter up there this morning and got his sump running until another friend brought him a small generator to run it.

Just had our first blink in the power here, enough that the MH's went out, hopefully the power will stay on. Rounded up the big mag light with fresh batteries and put my small mag light in it's holster on my belt.

Sorry to hear that Steve, hopefully it comes back on soon for you.

The deep cycle will have a much slower discharge rate, the batteries will work to equalize power so if they are are wired in parallel you will pull more power from the deep cycle. I wouldn't wire these batteries together, just use them seperately.

If it's like the Lowes up here was the other day they are getting in the Generac brand of generators which are substancially more expensive than their other generators.

Sam's Club got a fresh shipment of D cell batteries up our way.

Welcome aboard, I'm near you in Linthicum, MD very near HOT

Really Nice

Welcome aboard!!

I'd been thinking about upgrading to a APEX but I think I'll stick with my ACIII

I got one piece at FragFest from Dr. Macs, looks great in the tank and haven't had any problems with it.

Don't know if it makes a difference in flow but I ran the in flow perpendicular to the outputs

I am using a 100g rubbermaid stock tank for a sump, and yes it ACTUALLY a full square milk crate in the middle of my sump with a monster SWC 250 skimmer setting on top of it

Which type ballast are you running? Radium 20K's work best on a old M80 ballast. I run a M80 ballast, Sunlight Supply Bluewave, am currently running the XM 10K bulbs to try and get some nice growth, which I seem to be getting, but they say the M80's will shorten the life of the XM 10K's to like 6 mos. My corals are definately washing out some after a couple months. When the XM's loose their punch I will be putting in a fresh set of Radium 20K to get the color back.

I've got my skimmer sitting on a milk crate in my sump also

I've got this fitting http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/bulk-reverse-osmosis-filters-systems/reverse-osmosis-fittings-valves/mur-lok-garden-hose-utility-sink-adapter.html laying around if you want it to screw onto the wye to adapt it to RO tubing. I've also got a drain saddle clamp if you want, my RO is right next to my laundry sink so I just have the wastewater tube in the sink.

I remember it's Craftic's don't remember the number but this is probably it.