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Not to answer for Michaelg, but here is my recipe: 1 fish fillet (preferably white fish) 10-14 large shrimp oysters clams 3 different types of flake foods (formula 1+2+3) spirulina flakes about 1/2 cup of specttrum pellet food 2-3 sheets of nori 3-4 squirts of nultivitamins for children 2-3 squirts of selcon 60-80 cc of garlic extract half teaspoon of shreded garlic one large krill frozen pack one large brine shrimp packet one large mysis shrimp packet one frozen pack of blood worms one frozen pack of octopus 3-4 tiny spoons of ESV freeze dryed plankton just about anything else I may find or have on hand The best thing to do is to go to the fish market and get all the fresh stuff at once and bring it home. The frozen foods can be obtained in the LFS. This stuff will make thick mud and will last well over 6 months when frozen. I suggest you freeze it in thin sheets rather than stuff the zip lock bags because it will take forever to thaw out if you don't. Good luck. Alberto

Sam: I agree with David. Given your experience and budget, I suggest you do the following. make a list of all the equipment needed (start with fish ONLY = cheapper and you can always move on to corals later if you want). Here is a start: -10 gal tank with lid and lights -10lb of live rock -1 bag of sand -two maxijet 1200 powerheads -salt -150 watt heater -protein skimmer -thermometer -test kits: pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, and cooper. -some form of salinity meter or hydrometer I am sure I missed something obvious, but some will pitch in if I did. Alberto

Sorry, I couldn't read the entire reply above. I pressume, and please correct me if I am wrong, for what you say in your original post and your questions that you either have never had any saltwater fish or tank and maybe (+/-) never had any other aquarium experience. Don't mean to be offensive here by any means, as I am sure others won't be, but it takes a bit of knowledge to get saltwater aquariums to last longer than 2 days. I will assume you know nothing and go from there. If that is the case, take it for what is worth. First off, the cost of your equipment will be very dependant on what you want to keep, and if you don't know that as most new people to the hobby, then you will waste tons of time and money. What to keep is your very personal choice, but certain fish have certain specific requirements. Tons of drug dealers in NYC will tell you that a carry on bag will accomodate a medium size grown man quite well. Of course, that is cut up in little pieces. So, the question about the yellow tang is NO NO NO NO..... I highly suggest you start by doing a lot of reading. Most of us read for quite some time before we even bought the first piece of equipment. Even then, you have to take it very very slow. Most people in this board will be very happy to help you make some informed choices about equipment (the least of your expenses really), corals if you choose to get those, and fish selection/requirement/care. Below are a few free links for you to explore and start reading. All have a search function that will tap on thousands of threads about every single subject you can imagine relating to saltwater fish/corals/etc. Use them. Don't go posting: "what shoud I get for my 10 gal aquiarium?" because most people will not sit down and answer it knowing there is hundreds of people that have asked the same thing before and could be found by doing a search. www.reefs.org www.reefcentral.com www.reefaquariumguide.com www.reefland.com Reading and learning takes time, so don't feel you are in a hurry. Someone said that in this hobby the only thing that happens quickly is death and bad things. It is very true. Good luck and welcomed. If you have any specific questions, please don't hesitate to post again. A final word of caution. Don't even think about going into a store and hoping they are going to give you a 20 min. lecture on how to do it. They will certainly do one of three things: give you the wrong information, give you no info, or tell you what they want you to know so you can buy from them. Either way you look at it, you loose. Alberto

Mike: Feel your pain man after that vivid mental picture you painted of you kicking a can around the house. ??? I know what it feels like to loose a nice fish, especially an expensive one.

I am loosely considering making a jumbo/huge Ca reactor. Where do you guys get the acrylic tubes? I want to make it 8" diameter for the first chamber with 4" diamter for the second and at least 24" high (would prefer 36" actually). Dual chamber of course!! So, where do I get this tubes? Local places? Mail order? Alberto

Sorry to hear about your troubles. That suck hairy a....s, and I know because I ahve been there myself. I agree. It is hard to see how this was the reason alone unless there was a significant temp drop or something else. My power went out this last weekend while I was out of town and when I came back I found my times and everything in the house about 3.5 hours behind in time, so I pressume that is how long it was gone. Did not loose a thing. If I ahd not seen the clocks and such out of sink, I would not have known. In the next house, I will ahve a ventilation system and an automatic generator connected to the system so the heater, pumps and one light is connected to it. Alberto

Well, after a couple of hours onlline and on the phone, I found another place that has tons of them in stock and actually has some deal with the manufacturer that used to make them for Diamond. His quote: "we won't be running out of them anytime soon". They are pricey though since they are a retail location. They are willing to give a bit of a price break if the order is for 10 or more. These things are big and bulky, but they are very light. So, shipping should be not much when combining an order. They are out of CA. He wants $135 each, but 10% off if ordering more than 10 units. Don't know about the smaller reflectors since I only inquired about the larger ones. IS ANYONE HERE INTERESTED? HOW MANY ARE YOU INTERESTED IN? Speak up now because I may be placing the order by next wed. unless Rich has much better prices from his supplier. By the way, before someone suggests or even remotely brings it up, I am not making a cent on this and will actually insist in you paying before ordering and you seing the original receipt when shippend out. Shipping would be split evenly obviously. This is not a club thing either, so don't even bring it up. I need to know ASAP. Alberto

Well, trying to confirm their dead status, I called the 800 number and it is disconnected. Called their other number I ahd and there is a recording that gives you all these choices to pick or people to talk only to find their mailbox is full and you can't leave a message. NO human to talk to now. When I had called before, they would always personally answer the phone unless it was afterhours. Oh well, another ones going south ??? ??? ???

Mike: The only thing I ask is for you to take them all. You can do whatever you want with the rest of them. Maybe saturday would be good. Give me a call them and we'll see. Alberto 443-904-4244

Mike: You are in luck bro. I have a 55 gal container full to the rim with bioballs occupying space in my garage. There is enough biobalss to fill 8 of the 200 gal buckets of IO salt. Come and get it. Alberto 443-904-4244

David: Thanks for the offer. I do have a few of them and they do eat it I think. The problem is this stuff grows 10X faster than they can eat it. I would have to add at least 50 of them to amke any significant difference and not only is price prohibitive, bu they are dummer than a brick. Is as if they had a magnet for pump intakes. Mine head for them like cult followers!!! :D

A rabbit fish is always an option, but they will get big in time like the tang. They are a hit and miss too. I have some bryopsis coming outa nd so I got a foxface rabbit fish on recommendation from people in RC. Never touched it. Got another type of rabbit fish and he not only did not touch it, but he ate every single mushroom in my tank. 2 Rabbit fish later, I still ahve bryopsis coming out of my ears!!!!!!!!!!

Well, today I put an end to this. A CMAS member had e-mailed me about free $55 gal drums they use at his work place. He got me 2 of them. They are awesome. I ahve some water in them now testing for leaks and to finish soaking any dirt. I will actually use one to replace my 30 gal garbage contianer I am using for top off and the other for water changes. God forbid I ever need to do more than a 10% water change. Alberto

Vee: Those are exactly what I am looking at. The only problem with them is you have to add about $95 for shipping to the price there. That takes the one I want (28*66=160 gal) from $170.77 to $260!! I don't know about you, but I have a hard time paying $170 for a water container much less $260 ??? When I spoke to US plastcics, they told me that for each container I get, The shipping price drops by $5 or so. I know of another person that would get one if I ordered it, but still the price is prohibitive for me at least. If I had 8-10 people that were going to go in it, that would be another story, but I don't know that many people willing and waiting to cough up that kind of money for a water container. Do you?? ???

Thanks marty. I'll look into that.

Vee: I'll only go the 55 gal drum if it is the only thing possible. If I was to order something, I think I would go with the larger container to make it worth it and just get one instead of 2+. I really want something bigger than 55 gal, but if I find it dirt cheap or free, I'll take it. What happened with the ones from the Pepsi or Coca Cola you mentioned before?? I would be willing to pick them up for both of us if you can find out about it. Alberto

:D :D Maybe you should be fragging stuff and giving it to the rest of us.

Who is Chris Green? Is his tank still around? That would be an awesome look. Alberto

Well, I am still looking. Some people e-mailed me with leads on 55 gal food grade plastic drums, but they have not materialized I ahve not been able to find the container mentioned above in HD and I have been to 3 in the area. Any other ideas?? ??? :( ??? Alberto

Well, to put some closure to the saga, I'll tell you what I ended up doing. I was going to get the AquaArc bulbs from hellolights, but they turned into asses on me, so I did not buy them. I asked if I could send them back right away for a refund or exchange for other bulbs if I did not like the colors. They told me this long and sappy story how they ahve to pro-rate the bulbs and it is not guaranteed that I would get a refund of even a pro-rate on the bulbs until they physicly had them and had inspect them, that they could not re-sell them if they get fired up, etc. I told them that was riduculous since all other vendors are telling me that I can use the bulb for a couple of weeks nd if I don't like them just send them back for a full refund. At the end, they did not sell any bulbs and lost on the opportunity. I ended up buying Ushio 10000K from Premium Aquatics since they would price match the ocean encounter prices and also I had to order some stuff from them anyways. Saved on the shipping. So far they have been on for 2 days. It is incredible how white they actually look once some of the crap that was on my glass was scrapped off. I get reflection from the algae growing was making it look more yellow than they are. I believe this is going to be a winner, but we'll see how they change over the next 2-4 weeks. Good thing is I know for sure I don't have to worry about changing them for another year. Since these bulbs are probably putting twice (literally) as much PAR as the old worn radiums, I cut the light cycle from 8 hours to 5 hours and will increase it back to 7-8 over the next 4 weeks. Hopefully that is enough. Alberto

Well, that those threads have been updated today with some pictures/info that are eye openers to say the least. Go check them out. Alberto :D

I haven't seen any clams for sale at exotic aquatics in about a year. Buying clams online right now, even the so called aquacultured ORA clams is a huge gamble with the clam disease going around. Almost everyone I know that has them or want them has stopped buying them for months because of this reason. I would try to buy from a hobbiest that has had them for months without any new clam additions for the last year at least. They are hard to find around here for most people that have them either keep them or they die on them. Hardly ever see them for sale. Good luck, Alberto

Well, while looking for some other alternative to the radiums, I have come to consider the above bulb. Seems these bulbs run extremely yellow though, which is not the crisp white Sanjay shows in the Penn State tank. I started a thread in RC and RAG and got a lot of replies which raise a lot of questions about these bulbs. Below are the links if you want to check it out, especially the RAG thread where George (geofloors) has some pictures. They are short threads, so you don't have to read forever. http://www.reefaquariumguide.com/forums....t222444 http://reefcentral.com/forums....1267819 http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/oct2002/aquarium.htm Does anyone here use these bulbs? Could you post some pictures here of what they look like in your tank without actinics or anything else? Or just e-mail them to me directly. Anyone running them on e-ballast? Alberto

Tony: Like I said before, I would love to help you. UNfortunately, I am out of town that weekend and don't come back until monday. Best of luck with the move and if you need anything I can help you with later, please don't hesitate to contact me. Alberto

Snapper: Stick to the school tank project buddy :D :p