xeon

If anyone finds one in the three to eight foot range, I want to see a picture out of interest.

The only reservation I have with straight usage of bulkheads w/out a durso or stockman type of device is water noise. If it were me I would drill near the top w/ enough space to allow for overflow into an overflow box mounted on the inside. I would make the overflow box just large enough to house the inside plumbing and allow for reasonable overflow. With a durso, this would essentially be a street-el directly into the bulkhead. The water level with a durso should be somewhere around the center of the street-el if you wanted to do some water level projections for the overflow. Since the bulkhead is at the top, there would be no need have the box extend to the bottom of the tank and take up a corner, corners or center portion of the tank. The overflow box would effectively control the water level within the tank. If I was drilling a new tank today... that is how I would do it. Eons ago, I drilled mine on the side at the bottom... never again for me.

Here is a link that explains the basics of glass drilling with a diamond core bit http://www.shopsmartxpress.com/AmeriGls/W9.htm It is certainly doable and not rocket science. I have used the Dremel method and diamond bit route.. they both work. The diamond bit is quicker and easier of course IMO. Ameri-Glass also sell bits for relatively cheap BTW. I wonder if people might be willing to go in on a bit/s that could be shared and used within WAMAS. Maybe WAMAS might purchase the bits and charge a nominal fee based on bit life expectancy to cover wear and replacement? Just tossing out some ideas.

Gary, If seven bags are spoken for, then yes I can do it again. I could probably order less than that, but shipping would come into the picture... no shipping charge on 7 bags. If there is interest, I can pursue it to see what the end number would be if we cannot get to the free shipping level. I can get a better price (.45/lb.) on it for this order and any order from this point on. Since the price is better, more has to be ordered to meet the "free shipping" number. I have an extra 25lbs. but someone already asked for it, sorry about that.

What do you need a heater for? My tank is so warm natured I took my heater out long ago. I use and like Ebo-Jager's though, the one for my display tank is now my ultra fancy salt mixin heater, 300W's do the trick in 15 gallons.

I'm not sure if I can fix the skimmer pump (MAG7). It does not work of course, it hums and trips the GFCI. It was less than a year in usage and was cleaned about every month or 6 weeks at least. Danner says it wasn't cleaned enough. When I did clean it, it was never very gunked up with trash and/or deposits. In fact when it failed it had been cleaned less than a week before it went south. Due to the nature of the failure, I'm thinking it is the motor... could be wrong though. I also did not retain the receipt... one of the few I do not have. My theory on using the single pump is that I can adjust flow with ball valves and the skimmer has a gate valve on the output to fine tune a tad bit more. I initially used a MAG5 with limited success and upgraded to a MAG7, which honestly was a slight overkill. I had the gate valve all the way open and the water level was too high IMO. The flow is important with the skimmer as you noted, I wonder how much of a PITA it would be. I was thinking if I got it in the neighborhood between the MAG5 and 7 flow, it would be satisfactory. The tuning might be more problematic and as you said the chiller isn't too terrible picky about flow. Hmm something to think about.

The pump on my skimmer went kaput (MAG7). So I am thinking of getting a new pump to use with my skimmer (EV-120) and run through my 1/4hp chiller. I was thinking about using a MAG12 or MAK-4. The flow on either should work out, the MAK-4 appears to probably have more. I'm leaning towards the MAK-4 since I can modify my sump for an external pump. Any comments or suggestions betweent the two pumps?

You will need some type of abrasive, the best method I know of would be Cerium oxide and a polishing wheel. I have no idea if it is safe to use inside the tank though.

FWIW, Hellolights does price match other vendors and has top notch service... Marine Depot is fine, but I thought I might just toss that out.

Here is a good article about DSBs and various faunas. http://www.rshimek.com/reef/sediment.htm

The problem IMO with sand sifting stars isn't a "reef safe" issue per say... it's a sand bed issue. They will dine on your sand bed's fauna. This would not be a good thing, especially with a DSB.

Mike, you might try contacting XM Lighting direct. Their website is http://www.xmlighting.com I think they have a phone number listed. I can't remember if my 10K's were yellow, but I seem to remember a tinge of green.. maybe some yellow but it has been a while. I did not do any bulb orientation either, but who knows? They did become bright white though.

It has only been a week, but I would expect that growth will be slower from things I have read. Otherwise it is too early to tell from personal experience.

Wait till you add Metal Halides.... ding ding... BOOM! I am really liking my new light setup from Hellolights. I went from 10K MH's and 03 VHO's to 20K MH's and URI Actinic White (50/50) VHO's which look very white.

I have found that running around 16 to 17 hours of light a day yields darker/denser cultures of phyto. It does take about a week though. If you cut it daily by a quarter, I think your culture will continue to get lighter and lighter... less dense. IMO, it just doesn't propagate fast enough to be harvested daily. You might be better served to ramp up your phyto production and maybe use 2 liter bottles. Then you can run them a week (or os). You could stage them in 3 sets, so you can harvest on Moday.. harvest 2/3, restart that culture, harvest the next batch on Wednesday.. restart it... harvest the next on Friday.. restart that culture... yadda yadda yadda. I say 2 liter bottles because you might want some "fault tolerance" built in. If one bottle crashes, it could be a real problem. Gallon containers would probably work too, I just have no personal experience with them. One thing you might want to try is a Rotifer food that Florida Aquaculture sells. I think it is called Roti-Rich or something. If I ever try rotis again, I would have some on hand just in case my phyto production was slipping.

Eddi, I recharged my Kalk reactor with the lime about 2 weeks ago and have not seen any problems. In fact my tank is full of new SPS frags/colonies that are growing and coloring up nicely. Things seem to be business as usual as compared to using Ball's Lime. Have you done any tests to see what your params are for ph/ca/alk? I have never read about any problems with it (on RC) and I even have an endorsement by Randy the chemist guy on RC, but nothing is impossible. Any others using it yet?

Am I understanding correct that you cut it "daily". It takes about a week for my culture to mature. I don't do anything with it until it gets dark, again about a week. I also use 2 liter bottles. The bubble rate sounds about right and the light IMO is OK. How long is your lighting period and what temps? Is it in a cool spot in your basement for example?

Have you been harvesting and restarting the phyto weekly? What is your overall procedure/setup, such as lighting, bubble rate, amount/type of f/2... so forth?

Where are you located? I keep at least 30-some gallons of RO/DI on hand at all times. I'm probably not really local though. As far as "cycled" goes, you want rock, sand and other items holding beneficial bacteria... this is where the "cycled" comes in; which is where you get biological filtration. If this is an established tank, you should try and transport the rock and sand so it does not experience a lot of die off. Hard as you try, you most likely will have a cycle of some sort... depending on the move. As much as I love this hobby, if I could get out of setting up a tank during a move... I would do it in a heartbeat. There can be nothing more stressful than a move... LOL Do you have to take the setup right away?

I think the distinguishing fin is the "anterior" dorsal fin... i.e. the second one from the head. Supposedly the front "pointy" part of this fin is taller in the males. IMO, I think most of the Mandarin's I've seen in stores and tanks are males. I remember seeing and reading a thread on RC some time ago where a guy had taken several pics of his Mandarin pair. If the search is working and you can find the pics, it might give you a good visual. Other than that I have never seen or found anything profound on sexing them aside from the dorsal fin size method.

Shipping was free? I have heard others (*i think) state there is a nominal fee of $40 or something along those lines to pickup in Manassas. Not a bad deal even at $40, I'm just interested.

krish, I am flying back in to Dulles on the 28th and the shipment is slated for the 27th. So it looks like this is going to work out great. Thanks again. BTW, I did watch a little bit of the Boston-NY game. I'm not a fan of either team, but I am glad to see Boston in the World Series. "Who's your daddy!!!!" That was too funny, I don't think I could have hit a 10ft. strike zone with that chant going on.

Thanks for the praise; only a group of fish people could fully appreciate it. Otherwise they may very well think I'm a little strange to put my time or effort into it. I did use a few of the Hirocks... but since I ordered 90 lbs., I have not put a dent in them. I have a 40 breeder that will help the cause. To bond the acrylic I used Weldon 4, which is really a solvent. Of the water thin solvents for acrylic work, it works not too fast (#3) and not too slow (#5). I used some #16 inside the sump on a spot that leaked when I water tested it. I probably could have put some #4 along the seam and clamped it... but the inside will not be visible and it did the trick with a dab-n-smear. Working with dark black and extremely glossy acrylic was interesting. I would certainly like to see some pics of the skimmer. I will be building a Nano-remora which I also found on NR.com. I contacted the designer, who I also think designed the one you are speaking of. I made some changes that I think might help simplify construction and improve performance of his original nano-mora. It will be a week or two before I get to it though. I did make some nozzles the other night... haven't tested them yet though.

I built a tank out of some acrylic and my daughter happened to want a tank of her own... so I decided to give it to her as opposed to placing it on or near my desk. According to her it was her greatest gift... and we can both share in the fun. Here is the tank at birthday time. June-04 Here is her lighting - 2 x 32W PCs (03 and 10K) Here is her stand I built: (And my wife said it would take me 6 months like other projects.. LOL - try two days Sweetie) Unfinished: and Finished: (wife and daughter picked out dark stain... I would have gone lighter... oh well they are happy) Here it is in her room with water, rocks, sand... the works. We are still kicking around what she wants to do. Seahorses have been mentioned, but we will see. I had some rocks in my sump all ready to toss in, alas she wanted to do her own rock design.... so she and I worked with some base rocks to come up with something she liked. It will take a while for the rocks to get bio'd up, but I threw in some good sand and snuck in two loaded rocks -n- rubble.... The nano fun begins... I am hoping to build a junior remora when I get some time.

Phil, I had one on my 75 in the beginning and it didn't make me happy. The rating is way off on these skimmers (marketing #'s) or the tank they based their rating on only contained a few snails.. I sold it for $50 to some guy in CA w/ no pump. It would not even touch my AquaC EV-120, which is the same thing Lee uses. Personally I would say no to the Berlin on your 150. I would be looking at appropriately rated ER's, ER clones, AquaC's and Beckett style skimmers... which are going to run you more but will be drastic performance upgrades IMO.