FishWife

WOW! That is SO encouraging. Can you PM or email me with contact information, please? We can come tomorrow if you're going to be around, or Monday, since its a holiday.

We got some Chaeotomorph algae tonight. First living thing to go into our bow tank (just to clean the water; don't worry). We're working at getting the high nitrate count out of our municipal water. (Do you guys use tap water in your tanks?) 1. Is there anything special about growing this algae? Like light needs or warnings about this genus? We PLAN to put it into our refugium. 2. Do you all use a cannister filter? We are using one now as a breeding ground for microbes... but I wonder if we should clean it more often, or use it to inject carbon into the system every couple of weeks? 3. We had to buy a new pump tonight: what do you all use for water flow? 4. WHERE do we get sugar-fine aragonite sand without going broke? The LFS wanted $2/lb! Answers to ANY of these would be great!

OK! So, now we're full fledged members. Here is my question :( : Picture three rooms back to back: kitchen -- mud room -- den We are putting in each of these rooms the following: [Kitchen] 75 gallon rectangular, non-drilled tank (wants to be mostly fishies). This backs up to --> [mudroom] with space for refugium (or more than one) w/deep sand bed/algae and... a sump??? ... a skimmer??? (This is where we're lost.) This mudroom can service both tanks... [den] Reef ready 80 bow (wants to be mostly a reef tank with clown pair and anemone). OK: how would YOU plumb them? The bow and the 75 both have room underneath. I could: 1) Put sumps/skimmers under each. 2) Have both dump into a common sump in the mudroom and then ...?... pump them thru a refugia...?... and then...?.... pump to a common water supply that... flows back to each? 3) we have two canister filters... we have a smaller skimmer that could go under either tank, and we could also build a nice, large DIY skimmer to use in the mudroom on the total water supply...? How big a refugium? Is more better? Two refugia linked? 4) Pumps are a mystery to us. Honest. Talk lots about tank turnover when you reply. OK; that's all for right now!

VERY nice... So, I never have done these. How do you "frag" (I know it means "to prune and thus create a fragment which can be sold/given out of the tank") when the time comes? And, can you move corals you don't prune, if you want to... say... someday put a bigger tank where the 80 bow is now???

I have a new (to me; bought used) 80 Gallon bow, reef-ready, Perfecto tank. We are returning to the hobby after a five year absence, and are amazed at all that's changed. Consequently, we are reading before doing. It seems that in many books, since people are now having success at keeping live corals (which is my interest, too) 80 gallon reef tanks can be quickly outgrown. Is this a correct perception, in your experience? (Here, I'm hoping for ACTUAL experience, rather than what anyone's read in books or seen online.) TIA for replies.

Got it. We've joined the club! (Don't we all love clubs?) Now, we are looking forward to meeting you all IRL in the futre.

THANKS for that warm welcome, guys! How do we join? (Actually, I see the join thing: what I meant was, "Can I join as a teacher, since I'm a homeschooling mom on a low budget?") And, when is your next meeting? Also... is there a "notify" feature so I can find this thread again? I have email replies enabled below, but I didn't get emails when you replied... at least, I didn't notice any. So, I was looking for it under "general" but finally remembered that I posted under DIY

Hi, We are looking for a local club because we are returning to the hobby after about a five year absence and WOW have things changed! To orient you, when we took down our 75 Gal tank last, plenums were the big news, and we'd never heard of refugiums at all. Sigh. We have a pre-drilled with overflow 80 Gal Bow, a 75 gallon rectangular tank, and a 30-gal Hex. We want to put the two bigger tanks on one water system, ideally with the filtration/refugia to live in the mudroom (between the two tank locations) or basement. We *think* we're going to put the hex to work as our quarentine tank, just sitting next to the bow so we can enjoy new fish without exposing our system to them too soon. In returning to the hobby, we've been reading up and, given our new desire for both a refugium (or two?) and linking two display tanks on one system, we need HELP with plumbing. Ulitmately, in the site where the bow now sits, we envision a 250 gallon tank for corals evenually. But that's later. Right now, money's tight, so we're concentrating on fish (read: easily moved later) and on plumbing refugiums, skimmers, etc. remotely for a large, multi-tank system to which we can add the coral tank when we're ready. We know a lot about the animals we want to keep, and are fairly cautious planners. Our REAL need is in the "what pump, pipe, true union, etc. do we use now?" department. We are true beginners on the hardware side of things. Is anyone interested in helping us out with online (or perhaps in person) advice?