Stu

It's funny you mention this; I go down to the Florida Keys several times a year, and see the same lack of concentration on the reef. Go inshore, however, just to the tide's edge in areas with jetties or other rocks, and you will literally find thousands of blue legged hermits, cerith snails, and every other scavenger you can imagine covering these structures. You can grab at least 50 hermits with one scoop of your hand across the rock face. In July, I was snorkeling collecting some inverts and I came across 15 emerald crabs on a 2'x2' rock. I think it goes to show how unrepresentative of actual biotopes the typical mixed reef can be. Not that I really care, as long as it looks good

Judging by that first pic, looks like you're not the only one who wants that stand gone

Wow. Beautiful tabling pattern on that coral. I hope you find a piece.

You could make a pedestal of sorts with epoxy and attach it to the stem. It would keep it elevated and probably not be too visible.

Looks like an awesome fixture.

Good call. Resist the urge to crowd that sandbed! The white space really opens the tank up and draws the eyes up to the rockwork. FWIW, I think a big centerpiece clam/coral would look awesome.

Wow! What a great build. I love how clean it all is. What tools did you use to build the tank and keep the glass at right angles? Did the glass company bevel or polish the edges for you? Also, how did you affix the birch panels to the frame? I don't see any holes or screws (a good thing!) Sorry for all the questions; this is a very impressive project.

Mine went on the fritz a few months ago, with some things not turning on when they were supposed to. Turns out it was the data connection from the unit to the DC8 (telephone jack-looking port). After troubleshooting with customer service, determined that there was a bunch of dust in there and it wasn't communicating properly. I shop vac'ed the whole thing, wiped it down, used a compressed air duster, etc. and it worked fine after that.

WOW http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=246394&view=findpost&p=3536240

Yep. And if you are careful, you can just return the pipe bender after using it...but you didn't hear that from me

No problem and thanks for the compliments. I enjoyed chatting with you about your build, and looking forward to seeing the finished product!

It's terribly easy. Conduit is very cheap as well, so if your bend doesn't turn out just right you can always cut another and try again. I bought a pipe bender, conduit, black spray paint, and a carriage bolt to cap the end of the pipe for a cleaner look. You could probably also use some sort of plastic plug. I also bought 2 brackets that I screwed into the back of my stand that held the pipe, and could be tightened and loosened with wingnuts. It was very easy to move the lamp up and down.

This is going to look great, Chad. Nice to see you're paying as much attention to the exterior as the interior--by the looks of it, this will rival many of the expensive LED fixtures both in performance and appearance.

I understand the desire to experiment with warm whites, but as an FYI, NW's (which are I believe ~2000k higher than WW's) are VERY yellow. Some of the guys on nano reef experimented with WW's and attempted to balance them out with RB's/B's, and the outcome was "Wonka-like" (not in a good way). I'm never one to discourage experimentation, but I don't think going much lower on the Kelvin scale than NW's will be very aesthetically pleasing. The key to adding reds (which many people scrapped) seems to be driving them at a lower current (not sure if this is the right terminology). Essentially, running even one LED at the same intensity as the other LEDs in the array was enough to give a terrible "disco-ball" look...think red bouncing all over the sand from the shimmer. I have, however, seen a few builds where a 1W red was added (amongst 3W LEDs), and the effect worked. All this to say that I also had the problems with red/yellow color pop, and it was instantly cured by replacing a few royal blues with blues. See this post for some other clarification on mixing whites: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?s=&showtopic=246394&view=findpost&p=3314433

RB is very purple to my eye. This is why I added a few B's to tone it down and smooth out the contrast between white and RB. In my opinion, solely using RB's as a source of blue light casts a purplish hue that can look artificial and overpowering. While using too many B's does create a windex look, adding the right amount takes some of that overpowering purple and balances it out with the bluer "20k" look. I can explain/show you what I'm talking about when you stop by this week.