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I hope you mean "crazy" in the good sense . Jon

I have run a 4-bulb on my 90 gallon for 3 or 4 years now. T5s are tried and true. There are some incredible tanks out there lit by just T5s. Jon

There's a nice vid here: http://glassbox-design.com/2010/coppolino-copps-reef-angelfish-video/ I'm sorry I missed the angelfish talk he did at a prior meeting. Does anyone have a transcript? Jon

Great thoughts. Thanks for the insights. Jon

Anyone have experiences/best practices to share around transporting fish 2 hours or so? Is this better avoided? thanks in advance, Jon

Looks awesome, Dan. Good re-configuration of the fish room. and awesome skimmer!!! Jon

You are approaching this the way I wish I had back when I started in 2004, but nobody clued me in! If you are local to TMS, there are several herndon/reston folks here i'm sure would be willing to talk shop and give you run downs of their respective systems (not to say they're the only ones... just the closest). There are lots of options/approaches out there and its great to get experiences straight from the horses' mouth.. as they say. Jon

How high is it in the tank? It might be reacting to the amount of light its getting in your tank now (could be a temporary adjustment, I'm sure the slimer can handle the extra light). You might have higher par at your lowest point than I do at my highest... Jon

Was this the green slimer you got from me? That one I got from reefhunter- so maybe he can chime in . Jon

I've run an Octopus (INT-PS-150) since December 2007 on a very similar setup (90 gallon with T5s). I have been really happy with it. It is an earlier model when the company was still a little green around the ears, but it has performed great and I've heard nothing but good things about their products since. Probably comparable to the current 150 needlewheel. I would highly recommend the brand. Jon

Interesting analysis: http://glassbox-design.com/2010/par-spread-nanocustoms-par38-led-spotlight/

Frank, I used a Mag 5 on a 55 and then when I moved to a 90 for about 5 years. Some folks say that was a smaller pump than I should have used- but gives you (hopefully) another perspective. The mag pumps are good choices. Mine ran continually without fail. I run a 4xT5 setup on my 90. This site (http://sites.google.com/site/tfivetesting/) sums up a lot of the good experiences/recommendations out there. I recommend considering at least 2 Blue+ bulbs (folks recommend ATI, the Giesemann equivalent is Actinic+). For the other two, I have seen recommended: aquablue/actinic; midday/actinic; or even two aquablues. I use three blue+ and a GE6500K (you are welcome to take a look). It depends on what type "color" you want your tank to show. There was a good link out there where people posted their combinations and pictures of the tank... I'll do a search. Jon

So I dug up a spare workhorse fulham 5 that I had, wired it in, and things the bulbs are firing again. For those with TekLights, it wasn't a difficult swap. I had to spend the most time searching for the wiring diagram. And a tip for TekLight owners who need to access the ballast and wiring, unscrew the reflector plate off first! Jon

I opened things up and checked all of the connections. Everything seemed fine, no moisture or salt creep in the endcaps. I'm thinking that its the ballast (its an advance centium). I'm going to call sunlight supply tomorrow. I'm disappointed that the ballast only last 2 years. Jon

I got home today and noticed that two bulbs on my teklight 4-bulb system weren't firing. After toggling the switch and looking at the connections, I took and plugged the cord into a gfci and it tripped the unit. Any recommendations from the smart folks out there on how to troubleshoot this? Jon

The bottom line is that (as Leishman insinuated), we vote with our wallets. I would like to think that we the consumers support good business model, ethics, and reasonable markup, marketing and the like but if we don't vote with our wallets (i.e. stop feeding some of these practices), it won't change (e.g. AquaCo). The other reality is there are always folks who are going to roll the dice and perpetuate the system. I don't see this whole LE craze going anywhere soon. Sure I'd like to have something "special" that nobody else has, but reality is that 99.9% of the people who see the tank think xenia or yellow polyps are the coolest thing they have ever seen. Jon

Just wondering if we are talking about yumas or floridas here? I think there are different needs, at least IMHO, and would be interesting in hearing others experiences on the "ideal" setup for yumas. Jon

Very unique! Great looking tank. Jon

Thanks guys!

I've never gotten into dosing. I just try and maintain 10% weekly water changes. I feel like monti caps tend to take off when they hit a certain size due to their growth pattern (growing outward on every side). This is probably 8 months of growth. Yours will probably do the same! Thanks Dan! Yeah, the slimer has hit surfaced in two places. When I cleaned out the "teeth" on the overflow box (of algae), it lowered the water even more recently, so I've got a few tips that are done for. Jon

The tank hasn't been the top priority recently, so it needs some TLC, but everything seems to be fairly stable. I added a reefkeeper lite to control hood venting (no pics), and that's worked flawlessly. I'm hovering between 81-82, and expect that to dip this winter. A few posts back, there's a pic of this as a new frag I bought last spring. Seems to have grown pretty well. I already have four or so frags of it I'm getting ready to sell/trade. I'm doing some hard thinking on focusing in the livestock. I've done enough experimenting to see what I can do with this setup, and am considering a more thoughtful focus on particular species. Just some thoughts. Jon

Just want to echo the above thoughts. I've done three tank transfers/upgrades all in a day. I upgraded my 29 to a 55, the same 55 to a 90, and a friend's 55 to a 90. In two of the cases, we used new sand. Minimal new rock was introduced during the swaps. We used as much existing water as we could. Never lost anything in the swaps. I even had a blenny hitch hike into the new tank with a rock I was putting while the temperature was still in the low 70s... and he survived! Jon

With the GFCIs, consider that many don't automatically reset after a power outtage (there was a thread on this recently). I bought one from home depot that I had to constantly reset following a power outtage (not normally a big deal until you it happens when you are away on a trip). Some of them DO reset automatically after a power outtage. I bought the line version from marine depot and it does. Jon

Looks great. That's a beautiful Desjardini. Jon

There's some good information on bulbs here: http://tfivetesting.googlepages.com/ The 75/25 has a little pinkish tinge to it. Not as good par as some bulbs, but good at drawing out the reds, oranges, yellows. Jon