Charlie

I came home Sunday to find my bubble tip anenome on the inside of my power head. I carefully took him out. I was going to send him to that aquarium that my toilet empties into, but I figured, "What the heck!" and tossed him back into the tank. He's in hiding, but he seems to be doing well (only about half his original size though).

I bought some Cichlids from them a few months ago and I was very impresses with their prices and the staff. There's a short guy with dark hair that really knows his stuff.

Silicone generally needs a dry area to stick and cure. I also think that if you applied it in your sump, the chemicals that it outputs would be harmful to your system. If you don't want to take down your sump, you could use some of the underwater epoxy that we use for corals. I know that Blue Ribbon Koi sells some as does Drs. Foster and Smith. BRK is close to Warrenton and they could sell you what you need.

My dad used to have a commercial fishing license in VA (mostly we caught wild hard clams and gill netted for Croaker). I had the chance to got to several of the seafood handling classes that the VRMC used to put on. I also used to got to clam and oyster plants and crab meat picking plants and to soft crab shedding houses. I've have many chances to talk to the health inspectors in the seafood industry in VA. I found out that California will except seafood from Virginia and Maryland directly without doing things like irradiating it. These are the only two states where this is true. In fact, they won't even except seafood from the Gulf region. As for me, if it doesn't come from Virginia or Maryland, I just don't eat it.

You should be ok, but I would still make the ceramic rings go away. I've seen folks use that area as a refugium (they attached a light to it somehow), but I would do away with them anyway. As far as adding livestock goes, I would still give it a week or so (longer would be better) to make sure that everything is working correctly and that you have the rock arranged the way that you want it. Don't put a dead shrimp in there! How would you like it if you moved into a new house and somebody put dead shrimp in it? Just kidding, but I wouldn't do that. I might put a pajama cardinal in there to help with the cycling or even your hermits and snails, but not a dead shrimp.

One of the things that most of the folks here will tell you is to get rid of the BioBalls. Your live rock and sand will carry all of the bacteria that is necessary for your biological filtration. That may be the source of your increased Nitrates. I would let the tank settle for a couple of weeks, testing frequently (daily) and keep an eye on the rocks to see if there are any unwanted critters, like aptasia. After everything tests well, then you can start adding stuff SLOWLY. I would start with the inverts to get rid of any algea bloom (it will propably be small) then in a couple of weeks, a fish. Don't add everything at once! Other than that, welcome to the site and I hope that you enjoy yourself.

Be careful, I'm sure that you have lots of electrical stuff there.

That's what I thought. I think that I made a similar comment on the thread about LEDs. Other than that Troy, great job! It's really starting to shape up!

I know that I need a reactor (Calcium, not nuclear) and I would love to get in on a build.

My tank is glass. Tempered so that I can't drill it either, but that's a whole 'nother story.

I know that I don't want to spray Windex on my tank and run the risk of getting it in the tank or in my sump, but after a water change, I have major streaks and splashes on the tank. What would you guys recommend?

Forrest, you could run a few lengths to brake line, coiled up in the bottom, through it. CAREFULLY drill a couple of hole in the side, as low as you can (about even with the floor of the fridge). You can put bulkheads in the holes, by fill up the remaining space with caulking. Then you have a DIY chiller and a beer fridge.

Forrest, unfortunately, not so much. The vinyl that airline tubing is made out of doesn't transfer heat very well (remember that cooling is transfer of heat away from what you want cooled). Not to mention, you really don't want to open the coils, they are filled with refrigerant (usually R-22, like your house's AC). If airline conducted heat then I think that there would be millions of cooked guppies rather than guppies that die from lack of water changes and being in tanks that are way too small. In order for vinyl to work, you'd need a temperature close to freezing and about 2 miles of tubing. Paul has a point that break line (unused) is pretty cheap and the steel conducts heat like a charm. You really wouldn't need more than 15 feet, coiled in the bottom of of the fridge. They also make fittings for the break line that make the plumbing pretty straight forward.

I'm really leaning towards the design that El Camaron has on his 70 cube. If you haven't seen what 36 3 watt LED do, you really should. His fish are wearing sun glasses.

Where?

That looks great but there seems to be a lot of, I guess that I should call it: "light leakage". What happens if you lower your lights so that they light your tank more and your room less? Would you get more of a "spotlight effect"? I think that you could get some really interesting lighting results doing that, creating shadows and accents. I bought the suspension cable system from BulkReefSupply last time we had a GB, and I love it. This way you can raise and lower your lighting until you get the desired effects and raise thm up easily for water changes.

Coral Hind is right that plastic, vinyl or pvc won't work because, one of their features is insulation against freezing. I know that soft copper pipe won't work (at a place I worked several years ago, we had 50' of 3/8" copper tubing in a fridge for cold water), but you could consider aluminum (I don't know if aluminum is reef safe) or soft steel tubing. the thermal transfer properties of metal is exactly what you're after. As a side benefit, you have a second refridgerator for beer. You could even keep a keg in it, put a tap on the side and host the next tank tour.

I think that one of mine tried while I was out one day that but the anemome won that battle (I came home to fine the anemome tiny, bright purple with a half of a peppermint shrimp sticking out of his mouth).

Justin, with the quantity of salt that you buy, why would you get it in buckets rather than boxes? I found that the boxes are cheaper and they have 3 or 4 sealed bags in them.

I use the 7 gallon water jugs from WalMart. I picked up some like this: http://www.generalarmynavy.com/Aquatainer7GallonWaterJug-idv-40-97.html for about $10 each and they're supposed to be BPA free (I suppose that if it's bad for people, it can't be good for fish).

That's the kind that I was thinking of, except that the one at Lowe's has a cord making it easier to plug into a powerbar. Since the set times are machanical (tabs are pulled out for on-time and off-time), the device wouldn't loose it's programming, it's just the time would have to be reset. I've used these for quite a while for other applications, such as a warming lamp for baby chickens or a grow light.

If you used something like this: http://www.lowes.com/pd_144082-207-TM12DOLBL_4294858445_4294937087?productId=3125291&pl=1&currentURL=/pl_Timers_4294858445_4294937087_?rpp=30 The problem of the pump being stuck on would be gone (if the power's out, your pump wouldn't come on anyway) and since it's mechanical, you wouldn't loose your programming, you'd just have to turn the when to restet the time.

Maybe we could have a DIY build party sometime. We could order heatsink material (maybe with a GB discount) cut them to size, use chucelli's (or create one) template to drill the holes and the more expirenced of a us could help teach folks how to use a soldering iron. Just an idea.

I really, really like Robert's set up. I'm thinking that a pair of those would be about right. El Camaron, I'd love to see yours in person, maybe I could bring a six pack for your time?

Even if it's an April Fools joke, it's still pretty cool.