Max Ivers

BUMP! please help me out here, I'm not looking to make money or anything, just qualify for free shipping on my dry rock order!

I'd be absolutely down to show off my tank, my 120 gallon in-wall is going up over the next few months and should be really well established by summertime. I'm in the Bethesda area. Bump for an awesome idea!

So life has been really busy as of late. But I've been making progress on the tank, just the pictures havent really been taken. I'm gonna try to get some up ASAP. But for those following I have some questions. I have 4 48" 110w VHO SuperActinic Bulbs on an IceCap 660 Ballast and the guts of a 4x54 Current Sundial T5HO fixture. I'm thinking of doing a light rack that would slide away for tank access. I was going to use door tracks like these from McMaster-Carr part #1223A8 rated at 150lbs per rail. I would replace the bolts in the sliders with eyebolts and then put eyebolts on the light rack (probably just nicely trimmed plywood) and connect the two eyebolts with chain. Anyone see problems with this? I've seen builds such as this one (start on the page linked and go through another page or two for complete assembly) that have used these exact parts and had good results. I'm thinking about laying out the bulbs as follows: ----URI SuperActinic VHO---- ----ATI Blue Plus T5HO------- ----ATI Purple Plus T5HO----- ----URI SuperActinic VHO---- ----URI SuperActinic VHO---- ----ATI AquaBlue Special T5HO----- ----ATI Blue Plus T5HO------- ----URI SuperActinic VHO---- Any comments on this setup? Keep in mind I got 8 VHO bulbs thrown in the deal and I just replaced my T5's so I'm not really looking to buy new bulbs for another year. But if I'd be better off with some other layout or if you see a potential issue, absolutely let me know. Here's a picture of a layout of the light rack I was envisioning but with only the VHO's (the t5's are on my tank now) but you can see the space where the T5's would go. Also threw in a picture of the tank sitting in my basement after I cleaned it out with a vinegar bath and then 3 tapwater rinses. It was gross when I first bought it, covered in coraline, tube worms and dead macroalgaes. Thanks for looking!

I was wondering if you intended on attending the April 10th Spring Meeting and if you are attending if it's possible to place an order and pick it up then? Thanks, Max

This happened to me a few months ago...I had no issues other than a bit of it getting lodged in my skimmer pump's needlewheel impeller and just looking like black sprinkles on my white sand. I took care of it by siphoning it out (some sand came too but it was a negligible amount) of the tank and siphoning out what settled in my sump. As long as it isnt a brand that releases phosphates than you could theoretically leave it in with no consequence. HTH, Max

I'm trying to buy some pH calibration fluid from BRS on the group buy as well as other things and I need to add a bit more stuff to qualify for free shipping (30lbs of rock doesnt ship cheap). I'm planning to buy a case (25 individual packets) each of the Milwaukee Instruments 7.01 and 10.01 pH probe calibration fluid. It's $20.70 per case, so $41.40 total. I'd be ordering these during the group buy on Monday the 5th, and I'm planning to attend the meeting that is on Sunday the 10th. If you're interested, send me a PM. I'd be willing to do it by single pairs of packets even, at the cost of $1.64 a pair (41.40 total/50 pairs) but I'd need enough people to commit to it. I'm looking to keep 5-10 sets of packets for myself, so if I can get people to pick up the other 15-20 sets at the meeting then I'll order them. DEADLINE IS MONDAY APRIL 5th @ 3:00pm

sorry I couldn't get the second half up, I was out of town over the weekend. But the first installment WITH PICTURES will be up tomorrow afternoon!

Hi everyone, For those who don't know me, I'm relatively new to WAMAS, I joinedthis past fall. I'm a high school student and absolutely love my reef. I started my current 55g in August of 2010 and it's been thrivingsince. I'll take a few pictures of it when I get the chance. My new project is going to be "the big one" at least until Igo off to school at the end of next year. The equipment list is as follows: 48"x24"x24" 120 gallon AGA Dual Megaflow Tank with 2 back overflows 36"x18"x16" 40 gallon breeder tank for the sump. 4x 48" 110w VHO SuperActinic bulbs overdriven by an IceCap 660 48" 4x54 T5HO Current Sundial Fixture with ATI bulbs (2 Blue+,Aquablue Special, Purple Plus) Reef Octopus NWB-150 Gate Valve Model BRS Biopellet Reactor driven by a MJ1200 WarnerMarine EcoBak BioPellets Rio2500 submersible pump 30lbsof BRS Dry Rock mix of pulkani and fiji 65lbsof Live Rock from my current setup KoraliaEvolution 1050 and 750 circulation pumps Details on the actual build to follow!

I'm sure if you bring it by the spring meeting, someone would help you frag it if you're uncertain about doing it yourself. Possibly it could be a mini-demo for fragging?

actually I'd have to respectfully disagree. for lps corals I think its much better to use bone cutters to cut the skeleton partway and then break off the piece as it allows the coral to naturally sheer like it would if it broke in the wild. plus the dremel gets really hot as its cutting through the skeleton and while it just feels warm to the touch to us, our skin is not two cells thick. hope this helps you out.

This video is a great instructional video for fragging a branching euphyllia

Well I'm gonna reply to this in a few different parts. First, a dremel tool is a much different animal than your electric drill or screwdriver. A dremel is like a dentists drill in that it spins anywhere from 2,000-35,000rpm. Your power drill or screwdriver probably tops out around 2,500rpm which is much too slow to make a clean cut with a disc. But what the electric drill lacks in RPM it makes up for in torque or its ability to muscle through thick cuts or materials. The attachment you want is a diamond cutting wheel but its ment to be used on a dremel tool at ~20,000rpm (what I personally set it to). Hope this helps.

Hello everyone, I'm considering an upgrade from my 48x13x21 55 gallon tank to a 48x18x30 90 gallon tank that is for sale. I want to use my current lights (4x54w Current Sundial Fixture with individual parabolic reflectors. Can I get away with the 30" depth without overdriven T5HO bulbs? I want to grow SPS at the top (as I currently do, about 12" from the top. Acro's, pocillipora, stylo, montis, etc) and LPS towards the middle and bottom. I run these bulbs front to back: ATI Aquablue Special (12k) ATI Blue Plus ATI Purple Plus ATI Blue Plus Thanks for all the input, Max

Dave - I typically feed at night when my moonlights are on and all the LPS feeders come out. I soak them in a bit of tank water and then take a turkey baster or syringe and baste out a pellet or two onto each head of a colony coral such as my trumpets, acans and favias. But for my trachyphyllia I put about 5 pellets on each mouth of the colony and it gobbles them up before the brittle star or fish can steal them. I will try and take a video tonight of it. Hope this helps you out, Max

As the title says, anyone know? This was the food that was given out as a free sample at the winter meeting. My LPS absolutely love this food and I have noticed great growth with it and the recovery of a bleached out trachyphyllia has been awesome. Looking for somewhere local and preferably in Maryland or DC. Thanks, Max

Hi Rick, Looks like you have a huge patch of Neomeris annulata which is a great sign actually. It's a calcareous macroalgae and most people see it only for a short while after dosing huge amounts of Ca/Alk such as when adjusting their values before they start dosing or supplementing. Here's the info from Melev's ID page: Hope this helps

Wow, I'm impressed that you have fit 8 bulbs over a 18" wide tank...combined with those nice TEK reflectors and the retrofit fans, you must have a ton of PAR throughout your tank! I honestly don't have much knowledge on LED's other than their ability to replicate the PAR levels of MH lamps. What I think you're suggesting is a lighting setup that would look like this: -----T5----- -----T5----- 1.1x48" LED heatsink w/24 LEDs -----T5----- -----T5----- Is this correct? Maybe I could run all Royal Blue/Blue LED's to provide both that 20K color and a good amount of PAR and I could run T5 bulbs that had more of a 10~14K color to provide alot of PAR? On the topic of tank size, I really don't want the whole setup to stick out from the wall more than 24-28", and I think I'd be able to get a NAGA tank for around the same price as a 120 gallon tank and I really don't want to take the risk in fabricating my own external overflow on a standard glass tank.

Ah, good to know, I currently have some nassarius snails and hermits as well as a brittle star to patrol the sandbed. What sort of sand sifters do you suggest? I absolutely agree with you on wanting the 24" or 30" width, but unfortunately this tank is going in my bedroom which is located on the 2nd floor of my house, and I'm not sure I could support the weight of a 120-150 gallon tank. I am trying to get a bit more depth than 18" but less than 24" due to the weight issue, and also with an external overflow I think that the tank will stick out too far into the room allow for space to work around the tank. Do you think that I could get away with 6 or 7 T5 bulbs over a tank that was 20 inches wide? I currently run 4 54w bulbs over my 12" wide tank and I'm seeing great growth from my corals. Thanks for the information regarding the LED's. Do you have your 8x54 TEK over a 48x24x18 90gal or a 48x18x24 90 gallon? My fixture right now has two fans that cool both sets of endcaps. I just placed an order to replace the original bulbs that came with the fixture with these bulbs: 2x ATI Blue Plus, 1x ATI Aquablue and 1x ATI Purple Plus. I was thinking about gutting the fixure and adding in a 2 or 3 bulb retrofit. But I also was curious about doing a T5/LED combo. Do you have any ideas about this? Thank you all for your interest and help, I really appreciate it.

Hi Dave, I started the tank using Carib-Sea Ocean Direct Reef Grade Live Sand, which is a little larger than oolite sand, and it stays on the bottom for the most part, but when I direct the flow away from the sandbed, I can't keep a thin film of brown and red cyano from appearing, but as soon as I put the powerheads back towards the sand, no cyano, but the sand is thrown all over the place. And I attribute the cyano on the sand to a lack of flow, because I dont have any other patches of cyano in the entire tank, just the sandbed. I wholeheartedly agree with you about the Rio pump, I know its not the greatest, but it doesn't give me any heat issues, is relatively silent and hasn't had any problems thus far. I'm considering an external for the upgrade, but the sound, cost, and "un-closing" of the system (water leaving the system to go to the external pump) all seem like pointers to just stick to what has worked for me thus far. Do you or any others have any ideas on lighting? I'd prefer not to go with halides due to the heat and operating expense. But any insight into LED or T5 would be great. Thanks

Ok so now the actual substance of the upgrade. I really like the 48" length of my current tank, but I hate the shallow museum look of having only 12" of depth. I'm thinking about going with 48" x 20" x 20" for the tank dimensions, with an external overflow to give me lots of real estate, as well as the ability to run a proper beananimal overflow as opposed to my full syphon no backup pipe current setup. I'm going to talk to Jeff (NAGA) later this week to get a quote on the tank and to figure out the details. The equipment I currently own is as follows: Current USA Sundial 48" 4x54w T5HO fixture Current 48" 110w PC fixture 2010 Model Reef Octopus NWB-150 (gate valve model) BRS reactor w/Maxi-Jet 1200 feed pump EcoBAK solid vodka pellets RIO 2500 return pump Digital Aquatics Reef Keeper Lite w/ATO, PC4, MLC Koralia Evolution 750 and 1050 powerheads 55lbs of LR Another 5lbs of LR with 20Lbs of BRS dry rock seeding/cooking/curing in a rubbermaid trashcan. I would prefer to keep this upgrade to the neighborhood of $1000 or so, but I have already made the mistake of buying crap equipment once and then the real deal again. I also am interested in LED lighting as I just find it crazy that I plopped down 100 bucks for 4 new T5 bulbs and would need to do so every 9-12 months. Also I'm really sick of the sandstorms that I have now in my tank with the flow I want for SPS and I'm seriously considering a BB tank with some sort of false sand bed. Anyone want to chime in on a SSB vs BB? Any and all comments/questions/concerns are more than welcome. Thanks

Hello everyone, I am relatively new to WAMAS, but had a great experience at the winter meeting and met some great people in the club. I wanted to just start a thread with some ideas that I have for an upgrade that would take place in the relative future (by the end of summer?) from my current 55 gallon setup. I have learned so much since I started my first tank last august, and things are really doing well. My SPS are coloring up and growing well, my LPS the same, and this is without any sort of supplementation (soon to change to Kalk in my ATO container) other than water changes with good old Instant Ocean. But anyway, based on this knowledge that I've gained, I'm thinking about upgrading tanks once and for all (subject to change without notice of course ) before I head off to college in a little over a year. My parents have really fallen in love with my tank and these days I have to kick them out of my room where the tank is so that I can sleep. And hopefully this means that they will support me wrecking having in their house to build an even bigger tank and system. So I wanted to just post this up here and I'm hoping that y'all will question me and comment on the design process so that I can build a system that is absolutely beautiful. More actual details to come in the next post!

Ah thank you Tom, I thought that the number seemed quite low, guess I shouldnt try to do this kind of conversion at 2am lol. Do you or anyone know of any cheaper dosing pumps than the single channel ones that sell for $80-$100? Possibly a cheaper chinese knock-off of some sort? Thanks.

I read your thread about this not too long ago, but honestly dosing Kalk scares me because of the high PH, precipitation, etc. I also don't really have room for any more equipment under my stand, nor do I have the budget (both time and money wise) to purchase and setup another piece of equipment that I might replace in under 6 months. And as my tank and system grow (already planning a rimless nano cube to be tied into the system) I think my calcium and alkalinity demands will surpass what Kalk dosing can safely do. In addition, my sump is tiny (10g tank) and my return section is incredibly small (~1.5g) so my ATO cycles on and off all day, which I fear would overdose/cause problems with Kalk dosing. But I think for your system a Kalk reactor seems like a great solution to your Ca/Alk dosing needs. I'm more looking for suggestions in terms of how much to dose, and whether or not these pumps will work for dosing. But thanks

Hey everyone, I am about to start dosing 2 part to keep up with the demands of my growing tank. I really would rather not shell out 200 bucks for 2 dosing pumps such as these nor can I consistently dose the required amounts at the same time everyday or even everyday due to school/hockey/etc. I was hoping that I could use a simpler pump such as the Aqualifter Pump which I use for my ATO needs. I ran the calculations from the advertised flow rate of 3.5gph and found that the pump has an advertised flow rate of 3.8ml/min. Calculations here. I am thinking about running these for 9 mins a day to deliver a total of 34.2ml of both alkalinity and calcium parts to my 55 gallon tank per day. I'm basing my two part dosing off of the Bulk Reef Supply 2-Part dosing instructions and I'm actually using the Randy Holmes-Farley DIY 2-Part Recipe 1 and I currently have 10 SPS frags (small acros and montis) and 5 LPS frags (3 headed branching hammer, 1.5" chunk of acans, trumpets). I'm guessing this is somewhere between the levels of "A few SPS hard corals and clams" and "Numerous full size SPS colonies". My current tank runs at 10DKH and 360 CA (Salifert tested) with a 7 gallon water change once every two weeks with Instant Ocean mixed to 35ppt (refractometer). Does this sound like a good amount to dose? I'm also wondering whether or not the Aqualifter pumps will clog from dosing the CA and ALK? I'm also considering a third pump to dose 3.8ml of MB7 everyday, as I run EcoBAK pellets to keep my nutrients down, and I dose MB7 to keep the cyano away. Anyone have thoughts about this plan? Or does anyone have any other suggestions for automated dosing that won't break the bank (100$ budget for this project)?