Folta

I've never been up to that one, but I have heard about it. Do you happen to have an address for it?

Thanks for the offers guys. I have pods in my refugium, so I'll try feeding him those first, that is if he's still alive when I get home :o I'm glad I found this.. dispute out now though, as I defintely want anthias' in my 180. It seems I'll probably have to give up my flame angel, we'll see how things go.

This anthias was definitely an impulse buy.. a big no-no to do, but I couldn't resist his colors and how well he looked at the store. I think the only real issue is the flame angel... which I don't quite understand as the angel is an orange/red, and the anthias is a pink/red, and their bodies are quite different in shape. But I guess the angel sees some similiarity otherwise he wouldn't be chasing it so fiercely. It would be extremely difficult to get either of them out; my tank literally is a rock-wall. The best I could shoot for would be to trap the angel (he eats quite a lot, so using food in a trap might just work where as the anthias has yet to come out of hiding to eat as far as I've seen (although mysis and some pellets have floated into the rockwork; I hope that he eat least got something). Lights were still off when I left for work this morning, took a quick glance but did not see him anywhere. I'm hoping he's doing better when I get home.

Well, I"m afraid to report that right now he's not doing all that well. He looks a little bit stressed; I think its pretty much all being caused by my flame angel. Today, during daylight hours, he was pretty much not out at all. From time to time I'd see him appear for 2-3 seconds, then dart back behind the rocks (or be chased by the flame angel). I find this weird, as the anthias doesn't go near where the flame angel is, doesn't attack back (just flees when being chased), and nobody else has any problems with anybody. To make matters worse, it now appears that the anthias has a 'bite' or something on his side, near his gills. Since he's staying behind the rockwork I can barely get a look at it let alone a picture (I"ve tried), but there's defintely something wrong with him there. It looks as thought that area might be infected (the glance I got, it looked like a lump, but all scales were present) Right now he's next to a peppermint shrimp, I can kind of see him (his injury is turned away from me unfortunately) and the peppermint shrimp seems to be picking at the inury. I'm hoping that that is helping get rid of parasites or whatever is bothering him. I have way too much rockwork to have any chance of getting any of the fish out, and even if I went to great lengths to remove rocks and corals just to get to him, I'm sure the ordeal would be very stressful. I'm thinking unfortunately the best thing to do at this point is to just let time take its course, and hope for the best. I'll keep you guys updated. He truly is a beautiful fish, and pictures (both mine and others I've seen online) truly do not give this red lyretail anthias any justice whatsoever. Regardless of the outcome of this circumstance, I will be trying with more anthias's in the 180 - at least 3, maybe 4.

Glad to hear you've had good success with their fish. This picture imho doesn't even do him justice.. it doesn't really capture the vibrance of his colors! I'm going to try to get a few more pics today when the lights come on.

A couple shots of my tank as of today:

Today I stopped by tropical lagoon, first time I've been there. The corals were way overpriced, however some of the fish prices weren't too bad. I picked up this beauty today: To answer some questions: 1. No, I have not seen him eat. 2. The store has had him for two days, and the staff present didn't say if he's eaten in that time. 3. I didn't quarantine him at all, just acclimated him and let him mingle. Well, so far, he's been doing pretty well (for the few hours I've had him). He's out and about, exploring, not getting along with the flame angel particularly well but everyone else seems to accept him into the group just fine. He doesn't appear stressed at all, no damage to the fins, and has just downright beautiful color. In case you guys were wondering, he cost me $29.00. He is currently residing in my 55 gallon tank, but will be moving along with the rest of the crew to my 180 when it's finished being set up. I hope to see him eat tomorrow when I feed mysis to the tank. I dropped a few pellets into the tank tonight, but it was while he was still hiding amongst the rockwork so I don't know if he got any of it. It at least fed the rest of the fish, hopefully making them a little calmer towards the newbie. :D

Haha yeah, guess I'll have to stop adding that supplement. But I thought monoxodil helped corals grow! =p Pic of the zoas I was mentioning:

Some of my zoo colonies have been growing the 'frills' - the outside ring - quite extensively. One colony looks almost like my yellow polyps they are so long! (I can take pictures in a bit to show what I mean). Is this normal? Should I be concerned that something is wrong in my tank? The past few months my sps has been growing much better, the sand is finally white on its own, etc... so my current guess was that the water is just cleaner now, so its growing longer frills to catch more 'stuff' to feed on. Anyone else have this happening?

As far as how many people can physically be there, Chip's the one who will have to answer as we are going to be doing this build at his place. Howard, right now I have no idea what the cost will be like. I haven't priced the parts yet, however there might be some people who know how much these typically run about.

Garrett, I've added you to the queue. Jeff, I think that'd be great if you were able to come as well. I take it from your post that you're not looking to build a reactor though, correct? As we will only have time/materials for 9 people. ~ Tim

Kyle, did you go to Virginia Tech? I did, as well as a few others in wamas.

Sounds like one would be pretty well of with regular water changes and a kalk reactor.

Sorry to hear that Alex. List has been updated! Sam, Martin, I still need confirmation!

Howard, actually the reason for cutting it off at 9, instead of say 10, etc, is that the way the parts are bought, some of them are bought in segments that allow 3 reactors to be built out of them. In other words, to get materials for 10, it would also be enough for 12. Now, the issue with 12 is that with 9 we're already pushing over the limit of being able to construct these in one day, and people will have 'homework'. Depending on where we get parts from, there may be the possibility of getting exactly what we need for 10 reactors, but since I've never made purchases for these parts before, I'm not sure how likely that is to be Thanks for the name update, I was wondering if he'd ever get around to telling me!

I've decided to give this topic its own thread so people won't have to sift through the other thread. This first post is living; I will be updating it with information as time goes by. The build party for Kalk Reactors will be on Sunday, January 8, 2006 at Chip's House. The number of reactors we will be able to construct will be 9. Keep in mind that most likely by the end of the day, we still won't be done, so there may be a bit to do after the party. However, clear instructions on just what that is will be given, and there's always the forums to ask if you get stuck The list of people I have for this build party are as follows: 1. flowerseller (Chip) *CONFIRMED 2. Folta (Tim) *CONFIRMED 3. 143Gadgets (Chris) *CONFIRMED 4. phisigs79 (Chris) *CONFIRMED 5. Jon Lazar (Jon) *CONFIRMED 6. Ne0eN (Rob) *CONFIRMED 7. martin (Martin) *CONFIRMED 8. zmalexander (Zac) *CONFIRMED 9. jimcroce21 (Garrett) Those in queue: 10. Gatortailale (Craig) 11. HowardofNOVA (Howard) 12. Caribbean Jake 13. samc99us (Sam) Guests: NAGA (Jeff) ireland As we can only make 9 units in this build, we will be accepting the first 9 people that have responded in the previous thread (WTB Kalk Reactor, was the title). If you are interested and not on the list, post to this thread and I can add you to the queue in case an opening comes up. As of this point, though, it looks like we will have a full party. The list of parts that we will need for this build are as follows (This makes 9 units, including Chips): 3 - 6"x6' clear extruded acrylic tubes. 27 - 8.5" x 8.5" black acrylic squares.* 18 of these squares can be routed into circles** 36 - 2" x 3" acrylic squares* 12' of 3/8 cpvc tube 216 - nylon knurled thumb screws 1/4"x20x3/4" 216 - nylon wang nuts 1/4" x 20 18 - 1/4" push in fittings for tubing 9 - 18" ridgid supply line 9 - liquid tight cord grips for 8 - small powerheads with metal shaft impellers 4oz - #3 weldon acrylic cement 2 big tubes #16 weldon cement 1 - 1/4x20 steel tap and drill 1 - 1/4NPT tap and drill gasket material for 9 units Total price is not yet determined; I have not had an opportunity to price any of the materials yet, and there may be some fluctuation in price. If anyone who was in a previous build can chime in for an approximate price tag, that would be nice. For those who have not yet confirmed that you can arrive and are on the list, please do so as soon as you can! I'd rather not set a cut off date for confirmation, however I would like to give people in queue at least some heads up that they will be or will not be needing to commit the FULL DAY TO THIS BUILD.

I have a flame angel and he hasn't touched a thing.

Alex, I have a 55 gallon setup currently that is not drilled, and I use an overflow box and a sump. The overflow box works like this - you have a box on the inside of the tank with teeth, and one on the outside without teeth. The water level is above the bottom of the teeth so therefore flows into the box on the inside. You have a U-tube (actually looks like an upside down J) that you place so the longer side is on the outside of the tank. In the box on the outside, you have a seperator in the bottom so that some water can pool there too. This allows for both ends of the J to be completely submerged. Then, you need to remove the air from the tube (and make sure it stays out). For this, I use an airline tube connected to one of my powerheads. The tube goes into the u-tube and skims off the very top of whats in it, ensuring that if any air starts to build up in the tube it gets sucked out. Because the outside part of the 'J' is lower than the inside, this creates a siphon and pulls water through the J and into the outer box. This water flows over the divider in the outside box, and then down a pipe to your sump. The return is actually very simple. You have a pump (internal in the sump, or external if you drilled your sump) that pumps water back up. You just run tubing or pvc back up, and over the lip of the back of the tank. The amount of water that flows out of the display tank will equal (for all realistic purposes) the amount that is getting pumped back up from the sump. My 180 is drilled on the back. I'm very happy about that. The main reason is that twice so far since March this year, I have lost siphon in the J tube, even with the pump pulling air/water out. Luckily both times I was actually at the tank and noticed that the water in the display tank was rising awfully fast (pump in the sump putting water back into the display but none going to the sump). Now, if you want to be all slick about it, you could use a float switch upside down in the display tank that will turn off the return pump if the water rises to a certain lvl, but really at that point I think it'd be just as easy to drill the tank, especially since your 120 is empty (I presume). One thing you must keep in mind! If the glass is tempered, it will shatter if you try to drill it. Take the time to reasearch your tank's glass if you decide you'd like to drill it.

ErikS, glad to hear that the bulbs are almost white but just a hint of blue. Thats exactly what I'm looking for. davidm, awesome to hear numbers about your setup. That seems like a pretty substantial difference in par numbers! The hamiltons are 65 each, the pheonix are 69, so the price difference between the two isn't much to worry about (whats 12 dollars when I'm about to drop a grand! =p). I almost want to try a couple different bulbs.. just to test them out in person. But then I'd end up with mismatched color I'm sure. Oooh, decisions, decisions!

Ok, I *think* I know what I'm going to get. It's a decent amount of money even the cheapest I've found it online, so I'm going to mull over it a few more days at least before deciding. Bulbs: (3) 14,000K Phoenix Bulbs Ballasts: (1) Blue Wave VII (Dual Ballast HQI) & (1) Blue Wave III (Single Ballast HQI) Reflectors: (3) Reef Optix III Plus The nice thing is that the Blue waves are made by Sunlight Supply, the same ones that make the Reef Optix III Plus reflectors. Also, free shipping on most of it - $30 becuase of the weight of the ballasts. Blue Waves, for those who don't know, are M80 ballasts all boxed up nice and neat. They also have integrated timers on them. Total cost for this setup: $1027.70 after shipping. This is from reefgeek: Reef Optix 3 Plus HQI Reflector (250W)..................$99.95....3....$299.85 250W 14000K+ Metal Halide Bulb (Double-ended)...$69.95....3....$209.85 Blue Wave VII: 2-250W HQI w/ Timer....................$289.00..1....$289.00 Blue Wave III: 1-250W HQI w/ Timer.....................$199.00..1....$199.00 Sub-Total: $997.70 Shipping Charges: $30.00 State Tax: $0.00 Total: $1027.70

:P Thanks for the input. Are you going to get them tested with the club's par meter?

Very confusing! :bigcry: Hopefully I will end up with something I like. The spreadsheet I am referring to is the one for the par meter that was circulated (and is again circulating) through our local club. Here's a link to that spreadsheet: PAR Meter Spreadsheet

I just put in my current bulb setup - XM 10,000k SE with an M58 ballast - and was surprised to see the PPFD rating at over 130. I was under the impression that the DE HQI bulbs pushed out higher par values. I put in XM 10,000k DE with an M80 ballast, and it was still only 108. Looking at the PAR spreadsheet from our tests, it seems that DE AB bulbs with icecap electronic ballast was measured at 1111, and with a magnetic ballast at 1800. Was I wrong in this line of thinking?

Haha, yeah, it figures. a par of 87 at what depth? 87 is pretty low as far as PAR ratings go (check out the excel sheet to see what I mean) if its near the surface. I'm defintely looking for the white with a trace of blue coloring - but I do want to make sure I get some fluorescing from the corals too. I believe that a wavelength of 450 is where that stands out, right?

I think the trouble is that no matter how much research I do on this online, even including pictures, I just can't really get a feel for the color it will show. Also, unfortunately sanjay does not have 14,000k hamilton bulbs for spectral graphs, hellolights is selling them for $66 each at the moment. Anyone here run 14,000K DE Hamilton bulbs by chance?