pez

If I could do it over again, I would use a series of close loop systems rather than any powerheads. That said, I have an Ocean Motion that has been chugging along for 7+ years (knock on wood). -T

Steve, Let's put this in perspective: Seawater: 8.20pH With an accuracy of 0.2, your tank can be 7.8 or 8.4 - wouldn't you like to know which? -Tom

I have to say, my auto shutoff setup is the best thing I ever purchased. No more water on the floor (well, due to the RO unit anyway). -Tom

I found the neoprene tubing on various web sites, but I wasn't sure about the details. 3/16" outter diameter? 1/8"? I don't know. It's about 1/foot (Spectrapure what $15 for 10 ft).

Does anyone know what type of tubing the litre meter uses inside the pump housing? I know it should be replaced once and a while and I'm far over due. However, the only place that seems to sell it is Spectrapure directly. Surely I can get some from US Plastic or some similar place. I just don't know what type of tubing it is. Anyone know? -T

You can check out some of the officer's photos on our new gallery site: http://www.wamas.org/gallery/albums.php There are also photos for each meeting: http://www.wamas.org/meetings.html The officers are: President: Michael Gerdes, aka michaelg VP: Glenn Rosenbluth, aka reefmon Secretary: <Unfilled> Treasurer: Paul Auger, aka dfladermaus Member Relations: Craig Kuhn, aka gaitortailale PR: Steve Howard, aka sph2sail Webmaster: Tom Sasala, aka pez -Tom

There are a numer of ways to go, depending on what you want to accomplish. If you only want to keep fish, then your options are open. If you want to keep corals, or a more "natural" fish tank, then you should get some live rock and natural sand (such as southdown). Give the FAQs a read first and make you are down with the lingo and such: http://faq.thekrib.com/ -Tom

Sounds like you have nearly all you need for now. A couple of questions: 1) Did it come with a protein skimmer? 2) Do you have any pumps? 3) What kind of lights are they? Flourescent (long and skinny), metal halide (about 8" long and 4" round), HQI (about 4" long and 1" round)? There are a couple of club members that live in Fairfax that should be able to come over and help out if you would like. It might represent a good learning experience for other members too. In the mean time, you might want to do some reading: http://www.cyberreefguru.com/general/overflow/overflow.html http://www.cyberreefguru.com/diy/sump/sump.html http://www.cyberreefguru.com/diy/guide/diy_guide.html Hope this helps. -Tom

Having been down this route before, I'd recommend going with the 400 watt lamps. That's what I have over my 120 and they work well (aside from the heat). Also, spend the extra money and get a PFO ballast with the enclosure. I DIY'ed my first setup and although it worked fine, the nice shiny enclosure was nice to have. Also, I recently switched from the Ushio 10KK lamps to the AB 10KK lamps. The AB lamps put out a much nicer color than the Ushios, and it seems like more light too. At least one of my AB lamps was sensitive to the nipple direction (not to start that conversation again....). -T

People like to use lights on curing LR to "save" as much life as possible. However, the only life you will be saving is photosynthetic life. The ammonia and nitrite will kill just about all the non-photosynthetic animals, depending on how long the cycle lasts. Generally photosynthectic animals on a reef need vast quantities of light, so any attempt at adding light will be just a warm and fuzzy for you than anything your reef animals can fully utilize. With that said, I generally try to leave the lights off during the ammonia cycle, and start turning the lights on now and then during the nitrite cycle. About 1-2 hours a day for the start, then I slow ramp it up to 4 hours or so (per day). The lower the light level, the more coraline algae will grow. However, once the rock is in the tank and blasted with your real lighting, your nice purple and maroon coraline algae will bleach and fade away. Over time it will be replaced with pink coraline algae, which seems to "like" higher light levels (although, too much light and you will get no coraline algae). Be forewarned however, using a lot of light during the cycle can encourage macro algae growth that may be hard to eliminate once you establish your main tank. -Tom

I think the reef tank has them. As far as price, they would be the cheapest it area, but probably can't shake a stick at MO prices.

Most commercal hoods are made of wood, aluminum, or acrylic. I've never seen a MH made of acrylic though. -T

Jamie, I think I still have a water level control unit you can borrow. I've never used it, but it did work when I tested it. It keeps the level in the sump basically the same, within a 1/2" or so. -T

Jamie, I suppose a square reactor would work equally as well, except for the problems you mentioned. However, large diameter tube is easy to come by, so making a round unit would be easier than a square one in my opinion. You can use PVC or Acrylic, but the latter would be more difficult to find locally. -Tom

I had one that was fond of nipping at some of my soft corals (of all things), but left the SPS corals alone. Perhaps I just didn't have the "right" kinds of SPS corals. Like Michael and Craig said, it's basically a crap shoot whether your's will nip or not. I read they tend to nip as they grow, so the older it gets, the more likely it will nip. -T

Having been there, I'd recommend going from 175 to 400's, or going to a 250 HQI setup. Skip the standard mogal 250's, they're just are not worth it. If you're going to buy a can and core setup, you would do just as well to find your nearest Branch electric and get it there. However, again, having been there, it's far easier to buy a retro kit from PFO rather than doing a full DIY setup. 0.02. -Tom

Do they really produce a wide range of spectrums, or is the manufacturer showing you an "integrated" plot of the output spectrum? That's generally what they do to "smooth" out the spectrum plot. -T

For those that are not familiar with the technology, LEDs are the precursors to LASERs. A given LED is doped to produce light at a single frequency (well, actually a range of frequencies, but a very small range). The "white" LEDs produce light by generating light in specific ranges, one in the red range, one in the green, one in the blue. It wasn't until blue LEDs where "perfected" very recently that you started to see true white light LEDs. Because of this, true full spectrum LEDs are a pipe dream. Even the most monochromatic HID lamps produce some level of output across the entire visible spectrum - LEDs do not. If no thought is paid to the output spectrum, our corals may ultimately suffer, despite the presence of a large quantity of "light". There is an opportunity here to tune the lamps to a specific spectrum to enhance growth. This may actually be a case where the Aq. industries does need specialty items that they could justifiably charge more $$ for. DIYer beware. 0.2. -Tom

NO4? You mean NO3 or NO2?

Based on the information I have read, a Ly's system can not provide enough calcium for a fully loaded SPS tank. Morever, some people have done analyses of the 'mud' and showed that it is basically backyard dirt. Check out reefs.org for *a lot* of information. If it works for you, great, but caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). -Tom

I think Mary is blowing things out of proportion, as usual. However, Cynanide is a problem and people should be aware of it. How many members are aware of the problem??

Alberto, do your valves leak? Mine do. I was looking for something a bit higher quality, but haven't expended the time to MO from US Plastics. -T

I have some stuff on my website. Also, I have a write up that Michael did for his Ca reactor and a rudimentary write up that I did for my Kalk reactor. I haven't had time to webify it though. Someone is welcome to the word doc and the pictures if they want to make HTML out of it. -Tom

Fischers Hardware in Springfield. I found what I needed at HD. I just has to be inventive with the 1 1/2 to 1" conversion. I also had to trim the elbows to fit in the overflow. -T

I would think both PVC and vinyl tubing offer the same drag, which equates to loss. In fact, I would think vinyl tubing would offer less total loss, because you would need less 90s and 45s, as the vinyl tubing pretty flexible. -T