SDBDRZ

If I were in this situation I would take the item back to the store and explain the situation. If, after doing this, you are not satisfied with the outcome then your only real option is to take your business elsewhere. If the fixture has been used for several weeks the store will most likely not take it back because it is used and they will no longer be able to sell it as new. This would most likely be the case at any retail store. It is unfortunate that the employee that sold the item did not know the difference between a VHO and a PC but I can tell you it really does not suprise me. I have been to most of the stores in the area that sell salt water product and to be honest I have found very few employees that I considered to be extremely helpful. This website is here to help educate the hobbiest, if you have complaint or concern regarding all things reef this is the place to come, however it is not the place to bash local stores or owners. WAMAS does not endorse any store and all I ask is that we keep this thread on topic and not let it devolve into a store bashing or personal attack thread. With that said I hope everything works out for your friend Lovereef.

I would like to see a good selection of Bali acros.

Tony, We should wait for Tammie or Glenn to respond to this but I think the project has been shelved. I am not sure but I believe there was some concern about the health of the elegence coral if its environment were changed.

Steve, In all likelihood it is splitting. I have seen my BTA's do all sorts of stuff when they are about to split which would include shrinking, moving, etc.

[tu]

78-80 controlled by Medusa dual stage controller running the chiller and heater, though I am not sure the heater has ever had to come on.

Dr. Mac had a prior commitment this weekend so he will not be coming. Rich (AquariaUSA) will be coming with a large selection of livestock. Dr. Mac has committed to the Symposium and will have a larger than usual selection of items.

One is really too small for my system so I am going to try to run the two I ordered inline. We will see how it works. If they do run inline and work okay I may add a third inline. Heck for the price you can hardly beat it if it actually works. If they do not work they will end up on the shelf of misfit reef gadgets in my basement :D

My BTA's usually split not long after a large water change. Also they have been moved to different tanks on two occasions. In both cases when I moved the BTA's one split within a few days. If you do a search on some other boards you will see some people advocating large water changes to induce BTA's to split. The large water changes likely induced the split.

One other point I might add. If you go to Lowes or Home Depot to get a generator realize that the lower end generators may not be the best choice for continuos multi day running. I opted to spend a few extra $$ and get a generator with a Honda motor. It has been run for 4 days straight without any problems.

I too have a backup generator, funny thing is it has about 50 hours on it and I have never had to use it personally. My friends sure like it though ooh I have a sub panel sitting in my garage waiting for me to hook it up this summer. I am going to move the breakers for my reefs to the sub panel along with a few other items so that when/if I need to run my generator I will not have to run cords through the house. If you think about it a generator is not a huge investment considering the amount of cash most of us have tied up in our reef tanks.

Tony, I order 2 from North Coast Marine but apparently they are out of stock. I will let you know what I think when I receive mine Scott

Lots of friends. Seriously when I moved my 180 into our basement Ihad 4 people help me. It was a little tough getting it down the steps but not too bad. I could easily get a longer and wider tank down the steps, would just require a few more friends :D

I would be happy to host a tank tour at my place. Since I am a pretty long drive for most members (I am in Frederick) I will see if any other reefers in my area are interested. I am also willing to do a barbeque or something at my place and make a day of it. I am available most anytime over the summer. We could also do a frag swap or whatever, I am fairly flexible.

Armson, new site, new hosting company. We had the site staged for a few weeks with our new hosting company for review and tweaking then we switched everything all at once. As I understand it there were some issues relating to bandwidth and support with our old host. The new host should solve those problems.

I have a gold stripped neon goby that for some reason likes the overflow. The first time he got in there I fished him out, he was back in it in a couple days. I left him there for a couple months and one day I found him in the sump. Netted him out put him back in the tank and in a matter of weeks he was back in the same overflow. Guess he must like it in there.

With a 72" long tank I do not think the MAG 7 on a closed loop will provide adequate flow for an SPS tank. Could probably run it for a return. I also do not like running MAG pumps externally. I had a MAG 12 running externally for a while and it leaked and it was loud. I am of the opinion that more flow is better for SPS and if it is alternating type flow (seaswirl, SCQD, etc) it is hard to go overboard with flow. I have a 180g (72" long) and I have four 1" seaswirls (1200GPH each) on a closed loop with a superampmaster 5600, two turbelle stream 6100 pumps(3000GPH each) w/controller and my return pump is a MAK4 1200gph running through a SCQD. Sounds like a lot of flow and probably is a bit overkill but the corals look good and all are growing. Some are growing like weeds.

180g display 100g refugium/clam/softy/whatever else I throw in there 40g anenome tank 12g nano =332

I agree with Craig, it is supply and demand. The hobby has grown a lot over the last several years and people are willing to pay rediculous prices to get what they perceive to be rare or exotic.

I will start by saying the curio trade should be banned, it is depleting a natural resource by taking something that is alive and killing it. Not just the curio trade on coral skeletons, but dried puffers, seahorses, etc. As for banning the importation and collections of wild corals I am sure that over the next 5-10 years things are going to get tighter in some areas. I doubt if we will ever see a complete ban. Over the last several years there has been a notable increase in the quality and selection of captive propogated species. Some have started to take these efforts beyond small scale propogation. I am not sure that captive propogation is ever going to be the answer because you would need numerous large farming facilities to be able to supply frags in any sizable quantity. Also, people are impatient by nature. Only us die hard reefkeepers are interested in buying small frags and watching them grow. Most people (including myself at times) can not resist buying a beautiful wild collected colony. People are also notoriously cheap and they will not pay more for a small, captive or aquacultured frag than they can pay for the entire wild collected colony. Look at clownfish for example. Places like ORA have been very successful in raising many species of clownfish. Just about any LFS can get captive clownfish as easily as they can get wild caught yet they still primarily buy wild caught because they are less expensive. If the buyers walking into the LFS demanded captive reared clownfish the LFS would carry them. Instead we as hobbiests buy the wild caught clowns because they are cheaper. The real answer could come from aquaculturing. I am really impressed with the aquaculturing efforts of people like Walt Smith.

Live in Walkersville, Maryland work in Frederick, Maryland Yea I know, I live out in the sticks.

Michael, I dont know if it will be flexible enough or not. I use the clear tubing for my reactor and just wrap it with black electrical tape to keep algae from growing inside the tubing. If you want I can check tonight and see how much 1/2" flex PVC I have. I have 2 containers of the solvent I just received from Aquatic Eco. I will be switching over to the 180 this weekend but I am sure I will have some solvent left. If I have the 1/2" flex you are more than welcome to it because I wont be using it. You can either come up and get it or bring your reactor and we can work on it. I am doing the tank transfer Saturday so that would not be a good day unless you want to risk getting put to work :p but anytime after that.

Tony, You can have as much as you want out of my 100g refugium. I usually throw a couple gallons or so of grape caulerpa a month out. I wont be at the next meeting though. Scott

Well you came to the right place :: Where are you located? I am sure there is someone in the group who lives close and will be willing to help you out.

I am running a Southbay CS8-2 on my 120 from www.exoticfish.com It is basically a copy of the Euroreef. Michael is correct though with his can of worms comment, if you ask 5 different people about what is the best skimmer you will likely get 5 different answer. I have also run a myreef MR-1 on the 120 and thought it was a little small for my system. My total systems consists of about 250g of water, between the main tank, grow out tank, sump and refugium. Basically if it is a well designed, well built skimmer all the technologies (Beckett, downdraft, needle wheel, airlift, etc) work well. I would follow the link provided by Michael and do a little research befroe you purchase.