BeltwayBandit

I would second the Neon Goby recommendation for a few reasons: 1. Most that are available are captive bred. 2. They are neat fish to watch. 3. Some will actually perform cleaner functions and remove parasites from other fish. 4. They don't dig Just my opinion. BB

I have a 120 w/20 gal sump. Aquac recomends the following 3 pumps with this model: Rio 3100 (No way is a rio going on my system) Mag 7 or the DP-800. I feed moderately (I would say) I feed twice a day with Formula 1 flake w/garlic at 5 followed by either a smaller dose of Formula 1, Sweetwater Zooplankton, or Prime Reef frozen at 9 or 10 (Lights are on Noon to midnight cycle). Never more than is consumed and gone within about 2-3 minutes. Water parameters last time I checked (about a week ago) Ammonia- 0 Nitrite-0 Nitrate-2 Calcium-420 BB

I am running it with the Mag 7.

If you want to look at an XM 20K I have a couple of extras that I could loan you. I have 2 NIB, 1 with 1 month and 1 with 3 months on it. Just for future refrence. BB

Ok. Why does everyone bash glass tops. I realize that every situation is unique and different. Here is what I run, and some of the different setups that I have tried and what I have seen. My "normal" mode of operation is full glass tops over the entire tank except about 2". I have a 20 long sump that is completely open underneath. I am running 2x250W XM 20k MH lamps fired with hellolights electronic ballasts and two Radio Shak 120v fans that are on the same timer as the lights(fans are mounted next to each other and blow in along the center of the tank perpendicular to the parabolic fixtures for the lights). I do not use any actinic supplementation. I like the color it is a bluish white. No yellow. I have several soft corals and a Long Tentacled plate coral that all seem to be doing very well. All of the softies have shown a ton of growth since I got them at the frag workshop. In particular the colt frag that I got has at least doubled. From the single branch that I started with I already have three branches, one large and two small. So, in my limited experience I would say that I am getting good growth. (Just a side note about performance of XM 20k w/o supplementation) Here is what I have noticed in terms of temps and evaporation. When I leave the tops partially opened exposing approximately 1/3 of the surface of the tank I evaporate over 2 gallons of water per day from my system and my heaters are running constantly to keep the temp at about 78-79 degrees. Completely open w/o tops comes close to 4 gpd. When I close the tops except for the 2" or so in the back my temp stays at 80 degrees and the heaters are on much less and I evaporate less than a gallon of water per day. I am aided by the fact that the aquarium is in the basement so the room itself is always on the cool side to act as a heat sink for the lights. Unfortunately I don't think that I can get rid of the tops. My stand came with a custom canopy that is not really high enough to mount the lights safely over the tank unprotected. The biggest drawback of the tops is that I should have to clean the salt off of them on a weekly basis (it usually slides to the 2-3 week range because the top is a pain to take off and I have already broken 1 bulb in the process when it slipped.. oops there is a $65 mistake.) So, I don't know if there is a question here, but I just wanted to point out that glass tops can be worked around with the right conditions and they do provide some benefits. Maybe don't be quite so quick to dismiss them? BB

All I can say is WOW I LOVE THIS SKIMMER! In the 5 days that I have had this thing running it has already produced more skimmate than my pos Red Sea Berlin Turbo XL did in 3 months. I'm so glad that got a new skimmer, and sorry to have wasted my money on the Berlin. Just thought I would share! Oh and if anyone is considering the Aquac skimmers. They are very very easy to setup. All you need is 2 pieces of tubing and a pump. You need 3/4" inside diameter tubing for the pump inlet and 1/2" (I think) for the drain. Very simple installation. BB

I looked for a custom builder, and found a couple on the web. But, when I wrote to them none responded. You could try your luck with custom furniture makers too. I think Marine Scene has a custom builder that they use, but you would have to pay their markup on the finished piece. BB

Here is Walt Smith's take: From the inside ……. A few people have asked me to comment on this thread and I am happy to share what I know so far. It is true that Fiji has been shut down for an undetermined amount of time. Fiji has been given one deadline after another to get an important piece of legislation in place and for one reason or another that has had some difficulty getting to the table. The main reason is that the official in charge is completely incompetent and felt that if he just ignored the responsibility it would just go away. In fact he does not know how to work his email and when someone else from government stepped in to try and help he found over 200 messages that were unopened from C.I.T.E.S. warning him of the impending deadlines. This is no joke ….. that’s just how silly this whole thing is! It is no wonder that C.I.T.E.S. finally gave up and imposed their final deadline which was October 31, 2003. This is not the fault of the exporters, we did our job and supplied all of the information required to set the quota and report our exports while everything was in compliance with the exception of this one piece of paper that is supposed to come from someone who can’t even spell regulation let alone communicate about one. Amazingly enough once this person left the country on government business another person stepped in and got the job done. However, it was not done in time enough to meet the deadline but just the day before the deadline. What happens next is that today Parliament will meet to approve the legislation (reliable word has it that they will) and it will be published in the Gazette (government paper) on Friday and once C.I.T.E.S. sees this they will lift the ban. Two things can happen here to spoil this 1) Parliament may want to delay the process by asking for more time to review it, I was told that this was unlikely 2) C.I.T.E.S. could take their sweet time to lift the ban to teach Fiji a lesson, also unlikely (I hope). If all goes well everything should be back to normal next week. A few things in some of these post I need to clear up. No, I am not in Fiji right now as was mentioned and Fiji has never been shut down yet, not even for a week as someone has suggested that it happens every year about this time. One piece of good news is that my cultured rock is still ok to bring in and we have a very big load coming in tomorrow and this could be a very good time to finally take a look at some very nice rock, if I don’t say so myself (plug, plug). I hope this clears up some of your questions or prevents any silly rumors from getting out of hand like I’m in a Fiji jail eating rats for the rest of my life. Take care all and I will pray for the future of a business I have worked so hard for and the 350+ employees that have families depending on me for their daily bread. Fiji has it hard enough right now without this hitting their economy. Cheers, Walt

Here is the thread on RC. I haven't finished it yet, but it appears that some CITES issues haven't been addressed. This also is affecting live rock shipments it appears too. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=264309 BB

Edit to my last post, I was actually able to grab the coral tonight and turned it over because the base was pointing up, the coral seemed to be happy and I can see where new arms have budded out. Here is a question. I got two types of soft coral that I don't know what they are. One looks like miniature palm trees and is a light brown with a round tube and feather/palm like branches when it is open. The second was described as a Borneman coral and that it grew like a weed. I can attest to the weed part. It has already spread colonies to the rocks adjacent to the frag that I got. If anyone knows the scientific and/or common names for these two I would be much obliged. BB

Thanks for the tips, fortunately/unfortunately, my problem has been solved. On one of its trips blowing around the tank the Sinularia managed to fall into a hole in the rockwork. I tried, unsuccessfully to get it out of there, however it is opening up and I can barely see it from the front and appears to be happy there. So, that will be its home. Everything else is doing very well. BB

Update on some of the frags that I got at the workshop: The zoos that I got are doing fine, they are all opening and appear to be just dandy. The colt frag that I got was rubber banded to the base rock and the rubber band was cutting through the tissue. I have re-banded and it appears to be doing better. It too is opening and looking good. My problem child is the green sinularia (I think it is a sinularia) the rubber band cut through the stalk where it was attached and all of my subsequent attempts have not been tight enough to hold it without cutting it and it has gotten blown around the tank several times. I am thinking I might have to go with some netting to hold it down for the time being. Thats all for the updates. Thanks for the startup help. I can't wait til I get to bring these guys back in to help the next guy get started! BB

I have a purple gorgonian that I would like to frag. I have read up on how to frag the coral but was wondering what the success rate is on fragging these corals? Are there issues with infection, disease etc. when fragging that I need to worry about? Thanks BB

I realize that this is a bit late, but Salifert had a bad batch of pH test kits. IMO you probably had a bad batch. If you want a replacement contact Habib in the Salifert forum on RC and he will send you a replacement. Granted you already have a ph monitor now, but if others are having problems (myself included) check your batch number with Habib and if it is part of the bad batch he will send you a replacement. BB

I have a 25 high and a 10 gallon tank that are gathering dust that I would be willing to donate to the project. BB

bcjm, I have seen those too in my tank when the lights are out. They are clear with a little spot in the middle. They run for the hills as soon as any light comes on. Should I be worried? Or are some flatworms to be expected? BB

Thanks! I have already blasted with fervor the bigger ones. I just keep seeing small ones and no matter how many I take out, they keep coming. Its like the attack of the zombies. Oh and BTW, they came on some Fiji rock from Marine Scene. I bought a few small pieces from them and this was what brought the aiptasia into my tank. They were covered with them. BB

Two questions on peppermints. Will they eat the small feather dusters that come on Fiji LR? How many do I need for a 120 with maybe a half dozen aiptasia? (that I have seen) Thanks BB

Thank You! I too would like to thank everyone who donated the frags. I picked up several. This is definately a great start for my reef. I will post updates in a week or two with how everything is going. BB

Place a fan blowing directly over the surface of your sump. This will cause evaporative cooling of your system.. The downside is you will have to add significant ammounts of makeup water. You can also increase the airflow over your lights with fans (more fans if you already have some). This will also aid in getting heat away from the tank. Do you have glass tops on the main tank? If so you can take them off and this will also give you more evaporation cooling of the system. You can turn the A/C down a bit to keep the surrounding room a touch cooler (this gets kinda expensive on the electricity bill). hope this helps a bit. BB

Most houses are wired with 12 guage wire. That wire is rated for up to 20 amp service. So you can get away with just replacing the breaker. I was fortunate enough to want to put my tank very near where my breaker panel was and wired in a 20A GFCI breaker and then ran a dedicated line to a single outlet that only my tank uses. Installing a breaker is not very hard, the tricky part is running new wiring, if you are establishing a new dedicated circuit. BB

I ordered 3 that are scheduled to be delivered today!!! $86 total. All I had to pay was sales tax. I used the cupon code "freeship" and there were no shipping charges. According to the invoice each package weighs 64lbs (ups dude is gonna hate me) and was shipped from Buffalo, NY. Out of curiosity I checked on UPS and it would have cost $20 each to ship them.. Hrm.. $28 for the salt less $20 for shipping, how can they make money on this deal? BB

Just bought 5 bags at the Springfield, HD. There are a few bags left, be careful becuase they had fertilizer spilled all over the bags and many had small holes in the bags. I had to dig to get 'clean' bags of sand w/out fertilizer in it. BB

Kingstowne

Hey Grav, I believe I was actually in one of the stores that you came into. You had a shrimp and a frag, and the guy commented on your bagging of the shrimp, right? Anyway, I was also very surprised to hear his response to you. I just wanted to chime in and let you know I thought it was pretty crummy the way the gentleman treated you as well. BB