londonloco

Best HOB out there is the Aqua Clear series: http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=3578+3579+3610&pcatid=3610&r=2 I've probably owned every size, and have never had one quit on me. Easy to clean, uses reusable media, and very quiet once the top cover is removed.

Adam of Artfully Acrylic made both my stands, to my specs, I couldn't be happier, check out his website: http://www.artfullyacrylic.com/ Also, Kim is so on point, a 24" width tank you will never regret!

following along

+1..........

A little late, but I have owned both, Mag 9's on my last reef, one for return, one for PS (life reef), they were loud, ran hot, and seemed to need cleaning often, replaced one impeller over the years. I never needed heaters in the tank (120g), two mag 9's and MH's kept the temps above 75 all year round. I bought it in 2004, gave the return mag9 to a friend, she still uses it, 11 years later, it's def reliable. For my 60g I went with the 1262, I'm a fan of all things Eheim, quiet, easy to clean, it's been running since this tank got wet, Aug 2013. I think the big deal to me is it's quiet. Here's to hoping it's as reliable as the Mag's have been.

Love this tank.....

He's small, a 10g tank with an ac20 would be perfect for a hospital tank. I keep one on hand JIC.....let me know if you want to borrow the set up, I'm in Manassas.......

Put em back in!!!!

this is gonna be good......

any news?

done and done

I'm drowning in the "christmas spirit"......I'll be back in January when my life slows down.

I used my well water which has a TDS level of 500 out of tap, over 700 after aeration, for 6 years in a 120g reef. After year one, I had NO algae, but was limited in the corals I could keep, and couldn't keep an anemone alive but all fish and most inverts were fine. However, I do use RODI on the two tanks I have now.

A few years back green mushrooms had overtaken my 120g. Deciding to get a handle on them, I tried to remove them by scraping them off of the rocks. Like you, one squirted me directly into my right eye. A few hours later, the pain worsened enough to send me to the ER, who sent me home with pain meds and eye drops, also suggesting I go see a eye doctor, which I did, the very next day. Examining me, he saw "microscopic cannon balls", hundreds of them, stuck to my eyeball. These balls stuck to my eye were not sand particles, the doc said they had some sort of "adhesive" property attaching them to my eye ball. He scraped them off but I had to go back one more time to get my eye scraped again to get rid of them all. I feel for ya buddy, the pain was ALMOST as bad as labor.

Free live food......not a bad thing.

Great seeing you yesterday also Isaac! Sorry to keep you so long, but I get excited when I can talk "fish", ya know..... lol I really want to add some KP rock that I have dried out and keeping in the garage. Once I feel the algae is under control, I will, until then, it's WC WC WC for me.

Update day! I love this tank. Easy to remove the hair/bubble algae that has migrated from the 60g to this 16g. WC's literally take 15 mins, and that includes wiping down the walls and cleaning the ps weekly. I have purchased many zoa's and planted them on the rocks. I also have a candy cane coral that has gone from two heads to 7 in 5 months. I did buy another one headed neon green candy cane and a few more zoe's that are chilling on my rocks until......drum roll.....my smithii mantis makes his home. Yes, finally, after 6 months of waiting, I finally bought one :clap: Blue zoo had them in again, and I snagged one, delivered to me last Friday. It took 3 days of hiding, but today, all day, I've heard snapping. ALL DAY. He's moved from a cave I can view from the front of the tank, to building his own cave three rocks over, access from the back of the tank I did get to see him grab, punch and eat a snail today....that was very interesting. Once I get a tripod I'll try to get some pics. The tank still has macro algae growing, and 2 of the 4 pencil urchins that came in the rock (the other two are in the 60g) and several spaghetti worms that come out at night. I also added a yellow tail blue damsel. My grand daughter calls him the "angry fish". Had to laugh at that one. A few Amanda shots:

Wow, it's been 4 months since I've really written anything on this build. I've been battling pests almost since day one, but I'm hanging in there: -First I had the red bugs, my mystery wrasse solved that problem. -Then vermetid worms, which I manually removed weekly, I still have some, but not in epic number. -An apatasia that came in on my clams, scraped it off the minute I saw it, over a few weeks 3 more popped up, scraped em off, hopefully that’s the end of them. -I noticed purple/red slimy hairy algae irritating my rics to the point they would split to get away from it. Manually removing with a toothbrush got rid of that pest. At least I hope it’s all gone. -Bubble algae arrived in April, ALL over my rocks and sand bed accompanied by some weird wiry green algae. Since we were literally gone every other week (due to a family emergency) this summer, I couldn't do weekly wc's, which didn't help at all. Over the past few months, I stopped dosing everything Z except Zeostart but still use Zrocks, and started dosing Nualgi, which I believe has helped. I also stopped feeding my corals, and started feeding fish every other day, LRF only, which I also think has helped. But, having a new house sitter, I gave her flake to feed, every week I returned, part of my sand bed looked like green grass....it was so discouraging. But since school started, I have been able to do 3 weekly wc's, and both algae's are on the decline. I'm hoping to keep this up save one week in Oct we will be gone, again. The bubble algae is almost 100% gone from my rocks, but I still have lots of tiny bubbles mixed with that hair algae in my sand bed. Sucks! Last winter I added an algae blenny Sailfin/Algae Blenny (Salarias fasciatus) which didn’t get a long with my Bristletooth Tang, two months of “getting used to each other” the blenny lost the battle. I added another Algae Blenny last week, and within hours the Tang was harassing the Blenny. That same night I put the Tang in “time out” the 16gIM, just for a few days to let the Blenny “settle in” (as per Marco’s of ERC’s advice). All the fish seemed relieved, the cardinal I’ve raised from a baby now swims the entire tank, instead of hovering in “his spot”. The clowns which normally stayed behind the rocks are now cruising the entire tank. My wrasse was always swimming in circles, now he has the entire tank to roam. Realizing the tang had to go, this weekend I traded the Bristletooth for some giant paly’s. My tank is only 3 feet in length, best for me and the Tang. Now I need to figure out what to replace him with in a few months. Oh, and today, after “settling in”, the blenny is picking away at my substrate, all day, which I am very happy to see . I hadn't bought any coral since May, didn't want to add anything while I had so much bubble/weird wire algae. I did buy 9 new corals this past week, small ones, zoa's, 2 torches, a few rics, giant palys, a beautiful Wellso and a small Platygyra. Hopefully that will be it until after Christmas, easier said than done. I am learning, slowly, to use the macro lens my DH bought me last Christmas. I had my dear friend Amanda (from IC) stop by Sunday, she showed me how she shoots her tanks, I need a tripod and a UV lense for the macro. On my shopping list . She also and came up with a FTS for me:

:cheers: :cheers:

I am a big fan of anything reefcleaners, John is a stand up individual who has never disappointed me. I used reefcleaners dry rock for my 60g, great rock, great shapes. But, as stated above, if I had a do-over, I'd def go with KP uncured.

I bought rock from KP Aquatics for my 16gIM: http://sealifeinc.net/catalog/index.php I love this rock. I got the uncured rock, Philip told me he dove on Sunday for the rock, mailed it Monday, and it was in my tank on Tuesday, 48 hours from ocean floor to my tank. It had a curly cue anemone, FOUR pencil urchins, many types of macro algae, several unknown soft corals, spaghetti worms, it is so much fun watching the tank daily to see what crawls out of the rock. Six months later, I'm still seeing "new life" on it. If I ever redo my 60g, or set up another tank, I'll def use this rock.

Love the rock work...very pretty tank.

love my IM16 also.

Used the last of my Z rocks this week, and thought the same thing. I have a month to figure it out and get it all bought.

Anytime, anything Kimmy, was my pleasure. Sept road trip...here we come!!!