Rascal

If it was a skunk cleaner, that's the first I've ever heard of one being at all aggressive. Mine have always been model citizens. Probably the most reef-safe, in fact beneficial, of all shrimps IMO. Astrea snails (pointy shells) have a more difficult time righting themselves than most other snails, especially on a sand bed.

Until you get this and phosphates to just about undetectable levels you will have a difficult time getting rid of hair algae no matter what critters you add IMO. Definitely get the alk but save your money on the PO4. The hair algae is your phosphate test kit. If you have it, you have excess phosphates. Most kits won't register the PO4 b/c the algae takes it all up. you really have to be carefull acclimating snails to your tank -- they have an even harder time adjusting to rapid salinity changes than most marine organisms. IMO many many many small snails are better than a few large ones (i.e.--turbos). I like margaritas and ceriths and lots and lots of nerites and stomatella.

If the choice is between adding a beautiful and interesting fish (so what if it's common and hardy) and adding an unknown chemical that supposedly kills a specific type of algae without harming anything else . . . seems like a no brainer to me. Ctenochaetus (i.e.-Kole, Tomini) tangs usually eat hair algae as well. More likely than not you lost more than your yellow tang during that tank crash. Whatever parameters were upset enough to kill a hardy fish like that probably took a lot more life as well. My guess is you are dealing with both an excess of nutrients (from a die off) and a shortage of herbivores.

I should have a few available. I'll try to remember to drop them off for you sometime in the next two weeks.

It's never done any harm in my reef as far as I could tell.

Sorry to hear about all of this. Maybe it would be better to just replace the faulty bulkhead?

I always love these. My personal favorite: 10) "We really think you need to get out of the house more often. You spend a lot of time just sitting there staring at us, and to be quite honest, we all find it a little creepy." The rest: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2007-08/tt/index.php

Chip and Dan, do you think the temp at 80.5 would be responsible for slowing down growth? I have read lots on "the great temperature debate" in the past so I know there are many conflicting views on this. Just curious what your opinions are on the subject.

Dremel or Roto-Zip with cut-off wheel. It won't look pretty (especially if the cutting is done by someone with as little acrylic working skill as me), but it works.

That logic makes sense to me, but from what I've read there are two factors at work that make lower SG better for fish. The first is that fish actually have to expend energy to keep their bodies at equilibrium with the surrounding water. When the SG is lower it is easier for them to do this and therefore less stressful. The second is, as you mentioned, the "nasties" can't tolerate the lower SG as well if at all, which further gives an edge to the fish. I think you will find that most LFS keep their fish systems at a low SG for these reasons. I always ask for that info when I'm buying something so I have an idea of how long I need to acclimate it. This article explains it better than I could: Marine teleost fish (higher bony fishes) maintain their osmotic concentration at about one quarter to one third that of sea water. In normal sea water, these fish have a tendency to lose water from their gills due to osmosis and also in their urine. Fish have to drink a lot of water to make up for the loss, however, as the water contains a lot of salt (35‰) they must remove the excess salt from their system. The sodium and chloride ions are secreted by the gills and magnesium and sulphates are excreted in urine. This is an active process and requires energy much like the energy required to keep warm blooded animals warm. When fish are under stress, one of the processes that is affected is ion regulation. This means they have difficulty adjusting the concentration of ions (sodium, chloride, etc.). Lowering the salinity of the tank water makes the concentration of ions closer to that of the fish"s internal fluids and reduces the fish"s efforts to maintain the correct concentrations.

You could also just cut a little bit off the top of your collection cup to make it shorter. It sounds like an inch or two would do it. At most this would mean you would just have to empty the collection cup more often.

#1) don't buy that big monster chiller you're looking at, buy my undersized 1/10 hp arctica so I can upgrade and get the chiller I should have gotten in the 1st place. Just kidding. You should totally get the 1/3 hp chiller. I just didn't have the money at this time last year b/c I had already forked out a ton setting up my tank and I hadn't really budgeted for a chiller. That price is less than I paid for mine new, and it's 3 times as powerful. It's an absolute steal. Of course, if you decide it's not for you I can offer you a great deal on a 1/10 hp, used for 1 year. Could you put a fuge in the small top cabinet on the right of the tank? I really like what Johnny did with the combo fuge / surge tank in his set up. What are you going to do for flow in addition to the return? Closed loop? Powerheads? As for lighting: 1st, for actinic supplementation I have tried PCs, T5s and VHOs. For pure color "pop" the VHOs absolutely blow everything else away. There is really no comparison. The T5s are a lot brighter, though. Right now I have 2 x 54W T5 actnic + (22,000Kelvin) combined with 2 x 110 VHO actinic and I really like that combination. Just out of curiosity, why did you decide to go with 400W bulbs?

No hard feelings. I always appreciate a good rant. I just had to call you out on that one line. That IS ridiculous. For those on the humans-are-causing-global-warming side of the debate, whack-o statements like that do much more harm than good. Do you think buying hybrids actually reduces total emissions. If anything, I think it may even increases them. The electricity to charge those batteries still has to come from somewhere. In this country, it primarily comes from burning fossil fuels doesn't it? I think the benefit of hybrids is that instead of the emissions adding to the local air pollution / smog problem in congested areas, they are concentrated more at a "point source" - usually in a more rural area. Globally I don't think it makes a difference. The reason I say it may even increase emissions is because there will be some efficiency losses along the way. Internal combustion engine to power a car = conversion of chemical energy (by burning fuel) --> mechanical energy. Using batteries to power a car = chemical energy --> mechanical energy (turbines) --> electrical energy. That electrical energy then must be moved against resistance through power lines over great distances and then used to charge the battery, and finally the electrical energy stored in the battery --> mechanical energy to move the car. Given that each of those conversions is less than 100% efficient, it seems to me it would take more fossil fuel per unit of mechanical energy to power a car on rechargeable batteries than it would to use a regular engine. Maybe I'm missing something. Of course, if we were generating electricity from nuclear power, the only atmospheric emission would be H20 . . . I agree that nobody should be able to deny those things, but some still do. Extremists on both sides of this debate seem to pay very little attention to the objective data. I also agree that we don't really know how much of it is a result of human influence versus something that would be happening even if we were still living in caves and hadn't even discovered fire yet, but don't you think it makes sense to make at least some efforts to reduce the amount of human impact? Even if it is just one of many other factors, it is the only one we have any control over. Just as long as we don't do anything to harm the barley, malt and hops.

I understand your points, but I think you may have overstated your position a bit here. Though I certainly don't think "party line" on every issue, I have been a registered democrat since I could vote (1990). My "one act of patriotism": SSgt. Sprano. USMC

Good point.

I saw the following review of that product on marinedepot.com: With friends like that . . . Others seem to have used it with no ill effects. Do you know what is in it? I read on one of the boards that it was potassium permananganate (sp??) and it acts as an oxidizer, but I couldn't find anything from the company itself. If I were you, . . . I would do lots of water changes. Carbon, polyfilter, and purigen wouldn't hurt either, but water changes are probably your best bet.

Thanks. That's just the sort of information I am looking for. I don't want to go too blue, just a little bit more, so I definitely will not get the Hamiltons based on your recommendation. I am actually wondering if I am just reacting to the yellowing of my bulbs over time, and perhaps I should simply replace them and that would give me what I am looking for. Ushio does make a 14K 250W DE though. Maybe I should just order 1 of them for now and see how it looks. I did replace the Actinic T5s with Actinic + tonight. I couldn't believe the difference. The T5 actinics had always been sort of purple. The actnic + are a lot more blue. The combination of the VHO with these bulbs looks really awesome. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see how much of a difference it makes with the MHs on.

Aesthetics aside, for noise and electrical consumption the prop-driven powerheads give you the most bang for the buck. The Tunze Nano 6045, for example, will give you almost 1200 gph at only 7 watts and you can't even tell it's on. I think the Koralia 4 (also about 1200) draws a little more but still less than 15 watts. I have a blueline / panworld 1200 gph pump on a closed loop in addition to 1 Koralia 4 and 2 MJ900 mods. I can't say for sure because I've never tested it, but I believe the panworld adds more heat to the water. Even with the mod invented by Dandy (stock fan removed and replaced with heat sink and computer fan) it is still fairly warm to the touch. There are a lot of reasons to like a closed loop, though. Another option would be to scale down the size of the closed loop pump and supplement it with 1 or more of the small prop-driven powerheads.

Jason: I'm not sure but I think the concern is contaminants from the metal used to condense the water in the dehumidifier. Heavy metals could build up to toxic levels in your tank. The same would probably apply to the AC runoff.

Jason: I'm not sure but I think the concern is contaminants from the metal used to condense the water in the dehumidifier. Heavy metals could build up to toxic levels in your tank. The same would probably apply to the AC runoff.

Thanks for the feedback. You are absolutely right about the VHOs vs T5s for "pop". I started with PC + T5 and then switched out the PCs for VHOs. What a difference. If I could switch out the T5s for VHOs without changing the ballast I probably would do that. I'll have to look into it. I also like what I read about the HIT BLV 10K DE bulbs, but I can't seem to find a U.S. source for them.

I currently run 3x250W DE Ushio 10K supplemented with 2 x 54W T5 geissman true actinics and 2 x 110 VHO uri actinics. The MHs and T5s are almost a year old now so I will be replacing them this month. I was thinking of going with something a little bit more blue. I will probably replace the T5s with actinic +, but I doubt that will make too much difference. I looked at Sanjay's charts and there doesn't appear to be another 10K bulb that is any bluer than the Ushios, so I am considering switching to 14K bulbs. If possible I would like to do so without losing a whole lot of PAR. Does anybody have any experience with 14K DE 250W bulbs? Right now I am looking at bulbs by Ushio, Hamilton, and Phoenix, but I'm open to other suggestions as well.

Chip (and other resident UV experts): How often do you clean the quartz sleeve? I have had mine (Current 15W) for about 1 year now. The one time I replaced the bulb (after 8 months -- too long), the quartz sleeve was solid white. I believe this was due to a period when my Alk was uknowingly off the charts high, leading to a lot of calcium carbonate precipitation on everything. I haven't checked it since then because I haven't seen any signs of problems in my tank, but your post has me wondering. A related question, because I will probably upgrade to a larger unit at some point: has anyone had any experience with the UV units with the wipers? Do they keep the sleeve clean?