Rascal

Somebody's got to say it --- got pics?

It's mostly a matter of preference, but I prefer a more open structure and more room for swimming, with additional live rock placed in sump for filtration benefits. I would be a little concerned with getting enough water flow through your rock structure the way you have it set up. I'm not saying that what you have is "wrong", just throwing out a different opinion. You'll find lots of them in this hobby.

I clicked on your gallery and it shows 1 pic of "my tank" in a private gallery. Try editing your gallery and checking the box to allow others to view your album. Or just do what James said and open upload it to photobucket. It really is the easiest way IME.

Agree with Phisigs. I did the same thing with a 10gallon sump under a 54G corner tank. I used a RemoraPro as the skimmer hanging on the refugium section and it did a pretty good job for its size. You might also consider a hang-on-back refugium like CPR makes. It wasn't an option for me b/c I put the sides of the tank right up against the wall since I didn't know any better but if you've got the room it might work for you.

I built one based off of this design: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...mp;pagenumber=1 I am not the handiest guy in the world either but I like to take a lot of stabs. This one was really pretty easy. Took me a couple of hours tops. Not counting the CO2 components and the recirc pump, it came in at around $85.00. After finally getting my regulator dialed in, it easily maintains Ca over 400 and Alk 11 - 12 dKh in a 150G full of frags with a BPM of around 50 (using ARM media). YGPM

Agreed. You will most likely find that coraline growth vs. die-off is tied to a specific level of Alk (all other things being equal of course). Maintain or slightly exceed this number, and your coraline will thrive. Allow it to dip, and you will start to see more and more of those little specs get white and then start to fall off. That has been my experience, at least.

Yes. Greatly. Thanks.

Thanks. That makes sense. I have started a table to keep track of how things come out with various settings, and it has really helped. As far as colors go, my goal is to take pictures that accurately reflect my tank as it appears to me. My full lighting shots are getting a little bit closer - although the colors are still not nearly as vivid -- but I still haven't even begun to come close when it comes to actinic shots. What seems to really be lacking is the florescence that "pops" under the VHOs, especially the greens.

If you want to practice your fragging & frag mounting skills, I will be fragging another piece off of my deep purple monti digis (brown polyps, pinkish-purple base) sometime in the next week. Bring a plug or a piece of rubble and you can mount it yourself and take it away. I use loctite superglue gel but you could bring your own if you'd like. Not the prettiest coral, but it's practically bulletproof which makes it a good one to start with. Here are a few cuttings I made last week from the same coral: LMK

Agreed. 30G is too small for a tang of any kind, IMO. You might have some luck with a blenny in the genus Salarius (ex: "Lawnmower Blenny") or Ecsenius (ex: "Bi-Color Blenny").

Hi and welcome to the club. If your flow is strong enough so that it is bouncing off of the front glass and still reaching down to the sand and then across to the back of the tank and up (the "churn" you referred to), that sounds pretty good to me. Colliding currents tend to produce nice random, turbulent flow on their own. The fact that you've got 2 scwds working makes it even better. Simple way to tell is to just watch the food and fish poop. If it stays suspended in the water column and then finally makes its way over the overflow, that's good. If it swirls around for a while and then settles in certain few spots of low flow, that's an indication you need to change something. Having said all that, I will also say that almost any tank can probably be improved with more flow. As for lighting, . . . some thoughts. Corals usually need to be acclimated to different lighting conditions, whether the differences are in the form of intensity, duration, or even spectrum. The frags you are getting are not used to the lighting on a tropical reef. They are used to the lighting in whatever tank they were in when they became a frag. Even on the reef, corals are not exposed to the most intense sunlight continuously for 12 hours of the day. The strenght of the sun at 9 am, while still visibly very bright, is a whole lot different than it is at 1 pm. IMO it would take quite a while to acclimate your corals to 12 hours of 250W MH lighting. 8-10 hours might be a better goal. You might also consider a break in the photoperiod during the day, having the MHs go off for an hour or two while the actinics stay on. Bottom line: if you stick things up high and they start to show signs of bleaching / burning, move them and/or reduce the photoperiod. Lessons I've learned the hard way. A tell-tale sign that your problem is too much light, as opposed to some other variable, is if the corals bleach on the parts directly facing the light, but still look healthy on the parts that are shaded. Sand: Get rid of the sand-sifting star. It is a carnivore instead of a detrivore. You want the latter. The star is eating them. Nassarius snails are a much better choice for sifting duties. It may take a while for your critter population to bounce back once the star is gone. Inland Aquatics and Indo Pacific Sea Farms have some nice packages. You want the bristle worms and spaghetti worms. Other good detrivors are serpeant and brittle stars. Just stay away from the green ones. For a tank your size, I would get at least 5 of various types. In general, you don't want to clean the sand yourself -- because doing so disturbs the habitat for all of your critters and at the same time can release a lot of nutrients. Syphoning some detritus from the surface is OK, but don't stick a "sand-vac" in there and stir it all up. If you really think it needs some serious cleaning, consider a sea cucumber or two as part of your clean-up crew. Oh, and if your rocks are covered with little "spikes", you probably have vermetilid snails, not tube worms. http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-01/...es/image005.jpg IMO still nothing to worry about, though many differ on this.

I went with the JBJ artica 1/10 and have been pleased with its performance. A lot of BTU pull-down for the price. Still wish I went with a bigger one, though.

Caveat: I know there are a lot of things wrong with these photos other than white balance. I'm just beginning to figure this stuff out -- long way to go. I took a series of shots last night, trying to get the same images with only the white balance being different. So, . . . most of my actinic shots didn't come out at all since I failed to adjust the exposure values. Duh. My guess is I should slow the shutter speed way down rather than increasing the aperture, in order to keep the same depth of field. I will try again tonight. I may use my son's high chair as a make-shift tri-pod. Here's what I have for now. For reference, here is a FTS with custom WB - using the white PVC fitting put inside the tank for that purpose: Tv: 1/125 Av: 5 ISO 200 (I know, too dark) Here it is using the camera's "underwater" setting: Tv: 1/80 Av: 4 Exp. Compensation: -2/3 ISO 200 Aside: these are taken with the outer 2 MH's on, center MH off, b/c I thought it would be too bright. Now I'm not so sure. Unfortunately, I don't have the shot the Dhoch suggested (using the white balance setting with the MHs on), for the reason stated above. Here's an actinic shot with custom WB set after the MHs went off: Tv: 5 Av: 3.5 ISO 400 Wierd, huh? And here's one with the "underwater" setting again: Tv: 5 Av: 2.8 ISO 200 This series may be more helpful: Tv 1/160 Av: 4 Exp. Comp.: -1 ISO 200 Custom WB using white PVC Tv: 1/125 Av: 4 Exp. Comp.: -1 ISO 200 WB: underwater setting Tv: 1/25 Av: 3.5 Exp. Comp.: -1 WB: custom using white PVC set while MH's were still on Tv: 1/50 Av: 3.5 WB: underwater setting To me it seems like the "true colors" of my tank are somewhere in between the custom white balance and the underwater setting. This is true with both actinic and full light shots. Hmmm. Any advice is greatly appreciated.

The only time mine doesn't get any food is when I float flake right on the surface. He just won't come up that far. As long as the food gets into the water column though he always comes out for a mouthfull or two. As far as diet, IME it is anything but specific. I have yet to find a food that it won't eat. Do you have something else in the tank that is making it feel threatened?

No. I hadn't thought of that. Will give it a try tonight and let you know how it works. Thanks.

I am shooting with a Canon Powershot A710IS. My tank is lit with 10K MH supplemented with both T5 and VHO actinic. When all lights are on, I have finally started getting good color rendition by using the custom white balance setting. I stick something white in the tank (clean pvc fitting works good for me), then select white balance -> custom -> point & shoot -- and I'm all set. My problem is that this doesn't work when I am trying to take actinic-only shots. None of the pre-set white balance options work well either. When I do the custom white balance, I can get most of the greens to come out, and some of the reds, but all of the blues and purples are completely washed out. It's better than auto, for sure, but still not what I want. The rocks for example, appear grey, when to the eye they have a distinct purplish cast (the coraline under actinics). I think the problem is that I don't really want my whites to look white when I'm shooting under actinics. I want them to look as they do to they eye. Just can't seem to figure out how to do this. Any tips?

It's also possible there is a pinhole leak somewhere in the circulation loop going throught the UV. Have you double checked all of the tubing, fittings, connections, etc. . . ? Sometimes a few smears of silicone can go a long way. As far as the skimmer, you could just stick a hose in there and siphon out the cup as it overflows. Even if you could only do this a few times a day, it would be better than keeping it off it seems to me. Whatever it is that is causing it to overflow, you probably don't want in the tank.

Lanman is right. Lots of questions come to mind. You have a 72G tank, right? What (in terms of calcifying organisms, incl. coraline) do you have in it? What test kits are using for Ca and Alk? What is your Alk? How much kalk were you adding, and in what fashion? How much two part? Then on to Dandy's questions: Salinity? Are you using a refractometer and if not, have you tested your hydrometer against a properly calibrated refractometer recently? That ought to do, . . . for starters. It is possible, as Dan said, your problem can be linked to low salinity or magnesium. Extremely high Alk (enough to cause calcium to precipitate out) is also possible but less likely. On the other hand, it is also possible you just aren't dosing enough.

Agreed. Plus, it will only get worse on its own. My wife got some pretty nasty shocks from a Rio a couple of years ago, before I knew any better. What type of pump do you have on your skimmer?

Conner: The advice above is sound. There is an adage in this hobby that many of us has learned the hard way: "Nothing good happens fast in a reef tank." Here's a good place to read for some concise information on the nitrogen cycle when starting up a new tank: http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/bionitrog.../a/aa073199.htm Make sure you have some test kits for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrogen so you can track your progress. Adding water from an established tank will not speed this along very much, but adding good quality, cured (this means nothing on/in it is still in the process of dying) live rock might. Since you already have an anenome, the best you can do at this point is monitor your levels and be prepared to do many small water changes if necessary. Here's what I did to get one of mine off of a rock when I was re-aquascaping. Holding the rock underwater, find a place you can work the edge of a fingernail under the foot. Go slow and be gentle. Apply steady but gentle pressure until you start to feel the muscles in the foot near your thumb relax a little, and then work your finger nail in a little bit more. Keep doing this until the anenome finally comes off the rock into your hand. The whole process might take 20-30 minutes. Just keep in mind, if you tear the foot, it is pretty much a doomed. Good luck.

A good starter for coral id, classification, and care: Borneman's book -- http://www.amazon.com/Aquarium-Corals-Sele...l/dp/1890087483 You can it at a lot of the LFS's around here as well.

I think he's talking about where the pipe from the overflow of the 30G enters the tank. If it is submerged, this could create some back pressure. Have you checked whether it makes a difference if you completely cover the hole in the 1/4 in tubing? I know this (size of the whole letting in air) makes a difference in stockman/durso overflows. Not sure if it would have the same effect here.

Both of those suggestions might work. Another idea, a little more extreme maybe, is to stick the YTD in the sump for a while. Once big enough, the gramma should be able to hold its own.

Somewhere on the list of top 10 things I wish I had on my tank . . . http://www.oceansmotions.com/store/product...a51628feb74c5b3

Calfo has a forum on MarineDepot with a lot of good stuff: http://forum.marinedepot.com/Forum26-1.aspx Now if only I understood all of it and could actually apply it to my camera!