Rascal

Mine too. Up until now it has grown like a weed. I had to constantly prune it. When I transferred tanks last month ago one of the things I did with my aquascaping was limit the contact the xenia had w/ other rocks - to stop it from taking over the whole tank. Last night I came home and, just as you described, it seemed to be disintigrating. Lots of reasons for this that I could think of -- issues re to tank transfer and setting up new system, prolonged heat (chiller feed pump was clogged yesterday), etc. . . . But it is very interesting that you seem to be experiencing the same thing at almost the exact same time. All other inhabitants seem to be doing fine. This includes a thriving colony of Silver-tipped xenia. It is only the Red Sea xenia that are disintigrating. I seem to remember reading something about this on one of the online mags a while back. Periodic mass die-offs of xenia in late summer. Happens both on the reef and in hobbyists tanks. The author thought probably heat related. If I remember correctly, he thought it would eventually grow back. Guess we'll wait & see.

My choice also - circleglass at FFX Cir. I've used them a couple times for small projects and will do so again so. IME, you just stop in, give them your cut list, 15 min later you leave with your glass. Great cust. serv. & prices.

Go to www.local.com, type in "glass" and your zip code. Here, I did it for you: http://www.local.com/results.aspx?keyword=...mp;x=56&y=4. Good luck. Just don't drill it. :(

150 G display --> 10 gal pre-sump w/ skimmer --> 55 gal divided into dsb/fuge and return area. Iwaki 70 rlt throttled down quite a bit - about 10 ft vertical, 15 ft horizontal head as far as head loss. I estimate approx 1000 gph. As for rationale -- the goal is to max flow w/ min noise. I agree with ErikS. My skimmer uses only approx 240 (mj900 to T1000) and my dsb/fuge gets about 400, so most of what goes through my sump is for circ only. Putting the sump in the basement allows me the luxory of a powerful pump, but a serious design flaw in my system (3 1" bulkheads plumbed through horizontal overflow) limits the amount I can drain without getting the toilet-bowl / waterfall / sucking sound effect. I also have a CL on the tank running off of a BL 40 rxlt under the tank stand(so another 1100 gph), plus 2 mj1200s. I could go with a larger pump for the CL but then would deal w/ noise trade-off. Bottom line - I should have ordered bigger holes in my tank.

I am having a little trouble visualizing your set up, but if you are planning on having 2 separate containers (1 sump and 1 refugium) each being fed by its own overflow pipe from your tank and each returning to the tank with its own pump, I would definitely NOT recommend that. Recipe for a flood if you ask me. Don't know if that is what you had in mind or not but I thought I'd mention it just in case. If you are going to have a separate sump and dsb/refugium, I would recommend just having the latter feed into the return area of your sump with it's own overflow/drain. You wouldn't even need to add anything to your existing tank. Just tee off the overflow that now goes into the sump and then put a ball or gate valve on the pipe leading to the DSB/fuge to get the desired flow. This way you will not have to worry about creating a sand storm, etc. . . Another option would be to scrap the existing sump and just get or build as big a container as will fit under your tank, then divide it up with baffles. A couple of ways to do this. You could have 3 compartments - 1 to receive the overflow from your tank, break up bubbles, and perhaps place a skimmer and/or any other filtration you choose to use; the 2nd to act as your DSB/Fuge; and then a 3rd to feed the return pump. Another (and IMO better) way would be to have 2 compartments, and basically set it up the way I described above for 2 separate containers. 1 compartment would act as your sump - containing all filtration and the return, and the 2nd would be your DSB/Fuge. So some of the overflow water would go directly to your sump, and some would go to the Fuge and then overflow into the sump area. Again, just tee off your overflow and fiddle with it until you get the right flow balance between how much goes through the fuge and how much straight into the sump. Finally, I heartily agree with the recommendations above re: Bio Balls (Nitrate factory - ditch them); relying on live rock for your biological filtration (I assume you already have enough in your tank, but more in the sump and/or fuge couldn't hurt), getting a good skimmer; and the utility of adding some sort of DSB for nitrate reduction. IME it may take a few weeks to see the results, but once it kicks in it does a great job of reducing nitrates. One last comment re: cost. Don't underestimate the cost of setting up an effective DSB/Fuge. Done right, the sand is not cheap (at least not any I could find!) and you will need quite a bit of it. IMO you would also benefit from populating with some critters (nassarius snails, brittle stars, kits like those from IPSF or GARF). Hope this helps.

150G mixed reef + 10 G pre-sump + 55G refugium = 215 G total tank volume - approx 10gallons of "overflow room" in sump/refug = 205 gallons So the running total for the club is . . . 28,853.18 Gallons

2 thoughts from my limited experience. The Mag24 will be way LOUD if you run it external. It works, and mine didn't leak, but even in the basement on a piece of closed cell foam with flexible connections it seemed like the whole house was vibrating. At least that's what my wife thought. Putting it under water made it at least bearable, but it is still a loud pump (have since switched to Iwaki 70 for a return). As for reduced flow through a scwd, have you considered this mod: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=76847? I did something similar, but simpler. I just cut off the bottom (input) to make a hole big enough for a 1 1/4 " female adaptor. I cut off the slip part of the adaptor and then glued the threaded part to the scwd using Weld-On #16. I now have 1 1/4 inch plumbing all the way from my sump right up until it enters the scwd. I haven't done any flow measurements yet, but I had the same pump going through 1 inch tubing to an unmodified scwd before, and I now get much, much more flow even with the pump's output throttled way back. Another benefit is that when the scwd stops working, it is relatively easy to unscrew and gain access to the gears to clean them out. The negatives are that it doesn't seem to switch sides as quickly (less concentrated flow over the internal propeller, I believe) and I tried to replicate this with a different scwd and a 1 inch adaptor and ended up ruining the scwd. Probably more due to my lack of real skills than any fault in the design. I suspect that it could probably handle much more than 1400 gph with this mod, and I am certain it doesn't cause as much head loss.

Tygger: As far as I understand it (which may not be very far), the reason fresh garlic is more effective than stored is that allicin, which is released when garlic is crushed, just isn't very stable. I found a couple of other studies verifying both garlic's effectiveness against bacteria (E. Coli), and the advantage of fresh garlic over garlic powder. http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/History/2004/Projects/J1310.pdf; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.f...p;dopt=Abstract That said, I don't know whether some of the companies selling garlic remedies for aquaria have found a way to change that and make a stored version just as potent as the fresh stuff. It just seems so easy, safe, and effective to use real garlic. Plus there is usually some left over for cooking. I don't know whether vitamins have the same problems with maintaining their properties during storage, but I suspect most do not. The ingredients in Selcon are "Selco Highly Unsaturated Fatty Acids; Marine lipids 200 mg/g.; Vitamin C stabilized 200mg; Vitamin b12 Cyanocobalamin 240 mcg." So it's basically HUFA fortified with B & C. Although expensive (what isn't in this hobby), I think it's great stuff and I use it in my food mix. As far as any disease-fighting properties, it's probably one of those "best offense is a good defense" sort of things. Healthy, well-nourished fish are more likely to be able to fight off parasites on their own.

There was a good article on the use of garlic by Steven Pro in Reefkeeping a while back: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-10/sp/index.php. FWIW, my conclusions from this and other stuff I've read are that 1) garlic will kill and/or repel bacteria and possibly some small paracites, and 2) the only way it works is if you use it right after it's been chopped/crushed. The active ingredient (allicin) apparently loses its potency after a short time. For that reason, in addition to the cost factor, I personally wouldn't use any of the bottled products, although I would be interested in hearing if others have had positive experiences with them.