traveller7

johnc has Hanauma Bay right: the good stuff is outside the tourist reef. It is likely a bit late in the year for 3 Tables or Sharks Cove to be safe, you might want to head up past ewa beach for some interesting encounters. K-bay hammerheads are not bad to get circulation going either Can't go wrong with Roys in Hawaii Kai either. If you go, don't miss the seared ahi.

Power was out in Cascades for about an hour before lunch.

Aloha, Check with the Waikiki Aquarium and see about the night time tour, it changes your perspective of the place you see in the day time. If you are headed to Hanauma Bay, go early because they started limiting the numbers of folks in the park. This policy went into effect in the late 90's and was still enforced when I was there in Sept 03. If you are stuck in Waikiki then drop in for Dinner at Irifune on Kapahulu for great Japanese food with an Island flare and don't miss breakfasts at Egg-n-Things on Kalakaua Ave and McCully St. Aloha. btw:Don't leave out Molokai if you are island hopping It is the affordable getaway and has the Molokai Express for a great "drop in here, get picked up way over there" wall dive.

Got 2-6100s and a multi-controller for my underconstruction system but Roger of Tunze USA did a pretty good job describing the bene's here: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-09/nftt/index.htm

Power was out in my area from 11:30pm to 6am. 3kVA UPS handled the large airpumps, internet routers, etc. for the time and was only down to 90% of capacity. Pretty happy I picked up that failed dot.com datacenter system Hope power is back for you folks sooner rather then later. Now, will that RO/DI and with UV really remove/kill that suspected bacteria

Larry, Most of my airlifts are wide open on the bottom with a street fitting at the top for directional water movement. In tanks with "pipe-lovin" critters I cap the bottom and cut 15-20 slits with a table saw horizontally to keep them out. Driven by an Alita 40 and Wisa 1000 hanging off a 3kVA extended run UPS. When the UPS power finally dies(12-18hrs), a NO solenoid kicks on a 20lb bottle of compressed air. Really wanted to rig up dual aluminum 80's before this event, but I'll be ready next time. Best of luck folks, Scott

One of my favorites: Aquatic Systems Engineering: Devices and How They Function by Pedro Ramon Escobal http://www.amazon.com/exec....s=books

Sad to hear about the loss Michaelg. A 20lb tank with compressed air, Normally Open AC Solenoid, an airlift in the tank, and an air tube in the sump will go a long way depending on tank depth. Nice thing is it will turn on automatically when the power fails and/or the UPS dies. Since the recent local power outages I have been paying much more attention to my back up system. Currently a 3kVA UPS with extended run batteries and the 20lb bottle incase the power out is over 12 hours. Have not done a full system test with all the pumps I am currently running and it is definitely time :(

Picked up 4 of the compacts myself.....Tried them on 250wt ballasts and I may just stay there instead of going to 400. They are nice, very nice.

IME wounds from abrasion, bacterial infection, etc., will cause dark patches in clowns. In addition, A. Ocellaris is known to have quite a few dark color variants that appear after the fish mature. A picture would help and best of luck.

The C.varians is definitely black with 2 electric blue stripes and eat red flatworms very nicely. I have never had or heard of one not eating flatworms immediately. Unfortunately as already stated, they don't do well in current and will certainly find a powerhead, overflow, or a murderous BTA :( Not to mention they tend to starve prior to complete elimination of the pests. I was letting one cut into the flatworm population prior to blasting the tank with Flatworm Exit....but I have not seen the little slug in 24 hours and suspect a BTA lit him up :( Getting ready to siphon out as many as I can and nuke the tank tomorrow.

The waste containers are great for the skimate output, but if the water return gets "blocked" you will still have water come out the becket injector air inputs, blow the cap off the top of the skimmer, etc. :O Proved this twice during plumbing experiments :( Given the new plumbing design, I would check for potential back pressure on the output as well. Is the skimmer water output above the water level? Did the sump water level rise? Good luck.

I have not tried out the IceCap 150 HQI's either but I need 5 for my lagoon and it is a pretty good price so what the heck :p The others are just for comparison, frag color retention, etc. I don't think the prices will get much better on these but we are fairly close by each other to skimp on shipping Drop me a wire if you want to jump on, I'll be ordering tonight.

Ocean Encounter is selling the IceCap HQI 10K's at $49ea and was offering them to Reefland members at $45ea. btw: I am buying 10 150wt HQI's if you want to jump on an order to try and get some better pricing: 5 IceCaps from Ocean Encounter for <$49 ( I am on Reefland) 3 Ushio 5200s from Innovative Lighting at $35ea 2 Ushio Blues from Innovative Lighting at $53ea. Have fun.