Liquid Hobby

I'll jump into the fray here... I went CL primarily to not have power heads and multiple electircal devices inside a box of water. It does not leak. The 2 largest culprits to heat are my lights and the mag7 in sump return pump, the skimmer pump is probably adding to the heat also! I too got a Panworld, got it used on the cheap, works great for my small tank (40G). When I do a larger system I'll do a CL again with an OM device. All my plumbing turns away from the stand and goes into the garage. I'll try to post some pics of my plumbing. The 4 vertical pipes are the CL returns (1 1/4"), the center pipes is the CL drain (1 1/2"), the curved one is my experimental return (loud at high flow rates but silent otherwise) and the returns are the outer most lines that are split in sump via SCWD (too scared to put a 3 way clamped device, under pressure in the house... The second pic is the final fresh water test to show the locline outlets. I've since changed the nozzle arrangement. Over all I'm happy. I just wished I'd plumbed for a 4 way OM off the bat and listened to Joel and started with a larger tank...

As a new guy with a 3.5 week old tank, I really like this idea!!

This really is the last thing, really... I've yet to set up my in-sump fuge. I'm thinking of some mud and rock rubble, cheato and some other form of macro algae. Then some pods and phyto. What's in your fuge?

Oh, one last thing... I'll test the again tomorrow to make sure it's not pilot error (all Salifert test kits) but my PH is up to 8.3-8.5, Alk is 7.4 DKH which has been steadily declining since the beginning, Calc is 450 others are at 0 but my Mag is low at ~1050. Farley on RC said that my Mag is a test error and shouldn't be that for such a new tank...

Thanks all! Tank is good to OK... I realized a little late that my RODI was NOT polishing the water to 0 TDS, rather it was pushing out 8-10TDS (tap for me is 45-50 TDS). That, coupled with my new cycling tank and I have quite the algae harvest. By the end of the day there are so many bubbles everywhere I think the rock is going to start floating. I upped my cleanup crew that now includes a handful each of turbo, astrea, cyrinth and nassarius. About half the crew has been in about a week, the other half went in yesterday. They need to get to that algae faster! There's an elusive emerald in there, I see him once every 3rd day it seems. I have 3 confirmed dead hermits, but that seems to be par for the course... or is it? I need to get larger shells for the hermits as there are are only small empty shells left over... this is after I tossed in a bunch of shells with the original crew. I would like to add a tiger tail cuke and a star of some sort my sand bed is anything but clean. Suggestions? I accidentally siphoned my frogspawn... he did not like that! Seems to be recovering fine. I'm still testing water flow options with different size and shape locline nozzles and splitters etc. Plenty of flow in there from a 4 outlet closed loop with about 1200 GPH pump behind them! I just set up my QT tank with about 25% display water and the rest new SW. I've been culturing the floss filter media from the HOB for about a week. First fish in will be a sand sifting goby. Most of my rock is sitting on the bottom (starboard) with 1-2" sand bed around so no land slides predicted... Other fish might be a few (3) blue chromis and a flame angel for a total of 5 fish. Can't stock too much in a 40G with 60lbs of rock.

The dual fans came from Dr. Fosters and Smith, there is also a 4 way fan on the sump that comes on with the daylights. We came here because we found that the bay area is just too expensive, for anything and everything. Every month when we payed the mortgage we wondered why do we do it? Yes, it's an awesome place to live, especially as an outdoor sports driven family as we windsurf, sail, rock climb and snowboard/ski. We love the area already! We can still do the same things as before! However, the rock climbing isn't quiet the same, the sailing is much different, the skiing/snowboarding, well it's just not the Sierras... but the windsurfing is fantastic. Everything is a compromise! We find the attitiude of the people far, far more pleasant here as there is not that sense of wealth entitlement like there is in the bay area... Now I can afford a reef tank!

thanks. I think I added myself to the evite list...

So, how'd it turn out?

Just moved to the area, August 5th, from San Francisco. I'm 3 weeks into my first reef tank. Glad to have found a local group. I couldn't make yesteday's meeting, but will try to make the next one, when and where? I decided to go small initially and ended up with a 40G breeder for the display and a 20g long for the sump. A lot of DIY... Here's the rest of it: Coralife Super Skimmer 125 Closed Loop, 4 outputs pushed by a Panworld (approx 1100 GPH) Mag 7 return split by a SCWD (considerably dialed back) Tek T-5 6 way lights, 50% actinic and 50% 10K 60lbs tongo live rock 1-2" sand bed 13 hermits 5 Turbo snails and 5 nassarius snails 1 emerald crab, I think he's still in there... a few frags -frogspawn, small zoo colony, candycane/trumpet, xenia - all seemingly doing well, inflated and or extended. I'll now attempt to post a pic of my tank: Todd