Sol

PM'd. -Sol

A pH swing is normal, as corals stop photosythesizing and let out CO2 at night, which turns into carbonic acid and lowers the pH. However, it's usually a swing of .3-.4; a .9 swing is probably unhealthy and should be dealt with. One thing that helps is running a refugium with macroalgae on a reverse light cycle, as the macroalgae will uptake the co2 and produce oxygen. -Sol

monochloramine is a charged ion, so they'll get taken out by your DI. Yes, it'll use up your DI faster than having nothing at all in the water, but there's nothing "special" about it that will work the DI harder than any other ion the DI removes. I think in terms of cost-effectiveness, using up the DI resin a tiny bit faster is much cheaper than investing in one of the special carbon chloramine remover prefilters. FWIW, I have the color changing DI, and change it out when it changes color--much less often than every 12 months, more like every 24-30. That's at an average of about 25 gallons a week, between top off and water changes. I'm not sure if you're mainly worried about working the DI too hard, or about have chloramines in the produced water. Either is really a very low-probability issue, IMO. Edit: I'm being tired and stupid, and am wrong. Monochloramine is not a charged ion, and will not be removed by DI. Carbon is neccesary to remove it (or alternatively, some reducing reaction). I guess the question, then, should be when the carbon reaches saturation point, and whether it's worthwhile to filter it. Personally, I'm of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", and am not seeing any signs of chlorine toxicity in any aquarist's tanks (that I know of), and so don't see a need. -Sol

My frag is doing well. Hope it wasn't something I gave you with the oregon tort, but I have three different torts that are doing well in my tank. -Sol

IMO, 3" between baffles is overkill unless you're running lots of flow through your sump...2" is plenty. That would give more room for a skimmer upgrade in the future, if you want to. -Sol

Glad you're happy with it...PM sent on the size issue, if the dims are off of what you specified, I'll offer a partial refund. -Sol

Sorry, I was blanking on the name yesterday...it's Aquatic Sports Aquaticsports.com 503-245-4991 -Sol

There's a great dive shop on Barbur Blvd, kind of border between Portland and Tigard. Near where Barbur meets I-5. IMO, best dive place in the Portland area. Not quite beaverton, but not too long a drive... -Sol

If anyone has any efflos or other tabling acros, I'm interested. Don't have much to trade these days (just did a lot of fraggin)...Really the only thing I could trade is millies, caps, or a rainbow monti frag. Just buying one would probably be best. -Sol

Is anyone else having issues with the chat? I've used it successfully used it several times before, but it's not letting me log on today. -Sol

I got a great frag from Dsoz, a cali tort: Hope he's as happy with the trade as I am--A+ for Dsoz! -Sol

PM'd. -Sol

Hey, I'm interested. Only trouble is I just fragged a bunch of my OR tort so I could only get you about a 3/4" piece, no bigger. It's got great color though: If you're interested, shoot me a PM. -Sol

Can someone tell me what this sale is on? Thanks, -Sol PS who's Brandon?

Nice stand, but I gotta say I think the look is taken away from a lot by the hinges. Get some concealed (euro-) hinges on that thing! -Sol

Too bad you didn't check out magnesium content, which is my biggest qualm with IO. In my tests, IO is consistently around 1050-1100 ppm, while reef crystals is up at a nicer 1300. -Sol

Fair enough. Hope I didn't step on any toes; I wasn't questioning your judgement or anything, just was curious. -Sol

Fair enough. 2 12-3 with ground would have been four circuits though, not 2. In 12-3 w/ ground, you have 2 hots, a neutral, and a ground. The two circuits each use one of the hots, and they share the neutral. So 2 runs of that, would be 4 X 20 amp circuits. The 240 volts makes sense though. You using 240 V ballasts, or what? -Sol

PM'd. -Sol

Very nice Shannon. Out of curiousity, why did you run a 100 amp sub-panel rather than a couple of 20 amp circuits? 2 lengths of 12-3 with ground (giving you 80 amps of circuits total) would have been much cheaper than 1-3 with ground+a subpanel... Just wondering if there was a reasoning that I'm missing. If you want help with anything, let me know. -Sol

Thanks for the help everyone. Let's hope everything goes smoothly and no one needs to get called! -Sol

I'm going away for a couple weeks (August 5th to 24th or so), and while I have a tank-sitter, she's pretty inexperienced. So, I'd like a couple emergency contacts to help her out with unforseen problems. Basically, you'd have to either talk her through solutions over the phone, or come help out, in the case of an emergency. Thanks in advance, -Sol

Cali tort is NOT the same as any of the (several) ORA torts. Thanks for the leads guys. -Sol

I'm looking for frags of these two corals. I know they're both kind of long shots, but if anyone local has them, let me know! -Sol