jsw

I've joined the group buy... two more needed.

I purchased some Revive from Upscales. It's not Coral RX but similar and smells the same.

that in itself is the problem the wind industry is facing....effeciently storing the energy they produce

Storing the energy is not the issue -- there's enough load to use it up -- it's operating the grid in such a way that we utilize the wind energy, safely and reliably, when it's available. Wind is not scheduled like other means of generation because forecasting it is far from 100% reliable at this point; so it's never the plan to satisfy load strictly via wind energy. You typically have some non-renewable generator spinning to back it up just in case.

The energy industry is fascinating... and this is just one tiny part of it. Utility operations from generation to transmission to distribution is pretty amazing to me.

I've always liked the idea of using excess wind capacity to store energy by pumping water uphill into a reservoir, and running hydro generation when the weather requires it. You're talking a bit more of an engineering effort there though. Peak/off-peak arbitrage also comes to mind with a setup like this, but that's more in the utility realm...

I'm searching for a playmate for my 1 yr male black lab.

Looking for a yellow lab pup. Purebred preferred. Doesn't need papers. Won't be a working dog -- just a pet. I'm looking to not spend a huge wad of cash on one for that reason.

In that case. I have a bunch of 3/4" and 1.5" sch 80 pvc too. If those sizes work for you they're yours.

thanks man' date=' would you mind pm'n me your addy? we can pick em up, if it works for you, on our way to Nick's friday LOL[/quote']

 

Sent. You setting up a new tank?

 

I used to lug the water jugs around, but forked out the $ for an RODI unit. Changed my life (laugh) Buying water was a great excuse to go the LFS every week though!

I have 7 five gallon jugs with lids in N. Portland you could borrow (looking for the 7th lid still). I'm right off I5 in N. Portland. I don't use them often so you could drop them back off at your leisure.

I'll tell you what, this tank has been a PITA to get humming along smoothly! I've had every problem in the book.

Lost two fish jumping through the cracks -- even with a cover. A sharknose goby pair that wasn't a pair. A firefish pair that wasn't a pair. A blenny that was toasted by a pistol shrimp. The goby that paired with the pistol was the one that jumped, so I'm contemplating removing this beastly pistol now -- which I was hesitant on in the first place. A case of ich that all the fish made it through luckily. Holy crap... and that's not even the start of it.

Coral pests! Argghhh. I had to dose interceptor a month or so ago. Then I discovered I had AEFW so I've been doing weekly revive dips of ALL corals. To top that off I found monti nudis on that beautiful purple digi, so that guys been chopped up.

Parts of my sand have clumped/cemented a bit while I had a bout of overdosing. This is really frustrating because that happened in my last tank too. I think I may be dosing just a tad over saturation point. I've been maintaining alk=7.5dkh ca=410 mag=1300. Never spiked above that but I have a white ca build-up on my heater in the sump. That was the first indication and the hardened sand in one corner is the second. I've dropped back the dosing pumps to the point where I'm dropping params ever so slowly and then creeping it back up just enough to maintain levels without overdoing it. The strange thing is that I thought if I was overdosing my params would continue upward. I thought I was pretty meticulous about getting it dialed in but I did something wrong.

My previous tank never had a pest in it. If I'm not a lesson in why you should quarantine I don't know what is. I suppose it's a good lesson for me to learn now though -- while the tank is still young. I was naive to think things would be smooth sailing and pest free like my previous tank -- I let my guard down.

But I still have high hopes for this tank. I'm going to battle these pests. Get this dosing really dialed. Replace the clumped sand. And build a better mesh cover.

Soon, I hope, I'll just be able to sit back and enjoy.

That's funny this came up because I was just chatting to Ryan about it.

Here's the thread from the guy who sells the supposed real deal polypropylene mesh at reasonable sizes (apparently you have to buy it in bulk otherwise):

http://www.reef2reef.com/forums/f60/fs-1-4-square-clear-polypropylene-29899.html

Before I PM him to order some, you guys know of a local source?

I have a couple in my tank. Got them from Upscales. They're amazing little filter feeders. Don't see them out in the open a whole lot, but can usually find them in a spot with plenty of flow. Very cool coloring.

Here's a little snippet on the web about them:

The most interesting motile invertebrates in the tank are two porcelain crabs (Petrolisthes galathinus). They also seem to have preferred areas in the tank where they are reliably found. These locations seem to be determined by the currents in the tank. These crabs are so fascinating to watch because they have specialized “plankton nets” that they employ to sweep the water for floating food particles. In the wild they seem to be colonial, living in aggregations underneath rocks and coral heads. They can move incredibly swiftly to elude predators. However, if they are cornered, their front claws are very sensitive, and designed to break off easily. Once it falls off, the claw will continue to jerk around and snap open and closed (akin to a gecko dropping it’s tail), presumably to distract the predator from further trying to pursue the crab. Porcelain crabs will quickly regrow these lost claws. We highly recommend these Caribbean porcelain crabs to anyone with a reef tank, especially nano tanks. Beware that many of their Pacific counterparts are commensal with carpet anemones, and thus don’t usually fare well in captivity if they aren’t provided with a suitable host.

Just curious why your not useing lock line on the returns? I was looking at your powerhead shot and noticed them missing:)

There is ~600GPH going out the two 3/4" returns so it's a pretty gentle flow. It creates some nice surface agitation without directing the water. I never really considered the returns as something to create flow for the corals in the tank, so I've never really bothered with directing it. I'm not a big loc-line fan either...

jsw' date=' that looks more like dino instead of cyano[/quote']

 

Could be... There hasn't been any real snotty stringy stuff though. But I've never dealt with dinos before.

 

There's all kinds of funk going on in the tank. But it looks like a caddy compared to what it was. I think the rock really had some nasties in it and I didn't let it cook long enough.

 

I'm not too worried because of how much better things are getting by the day.

Still trying to get stuff positioned... but here is the work in progress.

beautiful' date=' was that in pretty low light? halides or flor?[/quote']

 

It was mid-tank quite a bit to the side of 150w 14k Phoenix. I wish I still had it.

 

Here's another pic of the decadia with another cool encrusting cyphastrea below it. This picture is old and does not do either of them justice. The encrusting one had bright green polyp centers.

 

I love the decadia if you can get them to purple up. They don't need much light. This was in my old tank, but I lost it when I upgraded my lighting :(

I'm excited to watch this come together.

That rock looks nice. Is it fairly lightweight?

I started my tank with dry rock and bagged sand, so I don't have too much in the way of little critters in my tank. Not sure how you're going to seed your tank, but I have a detrivore and microvert kit (and some other cuc critters) on the way from Inland Aquatics. It will be here tomorrow, so I'm excited to see how that shapes up.

I think you're going to like it. I was mixing it 10 gallons at a time. It required a pretty powerful powerhead to get it completely dissolved. I had a weak maxijet 900 mixing it the first time and it still had a bit of a slight non-dissolved look to it after 24 hrs. I put it in the tank anyway and there was no negative reaction. It cleared shortly after. I used something a bit bigger the next time and that did the trick.

I've always wanted to try the Tunze reef salt but can't justify the price...

Why did you switch from Brightwell salt' date=' if you mind me asking?[/quote']

 

I actually didn't have a really good reason to switch. Basically, I couldn't decide between Brightwell and D&D so I gave them both a try. It seems like the D&D mixed up to about the same parameters that I try to keep the tank at. The Brightwell seemed a little low on the ca (or I'm a bad tester). I tested at ca 380 alk 8 mg 1300 or so on Elos kits. It was really easy to bump it up though. I thought it was a really good salt.

 

The corals seemed to respond about the same to both. One plus for the Brightwell is that I didn't have to filter sock the water to get it completely clear and it was cheaper. I think I'm going to try the Brightwell another shot here in a few water changes to make my final decision.

 

I feel like my tank is still going through new tank changes, so it's probably not the best time to be choosing which one is best right now.

Filter sock cleared it already. Thanks nwcoralfarm!

----

Mods you can move -- not really a chemistry question.

I have found that D&D salt does have some particulate matter. Do you have a filter sock' date=' should clear that right up.[/quote']

 

Sounds like you might be right on. I run my tank sockless. I'll try that out.

I previously used Brightwell salt, B-ionic two part and Brightwell carbon. Recently, I switched to D&D salt, BRS two-part and ROX carbon.

Unfortunately, my tank doesn't seem as clear as it used too. It's not that it's cloudy now, but I can tell the water is there. Before you couldn't even tell there was water. It's been like this for 3 or 4 days. I let the salt mix for over 24 hrs. The BRS two-part is clear in the containers. And the carbon is just carbon.

The panes are clean so I know it's something with the water. All livestock seems healthy. Anyone see these issues with the new products I'm using? Any suggestions?

H&S A200-1260 fed by Maxijet 1200

Eheim 1260

Tunze osomlator

Drew's dosers

Visitherm Stealth 150w

Here's the ora pearlberry, hawkins and spongodes I got with the member group buy. You can also see the jeremy montipora in the background. I got an ora peach digitata too, but don't have a pic right now. The spongodes was pretty beat up... surprised me a bit.

You can see the cyano I'm dealing with. Got a new RODI unit, nix'd the vodka and upgraded the skimmer, so hopefully it'll back off soon. We'll see.

This tank now has a ridiculously oversized skimmer: an H&S A200-1260! A buddy of mine had it from his old tank and I figured why not hook it up. Cleaned it up and got it running tonight. This is the second H&S I've had and I love these skimmers.