Rob Allen

Thanks Brandy -- still more to come. By banner, do you mean the header at the top? If so, I am a looking into a couple things, but in a little bit of a jam. The problem being that it is designed to expand depending on the users screen, so I am limited the smallest that it could be. Like I said, still investigating ideas, but it will never be what I originally wanted.

Thanks. I am west. Been in Portland since early November.

I just chaned it to a color between the two. Can people that were having difficulty reading it before give some feedback on this color? Thank you.

I changed the font, but I truly dislike the look. The black font doesn't match and over powers the page.

That is strange. It shows up really clear on my system. Question - are you using a tube monitor, or a flat panel LCD monitor?

Thank you. Next step today will be getting the sponsors integrated into the banner area (above). A larger project will be the front page area and getting it more integrated with the site.

Forums are back, but still some work to do.

The forum will be down for maintenance today at 11:30am. It is expected to be down for less than an hour, however as we all should know *things* happen.

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Thanks guys/gals! I have been busy with MASNA, holy shmokes busy, and move issues. The economy isn't helping us much. (scary) Whether we have to change living arrangements, or get a double mortgage, we will be out soon. Thanks again for the birthday wishes. Sorry 'bout that age thing Kris (sad) (laugh) Rob

I am committed to go and will be there. Just got back from Atlantic City and it should be interesting. I recommend comparing prices of flights all the way to Atlantic City to getting transportation from Philadelphia or Newark (possibly sharing some type of transportation with others).

Happy belated birthday Jay.

Hey Kris --- looking great. The black look is great for a tank background. My last two tanks I have done the same, except I used chalk board paint (non-toxic). It does a great job attracting light and increasing the speed and amount of coralline. The comment about chemicals in the air is legit. An LFS that I know of was killing fish constantly and could not understand why. Come to find out that mopping the floors at night with clorox was doing it. Vapors getting sucked into the skimmers. They shut the skimmers down during the floor cleaning and it resolved the problem. Ever since then I have been more cautious of what floats around the tank and sub-system.

She couldn't duck out of the pic fast enough. (laugh)

Very nice pics. Carolyn and I were in Maui in April. I was impressed with the Maui Ocean Center. We jumped over to Oahu for a day and I was over all dissapointed. We took a helicopter ride around Molokai and part of Maui and it was a perspective I was glad to have seen. We got to see the tail end of Humpback season -- which was very impressive. Glad you enjoyed yourself.

Coming into town for a visit on the 17th of this month. Still unsure as to when we will be their permanently. The market is not condusive for house sales at the moment.

Good to know there are fans in Portland. I will be looking to split costs for these events. I wish I had stayed in Atlanta for Saturday night -- I would have been looking for tickets, but by the sounds it would have not been worth it. They were hyping that Chuck was a new man.

That is an excellent point. A Portland MACNA would be great and should happen. Portland is a perfect city for such an event, close airport, plenty of lodging and lots of locations to house such an event. I have plenty of friends that would consultant with us that have run successful MACNA's in the past. I am on the MASNA board this year and hope to learn a lot more about the organization and do my best to help it become more cohesive with local societies. MACNA is a lot of planning, preparation, but takes the society to the next level and allows financial independence.

You ask, what event would be perfect to occur at the same time as MACNA? What kind of event can mix people from another walk of life in the same hotel? Yes, UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) and Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell. Makes for an interesting mix of people at the bar. (rock2)

Here are some pictures from MACNA in Atanta. I will post a lot more, but doing this via my phone, so it is a little slower than I am used to. Anthony Calfo doing a small frag workshop. A small Deltec skimmer in action. Here is Eric speaking of a grave problem with wild caught Bangaii. His emotional speech shows a drastic problem that I will address with more detail in another thread. What it comes down to is stop purchasing wild caught Bangaii Cardinals. Pursue finding and paying an extra couple dollars on captive raised Bangaii. The extinction of this species could have a profound impact on our hobby. Again, more to come. Matt Wittenrich speaking of breeding marine fishes and his current successes with Green and Spotted Mandarins. Where is next years MACNA? Much more about the conference and more pictures to follow.

Red Sea's new product, Aiptasia-X works better than any of the past solutions I have seen. You do have to target feed, but that is still easier than past methods. I literally saw one explode after inducing this stuff and it is no threat to corals. Personally I would not clear the entire tank in a single shot, but over a few days you could clear the tank of Aiptasia. I would also include water changes after each treatment. It costs about $10 per 2oz bottle which is about 100 treatments.

I have tried to use Drupal on a few occassions, but it never integrated to my satisfaction so I ended up using another solution. Sorry.

However, the solenoid takes the pressure off the RO unit, where the floats leave the pressure on all the connections from the RO to the float(s). The solenoid also removes salt creep from the equation. But, you are correct, it is a single point of failure. In this case the solenoid is closed without power or by default. For the most part I would think it would close with a problem, but..... There is alot that can go wrong, but with frequent maintenance it eliminates most of the potential problems.

I live in a house that is tight. The only problem with that is CO2 buildup drops the pH in a tank. We had pH problems in the winter and in peak summer. Yes, it took us a while to figure out why. It was always a struggle to keep the pH above 8 during these times. Where are you going with this, you ask? RO water pH is typically between 6 and 7, typically closer to 7. Adding that slowly, yes, will have little or no impact to your tank (depending on size). However, when you are doing everything possible to keep your pH above 8, adding 6 to 7 pH water to a tank isn't helping. So, this is the main reason I place the water in a container, add buffer and airate for about 24 hours before placing it in the tank. People who don't believe in buffering, airation alone will increase the pH. Just my 2cents.