Toby Flenderson

Make the refugium 1/3 of the tank. Then dry fit the skimmer and other filtration equipment and leave a bit of room for service and removal. The rest of the space can be used for the return, there are a lot of factors that can determine evaporation, a top off is going to be a good idea down the road. As far as height of the baffles you just want the most water volume in the tank without overflowing when the return is shut off.

Good luck! post a picture when its up.

Glad I went to barrier reef! Awesome shop with friendly smart staff. Wish they were in Portland.

I can't bring my cooler because I'm here till Sunday. It's my wife's 20th reunion, but I will defiantly come check out the shop!

I'm up in Seattle for the weekend an I have some time to kill, any good coral shops worth taking a look at for fun?

Off topic, What type of fish is that in your avatar Nate?

Use the image code link not the HTML.

I'm looking for a shallow frag tank anywhere from 20 to 40 gallons. If its larger im still interested! acrylic proffered but not necessary. I dont care about scratches. Thanks

I was talking to woody the other day at seahorse and he said to never use LEDs (pretty extreme), and that several of his customers have lost coral switching over. Then you look at tanks like reefjunkies and they are exploding with life and color. I believe it all comes down to the acclimation process and patience. I don't know if you familiar but "mr saltwater tank" but he has a great video series on his introduction of the Radion to his 90 gallon sps tank. I believe he also gives the step by step dimming percentages as well.

http://www.MrSaltWaterTank.com/radion/

I just figured out how to use the super macro function on my camera, looking forward to trying again tomarrow with the lights on.

Wow, #1. Very nice

Heres a video explaining how it works

That's a good idea. The experiment is done for now anyway because my light burned up last night and I'm going to switch to LEDs this week. Oh well

Thanks for the replies! Ive decided to order the new socket but I'm switching to a DIY led setup from rapid led. It will probly be at least 4 days before i get the new fixture hung. The par 38 is 3 cool whites and 2 royal blues with 60 degree optics. I don't think it will be too strong for them, just different and I just figured this was better than nothing. On that side.

Bicylebill- thanks for the offer, I might do that if it looks like it will take longer. Your choice of frags in return!

Cuttlefish- the picture is of just the par38 running on the right side. I just dug out my camera so I could take some more pics if anyone was interested in what the par38 looks like.

Here's the progress after 3 weeks. These pictures are not the best but you can get the general idea. The original piece of tort I have if starting to color up but the new dark blue piece has lost plenty of color and gone purple now. [language filter]? The good thing is I still have great growth.

Well my switch to LED's may come sooner an I thought. One of my DE bulbs went out tonight and I went to put in a new one from my back ups I found that one of the ends on the fixture was all burned and the metal just fell apart. The fixtures are 250 watt Hamilton reef star pendants. I can get a new socket in a few days from hamilton but I'm not sure how the coral on that side will do in the mean time. I rigged up a spare par38 bulb I had and have it 14" above the water. I'm not sure if this is a good idea or not. Anyone have any input?

Anyone know if Soutas is going to ever re open?

Thanks for the tip. I'm actually a little freaked out now. I washed my hands but not with a brush or anything. I was in there plucking these things for quite a while.

Well I just spent a couple hours with tweezers pulling zoas and gsp off the rocks I went over the bare patches with a tooth brush afterwards. We will see what happens, I definatly made a dent. Here's some pics, I went through a couple of those Tupperware bowls full. It was a full on zoanthid massacre today.

Its been 2 weeks since i started the new feeding schedule. I've been feeding a cube of mysis in the morning and one at night. A square of seaweed everyday and alternating oyster feast and phyto every day. After week one i got a couple patches of cyano in some low flow areas of the tank but those seem to be going away. The fish are loving it. I'm taking a picture once a week for four weeks and we will see what color change will occur. After one month i will add the iodine and then strontium later to see what the individual effect of each is. One thing i have noticed so far is that it only took 1 week for the Oregon tort to completely heal and grow a new extending polyp right where i cut it when it was fragged, amazing.

i should have thought of that, thats a great idea. I ''ll see what happens

I've let these green/brown zoas get out of hand in my tank and the have taken over. They have covered some rocks and are threatening other corals. Some of the rocks i have removed and scrubbed but other large ones i wont be able to remove with out dismantling the tank. Im also wondering if the slime cloud that is produced by scrubbing is harmful to the tank. Here is an older picture of the tank but you can see the issue.

Not trying to start a poo flinging fight or anything. But ' date=' algae scrubbers do add food to a system. Wouldn't have to change anything. just add one and keep doing what your doing. Would allow you to feed more anyway. I have had very good success with mine. doesnt take much to make one either. just my two cents.[/quote']

I might try a scrubber for the heck of it but really my refugium is doing more for food production and nutrient export than the scrubber would be capable of.

As for actinic light, Ive got 1 T5 going 12 hours and i dismantled the other a few months ago because it was always in the way. I'm switching to LED's this year so they shouldn't be necessary anyway.

That's very cool, it's sort of like watching an instagram picture. All it needs is Liam Neeson narrating.

The reason I started this was I saw a thread from a guy with incredible growth and he listed his light scedule along with his other info and he was running 12 hours on. Nobody commented on this so I wasn't sure if this was common practice.