ToxicPoison

Yeh, I was pretty shocked no one was hounding me for pics either. I thought maybe I could sneak my tank thread in before anyone asked but guess you guys are too quick! My tank thread is here: http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/showthread.php?t=20671 Hope its OK to link to another post...

Hello! Welcome to those of you who begin reading threads from the start. For those of you who scroll through to check out pictures, then come back to read if it looks interesting, thanks for deeming my tank worthy! ;-) So as requested in my "Introduce Yourself" thread, this is my tank setup. It was set up in August of last year (2009) in it's current location. It's pretty sparsely populated at the moment, but I'm hoping to change that soon. Equipment list is in my signature, but if you have any questions, just ask..and now, the pictures! =) As stated in the subject, my tank is a 100 Gallon Open Top tank. With the sump/skimmer/plumbing, I estimate approximately 135 total gallons of water in my setup. Theres 75 pounds of reef rock in the main tank, and 30 pounds of reef rubble in the refugium, along with a DSB. Lifestock at the moment are simply snails, a brittle star, a peppermint shrimp, and 1 Acropora coral. This is the main tank: Here you can see the tank doors open and the plumbing that leads to the basement. The water jug to the left is Kalkwasser. The plugs are controlled by a Neptune Systems Apex controller: A closer shot of the tank. (Pay no attention to the creepy guy in the reflection, he is totally harmless.) My only Acropora to (barely) survive the move. It's actually much more colorful in person: Top down shot of the tank. I turned the pump to "feed mode" for this shot. The water is normally much more turbulent than this. And now we move to my "fish room". The basement oddly laid out and the area in the basement under the tank prevented me from creating a hard-walled fishroom. So I got some panda film (White on one side, Black on the other) and "screened" in a fish room. I used a tarp zipper for the door. It's worked well so far, and the flexible walls makes it a lot easier to move stuff around. The clear plastic tube to the left leads to a 20gallon brute container which holds the replacement freshwater for top-off. The exploding white stuff on the skimmer is a bottle of Joe's Juice that got away from me. That stuff is a serious pain in the patoot to clean off... To help with water changes, and to keep water from overflowing into the main tank in case the skimmer gets blocked (It's gravity-fed), I tee-d off the drain line and created overflow plumbing into the sump. When I need to do a water change, I turn off the return pump and attach a hose with a union valve to the end of the overflow plumbing, which leads into a bucket. I then close the ballvalve to the skimmer. When I restart the return pump, the water gets forced through the overflow piping, into the bucket. Here you can see the other end of the "fish room". The grey brute barrels hold 80 gallons of Salt water. They are connected underneath the table they sit on. That long plastic tube reaches across the room to refill the refugium when I do water changes. The blue barrels are old water storage barrels that I keep for emergencies. Here you can see how the grey barrels are connected underneath the "table". The ball valve is a safety measure to prevent any sort of massive spills. I keep it closed most of the time, and only open it when I'm doing water changes. *WHEW!* That was much more then I was planning to write. Thanks for sticking with the whole thing. Looking forward to seeing what people have to say..

Oh right, I forgot to mention that. This is under 2 250HQI lights, so it does get pretty warm. I was also considering using a small clip-on fan to help with the evaporation. My tank is also open-top, no hood.

I'm loving this place =) Money sent!

So I've been battling Aiptasia in my sump for quite some time now. Since it has a DSB and lots of reef rubble, I figured they were hiding in the cracks (which, they may still be doing). It seemed to clear up for a while, then they'd come back with a vengeance. The other day I was under my tank cleaning up (Sump is in the basement), looked upwards into the tank and saw a few GIANT aiptasia growing in my overflow box. So I think these guys may be whats "feeding" my sump with new aiptasia. I can't reach these guys with Joe's juice or anything, without dismantling a LOT of plumbing...which I'd rather not do. I also obviously can't drop a peppermint shrimp down there since theres a pretty good chance it would get sucked into the sump fairly quickly. Soo...my thought was to siphon all the water out of my overflow, drop the water level in my main tank to just below the overflow, turn off my return pump and let it "dry out" for about 24 hours. I know this might make the problem in the sump worse, but if I don't kill the guys in the overflow, it's never going to end. I'd be leaving my circulation pump on during this time and my only livestock is essentially 1 acro frag, a brittle star, a peppermint shrimp and a bunch of snails..so I don't think the livestock would suffer at all. Thoughts? Would this work? There is nothing in the overflow other than plumbing, and they're growing directly on the glass so it's not like they can retreat into the rocks and stay wet. Also, Tank is over a year old, specs are all in normal range (81f, 8.3ph, 0 no2, 20ppm Phosphate, 440 calcium, 7 dKH)

I think this is a pretty nifty idea myself. I'd be willing to help however I can if this actually starts getting momentum....

So being new here, I just wanna make sure I get this right... I send you $10...you give me a frag..I grow it out and if it grows bigger than the other "contestants"...I win more frags? Seems like there should be a catch..but if there isn't I'm in! =)

Holy Crow! This was a much more enthusiastic welcome than I was expecting. Awesome! I live in Brooklyn by the Ross Island bridge, so it's nice to know I have some neighbors! Reefit: Actually, this name was originally for a BBS system so we were limited to 11 characters, and only letters so..originally it was TxcPoison, I couldn't be that l33t if I tried...(Yay! I'm a nerd!) Ok, time to poke around here a bit more! Talk to you all soon

So obviously, I am new here. I have been involved in the hobby for quite some time now. My first tank was set up about 3 years ago, but had to be taken down in a hurry, as the owners of the house we were renting were in bad shape, and we essentially had to move on on a very limited time-scale. Tried to transfer everything over in a matter of days and naturally...that didn't go over too well and I lost everything but my live rock. So I took a break for a while, and now have a spiffy 100 gallon tank in the house that I own, which makes for a much nicer setup (Yay for being able to drill holes in the walls!). I spent some time on RC, but got bored of the middle school clique mindset that seems to be running rampant over there. (No offense to anyone who is still an RC fan...just not my thing.) I was recently trying to find a decent, local dry goods store, which is how I found out about PNWMAS (Oh how I wish I found you sooner). I'm still looking for a good LFS though...I'm located in SE Portland, so what do you guys suggest? (Is it ok that I'm asking about this? I know theres been a lot of issues with vendors lately...I apologize if I'm breaking some rules) And as a pre-emptive strike to the impending "Whats up with your username?" question...basically, waaay back in the pre-internet days, any computer geek with a modem (like me) wanted to be a hacker and sound "leet". I figured ToxicPoison was a good way to go, and so it stuck. I tried making board-specific usernames once I got past my script-kiddie phase but always seemed to forget em. So I guess that's about it. Tank specs are in my signature for the most part, though I feel I'm forgetting some things. I'm at work right now and don't have access to pictures, but I'll try and get some up soon. Theres not much to show anyways, I currently only have 1 acro, and a clean-up crew... Any questions, feel free to ask. Hopefully that wasn't too long-winded