Bigjohnwoody

Since I live three hours south of him will he ship? Or do you guys think it would be better to wait and plan a trip and go up there in person?

Yah thous are gorgeous! Thous would be right up my alley! I sent him a pm. Does he have a site or pics of what he currently has anywhere?

Clown house?

I have decided I have to have a pair of clowns in my tank! My question for all of you is what clown's you recommend? I really like the semi snowflakes, semi picasso's,and true percula's! Recommendations on anything though is appreciated. Also what would be the best as far as hardiness? I really don't want to spend between 50-250 dollars on a mated pair and end up killing them. I will be q-ting them in a 30 gallon tank with a power filter, heater and pvc fittings at the bottom! Besides for a green chromis (that I did not qt(nono) ) these would only be my second fish ever! I just got the chromis and realize my tank needs to sit to adapt to the new load I put on it and that is why I will be waiting a good month to 6 weeks of q-ting before I add them! That and to make sure they are ok!

I actually really like starfish a lot and have struggled with the idea that I will not be able to keep any in my tank since I will have harlequin's. Although I have heard that brittle and serpant stars can potentially be compatible with these shrimp since they are usually much larger and so fast. I imagine that has to do with how well you keep the harle's fed as well. I will have to do more research on this!

Oh I didin't mean it that that way at all! I am sorry it came across that way and should have phrased it differently. I just know that it is something that I am going to have to do in order to feed the harlequins.

Three hours!! Holy cow that's fast. You are talking about transfering a previously setup tank though right? Did you wait when you initally set up a tank? I tested my levels last night and my ammonia was 0, nitrites between 0 and .25 and nitrates were between 10 and 20!

That is funny(laugh).... you say you don't wait but your sig says "Nothing good in reefing happens fast" You must be talking from past experience? I have been waiting three weeks staring at rock and two feather dusters and am going crazy waiting. I really feel like I should get hugs from everyone for waiting because it is really friggin tough...lol. I di get to kill an aiptasia though which was the highlight of my week. Used Aiptasia Rx and it seems to have worked beautifully.

At the moment I have nothing but rock (and a rotting piece of costco shrimp...lol)! I am three weeks into my cycle and am just getting ideas and planning for the future. Any recommendation on how long I should wait before I add the harli's to a newly established system? I am planning on buying a mated pair. I just love the looks of them way to much to only have one. I am planning in the future to buy a wrasse though and now that you said that I really hope that I do not have problems with him or her.

Thank you very much ca2or! I have also heard and since you have one, that cc star can pollute the water when I cut an arm off of him and then return the remaining back to the sump. I plan on running a mixed reef and also don't want him to kill any of my corals by cutting off pieces of starfish. I am very sorry to hear about your harli! Are you thinking of getting another?

Can anyone help me with this?

Ok I have a 120 rr with about a 30 gallon sump! It is a three chamber homemade sump so one section is going to be my fuge! Can I just leave it bare bottom and put extra live rock in there and then chaeto on top? The water is very slow moving through it! It almost looks stagnant but of course it's not! I am wondering on the cuc I should put in there if I leave it this way? Don't want to put sand in since it is only 13 inches high this will take up to much room and leave me with less room for live rock and chaeto! Also want to keep chocolate chip stars in it to feed to harliquin shrimp! Want to rotate the stars and cut off a leg at a time to feed to the harliquin! I have not bought anything for my tank yet as it is still cycling with just live rock this is all future planning. Thanks

Does anyone know if there is anywhere in Eugene that sells rogers reef food? I have heard good things about this and figure it would be a nice food to add to my list of I wants! He sells it on his site and if you buy over 99 bucks worth he will ship it free but that is a lot of food! The site is roggersreeffood.com

Little update for everyone! I got my shipment from Ecotech yesterday so it took me 6 business days from the day I called to get my wetside! I was a little frustrated that it took that long but he did tell me that it was going to take a little longer since he gave me a new cage for the wetside as well! On the other side Ecotech did not send me one wetside.....they sent me 2!!!! How friggin cool is that? Well worth the wait to have two brand new wetsides laying on my porch when I got home from work. So I installed one of them immediately and both my Vortech's are sinked and working beatifully! They also sent me instructions on how to send the old wetside back and gave me two separate methods to ship it back, depending on what is more convenient for me! A+ on customer service! Only thing is, I wish they could get you the part a little quicker but by sending me two parts, I will gladly accept the delay!

Congrats Impur! You get to start fatherhood and I get to start reefing! I already have two kids a boy almost 4 and a girl almost 2. I will trade pointers in reefing for pointers in parenting any time! lol

I have seen the Kent buckets and would have to agree there not much to look at, but it's what's on the inside that counts....right? lol. To be honest the bucket looks was what had me look into coral pro right off the bat! I really wanted to get the aquavitro but it was very hard to find and the cost did not want to make me go the extra mile for it! To tell you the truth though after UPS got done delivering my gorgeous buckets with salt in them they were not much to look at any more! I ordered 6 and 5 came broken and 2 of them were absoulutely shattered! So pretty buckets are a little overrated!

I went with the new coral pro salt! I am just starting so I cant say if I think it's great or not. I did a lot of research and came to the conclussion like Grassi said "They are all good" some are just higher in different elements than others and you have to decide what you are wanting to keep and how high or low you want certain levels and go from there. I choose Coral pro because most people liked it a lot it had good levels of the things I think I am going to need and because it was on sale and I got free shipping and I thought the new bucket looked cool! (haha). So far it has gotten me three weeks through my cycle and kept my hitchhiker feather dusters and bristle worms alive! I guess I can't complain! lol

Ok so I bought a aquaclear power filter from a LFS as per their recommendation for a qt tank! I Have the Foam filter and biomax insert just submerged in my fuge on top of live rock seeding so I can use it for new arrivals as I get them. Am I doing this correct? Should I actually run the filter instead? I would rather just let them soak if that is sufficient. I did not use the carbon beause it is a qt tank/ hospital tank am I correct in that? Also do I need the biomak insert which I guess are ceramic rings with a pore system that has a 100 square feet of surface area for bacteria to colonize on each ring. (that is what the instructions state.) Please help me out here guys! I will post a pic for you to better see what I am talking about! Sorry about the pic quality all I have is my Iphone for pictures!

Ok guys and gals I figure I would ask from all of you input on my planning my cleanup crew! I have a 120 with about a 30 gallon sump and about 125 pounds of live rock. Actually only 25 pounds of it right now is truely live rock the other 100 is base rock I bought from marcorocks! I am planning on running a mixed reef! I just started my cycle about 2 weeks ago and am not planning on adding anything yet I just want to start to do some research and figure out what I want! I here half the people say no crabs and the other half say crabs. I am so confused, I don't want them eating my corals but half the people say they wont touch them. I have heard horror stories about everything except snails so why not just run a tank with mixed snails and not get any crabs or shrimp? I figured I would atleast be safe with peppermint shrimp and then I read that they will eat zoas if they run out of other things to eat. So please please give me your input and help me make the best decisision I can on my cuc! Any more questions shoot away and I will be happy to do my best at answering any and all of them if I can! Thanks Oh here is my build thread link if you want to tag along! It is a little behind from where I currently am but I am working on getting it caught up since I just found out about this site about 4 days ago! (rock2) http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/showthread.php?t=23679

Please let me know when this is. I would love to attend! Thanks

I understand I won't need the ammonia and nitrite for very long but the one I am having problems with is nitrate! I tried holding the cap down really hard! Maybe I am pushing to hard and warping it and not causing it to seal properly. Lol! I will probably just get a Salifert or Elos!

So the swirl is enough to get the proper reading? I like the saran wrap idea as well! I thought about doing that but thought it might affect the reading! Thanks everyone for the input!

Yahhhhh! So glad you joined up dude! Been here like 4 days and am totally hooked!

So next up I had to figure out what RO/DI unit I was going to buy! I read great things about thefilterguyz.biz and called them up and talked with Jim! He was really a nice guy. He had a lot of information and was not there just to sell me stuff. You could tell that he genuinely cared about my success in the hobby. So I decided to buy my unit from him. I ended up going with the ocean reef miser 6 stage water saver unit. I added on the dual tds meter, RO bypass so I could use the unit for drinking water, and a float valve so I don't have to stress if I forget about it being on as well! The unit was very well built and I could not be happier with it. I am very glad that I went with them and would do business with them in a heart beat again. First class service! Installation was so easy I had my three year old do it! (Im Kidding) I did let him help though!