xmas_one

http://nwexposure.com/

Also homebrew shops

Does it make any noise when it's powered up? Check to see if the fan is spinning and you should be able to hear/feel the compressor spinning too. If the fan and the compressor are spinning and the chiller is not cooling the water, your refrigerant has likely leaked out. You would need to get the leak fixed and the system recharged. I think JBJ still does repairs on their equipment, it's real pricey to ship a chiller though. Maybe you can get lucky and find a place that does automotive AC and get it done there.

I use that same meter. To convert from parts per billion to parts per million you multiply the reading on the meter by 0.003. I try to keep it under 0.10 and above 0.03. The instructions that come with this meter are actually pretty bad. The colorimeters I use at work have a much "tighter" procedure. You can increase the precision of your readings greatly by doing a few things. Make sure that you orient the glass tube in the same rotation for both the zeroing and the actual reading, make sure there are no fingerprints on the tube, and roll the tube to get rid of any bubbles or particles on the walls of the tube before inserting into the meter.

I like glassholes overflows. They are simple, small in the tank, and are fairly inexpensive. They do get noisy if you try to push a lot of water through them though. A lot of people run the 700 gph on a 40b, I think I would go with the 1500 gph because I don't want to hear it. If you're using a small return ~350 get the 700 gph, anything bigger get the 1500 gph.

Nothing good happens fast with SPS. Most hobbyist frag tanks you see are non-SPS. If you are serious about fragging and growing out SPS, you will want to start with a stable established system. Most people will have a frag tank plumbed into such a system so that they have some square footage to work with. I'm not trying to discourage you, but if you are new to reefing, running a SPS grow out is going to be about the steepest learning curve for a beginner.

That's a sweet little setup. I think as far as fish though you will be limited to gobies. I have had great luck with yellow clown gobies in small tanks. https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/74703-lgreens-ultimate-guide-to-nano-fish/

40b with a 20l sump is an awesome setup. I've drilled a bunch of tanks, and I live in Albany. Hit me up if you need a hand drilling yours or if you are looking for anything for your tank. Welcome to PNWMAS, it's a great club with great people.

If you're running 6 leds at 600ma, the most you are going to see is 3Vx0.6A, 1.8W per led, or around 10W for the whole fixture. Short answer is no, that light is not enough to grow healthy SPS in a 30 gallon. I would suggest an eBay blackbox D120 or an Ocean Revive for that tank if you want to keep SPS and you don't want to break the bank.

Rasta zoanthid, photo taken with a Moto X cell phone with a rubber band macro, exposure -2.0.

Contrary to popular belief, you do not use RO, or distilled water to calibrate a refractometer. Here's more than you ever wanted to know about refractometers: http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2006-12/rhf/index.php

Price out the glass first. I think you will find that for the price you are going to pay for the glass alone, a custom builder can build you a tank for less.

Depends on the fixture quite a bit. If this light was intense enough to grow plants, it will grow lower light corals for sure. Most planted FW led fixtures use white leds. White leds of any color temp have huge blue peaks in their spectrums. The corals won't look pretty, but they will grow. One of the best MH coral growout bulbs ever is the Iwaski 6500K, which also grows plants like crazy too.

Do you have an Apex?

Nicest BC I have ever seen. It's awesome to see a mature tank that looks that good. Keep the photos coming!

I have a dollar per gallon rain check for a 20 long from Petco you can have.

You can find them for pretty cheap on amazon/ebay. Just make sure to calibrate with calibration solution and NOT to zero with water.

30g is a pretty big WC for a system that size. If your WC water is not balanced to the alk in your tank (I can tell you that it is not since you are not dosing) you are swinging the heck out of your alk with your WCs. SPS hate alk swings. What salt are you using? If it is something like RSCP that is going to be your problem right there.

Those are red planaria.

Can't do that either, the whole EB8 has a max load of 15A,two 1000 watt heaters would be 18A @ 110VAC. Edit: If you need 2kW worth of heaters I would suggest you run four 500W titanium heaters with individual controllers. Set your Apex to notify you in case of a temp swing high or low and that should be good enough. If one heater goes wonky (stuck on or burns out) you still have 3 heaters working properly and any swing would be slow/minimal.

Outlets 4 and 8 on an EB8 are rated at 10A max. All the others are 5A max. The whole EB8 is rated at 15A max. So, the max wattage heater you could run would be 1100w on either outlet 4 or 8.

Try shooting through a pair of polarized sunglasses, makes a HUGE difference in the results.

Welcome Daniel! Looking forward to seeing your lights in action someday. I'm looking towards Reefi-LED for my next tank upgrade.

Wouldn't a properly set up CaRx pretty much negate the need for alk monitoring?

Never heard of them. First thing that I think of when I hear PVC hybrid is: http://www.acrylicandglassexhibits.com/ I've heard nothing but good things about AGE. You do have to order through a dealer though.