Yeah and I'm tempted to even start chopping it out but who knows maybe it's stealing from the hair algae so I don't want to be too hasty lol.

Every now and then I go crazy and sleep a little bit sorry man =)

I'm pretty sure I don't even have 20,000 gph in there. I'm trying to imagine twice the flow and wondering how you have corals in that! Then again I've always leaned on the lower side of flow maybe I worry too much about the fragility of things in there.

Hehe, ya I figured you'd nodded off again. But thought I'd give it a go since you were still logged on. Thanks for getting back to me.

Dave (Mrfish55) had that stuff in his reef tank. He was not a big fan! Had a hell of a time getting rid of it.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I %#€£%#€££€€% HATE that stuff, took forever to get rid of it, going to have nightmares tonight.

What a frustrating night!

1. Instead of shutting my four 6105s off to feed acan plus to my acans, duncans, zoas and brain (which always leaves a little too much flow still) I did the right thing and turned ALL flow off for 10 min. This must have allowed the fish to more easily pinpoint which corals were covered in tastiness. The kole and melanarus in a particular were pretty aggressively nipping at the corals for food. I was chasing them away for the full 10 min :twised: Next time I'll try feeding them first!

2. Since adding T5s my amazing access (via sliding halides) has been really messed up. Front T5s swing up and out of the way but the rear 2 rows are mounted to a massive 8 foot long piece of wood. The thing has to be slid right against my halides to get light into the tank. Currently it hangs from some wire but I already know I need to come up with something to allow me to raise or slide them away from the halides :twised:

3. Caught my kole nipping at my purple gorg for like 2 min today. Right on! I've never hung back and just watched this tank yet to avoid the give us food! give us food! reaction from the fish. My eyes have been opened :twised:

4. Female anthias still hasn't eaten :twised:

5. I really hate how those rear T5 are mounted :twised:

Sounds like the typical reefer day :lol:

Here's what I'm bitching about.

For starters this works like a dream. Front access didn't change a bit. I won't get blinded when I open the doors once I wire a depressable kill switch like a fridge door has (reverse tho lol).

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/404/bitching1.jpg

This is my nightmare. Big ugly at the back. I think for starters I need some 4 foot pieces of that metal from the hardware store with the holes in it (think mechano set). Mount to those so they're at least STRAIGHT lol and then sort out some sort of lift. What I currently have in mind is more PVC! Use 1.5" vertical sleeves mounted to the ceiling for each 4 footer and then mount the lights to vertical 1". The 1" slides in the 1.5" and I just latch a tether to the back wall when I want in there? I don't know but it drives me NUTS right now.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/404/bitching2.jpg

Is there any way you can mount the T5's to the MH so they all move at once. Bring the PVC down from the top slider in between the T5's & MH and add a tee with pipes to support both sets of lights.

The trouble with that is I can only slide the halides forward maybe 4 inches from where they are right now so that solution won't give me enough space to get my arm in. I like each halide moving independently so don't want to lose that.

I already know the T5s need to NOT be one 8 foot titan :lol:

Looking at it again... if I raise the halides up a little so the souch mounts clear the T5s... I can rig each 4 foot t5 to slide as well so the slide UNDER the halides. That will let me slide the halides furth BACK again too. Ooooohhhhh! If I wasn't so damn grumpy right now I'd be... not grumpy.

I was feeling better until I realized I can't add more pvc sliders without cutting those top rails. Not happening! I think it's time to recycle a small army of drawer slides I have kicking around :biggrin:

Time to upgrade to DIY LED? :twised:

Who are you talking to? I may be relatively young but I resist change like a (dirty) old man!

I am sure you will come up with a cool solution over the next day or so, maybe a custom aluminum hanger :biggrin:

pffffffffffffft.....there's no way the founding member and "Grand Pohbah" of the club would go LED:razz:......badge revoking bugger that he is

I fully intend to return it to you when next we meet. But it won't be into your hands =)

Ya I figured as much...... waiting for mine to be revoked to........but mine are not up yet :biggrin:

I know this will not help things right now, but I think this switch may be right up your alley
They ship to Canada if you can't find what you want

Yes that's exactly what I need thanks. I'll give Active Tech here in town a call to see if they carry something like it.

Might push back and pop my doors open tho. The current magnetic latches are just strong enough. Every now and then they do pop open.

I call my first acrylic creation Big Ugly. She holds 3 socks and stands on 4 legs. Excuse the crappy iPhone snap.

Not going to win me any craftsmen awards but not but bad considering I did all the cuts freehand with a skillsaw and drilled out the 3 openings with HUNDREDS of small holes. Sure is something to be said for having the right tools for the job but that can't be said about me! Can't wait to install her tomorrow!

Water feeds into that box in the front then heads down the raceway. Exits out the end should the 3 socks get dirty enough to not keep up.

http://www.fishbrains.net/images/404/bigugly.jpg

Well that didn't take long. Looks good.
I haven't had time to work on mine yet. Hopefully I'll get some time Sunday.

This look very nice. Good job! now make me one lol. J/K

Trust me you wouldn't pay for one! I slapped it together in 2 hours... used 8 brs containers of calcium and soda ash to half-ass press things in place but only for a few minutes and then moved onto the next seam. The seams are not works of art haha.

Still can't wait to finally put my microbubble/detritus issues in the sump to rest. I need to raise my skimmer up a little so I can feed the outlet into the raceway as well. Since the skimmer is gravity fed from the overflow... a lot of detritus that is not skimmed out finds its way into the sump via the outlet.

I only have 1 of the new vertex socks (very fine mesh) and will get 2 more asap. I have been cleaning it around 3 times a day (clogs fast given my return flow rate and the thoroughness of the filtration. I expect to pull the 3 socks for a rinse once a day now.

okay...I have to be honest in saying that rinsing a sock even once per day is waaaaay too much for me, let alone three times! There must be a better way...maybe a coarser sock?

Ahhhh.... Now we understand why he was l/f acrylic ..... Looks pretty good for a first attempt mang.....

I'm with Mark on this one..... I used to have to change out my filter sock every two or three days when I used them.... Even that became tedious for me.... Hence me not using one anymore..... A coarser sock would definitely help lessen the maintenance ....

I'll be using 300s in mine. They'll get dirty and act like 200s soon enough before washing
Brett, if you haven't gone shopping yet, you might consider 2 sets for swapping and heavy washing

Been doing it a month and honestly don't mind it. I don't want the stuff sitting in the socks for days anyways. This is a cheap way to eliminate nutrients too. These socks spray clean in less than 30 seconds.

Are yours the fiber or nylon ones?

I tried the sock thing, wish there was a better way :(

Having the sock(s) after the skimmer makes a difference. Less chance of NO3 build up and such

Now i know that time is the key factor for having success sps, my goal of having a nice sps tank is gone. I better stop spending money into it lol.

I let the garbage sit at the bottom of my sump, it motivates me to do a water change every week and suck it out then. :mrgreen:

i suck it up and blast it into my fuge....my pods appreciate it and the growth in my fuge is proof .

I currently have 3 mesh socks in there... course, fine, course. The course sock doesn't plug at all and water slowly trickles across the plate into the middle (fine) sock and that will become clogged in a day or not quite. So far very easy to maintain and having the course sock first isn't a problem for microbubbles all of a sudden. I never could sort out why I had bubbles in my siphon feed in the first place. I recently fiddled with the valve to my skimmer and I must have tightened it and stopped the air leak lol.

edit: my bad, missed a page

3 new additions:

- A pair of 4-stripe damsels (later noticed one is a 3-stripe lol)
- Matted filefish

All 3 may end up being mistakes but I love'em for now!

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHDiCvjBqmM

In other news I finally have my female squarespot eating (mysis but hey it's a start) and my hair algae is slowly diminishing on my new rocks.

i love the filefish there ugliness grows on ya lol:)

Especially if he eats my aiptasia =)

The file fish is the cat's pajamas, but me thinks the damsels won't look so cute to you in a few weeks time.

You give it weeks? I'd give it 5 days...striped damsels are, IMO, the worst ever fish. I had one once, I built a harpoon and tried to stab it to get it out of my tank. I ended up draining the tank to get it.

+1 my first fish was a domino damsel, beautiful little fish but mean a hell. I had to tear my little nano apart to swap him for our clown cause he killed my pep shrimp. I watched it happen and immediately grabbed the net. I was too late though lol. in a 400+ gallon tank i dont think that will be the issue though:lol: