well i am out of town until tonight but i had my brother comeover do a water change and take a picture. the water is stil cloudy from what assume is a new bactrial bloom but you get the picture i still have to swing by and pick a few tubes of IC gel and putty to get everything sucured but you get he point. A whole of work is still need to get it up to what it was before. and yes i actuy painted 4 side the two sides bottom and back it helps reduce alage and light spill over in my movie room it kind of bothered me on the old CAD. best of al only one side to clean

so spacious. i can hear my corals saying they want to relocate haha

Well I came across a streak of luck today i found a guy how has a new in the box sunpod 36" 2X150watt phoneix fixture and all he is a $100 i guess he bought a storage unit in the area and he found a couple lights and a few tanks which i am also buying ( 48X36X12" only 30 each) im super stoked i wonder who had all this and didnt pay there bill anyway I'l post pics soon. Is anyone going to the junk swap tomarrow. I'm not even sure were h2o exclusives is but I'm though

- 99S to 50N.
- Take 50N, Exit Power Inn rd.
- Right on Power Inn..
- Right on 14th st.
- 4 blocks down on yer LEFT.

(they're in some warehouse lookin' buildings. theres a big banner and a black rot-iron fence.)



I might go...

thanks mike I went and i didnt see you there anyway it wasnt that great there were a whole lot of people selling stuff with no one buying. anyway i picked up a balast and some mogal refectors and t5 refectors for future tanks... you never know when you need them. I have been there before and i forgot. but I'm not super impressed with the slections and its a big out of the way but anyway it was fun. On a side not i me a guy named gene in down town sacwho bought a staorge unit for of high aquarium stuff that the guy didnt pay for so he bought i and I picked up 36" 2X 150watt sunpod. he really didnt have much elese that was really good a 120g tank and a skimmer the size of a geo metro

I HAZ to see this!

you can buy it you like its for about a 300+ gallon tank it has three sedra pumps on it.

I think it was this guy a euroreef vs350....what a pig. this isnt my pic BTW

lookin good. I still can't believe the CAD blew. Insane.

Sometimes I wish I went barebottom

Thanks Bud, yeah me neither its been a wired week to say the least. as for the bare bottom thing it has it pluses and minuses you cant get a look of fish it its you bag but you can really crank in up on the flow

So this weekend a friend of mine gave me some really cool acrylic frag plug they freaking glow in your tank so i thought i would share i think i am going to ask him to make me 50 of them. what do you guys think?

sorry for the bad pic my batteries died i my camera so i didnt get the best shot

neat.
I want a few.

I had someone ask me what specific gravity (Relative density or g/l or ppm) was and asked me to explain it so it took me about a half hour to explain it fully and the person who asked me look like a monkey with a math problem after I was done lol anyway to explain SG you have to under stand what extactly are we reading

CONCENTRATIONS

1 milligram/Liter =1 ppm (part per million)
1 microgram/Liter =1 ppb (part per billion)
1 nanogram/Liter =1 ppt (part per trillion)

Conversion factors and comparisons of units

Most of the chemical data that is reported for waterbodies is expressed as a concentration: a mass of chemical per unit volume of water. Most of the total dissolved solids content of ordinary water consists of common salts with the predominant ions being calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, bicarbonate, sulfate, chloride and silicate. These ions collectively are usually in the range of about 20 to 1000 mg/L (milligrams per liter) - the low end being very soft water and the high end being very hard (high in minerals -
usually calcium and magnesium carbonates).

A milligram per liter of water is equivalent to 1 ppm (part-per-million) because a liter of water weighs 1000 grams and a milligram is 1 one thousandth of a gram.
The various forms of nitrogen and phosphorus most available to plants (nitrate-N, ammonium-N and phosphate-P) are typically present at concentrations or levels of only 0.001 to 0.500 mg/L . These are typically expressed as micrograms-per-liter or ug/L . A microgram /L is 1 one thousandth of a milligram/L . It is also equivalent to 1 ppb (part-per-billion).

Toxic pollutants such as heavy metals like cadmium and mercury usually exist at sub - ppb levels and can be considered to be a problem at ppb levels. Some organic contaminants, a diverse group of chemicals that includes pesticides, PCBs and dioxins, may be measured at sub- ppb levels and may be expressed as ng/L (nanograms-per-liter = parts-per-trillion) or even 1 pg/L (picograms- per-liter = parts-per-quadrillion).

Seawater has a salt content of about 32 g/L (32 parts-per-thousand which is the same as 3.2 % since 1 percent = 1 part-per-hundred). This is also equivalent to 32,000 ppm (part-per-million) and on most refractometers is expressed as 32 PPt (part-per-thosand I really don't know why they use it because anyone else woud read that as part-per-trillion PPT.....confusing lol) . which is 1.025SG which well all know we are looking for

SG

Relative density, or specific gravity, is the ratio of the density (mass of a unit volume) of a substance to the density of a given reference material. Specific gravity usually means relative density with respect to water. The term "relative density" is often preferred in modern scientific usage.

If a substance's relative density is less than one then it is less dense than the reference; if greater than one then it is denser than the reference. If the relative density is exactly one then the densities are equal; that is, equal volumes of the two substances have the same mass. If the reference material is water then a substance with a relative density (or specific gravity) less than one will float in water. For example, an ice cube, with a relative density of about 0.91, will float. A substance with a relative density greater than one will sink.

Specific Gravity = object in air weight/equal volume of water weight (both parts of the equation are expressed in either Newtons,dyane,pound force,kilogram force ( which are all a measurement of force I wont go into the conversion from one to another)

Fun facts

One-Part-Per-Million
one automobile in bumper-to-bumper traffic from Cleveland to San Francisco
one inch in 16 miles
one minute in two years
one ounce in 32 tons
one cent in $10,000

One-Part-Per-Billion
one 4-inch hamburger in a chain of hamburgers circling the earth at the equator 2.5 times
one silver dollar in a roll of silver dollars stretching from Detroit to Salt Lake City
one kernel of corn in a 45-foot high, 16-foot diameter silo
one sheet in a roll of toilet paper stretching from New York to London
one second of time in 32 years

One-Part-Per-Trillion
one square foot of floor tile on a kitchen floor the size of Indiana
one drop of detergent in enough dishwater to fill a string of railroad tank cars ten miles long
one square inch in 250 square miles
one mile on a 2-month journey at the speed of light


thanks for reading guy/gals you get a "A" if you understand what i was saying

NEW FTS 5/10/2010

It still needs a bit of work and the yellow tank only staying in there for a little while but not forever he was getting beat-up in my buddies 180g so i took it off his hands



What do you guys think?

Sexy.

I want frags. Of sooo many things.

I really like the anthias in there as well.

well since i got a bigger tank i have some full size colonies comming in from a friends tank reakdown so I'll have frags to make.

wha?

you say my name?

haha you crazy mike I'm getting two very nice large acros for center pieces in a few days hopefully so i might beable to make a few frags because there almost to big for my tank

What type a Acro?

show size red planet +8" tall X 5" wide and a show size miami orchid with about 20 branchs and it about 9" tall and 9" wide they were first additon ORA pieces that he got when they first came out and they have ever been fragged

wow.... sounds nice!


Frag me a piece of each.
I'll take em off yer hands.

Well i havent posted any pics of my corals in a while and none since the Cadlights broke so here they are.

Deezam scott!

I like yer mixed monti plug.....
thats gonna be cool.

thanks I still need to cut a piece of poker star fort he plug..its kind of a experiment to see if they will graph togther or kill each other we will see

Awesome upgrade! This tank is amazing and that giant mummy eye is amazing. Could you post pictures of your Miami Orchid? I have what is supposedly a Miami Orchid, but it looks different than pretty much any other orchid I have ever seen.

heres a pic from my friend brian prestwood and his miami orchid his a a pretty typical version of the coral sometimes it changes under lower flow when the coral gets a lot fatter or under super high k light were it gets green tips
http://pics.reefology.org/BrianPrestwood/C...Frag%20Swap.JPG

thanks its a orginal mummy eye chalice it worth quite a bit i have frags so its only at half of it normal zize

WoW!!! I totally missed the fact that you upgraded your system!!! DAYUUMMMMM it looks good!!! VERY NICE!!!

haha thanks david I was forced to upgrade after my tank broke REALLY I'm not joking. I try my best to make it look pretty killer. It still as a long way to go lol

How are the encrusting montis reacting when they touch each other? I heard that they will sting, but that was only one person.

Its not hard to graft them together as long as they are the same species like is really easy to do with Monti caps and danae's which I'm try to do right now but with dis simlair speices they will most likey sting each other

Reef farmers grafted monti for example
http://www.reeffarmers.com/limitedgraftedmontipora.htm

or like this guy (not my pic)

I finally added Ozone injection to my tank today i got a JED 103 free from a friend it doses 100mg/hr but i have a good ozone controller so im not too worried about overdosing because i set a time limit it can dose in a 12 hr period which is 200mg

Looks very nice, but I would expect no less from you.

Oh your too sweet thank you very much I try my best

well today i got one new monti but i want to show off two others that are pretty big oddballs too


Blue Sand dollar Montipora which is quite simliar to the pink sand dollar but with shorter polyps at the moment and a slight hue difference that might change in time


The Red Orenji Montipora it doesnt look like much at the moment but this is the same speices of the very pricy Orenji monti which is a very slow growing orange monti. this one has the same growth pattern and was taken off a wild chalice colony earlier this year


This is a crazy strange monti it bears a resembalce to a dead tyree monti "Dinosaur Egg Monti" that was offered a few years ago that died i captivity

its yellow green colaration with slightly depressed in form with ridges that run inbetween the corallite centers just like the dinosuar egg. I have name this one "Land of the Lost Monti"



lastley is my multi monti frag disk just made it up to see what happens

Very nice collection!!

if the monti-graph works that would be very cool! and I would need to buy a frag

Nice! Looks great. How do you like the bare bottom set up? I have been reading wee more and more people are doing it. Seriously considering it my self.

thanks a lot hey we will se it it wil work I'm going to frag a couple more things to put on there when i get around to it. frags are a $1000 pre sale lol......j/k



thank you I have been running bare bottom tanks for 8 years i really like them high flow low algae growth and a lot less problem but if you going to Bare bottom on a normal tank i would tell you to paint the bottom of the tank ( on the outside of course) because it really limits the alage growth. personally i have the back, bottom and two sides painted it really make the colors in my tank pop

can we get a rundown of yer equipment?

Lights, skimmer, etc....
you use gfo or anything?

Alright this is the tank at the moment i am going to be doing some major upgrades in the up comming months hoepfully

40g Breeder with the back, bottom and two sides painted Black
Sunpod 2X 150watt with a two Elos Spectra Chrome Abyss 20k
Vortec MP20 soon to be a MP40ESW
Vortec battery back up
AC 110 with filter floss and GFO and Purgein ( I'm think of changing it to a overflow i really wish i could drill it but with the CAD breaking so quickly I didnt have the chance)
Seio M820 it will be on until i upgrade the MP20
Tunze 9002
Eshopps PSK-75H
JED 003 50mg/hr Ozone gen hooked to the Eshopps skimmer venturi tube
200 watt Theo heater
Current 1/10HP Chiller with a Mj-1200 powerhead
TUNZE Osmolator Universal 3155 with custom Mag mount
3- Masterflex Dosing Pumps (CA, ALK,MG)
Neptune AC III with a DC 4 & DC8, Temp, pH,ORP and moonlighting
Vertex Puratek 100 GPD RO/DI
15 gallon ATO reservoir with float from RO/DI system
2 head cooling fan
Custom made cooling fan that runs off the chiller circuit
1200VA battery back-up for heater and AC110 at the moment

Long way to go ... rriiiigggghhhhtttttt ...

All these pictures are making me drool on my keyboard ... I would definitely nominate your tank for ToTM in the NEAR future!

I think you need one of these -

http://www.reef2reef.com/forums/f293/6500-...ture-42700.html

to get the tank up to my standards it does well at least with this guy i dont have to tade in and trade out corals as much to get the look i want. Really I dont even want TOTM it will just go to my head and make me a jerk lol.

They cant be serious I would NEVER pay that much for a plate.....I would pay that much for a wife hahaha.

hey too bad your not out here on this coast because everything is dropping down in price here in sacramento were soo flooded with high-end coral its going for a fraction of what it did a couple years ago

I'm starting to grow my own live phytoplankton using the steps on melevsreef blog. does anyone else aroud here do it? I know there is but i can't remebr anyone off hand.

http://www.melevsreef.com/phytoplankton.html

its really easy... we do it in school. i dont know the exact water parameters but i know ( possibly depending on what strain you are growing) but the salinity isnt like .025 its diff.. you also need plant food. other than that you should use a lot of air flow. for what we are growing we had one with minimal air flow and it looked like the bottles in link, and we had one with like double the air flow and it was so freakin dark... like it was darker than anything i have ever seen before.

Wha?
You?

Nofugginway.....



For true.

well I'd be a bigger jerk than i already am. Ss for the corals I got Minefield Cyphastrea for $5, two years ago i paid $90 and it was a quarter of the size same thing with orange montipora setosa

Nah... yer not a jerk.
From my experience, you seem pretty nice.


at the very least, youre an encyclopedia of information....

hey mike get ahead of me in traffic and I'll show how big of a jerk i can be LOL.... thanks I've been doing it a while you pick up a few things

a little while ago i bought a group of bartlett anthias and I've lost two I'm wondering if the ones i got are sensitive or what I'm worried about is that the ones i got were posioned caught and its just knocking out the weaker ones. Oh and my water couldnt be any cleaner so its not the water and no predators in my tank and the creppy thing is they have the most suprised death look on the face lol

My dad had the same problem in his 50b. The LFS believes that it was just initial stress on the group and that the weaker ones in the group perished first as a result. I did some research, and depending on the group size, the weakest are at risk during the first month of acclimation. Sorry for your loss. They are awesome fish. I am thinking of adding a group to my 150 tall. How are the others doing???