KimP

You can still use the rock, it just needs cleaning and you can fully dry it out. Live rock isn't even necessary for a tank, it's whatever direction you want to go. Some people use only dry rock and seed it with bacteria. No pests that way, but also no cool hitch-hikers. Sorry the stuff was mostly dead, that's a bummer

I'll be heading your way within the hour, I'll text you when I walk out the door. If anybody south is reading this, your stuff will be at my house before noon. I'll post here when I return.

That would be great. My total is about $140 and I don't mind splitting shipping if needed.

anybody?

Wow, that looks really great! I love the new zoas. What did you use to attach the zoas to the lr after taking them off the plugs? I still need to do that to mine. Sounds like you have an awesome set up going.

Can someone elaborate on exactly how a frag/equipment swap works, for those of us who've never attended one? Thanks, and I'll be there!

Oh, and to post a picture just click on "use full editor" next to the "post" button. Then options to add a picture will be below the place where you write your post. Why is the water and rock so dirty and gross? How long has it been sitting?

Sounds like hermits. Do you have any extra new saltwater sitting around? If it was me, I'd give it a good rinse and pull off any algae. You can (and should) wear gloves. Don't be worried about exposing it to air. It'll be just fine while you look it over.

Me too, what a relief! Thanks for posting.

I want to order some stuff from brs but have never ordered from them before. Is anyone else needing stuff from them? Do we get any kind of discount? I'm about $50 away from free shipping.

Whew! I hope that's the case I was a little worried.

Geez, me too. Last order came in a day late and I lost those chitons. Express mail should be guaranteed overnight. Wonder what the deal is?

Check out this crazy spaghetti worm. In all my years of keeping this tank, this is the first time I've noticed them anywhere but the sand. Interesting...and kinda cool.

Some updates. I finally figured out how to get the AI Sol to work on my tank, and went ahead and ordered it. It's going to take a little tweaking with the hanging, but I think it'll work great. I'll post pictures when it gets here! I ordered the super blue sol. Besides the obvious features of putting out tons of par and coming from a seemingly great company, what I really liked about it over some others I looked at is the programmability (is that a word?). I was dead-set on a dimmable fixture, and I love how this fixture is able to do the moon cycles and have different intensities throughout the day. I'm pretty excited about it, and I sure hope this works out! It's been fun watching these little basket stars. I've been fascinated since I found them. So far the first one I found sits curled up around a branch of one gorg all the time. I hope he opens up to eat when the house is all dark. The other is a traveler. He ventured all the way over to the devil's hand leather for a day or so, then wandered to a little gorg frag, then up to the original gorg he came in on, and is curled up on the dragon's breath this evening. I did see both of them spread out today, hopefully eating. One thing I still find especially odd is that both only have 4 legs, then where I would expect another leg to be, there are 4 little short somethings sticking out instead. I thought at first, the one must have lost a leg, and these were new legs? But I find it strange that both are like that. Another thing I've noticed are spaghetti worms way up near the top of the tank. One in the feeding dish, and the other on an aqua-mag. Maybe this is normal, I've just not noticed it before. I'll post another fts soon! There are quite a few more corals, and things are really starting to settle in and open up.

I have had this awesome pagota coral frag for several months now and it just keeps getting moved around my tank because I can't seem to find any info on how this thing attaches or grows. I don't know whether to put it on the sand, or glue it to rock, and if I glue it, should it be in a position where it can grow in all directions, or is it okay to have one side butted up against rock. I need some help. When I got it it was all bare skeleton on the bottom and along 2 sides. I just moved it for the first time in a little while when I redid my tank and now I see tissue has covered more than half of the bottom and now there are polyps on 2 sides, and tissue is starting to cover one of the 2 previously bare sides. So now I'm not even sure how I would glue it Maybe on the one bare side sticking out of the rock like a shelf? If you have one, how does it grow? How do you have it attached - did it attach itself? Thanks! I love this frag and would like to give it a more permanent placement instead of being the roaming frag of the tank.

Seriously, if you are going to use a lfs for all your water, just use whichever one's closest to you. I'm sure it's all the same.

Great! Thanks for the update.

Thanks guys I've really enjoyed keeping up with your tank builds! Thanks for checking mine out!

I can't comment on where the best saltwater is from but I do want to mention a couple things. I bought my saltwater for a few years until just recently. The biggest problem I had was inconsistent salinity, usually too lean, even once they gave me fresh water by accident! That would've been a disaster if I didn't check the salinity of each jug before use. Also the water can be freshly mixed when you buy it, and it's usually a good idea for it to mix many hours before use for ph and such. The only other thing is the temp was frequently way off of my tank's temp by the time I got home from the weather. Not a problem if you let the water sit a while. Anyway, I'm sure you're going to be fine wherever you get it from, and it's so convenient, just wanted to mention you want to check salinity each time and temp. That's all I ever checked, maybe ph sometimes too.

Not a problem Will do.... Thank you for coordinating this!

Thanks! I guess to sum it up, my best advice is to read all you can from seahorse.org. That place is a wealth of information. Then ask all the questions you come across when the time comes. Having seahorses has been a blast!

Alright, so now on to the challenges I'm facing. The most important one is my lighting. I got a T5 fixture thinking it would be great for my tank. I was pretty excited to have found one that was 20" and would fit on my tank. Well, after more research and borrowing a par meter (thank you subsea!) I found out I have ~75 par right under the surface of the water, down to the low 20's on the sand I'm only interested in growing mostly softies and LPS, but it's still not adequate. I do like the built in timer and moonlighting though. So I figure I'm down to LED's as my only option to get some light down to the sand. I can't heat my tank up even a degree more, so MH is out. I have a simple set-up, no sump, only a skimmer and a hot filter for some media, and I really don't want to run a chiller. I can't even get the good T5 bulbs because only this one company makes 18" ones that I know of. Right now I'm settling on the AI Sol fixture. I'm ready to buy but I've learned my lesson and I'm going to put it out there to the great folks on ARC first. Anybody running this fixture? I have no doubt it's a great product from a great company, I'm just concerned with how tiny it is. I can hang the light way up high but I'm worried the sand will be shaded by the rock stack if the light comes from such a small point a foot or so awl. I can get 2 fixtures, but then I'd have to run both of them turned down so much that it feels like a waste of money. I can't stand the thought of wasting more money on light, so I'm dragging my feet a bit. I need to figure out something soon! More later...baby's crying.....