FarmerTy

That's what I have, the 75 gpd membrane stacked on another 75 gpd membrane, thanks to Brian. Where was that when I was filling my 210 gal for the first time Brian? I also run their chloramines kit since I'm about as anal as Victoly is about water quality when it comes to my SPS.

Just pick up a frag of xenia free from someone and throw it in his tank and run.

Hit up RichardL, he has a calibrated thermometer that he let me borrow to calibrate my Apex. It was on the dot correct... only thing is it only goes to 80 degrees so I just pulled out a cup of water and let it cool before testing since my average ambient temperature is 82 degrees in the tank. I think he accepts frags for borrowing it.

I run a system from the filterguys mentioned above. It has been running flawless and their customer support is amazing. I run a 75 gpd filter as I've always understood it as the lower rated membranes have a higher rejection rate. May be a nominal difference but I don't mind waiting a little bit longer for cleaner water. Since I only topoff and don't do water changes, it is even less of an issue. I will say it was brutal to fill up the 210 for the first time. I could see myself visibly age in the reflection of the glass watching the tank fill.

Me neither!!!

My stand is 40" tall and the dimensions on my tank are 72x24x28". I think it is just the perfect height and I have a 65-gallon sump underneath with plenty of room to mess with things. I am not the tallest guy in the world though so your stand height being at 42" may be perfect.

I thought it was "Mo' water, mo' room for livestock?" The STN is not as crazy as I was implying... more of a late night rant after having to cut some colonies up in the wee hours of the night last night because the bases stn'ed on me. That low alk incident was about 2 weeks ago so that's about when I would to expect to see some of the damage manifest itself now with the SPS, since you typically see the reaction several weeks after the incident. I can think of at least one person in the club that has a at least a frag of every SPS that's important to me. I like to spread it around in the club in case someone's tank crashes... I don't want my whole Plan B to go up in smoke if one person's tank crashes!

I still have some leaves that need to be raked. Please apply via PM for those that are interested. One fun fact about the meeting. All the breathing in the fish room caused the pH to go from 8.0 to 7.5! I should have programmed my Apex to meter the amount of people in the room as pH got lower and then allowed more people in once the pH was at an acceptable range. If the green bulb above the door turns on, one more person may come in.

Hawkins is going strong!

Liking the minimal aquascaping!

Just want to mention for documentation purposes that it's not all rainbows and unicorns right now with the build. I am getting some pretty bad STN in a lot of my SPS but that's what happens when you change the tank, the flow, the lighting, the parameters, and expect all the SPS to stay happy while all this happens. I've lost my blue/green insignia completely and treading some dangerous ground on losing about 3-4 other acros completely. Most of the rest have some sort of STN here or there and definitely don't look happy. I'll just keep aiming to keep everything stable and ride it out until everything is happy again. Juiceman shared some wise advice the other day... Ty, you can't save them all! I also lost some livestock with all the stress of the move and possibly to ich. I lost my new powder blue tang, my geometric pgymy hawkfish, and sadly... my favorite fish... my midas blenny. I still look at the empty hole he used to sit in and feel sad. He was my automatic "Photo of the month" winner... just post his picture and bam, I won! Sad day when he passed. But not to end it on the sad note, the tank is more amazing than I could have envisioned with the new aquascape and all systems are stable and a "go" for long-term stability. While everything is stabilizing, I'll start work on the canopy and skinning the stand to keep my hands out of the tank!

One of my favorite things about the new aquascaping was actually done totally by accident. The two large mounds with the valley in between kind of perfectly lined up with my metal halide fixtures. When I have the left halide on, it spot lights the left mound ... and vice versa. With the middle halide off, it highlights both mounds and emphasizes the valley in between. With only the middle halide on, it casts an early morning-like glow on both the mounds with dim rays of light casting from the middle and hitting both mounds. It's just something to be appreciated in person when looking at the tank. I'll try to add the pics of the middle off and on by itself to show the effect.

Thank you for the FTS Jake! The grand unveiling was at the March meeting but for those that couldn't attend... I added a couple of other shots just for fun. Just for purposes of scale, that Desjardini sailfin is about 6-7" long.

Oh, and next time around, I promise to have a canopy so I won't blind everyone with the halides, to have my stand skinned so you don't have to talk over the sound of splashing water and the return pump, to have my cables organized so Jake doesn't take a picture of my birdsnest of cables and post them on the club , stadium seating for all, and to have my full color back on my SPS so you can see nice colored sticks instead of browned-out SPS and STN .

Thank you all that were able to attend. It had a blast for my first time hosting and since everyone was so well-behaved, I think my wife will give me the thumbs up to hosting again in the future. She is sorry she wasn't around much for the meeting, grad school beckoned! I'd like to thank Dave and Robin for setting up and organizing the meeting, Niko's Reef (Travis and Chris) for taking the time to setup an awesome frag tank, Juiceman and Rchavez for helping run the SPS primer discussion on such short notice (how's an hour prep for you?), Jimbo and Pailines for bringing drinks, Jake for taking the great pictures, Brad and his son Jonathan for the awesome drum circle background music, and I didn't catch who brought the hummus and chips but thank you as well! I'm sorry I had to cram everyone into that small room but the turnout was much larger than I expected. Had I known, I would have moved the tank to the living room. I'm pretty sure it was the eggrolls and the springsrolls that convinced everyone to come but in my head, it'll be that awesome SPS primer discussion. I got so wound up with the meeting and trying to be a good host that I forgot to give out my free prize for all that attended. My apologies to all but if you guys make it out to the next meeting at KimP's place, I'll gladly bring them there and distribute. Just wanted to say that the eggrolls, springrolls, and free prizes (that I didn't give out ) were my big thank you to the amazing community we have on the Austin Reef Club that I'm proud to be a part of since 2007. Thank you for supporting my obsession/hobby and also a very BIG thank you for supporting my career change. -Ty

+1 Let's see that aquascaping James!

I had some glass cut at a local shop recently too and there were off by 1/4"-1/2"! It was a very large margin of error for cutting. Then they informed me that they have a new apprentice back there and that they would replace the glass for me so no harm no foul. Good luck with the tank build Pailines! I don't know what you're thinking about after seeing my tank but I'm worried for you already...

Come on over James!

I'm glad so many people can make it, even some driving in from as far away as El Paso. He must have heard all the rumors of how awesome our meetings are! I just finished ordering 100 eggrolls and 60 springrolls for the party. Thanks James for bringing some liquid refreshments. If anybody else can help with drinks, that would be much appreciated. I cleaned the front glass and primed all the fishes for their grand unveiling! Just like I taught you ladies... Single file...one at a time! Looking forward to the meeting tomorrow at 3pm everyone! Remember, all guests get a free prize just for showing up, not to mention the usual door prizes that are given away. And Nikos Reef will have a frag tank setup with goodies as well as anyone who would like to bring frags to sell or give away to new members. Cheers! -Ty

Woohoo!

Walmart, in their cooling section. Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

Big fan of mine. I can have restful, aiptasia free dreams these days! I hate mystery deaths! Sorry for your losses! Sent from my SPH-L710 using Tapatalk

If you need to increase your Mg and you had a possible piece of bryopsis in your system (from that zoa frag you posted a month ago), perhaps just dose with Tech M Magnesium to increase your levels and blast any chance of bryopsis in your system at the same time? Just a thought.

Great prices BChap and great selection!

Copperbands have poor survival rates and are super sensitive. That might explain that one but the psuedochromis are rock steady, so I'm surprised on its death. Either way, sorry for the loss. For the copperband, I've heard they can die just from their sensitive fins being damaged with a net so if you can get one that hasn't been netted, that would be ideal. Also, they are super sensitive to copper medications for QT so something less harsh should be used before introduction into your main tank.