FarmerTy

No fair! I don't even have one 225 gallon tank and now you're gonna have two?

No, haven't caught him yet but need to soon. Maybe sometime this weekend. Chad/Belinda, may take you up on the offer unless someone closer in town has one. -Ty

My blue hippo has a quite expensive eating habit. He started to graze on my zoas. He doesn't nip at anything else I have, just zoas. In my tank though, that is automatic grounds for eviction. He is a very active, highly entertaining fish. Sometimes he will pick up small rocks in his mouth and swim around with it in the tank like he's playing fetch with himself. I had him since he was 2-3" long so my fiance and I are a little attached to him and want to see him in a good home. Asking just $40 for him mainly because of the zoa eating issue and that finding him a good home is more important to us than making money off of him. Minimum 120 gallon tank please and the fiance would appreciate it if pics were snapped once in a blue moon of him. Haha. -Ty

Anybody have a fish trap I can borrow? I have a blue hippo I need to find a home as he started to pick on my zoas. I will throw a frag your way for the loaner. For sale thread to follow once I catch him. Thanks, Ty

In the same boat as you Jestep (even more evidence with the plusrite group buy for bulbs)... my annual lighting cost is very low with the plusrite bulbs (I added T5's purely for customization of the light coloration... it is not really needed but I wanted it). The ballasts I got all under $40 per ballast (two of them dimmable 400 watters in case I want to go up to 400) so cheap lighting setup overall and cheap maintenance... makes it really hard to want to invest so much initial money into LEDs right now with the standard still in flux. But I diverge, original posters question is about T5's... I have seen some beautiful SPS dominant tanks purely lit by T5's alone... so I am a big fan of the technology. Ballasts will be cheap to buy as a lot of people are getting rid of their setups for LEDs... the only drawback to me is the cost of replacement bulbs as they generally run $20-$30 a piece plus shipping and typically you run more bulbs in a T5 setup than you would MH (meaning 1 250 watt MH bulb versus 4 T5 bulbs over comparable area). Normally cost-wise it would almost be a wash but with cheap options such as plusrite MH bulbs at $13/piece, your T5's are now more costly in comparison comparatively ($13 replacement MH bulb or 4 T5 bulbs at around $100). Hopefully my experience and others will help your decision, let us know if you have any more questions.

I am in for sure for 3 bulbs. Let me know how you want me to pay and my total (to save confusion and bad math skills). Thanks for putting this together. -Ty

I think Sherita hit the nail on the head, in regards to the unnatural look of some LED setups as fluorescing the pigments is more of a priority than displaying them in a more naturally lit light. Its like the teenager who uses instagram to add a pop to everything even though the original photograph was beautifully captured in the first place. I am sure there are just as many LED owners who have more naturally lit tanks, especially the ones that have added additional spectrums to their setups. I think once the LED industry starts figuring out all the additional spectrums to add to a setup (not just blues and whites but UV, reds, greens, etc..) then I will gladly adopt as in the long run, LED setups are much cheaper than their MH/T5 brethen when you calculate costs on an averaged annual basis. Bimmerz may be hinting at that there are LED systems that are already there with full spectrums now, which is great news. For myself, I will wait for when I can see a mega-SPS tank system running LEDs sucessfully for a couple of years and that the LED manufacturers start agreeing on a standard for the industry before I switch over. Purely just my personal approach obviously but I see too many stories still of early adopters of LED systems selling their old units costing originally $400+ for a newer one with more spectrums (within a year of the first purchase) or adding additional spectrums to their current system and spending hundreds more to do that. I just don't have them money right now to be the LED industry's experiment on lighting. Plus, with the adoption rate of LEDs, cheap T5 and MH systems are being sold left and right... so good time to snatch one up IMO.

I run mine in combo with metal halides so for me so it is still viable. Still waiting to see an LED lit SPS dominant tank that'll persuade me to switch to LEDs. Not saying sarcastically... I really do want to see one so I can be convinced that my SPS would look just as good under LED and not too artificially colored. Purely my opinion so don't haze me LED peeps! Haha. -Ty

Another thing to think about with possible heat issues is not just the amount added to the system through lighting but even the pumps. I did the equivalent of that experiment when mixing salt with a mag pump and closing the lid to the brute trashcan. I swear I could have made a nice soup out of the salt mix at the temperature it was at. My advice is to get a bigger topoff reservoir, or automate the filling of the container. I ran my lines straight from my RO unit to the reservoir... all I do is flip the switch once a week and presto... its full again. I like to keep it someone manual (the switch) so that I don't accidentally flood my house... with a shutoff float valve as backup for my lack of a memory. -Ty

I don't know what type of lighting you run but with the metal halide/T5 combo I run, I appreciate the evaporation as it cools my tank. Just mentioning so that you can think about possible heat issues resulting from lowering your evaporation issue. -Ty

Put me down for 3 of the 250-watt 20k DE plusrites on the group buy. -Ty

Dapetit, the host for the January meeting built his own. You should pick his brain if you can make the meeting.

However more common these days... still one of my favorites. King midas

That looks like cyanobacteria to me.

Biopellets work great on nitrates when combined with a good skimmmer. Depending on your tank, GFO might be needed to help lower phosphates as well. I know mine needed it.

Haha, thanks James! Most of the rock is not removable from the tank or else the ole' chisel and hammer were going to get invited to the party. Well it was good timing that I did the pics and video... at least now I have something to watch in remembrance of my old setup! It is indeed a huge step but this way I can guarantee a tank where my acros can grow into huge colonies without worrying about possible pests that can ruin that dream. -Ty

I didn't think about free floating AEFW. I didn't think they would be in the water column. I wonder what size micron filter would be sufficient to filter them out of the water? I couldn't really tell if there were any flatworms as I used a pretty high concentration of Bayer. There was mostly sps slime and a bunch of stuff stuck to it... and I think I pretty much committed genocide on my mini brittle star population. There were at least 25 dead ones at the bottom of the treatment bucket. The marks on one piece of coral I thought had potential to be bites but it was actually polyp formation areas. There was however one worm that I saw that could have been a AEFW but it looked a little to red to me. Might have been a red planaria if I had to take a guess. Yes, I am glad it is only 6-8 weeks versus months! My next step is to kill any encrusting base left in the tank from the removal of my acros tonight. I was thinking of epoxy over the larger pieces and scraping the smaller. Anybody have a better idea out there?

Well, I got a wild hair when I got home and went ahead and set up the quarantine tank and dipped all the acros in the tank. I started by siphoning water from the DT into the QT and then adding some eggcrate, a powerhead, a heater, and a 150-watt MH light. I removed all acros from the DT and dipped them for 5 mins in a Bayer Advanced Pesticide dip. Afterwards, I rinsed them in fresh tank water and placed them in the QT. Luckily, all my frags fit in the QT tank though it was kind of a tight squeeze! Here's a shot of my tank after removing all the acros. Doesn't look horribly sad but definitely already missing my tank. Guess I will have to get used to it because this is what I will be looking at for the next 6 weeks. The goal is to dip once a week and place all the acros back in the DT. I will also replace the water in the QT with water from the DT at least once a week to keep the water quality stable. I will update with progress if anything interesting happens. Hopefully, the process stays nice and boring! One step closer to guaranteeing a pest-free tank! And I plan to keep the QT going for all new frags and fishes that want to make a bid to live in the DT. The goal is 4 weeks minimum QT for any new frag or fish before it hits the display. Wish me luck! -Ty

So... been thinking about it for the last couple of weeks and I've decided to set up a quarantine tank. I've been all over some of the bigger reefing forums and AEFW seems to be a plague. What scares me more is that my tank is more SPS dominant these days than anything, however, most are still small frags. I've heard of some big-time SPS tanks with years of growth being shut down due to AEFW and I am not interested in that happening to me. What scares me the most is statements such as, "Most people don't even realize they have AEFWs" or ,"I've seen AEFW at my LFS". I wonder how common these statements are? My paranoia, combined with the fact that I have all the frags I could want right now, put me at an optimal juncture in my tank life where I can do it the right way. I plan on removing and QT'ing all SPS in my reef tank for 6-8 weeks. I want a fresh start so that I can be assured that there are no pests currently in that tank that I am not interested in having in my tank further down the line (AEFW and red bugs). Once my tank is guaranteed clean, I will continue to use the QT for all incoming corals/fish that enters my tank from now on... we're talking 4 week QT prior to touching the water in my DT. Previously, I have been dipping everything prior to entering my tank, but that won't stop AEFW if there are some eggs on any of the pieces. Dipping is good insurance, but it's not as guaranteed as a QT. Sounds crazy even typing this let alone doing it but at least this way I know for sure that my livestock will be safe. I plan to start this weekend and will update with pics and treatment as I go. I think this is a small investment in time to save my investment in the corals I have so that one day I can have that tank I always wanted... with no worries of pests. -Ty

Forest Fire Digitata Maricultured Blue-tip tenius Undata

I added a couple more pictures I took with my fiance's iphone this time. It tends to pick up the blues a bit better. Zoas Oregon Tort Fuzzy Acro Vivid Strawberry Shortcake Cali Tort Uknown Acro Skittles Stag Tri-color Acro ORA Hawkins Echinata Chips Acro

TTT

Hi Shawn, welcome to the club man! When you get a chance, start up a build thread so we know what you are working with and the kind of tank you are looking to have. There are always plenty of frags for sale on the club and some equipment that will help you get started with your new tank, for cheap. If you have a question... don't hesitate to ask. Good luck and happy reefing. -Ty

Hey Grog, Could you describe your LED setup? Spectrums... wattage... etc.? -Ty

Not to volunteer a sponsor but you may want to inquire with River City Aquatics. I believe Wizard used one of their troughs during his tank move from the 90-gal to the 190-gal. -Ty