ThePremiumAquarium

I just got through beating my head on my desk! I am going down on the 8th through the 11th or I would totally drive down with you! I wish I could change my plans to go down 1 week earlier lol.

Without stocking fish, inverts, and dry goods I think you would probably have a very hard time making any money or even keeping things a float with a store front. I think if you have the space and ability to start this in your own home or garage, you could probably make plenty to offset your costs and maybe even make a little. A retail front just has alot of overhead that needs to be taken care of by a decent selection of stock for customer needs. I myself and a coral guy and am not as big a fan of fish and drygoods. If I could open a shop that I thought would be successful off of simply propigated corals I would definately do so as it would be a blast! I wish you luck Isaac. You have some great thoughts in your head that I can already see. I think if you get all your ducks in line and really think about this, you will have great success. Like others said, it will take a while to get stock growing and get enough of it to really start breaking even but it will be worth it. I myself enjoy it so much that I couldn't even stay out of coral propigation for 2 small months! LOL Garrett

LOL! OSU is just a school full of good Americans doing what we do best. No worries next you we will have a net profit of 400K now that we have to watch out dollars a bit closer.

I think what Kris is getting at is: Almost every LFS that I have been to has bleached out anemones for sale at one point or another. Some LFS get them in on trades and some come in from wholesalers or exporters and are not necessarily ordered by the fish store. Selling a white or bleached out bubble tip anemone is not in itself a bad thing. I have had many, many bleached out anemones and have had great success in returning them to full color and health. Anemones come in all different colors, shades, and levels of zooanthelia present in their cells. It is not necessarily the LFS being irresponsible for selling a bleached anemone, it would be nice however for them to suggest how to bring it back to full color and in turn health. Anemones in the wild are often found perfectly healthy and quite bleached out. They may be gathering most of their nutrient needs from meaty foods instead of the photosynthetic symbiotic creatures that give them their color. I agree that in general bubble tip anemones should defately have a good color to them and over time this should become the case for this one assuming that adequate water quality and lighting are given. There are many factors involved with the collection of anemones, their exportation, their sale, and finally their home in our aquariums. Stores are just one middle step and in the case of anemones are not always in neglect when selling a white or bleached anemone do to the nature of this type of creature. Hard critters to explain because there are so many colors and shades that they can come in and ways that they can obtain nutrients. Garrett

Good call Ryan. Both of those chemicals are easily taken care of by our salt mixes and/or declorinators but it is always better to be safe than sorry.

Roger, Give me a call if you need a place to house some of your livestock and whatnot. I have a few hundred gallons of free space at the moment and am sure that it will take me a while to even come close to filling a quarter of the space that I have to fill. I would love to see you keep what you can/want to and if I can provide a temperary home for you I would be happy to do so. Give me a call or send me a PM so we can chat about what you are planning on getting rid of and what you plan on keeping. I would likely be interested in aquireing some of your rock, algae, inverts, etc. Garrett

My TDS read about 7-9 here in Salem last time I checked it. It is important to remember that TDS is not all that is removed from your RO/DI systems. There are alot of other things, some of which we do not even test for that are in our water and purified by our RO/DI systems. I will say however that I have run many tanks without even using an RO/DI system here in South Salem and have had excellent results. When I run carbon I seem to see even better results than what I see when using just RO/DI water with a 0 TDS readout. Running GFO seems to really help color up SPS and I also notice that I can go longer without water changes when running both carbon and GFO. Water purity is important and in a perfect reef I think that an RO/DI unit, carbon, and GFO should be used but in my experience it certainly isn't necessary if you have a good water source to begin with. Here in Salem(where I live that is) for example running carbon and GFO works wonders and an RO/DI unit isn't even necessary. Part of the reason I have decided not to use RO/DI water in my system, is the waste water produced. I know there are many ways of capturing waste water and using it to flush toilets, water plants, etc. I just don't have any good way of using waste water created by a 300-400g system. For me there just isn't enough benefit for the cost incured in both replacement cartrigdes and water itself. Plus filling up a few rubbermaid trash cans with tap water is far faster than waiting for them to fill with RO/DI water. Garrett

Cool videos! I would seriously consider either setting up another tank for your lion fish or tradeing him it in to one of your local fish stores. I know it really sucks that people keep recommending this to you but they have really good reason to do so. In a very short time the lion will undoubtably eat almost every fish in your tank. He will also create a large amount of waste that could reak havoc on your tanks nutrient levels. He will also start to get too big for your tank very shortly, some might even say that he is too big now. Just think... Set up another tank and make it a fish only/aggressive tank. Then you can keep all the cool non reef compatible fish that you like. I have thought about doing this myself, but just don't find fish as interesting as all of the other things in our reef tanks. Garrett

I figured I would ask because Shawn had mentioned that both of your pieces didn't do so hot. I wish they would have made it. I would have loved to have snagged a frag of it. (whistle)

I wish I would have found them before I purchased the rubbermaid again lol. I picked them up at Wal Mart. They are made of the same thick spun rubber as the rubbermaids but are an easier to work with and more efficient shape. $40 for each 50g storage container. They also come with a nice lid. I purchased two of them to use one as a stand for the other that is used as a sump. Garrett

Beautiful piece Jody. Very unique!

Mike that is exactly what I was looking for. I will PM you. Thanks!

Thanks guys! Lance, I will be growing the chaeto out for a while but it won't be too long before I have extra I am sure. Also, you are welcome to PM and we can head over to check out the system when ever. I am over there every day for at least a few anyway. Garrett

LOL nah. Though you all should watch out now!! (laugh)

garrets garage table acropora which pretty much is completely gone (enforcer) Love the name lol! I wish it wasn't almost completely gone. It was a nice piece. RIP (sad) I always hate when a cool coral randomly kicks the bucket. It is the strangest thing when there is nothing to explain it. unknown purple table. now has green in it too Oh I must have a frag of this guy! Beautiful!

I have had this happen a few times. I always look at e-mails that ask you to confirm something or log into your account as suspected fraud. These guys are bold and really its kind of hard to tell what is real and what isn't. Good catch!

Sounds like you have the idea. They don't need any light though a small one wouldn't hurt for viewing purposes. They will eat leftovers from your display feeding but if not much food gets down to them, try giving some meaty foods to them like chopped up cocktail shrimp and silversides. Make sure to take out any excess that just sits there or it will reak havoch on your water quality. Good luck!

i have always enjoyed my watermelon table acro This guy looks familiar... How is it doing? Beautiful piece.

Oh yes and the lighting fixture that I have been waiting on to arrive was finally delivered by UPS! Yay! Now to decide on bulbs for this one...

Today I finally got the skimmer online. I had to grab some tubing for the drain or it would have been on earlier. I added a second sump. I may use it for rock or for a larger fish or two if I ever have to be an emergency home. May be a good spot for extra live rock aswell. Waiting on MH bulbs, and need to pick up a couple of 6ft VHO actinics but other than that the system is doing really well. Did a 75g water change last night just as a precaution though everything looked great. Here are some pics from tonight: Added 50g second sump/large tank: Some tanks with a few rocks and such: Skimmer having fun right after I finally turned it on: A few zoas/palys(need a couple of actinic bulbs to show their real color. These guys will be beautiful!): Some starter algaes: 3 of the 4 different sands that I am trying: A few random shots of critters and some awesome live rock I picked up. This stuff is crazy full of life: Got a blue and red pistol shrimp. Each have their own gobies. Here is one: This guys is so cool. I have had these guys before but this one is just crazy happy. Electric flame scallop:

LOL! That is Karhma right there. Sounds about right. I plan on getting a pair of these little guys. I think I will keep about 10-15 cc stars so that I can alternate through them and their poor little legs lol. I just find these shrimp to be so interesting. Garrett

I will take them both. Sent you a PM. Garrett

Looks like a nice setup! I would move it away from the window like Michael says. There are just way to many issues that happen when tanks have alot of natural sunlight. Algae will flourish and corals will likely not get as colorful as they will under your full aquarium lighting. Heat could definately also become an issue. It will be alot more fun to look at everything without the light from outside getting in the way. I look forward to seeing the setup process. It looks like you have a good set up equipment to get you started and from the sounds of it have a good plan of attack so far. (rock2) Garrett

I won a light fixture on ebay that was supposed to arrive on Friday. I was all pumped to have it by this weekend so that I could set it up on Monday when I got home from business. Turns out I have a similar issue though they call mine adverse weather conditions in Portland lol: PORTLAND, OR, US 04/16/2009 1:00 A.M. ADVERSE WEATHER CONDITIONS HODGKINS, IL, US 04/14/2009 7:57 A.M. DEPARTURE SCAN HODGKINS, IL, US 04/13/2009 9:28 P.M. ARRIVAL SCAN PERU, IL, US 04/13/2009 7:15 P.M. DEPARTURE SCAN 04/13/2009 6:03 P.M. ORIGIN SCAN US 04/13/2009 3:23 P.M. BILLING INFORMATION RECEIVED I hope it comes in Monday as I would love to get some lighting so I can start with some corals and such in the tanks the light will go over.

I have used many nano skimmers and have never had one or seen one that is as good at keeping waste down as live rubble rock and chaeto. That being said if there were a really good nano skimmer out there that I were to try and feel confident in, I would still probably have the rubble and most likely make room for the chaeto. There are just too many benefits to miss out on without them IMO. If this was a larger system I would have a large, efficient skimmer, a good solid amount of live rock, and a large refugium. I would probably add a cryptic zone, a deep sand bed, more live rock and probably another refugium lol. Edit: Oh yes and if I did use filter floss, which I probably would, I would make sure and take it out regularly and clean or replace it with new floss. I feel that catching detritus from your system is a very good thing as long as the detritus is disposed of and doesn't just sit in your system for a while only to become a waste factory. I usually try an mock a larger, successful system when seting up a nano system. All things in equal proportions to systems that I have seen be successful shoulf result in success in theory(many, many factors affect each system) Garrett