I would, but I just bought a $100 RO unit so I want to get my money’s worth on that sucker. 
Plus I used to work for petsmart. :-)### Petco is my arch nemesis. Hahaha. Not really, but why bother when Premium aquatics is like right next door to me.
When I lived in the dorms I had a ten gallon sitting on my dresser… and when the RA turned her back my friends helped me remove the doors from my closet and wedge in the biggest fish tank that would slide in. I think the 29gallon stand had about .25" clearance going in. 
Oh and above the 29g there was two little tanks to hold feeder fish. lol Then I moved to the towers and just didn’t care I had a tank in each room. Then I moved to a basement on Kells Ave and my tanks started multiplying. Now I have an apartment which the master bedroom is now the “fish room†and has 13-14 tanks or so.(lost count)
Which type of clown goby? I’m sure you saw the yellows and Delaware’s Premium Aquatics, but there are many other colors which stay about the same size with just about identical personalities. I really like them as well and hope to start breeding them in a couple of years.
If you want a fish with personality and facial expressions take a look at the yellow headed Jawfish(Opistognathus aurifrons). Might be cool to keep.
Jon
Yeah the towers don’t give a crap about what any one keeps up here lol. I know people who have full fledged cats and the RA’s just shake their heads! One of my friends had a 55 gallon pirahna tank and a pet tarantula. Hahaha. Yeah expect to see me and my room mate in Premium Aquatics often. She is looking for a freshwater/brackish puffer fish. Those figure 8’s may interest her.
I think my ranking as far as colors of clown gobies go is green, yellow, brown, and black. It seems like they come in so many colors! I think it is one of those things though that if I see a yellow or a black and it looks good and what not I will get it any ways. There is one bright yellow one you guys had the other day I was in and he was a cutie.
I will look into those yellow headed jawfish, I was thinking about one of them for a while. I’m still dead set on some type of flasher or fairy wrasse, I just gotta narrow it down. I have a list of affordable wrasses that are in the size limit of my tank. I just gotta check and see invertebrate compatibility and stuff, I know the ones I picked are the reef safe variety too.
Btw that shelf piece I got from you guys was indeed crawling with life like you said. I have over 5 small feather dusters and a brittle star just made himself apparent. Also I found what looks like a very tiny mushroom hiding in a hole. 
fingers crossed that he will make it although he is bright white, but the lights seemed to cheer him up today he got some red in him today.
Hum… little white guy. Keep an eye out of Aiptasia. I didn’t see any at all on the rocks or else I would have killed them and warned you about them already. If you find any they sell a lot of chemicals that kill them. I just use kalk… well should say used as I killed them all off.
If you figure out exactly what you would like or were curious what else we could get let me know. There are a lot of different wrasses on the list every week, but for some reason the shop owner won’t let me order one of every single kind, lol.
Jon
but for some reason the shop owner won't let me order one of every single kind
:-)lol hahahaha! Yeah really. I think with the wrasses I’m just going to have to come in and check out what new stuff you guys get in. I don’t want to order anything until I see the real deal in person.
I don’t think the white guy is aiptasia, he has no tentacles and there is a pretty defined mouth. Actually here is a picture of him that I took 2 days ago.
Now I’m a noob but it looks a lot like a mushroom to me. However, I could be/probably am wrong. What you can’t see is that there are the lines that look like the surface of most mushrooms I have seen and the mouth is sticking out like a bump like most mushrooms that I have seen. He got a little bit of red in him today when I had the lights on but the tank got too hot (damn aquapod stock lighting/hood) but that is why I got a new MH light, should be coming soon ;D
Not an aptasia as far as I can tell. Almost looks like a single palythoa polyp to me, but I cant really tell from the picture. About how big is it?
Very difficult to tell from the image. Could make guessing game out of it. For sure not an aptasia though, which is a good thing.
Wow thats hard to tell can you get a better picture? Also lower the white balance of your camera to get better color
Well it is only about 1/2" accross. When the lights are not on, he stretches towards the light and looks like a trumpet almost, maybe I will get a picture of him today doing that.
About my camera, well I have a digital but it is a POS and I have actually been using my video camera which is much better. I wouldn’t know where to begin on lowering the white light (could have been I had the actinics and day lamp on at the time and he is right by the sand bed so there was a reflection.) I will see today if I can get a better picture. I’m actually in the market now for selling my really nice film SLR for a digital one. I’m very big on photography. Actually he said that they would have a better time selling it during the beginning of the school year when people are taking photography classes and they do consignment. Maybe I can find a good cheaper DSLR there. I’ll get some pics and stuff up later today for you guys.
I’ll be the first to stick my neck out and say “Yup, that’s a mushroom”.
Looks awfully pale, but still has the detail and shape of a mushroom.
C
Well I just got my Viper 150W set up Man what a difference! All I gotta say is I loooove ebay! :-Q
I will get a picture up of him under the MH, he isn’t very happy right now, not because of the MH but because I didn’t turn on the lights for him today.
With new lights remember to acclimate the corals. Tattoo said it best here:
[quote=“tat2tillidie, post:29, topic:589”]
yo do know you need to acclimate your tank to the new lights right? you can use screen or just turn it on for a few hours a day then slowly increase a little at a time. i say this because no one told me and i shocked my tank and killed everything in it because my tank re-cyced and it was a bad experience. you can also use screen. get screen material and layer the top of the tank with a few pieces like 3 or 4 and remove one a week till there gone.[/quote]
What if I only have the live rock in it? I mean I have a couple hitch hikers and I haven’t even gotten to the nitrite part of my cycle yet. It did like a mini cycle so far because I never saw any ammonia come up in the tank and yesterday was the first day I had nitrites. I have only used the PC’s lights on for one day. Should I turn off the MH and go out to get screening? Honestly I can wait because I’m probably not going to get the clean up crew until I go home or until I get back so if it recycles, then that is ok, I got time.
No you should be fine with the MH. You have no corals to acclimate so no worries.
ok good I was ready to rush out the door to turn off the lamp and run to Lowes (my storage unit is that way any ways and I need to get packing up).
Might be leaving here sooner than I thought which would be great because they are only giving us til 11am next friday to get out… not going to be fun when you gotta move an AP24, so I’m trying to get my project done here and out so I can have a whole day to do a break down. I’ll make sure to let you know how it goes! hahaha
Just thinking of it now but I’m trying to decide on what to do about the fact that the viper has no fans. The temp is WAY better than it was with the pc’s and also I only have 10 gallons in there that it is heating. But does any one have any suggestions? The unit on Drs foster and smith apparently will not fit on the lip of my aquapod.
Another thing I’m thinking about is the wall in the back chambers is inhibiting the centering of my Viper, would it be ok to just take a dremel and shear a little so that I can put the light in and center it? I mean I gotta watch where the shavings go but would that do any thing bad?
Hum, not too familiar with the Viper. See if you can do a google search and find someone else who has done that kind of modification or at least find someone else who has run the same lights for a while and see if they found it to be a problem.
You have to move the aquapod next week? Have buckets for the move? That may force another miny cycle. If you have the time I would purposely force a full cycle on the tank, ie drop in some table shrimp or a lot of frozen krill and just let them rot away till you have a significant amount of ammonia. Then let nature take it’s course, step back and watch the cycle happen with your kits. Would be cool to keep a record of what days you have what levels. You can make a neat chart at the end of it which will help you really understand why you are doing everything with the cycle and adding LR and so on. Understanding the Nitrogen cycle well is something that will save you a lot of headaches when trying to understand what is going on with your tank. It also comes up in introduction to bio and ecology.
As far as temperature, what have you been trying to keep it at and what has it been? Do you have a digital thermometer? Glass? Plastic stick on?
Just my two cents
Jon
Yeah I actually bought a 12 gallon rubber maid built specifically for the move. When I get live stock I plan on getting smaller ones and drilling holes in them and placing them in the water. Someone on nano reef did that for an 8 hour move he had to accomplish and said it worked out great. My new car actually has an outlet so I can also plug in either a power head or a heater. I used that plug when I was taking my old freshwater fish home to give away.
I was actually thinking about trying that at home if it didn’t cycle and if I was still not sure if it was cycled. I don’t really want to go out and buy frozen stuff that I will have to keep frozen for 4+ hours on the way home. Plus I believe I still have some frozen bloodworms or daphnia at my house from my freshwater fish, but I don’t know mom might have thrown it out.
As for the temp, when there wasn’t a light or heater on it was at 81-82 usually. When the pc’s were on, it got up to 84 and I turned it off because it wasn’t stopping. With the viper last night it reach upper 83 but I realized the heater was on and it settled at 83. I have settled the heater on a timer to be on only when the light is off. I have the plastic stick on the side thermometer. I’m not worrying too much about light because that powerful light is only lighting 10 gallons. Since water has a high specific heat and I will be adding more, it should not get as hot (or at least not as hot as fast) than it is now. Still waiting on the mighty mite. Hopefully that will come through and I can test my theory.
Test that rubber made if you can. Take it outside and fill it with the hose or just set it in the bath tub and fill it. Some of them are not made to be filled with liquids and they will bow and made break. I doubt it will break on you, but the lid may not fit on well and you’ll get a lot of splashing of salt water in your car.
I wouldn’t worry too much about a heater. If you have a spare power head laying around that would work, but if you don’t already an air pump would better. When you’re moving everything their will likely be a lot of fine particulate matter that gets stirred up from the sand bed and will help make the water stagnant and strip it of oxygen changing the water chemistry. This is mostly just an FYI as since you will have no large expensive animals in it you really don’t have too much to lose.
Just a word of warning about the cycle, the tank may smell a little bit. Might be nice to warn anyone that lives with you. If it gets real bad you can do a water change, but try to avoid it as much as possible and let things take their course.
83 is not a horrible temperature though you are going to want to acclimate new animals to it carefully as sudden changes in temp will hard most animals to some degree. You should never need to set the heater on a timer. Unless it is malfunctioning it should not run unless the temperature is below the range you set it to. What type of heater is this? Is it built in?
Little plastic stick on the side thermometer = little plastic throw away in my opinion. You could keep it on there, but I wouldn’t pay a lot of attention to it. I would get a digital one. You can usually find them for less then $10.
Sorry I can be a bit long winded at times, just want to explain things thoroughly and hopefully help you avoid some head aches.
Make sure to take pictures, regardless of the quality, just so you can look back in the future and be proud of how you have advanced.
Good luck and keep us updated.
Jon
I agree with Jon about the thermometer. Get a good one it will save a lot of guesswork. Also dont worry so much about the temprature. On hot days my tank will get up around 85 and I havent lost anything untill it got over 92 (happend once and killed most of my sps) which isnt going to happen again.
I do have to disagree on adding table shrimp however. I heard this with my first tank, a 29g and thought what the heck, I’ll give it a try. The decaying table shrimp turned into a ton of Hair Algae which I never fully eradicated while that tank was up and running. I would suggest instead simply leaving the tank alone for the amount of time that you would watch the table shrimp decay or adding a durable fish and let fish poo do the work for you. Chromis are nice, and not as mean as damsels. Clownfish are pretty durable too.
I agree with most of what was said, but i will ad my .02
i think having the heater on the opposite of your light timer is a good idea. although aquarium heaters have thermostats, they are garbage, and i think what your doing is really smart. pinpoint makes a REALLY nice wireless thermometer for aroudn $40 i think, but i have a $5 coralife digital thermometer on my turtle tank and it works great too.
as far as temperature, i have to strongly disagree with icy. i would try to keep it as consistent as possible. personally, i would never let my tank approach 85, let alone go over it. just because your animals survive the swings doesnt mean your not impacting their long term health. i dont think there is anything wrong with a slow swing from night to day, but i would still aim for a window of 4 degrees or so.
also, im not a big beliver in throwing in a fish to cycle a tank. although chromis and damsels are hardy there is still a good chance they wont survive. if they do, what are you going to do with a damsel? i have to agree with jon on this one. any organic matter will do, and in a 29, a pinch of flake food should do. as long as your not providing any light algae shouldnt be too much of an issue. if your tank does get messy, it should clean up when the tank cycles with the help of some water changes.