Recent content by Hillbilly

Well, the nickname for a Seaclone is "Seaclown"! :lol:

Yeah, I would sqash it! :D

Yeah, those OceanLights are very nice. Great quality also. I've seen some very poorly made fixtures, but these are not among them.

Looks good, but the room needs more tanks. There is some space left! LOL! :lol:

I agree. A skimmer would not be practical on a 5gal. tank. Just remember, with less than 5gals. of water (allowing for LR), you're going to have very little "buffer" and almost no room for error. I would get a small fish, maybe a dartfish or goby of some kind, and feed it only what it will eat...

You could just put a filter sock on the inlet pipe going to your sump. No worries! :D

It seems like a reasonable price. Downside being it has no reflector, or UV shield (needed for a DE bulb). This could be made pretty easy though. It would no doubt increase the intensity of light in your tank. I think the 70w should work well for soft and non-acro corals. More is better for...

If it were me, I would spend the money on a good skimmer instead of a wet-dry. Those things become nutrient traps on a reef tank, and live rock provide all the bio-filtration you will need anyways. Excessive nutrients plus intense lighting equals massive algae blooms!

If you allow one light per a 2'x2' area, you can't go wrong. I think you could run a 14k bulb without actinics just fine, as you could with some of the 10k's (just check the Kelvin ratings first). With 250w MH, you can keep any light loving corals you want up to a tank depth of about 24". Double...

The ballest is remote, and plugs to the fixture with a cable.

A 20k bulb has a blue tint to it, which is why you don't need actinics with them, since they are built in so to speak. Some people don't like this bluish color, but you really don't notice it unless you have been running whiter bulbs. Some just look better than others. I like Aqualine-Buschke...

In general, if you want to keep sps corals healthy and happy, you need intense lighting. This means MH, VHO, T-5 or some combo of. The brighter the better. With anything else, you may keep them alive, but chances are they will grow very slowly and turn some shade of brown in color. If you want...

I haven't used them, but I've seen them being used on tanks that looked great! If you have a tank 24" or longer they would be a good choice. I know people who keep pretty decent sps color with them. Maybe someday they will make them shorter than 24", but I'm not holding my breath. :lol:

Sorry, double post. I'll go get sleep now! :lol:

Marine Depot has the full Lamotte test kit line. They are a little pricey, but very high quality. I've been getting into using colorimeters lately. Much faster than regular test kits. My buddy who works at the water treatment plant turned me on to these. When I get the money, I gotta have one of...