One of the most rewarding parts of being associated with UTMAS and other forums is being able to help out my fellow hobbyists as well as get expert advice and help from them. When I set up my first Reef Tank I was unfamiliar with how much help was out there and had to learn many lessons by attending the school of hard knocks. I did most of my research on the Internet and soon learned that there is a vast community of, “Fish Geeks”, out there all willing to help and I quickly joined several forums and started my education on how to build and maintain a successful Reef Tank.

Since that time I have talked with hundreds of new hobbyists trying to learn the basics of setting up their first tank. I started a series of articles on the subject that I called Reef Tank 101 which I was hoping would be a simple straight forward set of lessons on the subject of setting up a saltwater aquarium. When the first draft of my the first topic became many pages long I realized this was going to be a huge project. It was looking like my 7 part series was going to turn into 20 or more articles. Don’t get me wrong I was happy to do it but I wanted to get this information to the UTMAS users quickly and it was just taking much more time than I had to give. Then I was doing some research and happened to see this E-Course on About.com titled Saltwater Aquariums 101. After looking at the 5 day course, (actually 5 lessons that you can comfortably digest in 1 day each), I found that it was organized very similarly to the work I was doing. Since this is basic information I decided not to reinvent the wheel and simply post a link to the course on the site.

For those of you looking at setting up your first aquarium or trying to master the basics of this great hobby I highly recommend you take a look at this e-course. Do the lessons in order or pick and choose what interests you. Either way I think you will enjoy the lessons and they are filled with links to other sources and topics that may perc your interest. So here is the curriculum.

Day 1: Getting Started Today we will be determining the type of aquarium you will be starting as well as the right location for your new tank.

Day 2: Filtration, Sumps, Protein Skimmers, Canister Filters, Wet/Dry Filters Today we will be we will be learning about and choosing the heart of your new aquarium: the filtration system.

Day 3: Lighting, Canopies and Hoods, Live Rock, Substrate and Sea Salts Today we will be learning about which lighting and sea salts are the best for you as well as live rock and substrate.

Day 4: Setting Up, Fish, Invertebrates and Corals Today we are going to assemble your new tank and all of its equipment as well as learn about the fish, invertebrates and corals that will work for you.

Day 5: Quarantining, Maintenance, Water Changes, Foods & Feeding Today we will talk about quarantining new additions and maintenance tasks as well as feeding your tank.

Imagine getting the equivalent light output of 100-125W of Metal Halide using just ~36W of power, having the color temperature tunable from 8500-20000K and do it for under $200…sound crazy!? How about never having to buy another expensive bulb? How about cutting your electricity usage on your tank by half? Still sound crazy? Not anymore…not with a DIY light fixture…and I am going to show you how! In this article I will give you the step by step way to get it done based the distillation of many hours of online research and my own real-world build. If you can work a soldering gun, strip wire, and buy stuff online, you can do this. It takes just 15 steps and about two hours!

I will cover all that is necessary to get the lights going, then how to mount or hang your light will be up to you.

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Many of you know that we made the long trek out to SoCal for Max (www.marineaquariumexpo.com) last weekend. We did it for three reasons: 1. Raise money for UTMAS, 2. Tell the world about UTMAS and get sponsors, and 3. To showcase our sponsors the LPA and Cerameco!

Well, I guess we were successful…

http://reefbuilders.com/2010/04/15/ceramecos-vida-rock-great-shapes/

This is a perfect article seeing as we just had Burt do a presentation on the importance of flow.

Many people always ask, how can I get the most flow in my tank for my dollar?

Well, there are SO many choices out there when it comes to powerheads — from rinky-dink pumps from China labeled WangChao, to power heads that make awesome wave action for hundreds of dollars. But, if you want the tried and true Toyota Camry of powerheads for flow in your tank, then it has to be the Maxi-Jet 1200 Powerhead.

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Just a reminder to make sure to come out this Thursday to our meeting at 7PM at the Living Planet Aquarium. We are going to have some great content. Burt will be doing a talk about the importance of flow in your tanks and how to best get some…

I will be doing a short preso on the importance of having an aquarium controller and I will also demo the Fulana 12 with auto-top-off controlled by an Aquacontroller Apex.

Be sure to make it!

Meeting Details can be found here

So some of us get so depressed when we have our fish die I just wanted to let you know you are not alone. This is a picture of the losses found during the morning cleaning at a very professionally run LA marine wholesaler. This also shows how one pic like this if taken out of context can cause quite a controversy. It is the nature of the hobby. It also shows why the costs by the time fish get to us can be quite high as at every stage until the fish get to us they go through incredible stress. RIP little fishies…

Just a reminder, our next meeting is next Thursday at 7:00 PM. More details can be found here. http://www.utmas.com/utmas-info/meetings/

Total build time of 5 minutes, total cost under $30.

Warning: Do not add any elements to your tank without testing before, during, and after.  I, nor UTMAS are responsible if something goes wrong.

Why use Kalk?

The Kalkwasser powder will help to maintain the Calcium and Alkalinity in your aquarium between water changes.  Some aquariums have high demand for skeleton building elements, as such, these elements need to be replenished on a continual basis.  This reactor is one way that some Coral Propagators are using to maintain these high levels, allowing them to grow corals faster.  Some of these Coral Propagators are using this in place of a calcium reactor, while others are using this in conjunction with a calcium reactor.  Personally, my calcium reactor runs at a high drip count, thus lowering the pH in my aquarium, the Kalk Reactor helps bring my pH up to an acceptable level.

How does Kalkwasser work?

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