Free stuff to first one that claims them!

[Tomoko Schum]

Hi stolaas,

We have a number of people in Madison-Huntsville area. You can come over to take a look at my tank, too, if you'd like. A number of us often cross our paths at Coral Reef Aquatics (John Newby's shop) on weekends.

Tomoko

 

[baddraw]

Hmm maybe we should wear a reefcentral name tag when we all go to Johns???

 

[buzzbait00]

baddraw and stolaas!
It seems we are all in the same boat!I lost alot of my Tank money in Vegas last month and Im leaving for Destin in a few weeks.I was thinking maybe we could go in on a catalog/net order maby in mid to late August.Split shipping!Tomoko refered me to two catalogs, Doctors foster&smith and That Fish Place or Live Fish Delivery.com and LiveAquaria.com

Buzz!

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Before placing orders from these catalogs, check with John Newby and see if he can match the prices. He often can match online prices. Even if his prices are slightly higher, you can always expect good services from him. You can pick and choose from what he gets in. If something does not work, you can get a replacement pretty easily. I even ask him to hold livestock for me for a week or two to see if the livestock will recover well from the stress of shipping. I am using his tanks kind of like a substitute QT tank

For something he cannot get, I have organized a few group buys and split shipping. The most recent one was a group purchase of clean up crew and some zoa from Aquatic Island: http://www.aquaticisland.com/
It was a great success. Their service was great and the livestock was superb.

Tomoko

 

[stolaas]

This sounds great. I have been going to Lucy' Lagoon, nice guy there. I don't know where Coral Reef Aquatics is, can someone tell me? Yea splitting an order would be good. I get all my equipment from Foster&Smith but there shipping on Livestock is crazy. Splitting it would be nice. But if John Newby will match online prices we mights as well go there to save the shipping. Tomoko, I would love to come by sometime. By the way, is Tomoko Japanese? I see you are a translator, I am teaching myself Japanese.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Yes, I am from Japan.

John's place is between Athens and Madison. He is open only on weekends. He is complaining about the enormous shipping charges himself and he raised his prices partly because of that. However, his prices on livestock are still good in general. Here's his website address (it's kinda under construction - he really needs to improve his website, though) : http://www.coralreefaquatics.com

Tomoko

 

[stolaas]

Cool, I will have to go there this weekend then.

We were just blessed with a baby girl four weeks ago. We named her Sakura. I am very much into the japanese culture and I teach Kobudo within the Jinenkan.

 

[stolaas]

http://www.stolaas.com/sakuradojo/

 

[H@rry]

Kewl web site!

 

[stolaas]

Thanks H@rry

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Curtis,

Which part of Madison do you live?

Tomoko

 

[Tomoko Schum]

baddraw,

You asked about low light zoa. In my opinion, a majority of zoa grow very well in a variety of conditions. I have a bunch in both high light area and shaded area. In low light zoa stretches toward light and their faces become larger whereas they stay more compact in a high light area. How much light do you have on your tank?

Tomoko

 

[stolaas]

Tomoko, I live off Balch north of 72

 

[Tomoko Schum]

I live in a subdivision off of County Line Road south of 72. So we are not far from each other.

Tomoko

 

[stolaas]

Yea I know where all those are. I drive down County Line about every day when I have to drop stuff off at FedEx. Glad they finally got that street done. I remember when it was only two lane down the entire street, what an improvment!

 

[baddraw]

Tomoko right now i have a t-5 setup with 2 54 watt tubes and i'm using the standards that came with my 55 gal tank just to help supplement a bit. Hoping to get a 250 watt MH fixture to go with the t-5's

 

[stolaas]

Baddraw, I have just 4 T5s with individual reflectors on my 55g tank. There has been a lot of research on these lights and have found they put out more par then MH if you have the individual reflectors. I run 1 Aquablue 11K (60/40) and 3 Blue + and have beautiful blue color.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

I still like MH lamps over T5's. It's really a personal preference thing. 8Ball seems to like his MH fixture better than his T5's, too, but some people swear by their T5's.

One MH lamp can cover 2 feet by 2 feet area. A standard 55 gallon tank is 48" x 13" x 20". It will be very bright in the center but not so much toward the ends with only two T5 lamps. I suppose you can still do a lot with it by choosing and placing livestock carefully.

Tomoko

 

[baddraw]

Well actually Tomoko I was planning on 2 250 watt MH but gonna have to get one first and then the other when budget allows, lol. Also wish I hadn't made the mistake of getting some corals off of ebay( what a total waste of money). Live and learn I guess, from now on I suppose all my stuff will have to come from Johns as I can afford it.

 

[Tomoko Schum]

Before that, just ask here if anyone is willing to part with some corals. I for one take a number of frags to John and others are doing so, too. I trade my pink pom pom xenia with John for live rock rubbles so I can keep harvesting xenia. It's not an even trade but then again we need to support our LFS so they are around for many more years. However, I would not mind giving away some of my corals to our fellow reefers in NARC.

Tomoko