My friend Scott Fellman sure is coming out firing with great commentary and topics over at Reef Builders and today’s post is no different. Scott’s latest musing is titled “Energy Efficient Reefkeeping: 8 Tips to Help Save Money and Energy” and has some great tips to help cut back on the energy hogs our aquariums can become and a perfect Blue-Collar Reefing topic. I have decided to include Scott’s tips below as well as add my two cents worth to the conversation. Great job Scott and keep the great posts coming!

I think we’ve all been in that really dark place at one time or another in this hobby, you know the times where things just seem to be moving from bad to worse quicker than you can think. The last month or so has been really trying on my skills and confidence as a reefer but the good news is the tide is beginning to turn. You see, after enjoying a brief stint in the zero nitrate world-I was plagued with high nitrates and on top of that, was losing corals and having zero polyp extension.

I’ve started contributing to one of the best reefing news sites Reef Builders for the last few months and am pleased to announce my latest post “If it’s Broke, Better Fix it” went live yesterday. What a great Father’s Day surprise!

In case you’ve never heard of Harbor Freight Tools, I’d suggest you take a quick look online and see if there is a location near you. This is a great store with a wide range of tools and gadgets from gardening, woodworking, metalworking, pets, electrical, automotive and everywhere in between. Granted there are some duds as you’d expect for any $.99 tool but there is a lot of value as well.

I wish I had some great news about my red slime algae or cyanobacteria battle – but it’s just bad, bad, bad! If you recall from my earlier post just less than two weeks ago, I had started to get the rusty-red version sprouting up and had dosed with Boyd’s Chemi-clean twice with no luck. Well I just dosed it again three days ago and found out my nitrates have been upwards of 20 ppm just fueling this outbreak.

Acrylic lends itself quite well to the hobby so its no wonder why so many people find this a valuable material for DIY and commercial applications. It is readily available, reasonably inexpensive, easily cut and fabricated and is inert meaning it doesn’t leech off any negative substances or reacts with the saltwater in our systems. There is a lot you can do with acrylic from a simple box to complex components like protein skimmers and media reactors. The best part is, it is not as difficult to work with as you may think. Here are some quick tips and tutorials on working with acrylic. I hope you find something useful and take the plunge and give it a shot.

I threw down the gauntlet at the beginning of April and set the challenge of 30 posts in 30 days and with some last minute scrambling, was able to complete the task! It feels good to get that many posts out and provide my readers with some interesting topics. A definite challenge, this task brought out some great topics I had in my head and I really hope you all found them enjoyable.

If you recall, one of my mantras for Blue-Collar Reefing is to know the difference between cheap and inexpensive. Granted, this is definitely about the cheap side of things but a great way to stretch your budget getting tons of little additional tools and goodies to help out in the hobby. Take advantage of the dollar or 99¢ stores around-you’d be surprised what you can get.

After my post the other day on cooling the tank, I decided to start a project that has been mulling in my mind for a while. Granted this one is nothing fancy and even borderline hack but it works until I can carve out some more time to do it up a bit better. I grabbed a four pack of 12VDC PC cooling fans from a Fry’s Electronics for $14.95, grabbed an old 12VDC transformer, a piece of acrylic scrap and some Velcro to rig together a three-fan cooling unit.

Yesterday our local reef club had the pleasure of having Paul Baldassano visit to talk about the evolution of the hobby and share with us the trials and tribulations of his nearly 40 year-old tank. Yup, I did not stutter the man has a tank that has been in operation since the early 1970s and I tell you, this guy is the ultimate blue-collar reefer.