Hey from SE South Dakota

I'm glad I was told about GIRS! It'll be great hearing from other reefers that are a little closer to home!
Me? I've only had my set up since Nov. 1 '09. It's a 46 gallon bowfront.
Filtration:
eShoppes 300gph overflow into a DIY 10gallon sump. Flow there is pushed up to a 21 gallon remote fuge that hold my ATS, chaeto and 34 mangroves. (For you critics: I know the ats and mangroves should get first crack at the nutrients in the water but the fuge came first and I was too lazy to replumb it LOL). There's a total of 89 lbs of rock and a 6" dsb in the DT. Mechanical filtration by DIY felt filter socks, changed everyother day. Chemical is a media bag with 3 Tsp's of charcoal in the first compart-ment of the sump. I change the carbon out at every weekly water change. Skimmer is a Octopus 100 HOB with a 350gph needlewheel pump. It hangs on the sump at the intake area and even though it get to the yuck before my plants I haven't emptied more than one full cup a week for the past two.
Lighting:
Current USA Nova Extreme Pro 6x39 watt T5HO. 3 ATI BluePlus, ATI 12000k Powerblue special, UVL 75/25, GE 6500k daylight. Was an Odyssea 4x39 but I recently upgraded to ATI bulbs and the act of changing them or that they are higher quality caused a ballast to burst into flames. My advice..don't buy Odyssea anything lol. I planned on upgrading anyway but to an IceCap 660 ballast and SLR reflectors in the Odyssea fixture but that kinda went up in smoke.
Flow is created by 2 SEIO 530gph aimed so their output crosses. That flow is cut by 2 214gph Powersweeps. A maxi-jet 350 flows into and through my rockwork. All of this creates turbulence throughout the tank that I like and my corals seem to also.
I have a pretty standard CUC and if anyone is interested I'll list all of my fish and corals in another post. Glad to be here and hope to make some new friends in the hobby!

 

I'll post a better picture of the DT tomorrow. That one was taken about 10 minutes after the ATI bulbs were put in and the ballast burned up.

 

Thank you! My wife has me on a very tight reef budget so I have to figuire ways to make alot of what I need or utilize things I already have like the tote I used for my fuge.

 

Beresford. It's right on I-29. I'm about 25-30 minutes from NE of Vermillion or 35 minutes due S of Sioux Falls.

 

It's more of an overlapping schedule. The lights on the fuge run for 18 hours a day. I've read that the mangroves and chaeto will grow best under lighting in the 6500k range. If you noticed in the pic there are 10 propuagules that haven't sprouted yet. I had them floating in styrofoam but the other 24 were poked into the substrate. The 24 took root and sprouted leaves in less than a month. 1 week ago I took the 10 floaters and poked them into the sub, they're already getting roots. Watch having them in your DT because I've heard the roots can and have broke glass but eventually I plan on building a 180 gallon shallow lagoon and mangroves will be allowed to grow down the rockwork and pretty much freely into the display.