Rascal

IMO, ditch the wet-dry combo sump and put a container with enough room for the skimmer you want. A standard size fish tank would be fine: 20high 24x12x16 20long 30x12x12 29g 30x12x18 Any one of those would give you enough room for the skimmer being offered here: http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?show...c=28190&hl= at a really good price. You can always add baffles later. Just go to any glass shop and ask them to cut pieces of 1/8" or 1/4" plate glass to your specs. Then get a tube of silicone and you're all set. Also, it is never a good idea to restrict the air intake on a skimmer if you can help it, because the more air you have mixing with water the better your skimmer will do what it is designed to do. A better way to drop the level of foam in the skimmer body and stop it from overflowing is to reduce the pressure needed for water to exit the skimmer. On some skimmers this is accomplished by opening up a valve on the outflow. For a skimmer like yours the best way would be to lower the height of the exit pipe.

For prevention, Chip's advice is about as foolproof as you can get in this hobby. One thing I would add as far as advice on dealing with an existing problem is to cut back dramatically on water flow. I found that when I failed to do this, all the Kalk stayed in solution and the Ph remained high. My tank was basically one big Kalk reactor. When I turned off the CL and Powerheads and just left the return on, the Kalk settled out and the Ph dropped in a few hours. Turning the pumps back on too soon caused Kalk powder to go back into solution and the Ph went right back up.

And its best branches would keep threatening to leave your tank and move to Spain. Speaking of Spain, if any of you ever get hold of a Barcelona Millipora, let me know.

I've had two and both have them have nipped at pocillipora - pink and green - but nothing else. Only occassional tastes, nothing that really hindered growth, although that might have been different if they were just small frags.

I would not add Kalk in this circumstance. Kalk is a balance additive which will raise both Ca and Alk, and you don't want that right now. Ideally you want to slowly raise Ca up to desired levels while letting Alk fall on its own as it is utilized by the calcifying organisms in your tank. So you are looking for a Ca-only additive--basically just Part 2 of a two part solution, but any calcium chloride additive will do. With Alk as high as that you may get some precipitation as you start adding Ca (that may be why your Ca is so low right now) but as long as you go slow you should be alright. Before you do anything else though, make sure you verify the accuracy of your test kit, if you haven't done so already.

I'm not quite sure I'm following you either, but here's how I do it in case that helps. RO/DI goes to FW resevoir with float valve and auto-shut-off on the RO/DI. ATO in sump feeds from this FW resevoir. Then I have a SW mixing tank which I feed with a Mag 5 sitting in the FW resevoir. A cord switch turns the Mag 5 on and off. Another Mag 5 with cord switch sits in the SW mixing tank and feeds the sump when I do a WC. There is also JG valve b/n the feed pipe and the RO/DI which I can turn on and off. Here's how it works. Starting from scratch (storage tanks empty), I turn the JG valve on, feeding the RO/DI until the FW tank fills up. Then I turn on the feed to the SW tank, add salt and turn on PHs, and leave the JG valve on until the FW tank fills again. Then I turn the JG valve off (so just in case my ATO fails the results wouldn't be disasterous). Next time I do a WC I repeat the process. A pump in my sump empties about 25G of water into a sink, then I hit the feed pump from the SW mixing tank to replac that, then the feed pump in the FW resevoir refills the SW mixing tank, then I turn on the JG valve until the FW tank is refilled, and turn it off until I am ready to repeat the process again. It would be better to have everything gravity fed but my system and space just doesn't allow for it, so I am forced to rely on pumps with switches. Other than that though, it works pretty well for me.

I'm a sand guy, but like Rocko said it is a personal preference. You can certainly have successful systems either way. I have a 4-5" DSB in my display, partially hidden by 3" of trim. I also have a 55 Gallon DSB/Fuge with about a 10" DSB. The organic grungy stuff is part of it. In my system so is coraline growth on the sand, so it doesn't look white and clean, but that's fine with me. Regardless of which way you go, if you have detritus building up you need to change something IMO. In my tank I have the following for flow (conservative estimates): return - 1000; 2 x mj900 mods - 1000 each; 2 x Tunze 2055 - 1000 each; Dart on CL - 3000. So about 8000 gph in a 150G tank w/ a DSB. It's all about flow dispersion and where you aim it. Trust me, when I dial in my Alk, keep up with water changes, and don't do anything stupid (like OD with Kalk ), SPS do just fine. Keeping phosphates low enough for good sps growth requires some intervention, but I have never had detectable nitrates since I added a DSB. IME the best thing for keeping a sand bed looking clean is a sea cucumber, but all that is necessary to have a healthy and functioning DSB is to seed it well and leave it alone. I like live rock from many different sources and periodic additions of rock and sand to the system - diversity, diversity, diversity. Make sure you don't have any sand bed predators. Pods, worms, bacteria, stuff you can see and stuff you can't --- that's what makes a sand bed work. Good flow and a good skimmer will keep it from getting overwhelmed. On hermits -- I pulled all of them from my main tank a couple of years ago prior to an interceptor treatment and have never looked back. I prefer lots and lots and lots of small snails - various species of nerite are great, plus the omnipresent stomatella, and a good number of ceriths and the smaller type of nassarius. A serpeant star or two plus the nassarius will quickly dispatch any corpses without the need for hermit assistance, and a few brittle stars will take up residence in those spots where detritus would develop and help you deal with that. The above is what has worked for me, but others have done pretty much exactly the opposite (BB w/ hermits) and had great success. Nothing against cats . . . but as they saying goes there is more than one way . . .

Agree with everything John said. There is a chance the fish didn't have ich but was stressed out and got it when it moved to your system. There is also a chance he did everything he could (I have seen that UV unit and it is awesome) and there are still a few protozoans living in the system. Quarantine all new arrivals and give them lots of TLC as they make the transition. Even so, no matter what you do or where you get your fish, some will not make it. Nature of the hobby. I bought one of those $40 tangs around the same time and after a week in QT in my own system, put in one of the cancer center tanks. It is doing great and the kids and the staff LOVE it.

That was my first thought too. Where are you getting your fish? Have you seen them eat in the store before you buy them? How do your water parameters compare to the store(s) you buy from? What is your acclimatization / QT process like? Most stores keep their fish systems at a much lower spec gravity than our tanks (1.015-1.020 seems to be the norm). Also, what are you using to check your salinity? I recently had a reminder of why not to use swing arm hydrometers - the cancer center tanks were using one that read about .03 low. Which meant that 1.027 was really more like 1.030. Adding a fish from water at 1.015 would take quite a while to properly acclimate to that level. Just something to think about. I was also recently reminded by Copps how important it is to QT fish - and not just for disease prevention. They go through so much stress b/n capture to shipping to wholesalers to shipping to fish store to shipping . . . And often they haven't been fed through all of that so they don't pollute their shipping water. Adding an already stressed and weary fish to an established tank can be asking a lot. Not only does it have to adjust to yet another set of water parameters, it also has to try to deal with the established tank mates. Copps' point is to allow the fish to adjust to the system parameters and whatever food you are feeding first and get its strength back before adding it to your tank. One parting thought -- IME when you are going through one of these periods it is not a good idea to add any fish that you do not really want in your tank, just because you are trying to see if anything will make it. As luck would have it, those will be the fish that live.

For stores, MD: Aquarium One, Mr. Coral, Scales Tropical Fish VA: Aquaco, Blue Ribbon Koi & Marine, Fins & Feathers, and Pristine Aquariums If you are going to be around Baltimore, you really shouldn't miss The National Aquarium in Baltimore (www.aqua.org), which is much bigger than NADC (www.nationalaquarium.org). Also check out the Natural History Museum in D.C., they have a new ocean all exhibit which is supposed to be pretty cool. (http://ocean.si.edu/ocean_hall/)

Exactly. Consider the hair algae itself as your test kit. If it is growing you have excess nutrients. When it starts to die off, you are winning. Pull it and keep doing whatever you did to make it die off. Agree with this too, in part. A lot of people skip the water quality part and just start adding herbivores willy nilly out of desperation (been there, done that). It is very hard to deal with an existing problem this way, and sometimes the new stuff just dies or eats each other (like hermits vs. snails) and makes the problem worse. I think herbivores are an important component in the battle, but water quality should be the #1 priority IMO. Skimmerless? Since you are having algae issues maybe try doing WC's 2x week and see if that helps. A little more diversity in the cleaning crew w/re: snails would be a good thing too. In stead of 8 tonga maybe a couple each of tonga, cerith, nerite, . . . . Agree with this too. Do absolutely everything you can think of to minimize nutrient import and maximize its export. When you have tried everything else and are still having the problem, do a lot of reading on GFO and Vodka/carbon dosing and consider those options.

For all the reasons mentioned (especially the prospect of adding more little anemones to our already overpopulated planet), I recommend ALWAYS wearing gloves when you reach into your tank. Only problem is I don't think I've ever owned a pair though. In all seriousness, some common things you really should be concerned about: sunscreen (toxic to corals) insect repellent (toxic to fish/corals)http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?act=post&do=reply_post&f=12&t=27415 the array of environmentally irresponsible chemicals that some folks use on their lawns (sorry, editorial comment ) gasoline I don't wear gloves but I figure there is enough of that stuff and more that makes its way into our tanks one way or another which is why I always run some kind of chemical filtration media -- just b/c you never know. Last thing, if you don't wear gloves, remember that it is often a good idea to wash your hands after handling stuff in the tank as well. Not just for the toxins (like palytoxin) but also some of the bacteria (strains of vibrio sp.) can be pretty nasty.

Whatever sand you have is "live" by now although probably not very well populated with critters yet. If your fish are dying in just a few days I would not suspect starvation as the cause. If you have other fish that are doing well, nothing is seriously wrong with your water parameters, and you don't see any obvious signs of aggression when you add them, the most likely explanation for such a quick demise is that they weren't too healthy to begin with, IMO. For an already weakened and stressed out fish, the stress of the transition to yet another new environment can be too much. Also, you don't really "need" a fish to sift or filter the sand. In fact, if the health of your sandbed is your only concern, a sand sifting goby is more of a detriment than a help, because the reason they sift the sand is in search of the microfauna (microscopic-or-nearly-so worms, pods, etc. . . ) that really keep a sandbed healthy. That's not to say I wouldn't recommend keeping a goby with a sandbed, just don't think you need to. The sand will do quite well on its own as long as you don't put too many sandbed fauna predators in your tank, have good flow w/o deadspots, . . . . the usual stuff. If the aesthetics of the sandbed is your concern, the best thing I've ever had for keeping it looking clean is a tiger tail cucumber.

Yes, or just paypal to "gracesprano@yahoo.com". Thanks so much.

Here's a couple of updated shots after adding some of the nice live rock donated by dshnarw: You can see a little yellow tint coming back in the water on the left tank. Not sure why exactly b/c the skimmer is working great and I am running chemi-pure in there as well. I've never seen water in a reef tank get yellow like that. My only guess is it must be something coming out of the rock. The 20# of rock offered by vaironman turned into more like 50-60#, and with that and the rest of the dshnarw's rock we completely reaquascaped today. Still a little cloudy in the pics, but they are starting to look like reef tanks! xCGx filled a 5 gallon bucket with corals for us last week, including this huge monti cap. I didn't think there would be anyplace to fit it, so I got out the hack-saw and came up with this: I'll try to post some more pics later in the week as things (hopefully) clear up.