Big Country

I've got a tube of whatever Avast Marine sends with their media reactor kits to glue the acrylic pieces together

I've used the magflake, bought mine from Southern States, and Epsom Salts, available at any drug store, to make the magnesium additive and have had no issues with it at all over the more expensive Magnesium additives from BRS. If you want some magflake to give it a try I can spare some since the bag I bought was more than a 5 gallon bucket full. For the calcium additive, I have mixed the Prestone Driveway Heat up in a gallon jug, have not noticed the jug turning brown or any issues with it at all. Was unable to find the dowflake or Peladow last winter. Have used the soda ash from BRS for alk since I don't want to go to the trouble of baking the baking soda, just easier to buy it.

The water level will be low in the DI Resin cartridge, it will not fill it up like the other cartridges

Was great meeting lots of new people and seeing some that I already knew. It's wonderful to be around such great people with so much knowledge that they're more than willing to share. Was fun for my first Wamas frag fest extravaganza, definately won't be my last.

First thing I would ask is what test kit are you using? API test kit read 80 on my tank but with Lamotte test from Marine Scene was only 15.

I'll bring 10 gallons of IO

I glued a piece of eggcrate to a aquarium cleaning magnet and hung it in my sump to hold my probes. But yes Avast Marine and Eshopps both make magnetic probe holders

No, my ACIII is plugged into a outlet which is prior to the GFCI

I've had heaters and pumps plugged into my DC8's pop my GFCI a couple of times, the main problem that I have had is that when the GFCI pops the A level DC8 went off with the loss of power. I had redundancy on the B level DC8 with circulation pumps, heater, and other things, problem was that when the A level went out my ACIII lost contact with the B level DC8 so it wasn't controlling anything, luckily my CO2 was off when the power connection broke so I knew something was wrong when I got a PH alert from my ACIII. I've thought about moving one of my heaters to a Ranco controller seperate from my ACIII just in case I lose power to the DC8 again.

Aquarium One is a very nice store, lots of drygoods, fish and corals. I used to go there all the time when I lived in Germantown. Paul, the manager, is great to work with if you want something special.

Brings back memories of working in pet shops years ago during and right after college, last one being in the late 80's, used to bag the fish up and blow in the bags all of the time. Of course almost all of the fish at that time were freshwater fish. First time I bought a fish and saw the salesperson spread the bag out and then grab it real fast to keep the air in I remember thinking that it was strange and why didn't they just blow in the bag. Funny sometimes how things have changed in our hobby over the years.

When I rented apartments I never had to pay a fee for my aquariums.

House of Tropicals has one of the 500L size set up as a show tank, is very sweet looking and the lights folding up were very nice. My wife was very interested until she heard the price of $4800.

My current ato, from autotopoff.com, has a safety float also, it's never failed and set off the safety in 2 years of use so I've never bothered to clean the lower float. My old ultralife ato stuck a few times and I had to clean it with vinegar.

I've given mine a vinegar bath and toothbrush scrub before when I've suspected that it was sticking

I try to help out when I have knowledge of the discussion topic, alot of people have helped me out over the years and it seems that I still can't get it right to get my tank really going, alot of that is me getting lazy in the summer and not keeping up with the water changes though. Anyone is welcome to swing by whenever, just give me a yell if you're in the area. Always willing to talk aquariums, fishing or hunting. I'd be in for a tank tour of all the local guys and gals.

I live over in Lithicum Heights right by BWI airport. Not too far from you to visit but too far to tank sit.

I've got two of them in my tank, never cause any problems I only see them at night. I also have a large green serpent star that got too big and started eating all my snails so it now lives in my sump, he's the sump monster...lol

I have the ACIII and currently have temp and 2 PH probes attached to it. One PH is in my sump, the other is in the lid of my calcium Rx so that the controller can turn the CO2 solenoid on an off depending on PH. Also have an orp probe in the sump but that is plugged directly into my Ozone unit.

Well, my power finally came back on this afternoon at 1:00 something like 110 hrs without power if my math is correct. Finally saw the mystery wrasse when I was mixing some water, still keeping my fingers crossed for the McCoskers and the Leopard. Lights should be on soon so I'll see how everything looks and hopefully my missing fish appear.

My power is still out. Took a chance and plugged in a blue led strip I had to get some light in the tank last night, saw all my fish except a McCosker's wrasse, Mystery wrasse and my Leopard wrasse. All of the fish I saw and inverts came out and fed some. Hooked a 750w inverterter to a marine battery and turned on the skimmer for a couple of hours to get more air into the water and skim out a little bit of gunk. Still running on the neighbors power which is allowing me to keep the return pumps on and a feed pump to my calcium reactor to keep it from going sour, unplugged the CO2 solenoid from the DC8 last night so it doesn't come on if the power does come on just to be safe. Luckily my tank is in the basement below ground so was 79.4 last night when I checked. Getting so humid in the basement that the plumbing on the tank is starting to sweat and drip. If power not on by this afternoon when I get home will probably unplug my freezer and plug in a dehumidifier for a few hours.

I am still without power this morning, managed to get a power cord from neighbors on Saturday morning to plug in refrigerator, freezer and the return pump for the aquarium and a circulation pump for the frag tank, refugium and reactors. Luckily tank is in basement so not getting really warm was only 78 when I checked yesterday and the water is cool to the touch. I have seen most of my fish with a flashlight so don't know what the losses are going to be yet. I finally fed the tank last night, figured the fish would find the food in the dark if they were hungry enough. I came to work today to get some A/C

I bought mine at BRK, if you want to make a trip over by BWI airport I've got some to spare.

Still using my old ACIII

When my son was very young I found many toys in my sump which sat beside my tank, I finally covered it over with acrylic to keep all the lego's and matchbox cars out of there.