MOT

Beautiful fish amigo. I am very jealous... I think this website is going to be the end of me...Any trouble with with that Coral beauty nipping corals? I have heard very mixed reviews on that.

heyall, I got a serpent star from a friend when I first set up my 40 gallon reef. It is pretty darn big; bigger than my hand. I see that they are recommended as excellent sand bed cleaners and for eating uneaten fish food. I have never not had one but I tend to think he does a good job of cleaning. However, I had a sixline wrasse that was perfectly healthy one day and then gone the next. I thought that maybe he had gotten sucked into the skimmer because I had rescued my lawnmower blenny out of the overflow box a couple of times. The skimmer is a CPR bakpak2R with the attachable surface skimmer box. Then the lawnmower blenny dissappeared. I chalked it up to the surface skimmer box not having any teeth on it to keep fish out. Then I started to read more about serpent stars. Apparently at night they have been known to arch their center pod area up creating a little cave that a fish might swim under...then they drop on the fish and eat them. I thought that the wrasse and the blenny might both have been good candidates for this trap considering they both sit on the sand bed. So I'm think I ought to get rid of this serpent star...but is he an irreplacable cleaner? Should I get a small one? maybe not as dangerous? Anybody else experience this? Any ideas what to replace him with? All of that aside they are very cool to watch, but maybe for a tank with bigger fish. ~Tom

Hey guys thanks for the advice. I think I will drill the tank although setting up a siphon overflow with float switches keeping it in check also seems a viable solution. The tank is only forty gallons though and I would like to simplify it as much as possible so there won't be too many things cluttering the space like an overflow; one of the many reasons I am adding a sump/refugium. So anyone ever drill an acrylic tank? I have read a few things. They say that you need to keep the acrylic cool or it will crack, also never to stop the drill while it is in the acrylic or it will fuse to it. I suppose I am going to have empty my tank while I do this...a good opportunity to buff the acrylic I would imagine; anybody know anything about buffing acrylic? I did use a hole saw to try and cut a hole in a 3 gallon eclipse (1/8 inch acrylic) and I see some small cracks, so I am not very confident though the 1/4 inch acrylic on my forty will likely be easier. Methinks a sharper saw would help, but dandy 7200 you say dull? por que? Oh yeah, and does silicone bond to acrylic? that I might seal the bulkhead with something more than the O-ring? Does anyone know of a glass shop that might cut this hole for me with diamand bit saw if I bring them an empty tank? I am pretty scared to drill the tank myself. I would just man up and buy a reef ready tank, but I am just a poor college student who unknowingly stumbled into a rediculously addictive(and incredibly rewarding) hobby, I'm sure you know what I mean. Tom

Hi everybody, I am a new member and am interested what yall have to say about siphon overflows. I have a forty gallon acrylic tank currently holding my minireef. I want to connect it to one of the extra glass tanks i have laying around as a refugium. I have an extra 29g, 50g, and 55g. obviously I want to avoid a flood at all costs. The CPR overflows utilize a small pump which theoreticly sucks any accumulated airbubbles from a small hole at the top of the U-tube. This mechanism will supposedly restart the siphon in case of a power outage also. Sounds pretty fool proof to me. As far as drilling acylic tanks... is there an optimal place to drill the hole? I was thinking the bottom might be best because there is no bowing on the bottom because it is fully supported. Is there a difference in sound for either method? I have read some things about siphon overflows being noisy? If anyone has any advice, words of wisdom or reassurance I would greatly appreciate it. I have lost many many many hours of sleep thinking about it. Thanks Tom