treesprite

Yeah i know - one of the few fairly local ones. I'm really looking forward to it, as it will be my first one.

well, most events seem to be in Virginia, so it would be anywhere those are PM sent

I have an undrilled 45 display as well, and am converting an empty 38 that has been sitting here for years, into an end-to-end sump/fuge (same dims exept couple inches shorter). I'm going to use an overflow box - you can convert on old HOB filter into one if you have one laying around. I did a "rough draft" using a mini Whisper HOBF. The HOBF has to be the kind with an inside that is divided in 2 sides where one is deeper and the motor hole is on the shallower side. The Whisper is like that. It automatically has - without any adaption needed - an anti-siphon-loss well that overflows to the side with the water outlet to the sump/fuge. All you have to do is create the box that goes inside the tank, then glue it to the part of the HOBF that hangs over the edge of the tank. Attatch the outlet tube that goes to the sump/fuge to the hole where the motor was, and there you have it. Use a pump or strong PH to return water to the display. If you decide you need your HOBF again, all you have to do is detatch the tube the the in-tank box, and put the motor back. I used an old cake icing tool just to taper down the motor hole to a smaller tube size since im using tubing not PVC, but theres no need to do it if you use a bigger tube. A ribbed tube will fit over a smaller opening if you heat it, then will seal tight so no gluing is needed, then if you reall must take it off, it's possible. I have a majorly cheap camera, but did the best i could. What I'm doing is splitting the 38 the long way down the center to hide the equipment. The front will be more like a display then, with a lot of LR rubble and macros carefully placed for aesthetics, and a few damsels for color, then the back will have some "wild" fuge space. Of course the front-to-back has to be set up with an overflow & return as well as the 38-to-45, in order to keep the water level up in the display section of the fuge. I'm thinking to add some "shelves" to break up the high/narrow dimensions of the front section, then I can place rock and macros on those which will give them more water flow and allow me to use more, and to the damsels will make it seem like there is more space rather than less. If I ever work up to fragging, I can use the shelves for frags. My problem is that I have no $ to buy all the stuff (willing to trade babysitting for the stuff - weekends & all nights if anyone is up for it... good for a weekend getaway from the kids!)

Is anyone interested in saving $ on gas by letting me ride along and pitch in for gas? It might make going to events out-of-county more realistic cost-wise. My car is overheating with no $ to fix, and because I have asthma, I can't drive far in summer without AC. I live right by lakeforest mall and can go to your house if you aren't passing mine. Thanks

I have no frags, but I am near germantown.... in monkey village right by the mall - maybe we could carpool to some of the gatherings and save $$ on gas?

if Im able to make it out to VA, I'll bring some veggie burgers, since i dont eat meat

i meant in terms of being able to maintain as close to it as possible and still have a very nice aquarium in which the animals' needs are respected and met. If a fish gets stressed at a space of less than 100 gal per specimen but stays happy and healthy above 100, then it stands to reason that its against nature to make the fish live in a space smaller than 100 gal

thats what amyloodinium (aka oodinium) does - people think the fish are all better, only to find all the fish dead the next day. I kept my display fish-free for a couple of months and treated the fish in qt with copper and did FW dips. I didn't know about hypo back then, but still, irradicated the disease, lost nothing, and haven't had a disease of any kind in the several years since that was done.

and yet no one has said you aren't (jk)

thanks for letting me know about the shop - I'll try to find out the address I looked around at a bunch of different sites where people talk about using the Krylon, and apparently the general consensus is that it's safe, but there are always people who say to never put anything painted in the tank.

ive been looking around trying to find a suitable fan - thanks for the tip, I'll go take a look in the next couple days to see if i can pick one of those up

regardless of how well it appears to work, how healthy or not healthy the fish may be, the simple fact is that it's against nature, and isn't the whole idea of this hobby to emulate nature? Further, my opinion and judgement is that the man is seeing these creatures as objects and eye candy, not living beings

So are they actually fumigating where the stuff will be full force in the air and everywhere? I was thinking simple spraying along the baseboards, hence a relatively simple solution. Sorry about that assumption.

My tank was swarmed with them a few years ago... very disgusting they were on everything and slithering all up the glass at night, poking out of every little crevice... so yukky! The only way I managed to get rid of them was by changing the substrate - haven't seen a single one since then. Now I'm seeing places on the net that actually sell the things - why would anyone want them? You can build a trap, however, if you have nothing to gobble it and you get a bunch of them. THey sell small traps, but I had built one out of a long hard plastic tube with holes in it. You put some bait in it and the bws will swarm into the tube. Then you just pull out the tube and dispose of the nasty things.

Jason, have you actually used the krylon? Or anyone? I would just want to make sure it won't hurt anything. Ordering from the net is a big hassle and the shipping shoots the cost way up, so I don't wnat to go that route (I did look around though)

hey Josh, nice meeting you

does anyone know of a hardware store that sells black plexiglass, where they will cut it for me? I'm turning an empty 38 into a sump/fuge side-by-side the 45, but splitting it the long way to hide the equipment. I checked Home Depot and Lowes - they will cut but neither sells the black.

i guess both you and the anemone are relieved

I covered the top in plastic wrap for a couple days... just have to make sure it's completely sealed around the edges.

How likely is that to happen? I used this black rubbery stuff that people dip tools into to rubberize the handles, or on boats because it's oceanproof. The LFS reccommended it to me. The good thing about it is that if you ever want to get rid of it, you can peel it off. I can't remember what its called - something like dip something. It might be easier to find in a tool isle than it would be in a paint isle. The coraline is good over the black. I was almost completely covered, but had to empty the tank at one point, during which there was a work emergency that prevented me from filling up till the next day... the coraline all turned white and flaked off :( If you ever move your tank, do something to keep the walls moist if you want to keep the coraline.

this is interesting - I was researching this subject last night, so am happy to see someone else bring it up. I can't afford a chiller, but I have a travel cooler which uses the thermoelectric method - I took the cooler apart to see how it worked, to see if I could use it somehow. I had no clue what I was looking at, so I looked the cooler up on the internet to see what it was, then upon learning what the system is called, searched to find out if there is such a thing as a thermoelectric chiller for aquariums. THere's got to be some way to seal the gadget into a casing to make it useable in the tank.

very nice

It comes from fish or water from tanks where it existed beforehand, which is why people should never put water from a new creature into the tank.

thanks Jason

the ping pong sponge is very cool