treesprite

Maybe try PVAS. Plenty of FW fish people there.

I just saw the guy who gave the fish to me, in Starbucks. I told him how the fish is doing, and that I'm treating it for the fungus (he didn't know enough about fish to realize something was wrong with it). He said he had it for about a year and a half, but he got it from his mom's friend who had it a few years. He seems happy that it didn't die. I'll probably do another saltwater treatment when I get home.

Still going normal power. I think the piece of plastic was the problem. I didn't see it when I just looked into the top of the impeller from the end of the pump, because it was down in the bottom of the teeth where I couldn't see it without take the impeller completely out of the pump. Thanks for educating me, Tom. This is the first time I've had a pump with a controller - I thought it just work like a variable switch, and didn't realize that it would be sophisticated enough to take this kind of feedback from the pump.

The pump is still acting normal. I'm not sure what the longest time has been between the slowing episodes, but the last one was maybe only a couple hours.

This tiny piece of black plastic was in the impeller (size reference is the square of toilet paper it's on). Going on Tom's point of an impeller imbalance, I'm hoping it was just this making the pump slow down.

I will take apart the pump and see if something is wrong there. I think I would rather have a skimmer pump that doesn't require a controller.

Well, I got the board out without disconnecting the wires. I'm wondering if anything can be removed that would prevent the automatic behavior.

It didn't work as hoped. I'm not sure how many hours it went. I can't afford a new pump right now. Using my old skimmer would probably be no better than just re-starting the power on this one twice a day with some hours of down time. The controller boxes are one piece except the ends come off and the board slides in. I would have to disconnect the two power lines to take the board out, otherwise I'd be able to see if there is anything else simple enough for me to do. Maybe if I look harder, I can find some random post about fixing this thing, or find out how I could bypass the controller.

I'm wondering if disconnecting the cable from the controller panel will allow the pump to work without being affected by the controller feature. That's what I just did, but I won't know for a while if it fixes the problem of the controller slowing down the pump on its own. It's a Reef Octopus pump, but I can't remember the model, something with a 3 and some zeros and an S at the end The controller buttons never worked when I bought the skimmer used, but it was okay because the pump was running full speed at whatever setting it was stuck on. Several days ago I discovered the problem with the pump getting slowed down (runs, but not enough to make foam). If I disconnect the power then reconnect, the pump goes normally for a while, then at some point in the day slows down again. I'm not sure what is triggering the slow down. I read that some DC pumps will do that if they detect a big change in water level, but my water level doesn't really change due to ATO. Finally I decided to take the box apart. I thought there would be a way to use the control buttons from the inside, but the inside of the front panel is somehow just completely smooth, but with a cable sticking out of it. The cable connects to the circuit board just like any computer cable, so I just disconnected it, closed the box back up and connected the power. The pump is working full power right now. I don't know how long it has usually been lasting, since I haven't had an opportunity to sit around all day watching it - I don't know if it is an hour or half a day or variable. If anyone wants to save me the trouble of having to watch and wait and worry, you can just tell me right now if disconnecting the cable will have solved the problem. Any advice, suggestions, feedback, etc is appreciated. Thank you.

Sorry to see you go. Good luck with the sale, and with your relocation.

Thanks for the tip!

I have to make a correction... I left out a zero - the SG is to be 1.003. The fish got through the treatment just fine, acted perfectly normal. I had the SG at closer to 1.001, because I was worried about the accuracy of the refractometer. The nice thing about knowing the correct SG, is that the volume of water doesn't matter, and size of the salt crystals doesn't matter.

Thanks to WetWeb Media (Bob Fenner), I now know that betta fish can tolerate specific gravity of 1.03 for 10 minutes (table or aquarium salt, not reef salt). I wasn't getting consistent information anywhere else on the internet, and certainly not specific information about salinity measurement. Now I can do the treatment without thinking I'll accidentally kill the fish.

LOL. I think it was mainly my ocellated dragonets eating them. Apparently it is hit or miss for people who put dragonets in a tank just for flatworm control, but it would probably not hurt to get one "just in case".

The tan colored flatworms that don't eat coral are usually harmless if few in number. Some fish eat them, so they are often just live self-producing fish food. One time I set up a fishless frag tank that was plumbed into my main system, and after several weeks it had tons of flatworms, even though I never even saw them in my DT or sump due to fish eating them. AIl the frags came out of my own DT, but even searching carefully, I found no flatworms in the DT.

I really advise against putting a DSB in the display tank (deep enough for nitrate reduction, 4+"). If the bed gets disturbed too far down or just goes bad, you could be looking at annihilation of all your livestock. Either do a remote DSB or do an ATS instead.

Posting on PVAS hasn't proven helpful. I finally saw the fish eat one pellet early this morning. It swims around normally. I need to get it cured of this fungus. I learned that fungus and other FW fish stuff can be treated with SW. I never would have thought of that. Even nitrite poisoning can be treated with salt. Not reef salt, just plain salt with nothing added (some sold as "aquarium salt" has the same anti-caking agent as grocery store salt). It's a shame that won't fix our SW fish problems. At any rate, medication is like $12, "aquarium salt" is like $8 at Petco, and non-iodized Kosher salt from Harris Teeter is $2. I got the grocery store salt. I hope it works.

I look forward to seeing it all set up.

I ended up posting on PVAS today. Hopefully, someone will take the fish, or at very least tell me how to treat the fungus it has.

I just use an Aqualifter.

Fish is still alive. I forgot about the tank I have that just has wood in it; I used that water to do a WC, even though the water is dark brown from tannins (won't hurt the fish).

The 36x18 50g or 65g are perfect for a small space. I have had both. I think I like the height of the 50 better than the 65.

I'm not putting the beta in the big tank, it is staying in the 2g tank. I did a 1/3 water change with the dark brown wood water. I put charcoal in the beta tank to try to clear the color. I hope the charcoal works, because I'm gonna use the wood water again when I do a change in a few hours. I'll go to regular RODI once the ammonia is down. I just can't believe I wasn't thinking about the wood tank all this time. I could have done this yesterday.

Oh, I just realized something. I've been oblivious to the fact that there is a 50g in the corner of the living room half filled with dark brown water from trying to leach out a 3ft piece of driftwood for over a month. Will there be the right kind of bacteria in there? There must be some nitrification process going on, because, looking through the dark water, it looks like there is probably algae growing on the wood (I was so busy that I haven't been changing the water, which is why it got evaporated to half full). The pH, I'm guessing without testing, is probably about 6.5 because of the tannins.... I'm not sure what pH betas need, will have to look it up. Timing was just not right for setting up the planted tank I wanted to do just so I would be able to use the wood that sat around in my place for 5 years.

Thanks anyway!