ctenophore

Alan's idea is good. I would try that before buying another pump, but if you have a 400 or 600 that would be best. You can also gravity feed it from a siphon overflow with a tee and valve to divert some flow.

Hi Eric You'll want to use a MJ in regular powerhead mode. A MJ 400 is plenty for your case. No need to have much more than 1-2x system volume per hour turnover through skimmer. Justin

Interesting. The package says arctic waters and product of Norway.

Interesting timing on this thread. I just got email a few hours ago from one of the principals at Piscine Energetics about a new calanoid copepod they're harvesting from Norway. Looks like a really close cyclopeeze replacement food item. Cyclopeeze hasn't been harvested for over 2 years, so anything you find in stores is at least that old. Probably still good though. I still have half a block of the big flat packs in my freezer, been hoarding it for a while now

We could help out with the ATOs. Although peri pumps are a hard item for us to keep in stock right now. Maybe in 2-3 weeks when we get more built.

Do we know whether chloramines are used in area water supplies? Anyone know for wssc?

Thanks. The Wikipedia article has published literature as a source for wild lifespan: "Life expectancy in the wild can exceed 30 years.[1] Captive lifespan is typically at least 2–5 years to as long as 20 years in a very large aquarium, with 5–10 years in the average aquarium being typical." The second part is probably just speculation and anecdote. I agree that diet probably has a lot to do with these types of long lived fish deaths. Even though my orange shoulder grazed constantly on both red and green turf algae, it could have been missing something that finally caught up with it. Same might be for Forrest's yellow. I also wonder if eating so much mysis every day might have been detrimental, sort of like people living on a diet of pure steak.

Do you have a source for this? I ask because i lost my orange shoulder tang a few months ago in a similar manner, except it took a few weeks to thin out and die. Never stopped eating a lot of algae and mysis the entire time. So something was going on. I got that fish from Jamesbuf about 6 years ago. Sorry to hear I'm not the only one that had this happen.

it sounds like you're skimming rather dry. Bump up the water level just a bit and see if the buildup takes longer to form. The wiper should be cleaned basically whenever it gets to the point you described, i.e., when chunks are starting to impede skimmer performance. We have looked into AC quick disconnects but I think the only waterproof ones we've found were DC only.

Go with box steel stand and I doubt you'll have any deflection issues for the size tank you're talking about. Just orient it across as many joists as possible.

My dad owned a roof & floor truss company but sold it a few years ago, so I don't have access to his engineers for these sorts of questions any longer. But, FWIW, I used those same size joists for the floor in my FL greenhouse equipment shed. Inside was a large 10'x3'x3' sump and we also kept pallets of salt (2500 lbs) right next to that sump. Never noticed any deflection in the floor or sump (which was fiberglass so more resilient than regular glass). They look flimsy but they are actually very strong, probably on par with steel beams sometimes seen in residential floor systems.

Also the anthias will figure themselves out into a roughly 5:1 female:male ratio. I've observed that ratio in both of my groups of bartletts and dispar, roughly 12 of the former and 16 of the latter. I have 2 super male bartletts and 3 dispars. All started as female.

get all females both in the wrasse and anthias world. my flame wrasses started as all female, 1 turned male & jumped out, then another turned and is now spectacular. Also look at dispar anthias. I've found they are inexpensive and the males get really pretty when fed well. They are also hardy but less so than lyretails. They are very similar to bartletts in mouth structure and presumably feeding preferences. I watch mine feeding on nearly microscopic copepods. They also have figured out they can eat small SA pellets 0.5mm.

Yes, this is possible. Did you build it from a kit, or get the prebuilt one? Just wondering if you want to open it up yourself to replace the shaft or send in to have us do it. Best to send email to support@avastmarine.com so Dan or I can get this figured out for you.

As an "industry professional" who deals with all things aquarium equipment related pretty much every day, I really try to make time to be a hobbyist as well. More importantly, I like to share this experience with my kids, so they see what I do as fun and interesting, not just "daddy's work". To this end, I've maintained a little 29 gallon tank in my kids' room for the past 12 years or so. Currently, my youngest (turned 4 yesterday) loves the nightly ritual of feeding the pair of clowns (bred by Doug Arthur about 4 years ago), cleaning the glass with the magnet, and sitting on my lap watching them eat their dinner by the glow of the blue LED moonlights. Since I get plenty of time to just sit and stare at this tank, I decided that the colors of the orange & red flourescent corals weren't balanced enough; too much orange/red/pink on the left and not enough on the right. Now it's been a long time since I've actually gone out shopping for coral, and since I had never been up to see Richard's setup in Ijamsville, I decided to take a trip up there yesterday. Well, I can say that was as much fun as I've had going coral shopping in what seems like forever. I can't remember seeing as many great corals since when I visited Jason Fox's place many years ago. Everything was in excellent health and super colorful. As soon as I walked in, my plan of just picking up one or two little acans just completely vanished. The best part was I got home and had everything glued down, and by that evening everything was opened up perfectly. I asked both of my sons if they could notice anything different in the tank, and immediately they picked out the ridiculous orange & pink echinophyllia and psammocora frags. Both of these guys really don't take much notice of the corals, they just like to watch the fish and snails eat. So that was a win in my book I think it's time to visit Marco's place soon with them in tow, so they can pick out a new little fish. Thanks Richard, for an enjoyable visit, talking reef shop with me, and for the great corals. Folks, I highly recommend ERC- there is definitely something for everyone there! Justin

Mine does the same sort of thing pretty often, about once a month. Usually I have to let it sit unpowered for a few hours to sometimes overnight in order to get it to boot up again. I am going to try upgrading the firmware, but this unit, like yours, is about 2 years old and has worked well up until a few months ago when the crashing/hanging started. Not sure what would have changed to cause that, but could be some sort of firmware corruption. As much as I like technology, it does make me reconsider how much trust I put in consumer electronics to handle something like my aquarium. I don't really have anything critical assigned to the Apex, and I do have it send me "heartbeat" messages so I know when it fails. My most critical control system, temperature, is on a ETC/Ranco controller rebranded for Aqualogic on my heat pump. So far 7 years and no issues there. That box does it's job very well. I can recall only one ETC/Ranco failure in 15 years of using their controllers, and that was on a QT chiller controller with a mfg date of 1999.

Read this: http://www.beananimal.com/projects/silent-and-fail-safe-aquarium-overflow-system.aspx

Are your drain pipes full siphons or do they carry air? If you switch at least one to full siphon and the pipe is large enough diameter, you can move all the water to the sump silently. The siphon breaks in the return loclines aren't necessary since you have a check valve. But if you use them, switch the locline they're drilled in so the holes are just under the water level. A tiny bit would siphon back if the check valve fails, but at least you wouldn't have the spray.

Lol no pressure, right? I think Tricia is right. The race is on to see who finishes their epic project first

Actually yes, I did make a revision to the dosing system that I like a lot. I eliminated a need for a solenoid valve to control the flush mechanism. Simpler is always better! Sorry, no word on when it will be available or price though.

Interesting. I have about a dozen bartletts, two of which became males. They spar with each other occasionally, but each keep to their own group of 4-6 females and never harass them. They are some of the most peaceful fish in my tank. The males look absolutely amazing; the pink & yellow is so vivid. They have a light blue edge to their streamers on their fins and tail that is only brought out by blue LEDs, and is impossible (for me) to capture with a camera.

You could have just added some monti eating nudibranchs. They'd have fixed your problem in about 3 weeks.

Great info! Thanks Dave. Did you have any luck with recharging all that resin?

Pretty much any anthias is relatively hardy if conditioned to eat frozen/dry food. Some will rarely make that transition, for example purple queen due to preferred food item size. All of the "small mouth" anthias have evolved to stay in the water column eating plankton pretty much continuously, which is why they do best on 4-6 feedings/day minimum. If Marco can get you princess anthias or flavoguttatus in good shape and eating frozen or dry food, then try it out. Also, my male Dispars are some of my favorite fish. They look nothing like the females, and all have transitioned to pellet food. You might try them too.

Stylophora, probably Stylophora pistillata