ctenophore

Unless you've had a lot of experience with anthias, I'd stay away from P. smithvanizi ("princess"). They are tricky to get on frozen food, and need fed many times per day. P. pulcherrimus ("resplendent") may be a little easier depending on where you get them from. I'd try some Bartletts also. Get all females. They will elect one of themselves to turn male, which usually only takes a few days to a week if they are healthy and eating well. Put them all in at once (after QT & feeding conditioning of course).

I don't think it will hurt anything. I've left lights on by accident for 3 or 4 days straight many times and besides a few corals being shriveled up for a day or so, nothing had any real problems.

I used to have thousands of these, and have seen the same spawning behavior. Now they are very rare in my system. Not sure what caused their decline, as I don't have any predators that I know of, especially in the frag tank & sump. I guess whatever algae they prefer must have disappeared. Hopefully that is cyclical, and they'll rebound when their algae comes back.

IME, they are all the same. I have used Dow and GE that cost about $30/ea and have always had 2-4 TDS after the membranes, then 0 after the DI.

Yes home Depot pavers. I soaked them for about a month before i used them, but i doubt it matters that much. You'll have about as much water volume as i started with. Pvc is less brittle than acrylic.

I used pavers which are cheap and durable. Drill (3/4" masonry bit) and pound in a section of 1/2" pvc, makes a great backbone to start a rock structure.

There is no official cs1 video yet, but if you make one while building yours, I'm sure we can figure out something to make it worthwhile. I do want to start expanding the video library again.

I helped a friend make a wood covering. We just stuck the magnets to screws already in the stand, then spread some thick epoxy on the magnets and pressed the wood panels against them. Held in place for 2 minutes, then done.

the pressure is dependent on how far the water falls between tank level and sump level, and a little bit on pipe diameter (friction will reduce pressure). For example, if you have a siphon pipe in your overflow, and the water level inside the overflow box is at 5', and the sump water level (or gravity-fed reactor output) is 8", then you have a 4'4" difference, which is about 1.5 psi or roughly the output pressure of a small sicce or magdrive pump. This is typically enough pressure to fluidize biopellets and certainly other types of media and feed a skimmer. Also, this has nothing to do with flow rate. If that siphon pipe is 2" diameter, then you can carry about 5000gph with that 1.5psi pressure. I'll take a pic when i get home, but in my case, my skimmer is very tall, so it essentially acts like a prefilter box. The 7' tall column of water inside exits around 18" from the bottom, so a net change of 5.5', or about 2psi. I sized the output pipe at 2", and all my manifold fittings at 3/4", so friction loss would be minimal. I get pretty close to that 2psi at each valve, and about 500 gph of flow on each 3/4" tube. The result is that my single hammerhead return pump that drives the system pushes all of its ~5000gph into the tank, then i get all of that flow again for free, to drive the filtration manifold. It saves me a considerable amount of power each month not having to use a bunch of feed pumps. Hope this helps. I'll try to take a video when i get home that explains it better. I helped my friend with a 120gal tank do a similar version of this and it works very well and silently, too.

I recently made a new manifold for my system with 10 ports. 2" main line with 3/4" spigot barb fittings. Then, silicone soft tubing with antelco valves to each piece of equipment. I love it so far, although if I redo any part of it, i would make the first two ports 1" soft tube. This manifold is gravity fed from my skimmer, so it has a bit less pressure than if direct driven by pump. I'll post pics if you're interested and if i can find some. The antelcos are very easy to fine tune and they act like unions with the silicone tubing which is easy to remove and doesn't harden.

No, just the thanksgiving sale. It's still a better deal than the combo discount though

Thanksgiving weekend sale details: http://www.avastmarine.com/newsletters/thanksgiving_2014.html Happy Thanksgiving everyone! -Justin

I think Petco is buying a hugely successful online/mail order pet supplies business, and the LA/DD stuff is probably barely on their radar. I've got to believe the revenue from dog & cat supplies thru dfs.com is orders of magnitude more than LA/DD. Hopefully they just leave that alone and forget it even exists. If I recall correctly from long ago conversations on reefs.org industry forum, Foster had posted a few times suggesting that LA/DD was barely a profitable operation and more of a loss leader to help sell aqua supplies through DFS. That was many years ago so it could have matured since then into better profitability.

The education is hard to put a number value on, but certainly quite valuable. I'd pay to make my own vs. buy a black box, at least for the first one. The Apex has enough quirks to irritate me; I use one also. At least with my own, I know any problems are within my control. motti, did you ever hook up the atlas stuff to a Pi, or just arduino?

nevermind. LOL no matter what I write it seems I am always a step behind!

Just get some shims, no need to rebuild. If the top surface is flat so the tank is evenly supported, it won't matter whether it is off 1/8" in level.

Build a salinity probe which is much more useful in a salt water tank

$2/lb for a hammerhead water pump is a great deal. maybe we should start selling avast equipment by the pound. Reminds me of Michael Nesmith (from the Monkees) in Elephant Parts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf-76UrHsns Skimmers look like they're running great!

I have an Atlas salinity probe + stamp that I got for the Pi but haven't had a chance to play with yet. IME, a pH probe isn't all that useful for saltwater unless you're using a lot of kalkwasser in your top-off water, or are using a high output calcium reactor. If you test alkalinity and maintain that value correctly, and ensure your tank has sufficient aeration, pH won't be anything you ever need to adjust or account for.

Sorry I keep replying in tapa talk without seeing pics. And then Rob changes his post which kills the context. I love communication on the internet.

He's the #1 livestock man in the industry. All he has to do is say the word and a backer will materialize.

But Kevin isn't near retirement, and if things go south at live aquaria, he'll move and start a new la/dd. He's the reason for its success.

Saltwater catfish are real and the scourge of Florida fishing. They stink, their slime is highly infectious, and their barbs are really sharp. I always just cut the line. Not even gollum would eat one.

Heh you should listen when Rob is over here. We argue like a married couple.

LOL i know of way more failed glue joints and cracked pipes. I'd never have a fully hard plumbed system over wood or carpet. Adding the rubber couplings adds flexibility and resilience to pvc plumbing, especially when connected to thin acrylic or glass sump walls & tank bottoms, or pump volutes.