craby

It's definitely at the bottom. I have it sitting in a plastic bin & see where it is leaking. I'll try to add glue to the outside soon. I can't add glue from the inside because of the plastic dividers that hold the CPVC tube in the middle of the reactor.

I've seen some freeky white worm parasites that looked like maguts come out of fish's skin and eyes during a fresh water dip. If any parasites come out you'd see them on the bottom of the container.

I'm still in! Please don't give up my spot. This is going to be great [tu]

Chris, The thread count varies by size of pipe (1/2", 3/4"...) but they are all National Pipe Thread or "NPT". HTH

Miller, Does the AB regulator include the solenoid and needle valves in the $90? If not then MRC seems to be comparably priced.

I'm looking to add a little preventative measure to my set up to possibly avoid this plague. I'm going to use a sheet of plywood under my stand, extended a little on all 4 sides of my stand, with carpet on the under side to keep the permanent floor (hardwood, carpet, tile...) from getting permanently imprented by weight of tank. I'm also going to picture frame the perimeter of the plywood with 2x3, sealed and caulked to make a boat, just in case I do get a leak. One thing that has dawned on me as I mull this idea over in my mind is that my drilled sump will be resting on the plywood, as well as my Iwaki external return pump. If I do get a leak, my external pump will become a submerged pump. Does anyone have an idea how to keep the external pump dry in this condition? I don't think I can raise the pump because in the case of a power outage the pump would drain and when power comes back on it would run dry (not good).

Chip, Which would be easier to build, the box or the tube? Which would be cheaper? My inclination is that the tube would be easier to build, more evenly dissolve the media (no dead corners), but slightly more expensive.

Chip, I like the simplicity of design #4. I think I'm missing something here though. What makes this any different than a single chamber CA reactor. Is it the recirulation feature. I here people rave over the duel chamber reactors. Do you want duel chamber only to recirculate any undisolved CO2? And is this option commonly not available in a standard single chamber reactor? If this is the case it appears that we have the best of both worlds with this design.

Chris, I saw on Darren's post, somewhere around page 42, where somebody posted picks of a reactor that had the side panels extend full lenght down to the base in one piece. I think this would be a more sturdy frame than using the 2.75" tall legs. What do y'all think of that idea? Would it be more sturdy?

I want to make a mini bulkhead out of 1/2" PVC pipe in the side of a 2 gal nano that drains into a 5 gal sump which returns back to the 2 gal nano via a small pump. Does anyone know if the glass bits sold at HD can be used for fishheadamania maximas drilled holes so small in glass non comercial like, or do we have to go to TRT to get such a small hole drilled?

Chris, I think the only impact people will have with chosing reactor # 2 or 3 is the quantity of material we would need to group order from each supplier. So we would need a parts list for the reactor as designed in each option. I'm not having a biased opinion when I say this. I just feel that there is a whole lot more thinking envolved with coordinating the construction of (2) designs at the same time. Somebody is bound to end up with a hole drilled in the wrong place or not enough height on the dividers to turn it into a baffle. I also made up a preliminary parts list from what I've read on the RC post to see what we could buy locally at HD ILO buying online. On this post Darren said he tapped the base acrylic panel to receive a 1/2" threaded PVC fitting on both the supply & the return line. In doing so he involved alot of threaded PVC pipe fittings that are not commonly sold in the plumbing industry, and particular at Home Depot. This requires more online (accurate quantity) orders. One thing I've done on a DIY bulk head is to take a PVC 90 degree elbow slip fitting on the air side of a connection, use PVC cement to glue a piece of PVC pipe (approx. 1.5") to it, and glue the outer 3rd section of a slip coupling (sawed down to slide over pipe) down onto the pvc pipe exposed on the inside of the tank. I want to check with Darren to see if the threaded fittings were neccessary to make a firmer fitting connection. If this is the case, I'd rather hunt these fittings down on-line rather that have a leak. I'll post what I find out.

Chris, Is the blueline HD70 quite just while you're looking at your tank (on the 2nd floor 48] ). I'm looking for an external pump that will sit directly behind my tank. If this is the case it will be exposed, and so noise is an issue. Whould you recommend this pump in my circumstance, where it's in living space?

Do we have someone in the group that can laser cut the acrylic sheets & prep for the recirculation pipe holes, & screw holes in the lid, gasket, & flange? If this is possible we'de end up with a mucho sweet finished project. I just finished a Kalk reactor at Chip's where we cut the lid & flange in circles w/ a router to go over a tube, but with a square box, cutting the lid to fit square & tight around all 4 sides of the box on a table or band saw might be tricky. Chris, How are we coming with the parts list? I've been reading the reactor #2 post (man is it a long post! 40+ pages) and would like to be the order man for all of the fittings, pipe, tubing, weldon glue, gasket, & acrylic if this position has not been filled. I'm not too familiar with where to get the CO2 tanks, valves, pumps, & ARM but can be the front man for this as well once we find out more about it.

Also a tricky part was cutting the holes for the screws in the lid. Luckily we had one of our team members who could lazer cut these holes & the gasket to match exactly no matter which way you try to line it up.

I just sent a post on RC to see if any of them have experienced a problem w/ the ARM packing down on the 2nd side. My vote is for design #2 unless I see them post back that this is a problem they're experiencing.

One thing to keep in mind is that the recirc loop pulls any unused CO2 back through and if you use the baffle, how do you keep unused CO2 from building up in the top of the reactor? Do we use 1 fitting on each side of the baffle?

30 gal: hippo tang, 6-line wrasse, banger cardnal, blue cromis, & 2 spotter gobbies.

I also got acro envie at Dr. Mac's. I got 4 frags and lost 2 so far. I'm chaulking it up to my inexperience as well. I don't have all the bells & whistles, testing instruments, controllers, etc... & don't know if my water parameters are in line or not.

Chris, If this reactor is under pressure & the lid needs to be removable, how do you plan to keep water from going over the right baffle in your drawing? You can't really glue it to the lid to seal it. Maybe a piece of rubber gasket.

The second design looks cleaner & takes up less space. Sounds like it's more efficient as well. It's got my vote.

One thing that Lowes has that we should have done a group order on for the Kalk reactors IMO are the nylon screws & wing nuts for the lids. McMaster Carr has them for real cheap, but they come in 50 & 100 count. Another thing that Lowes has is the John Guess fittings. Armson, maybe your bro can beat McMaster Carr's price on these. We will probably need to order the acrylic, glue, power heads, & CO2 tanks online. We'd also need misc. tubing & pipe fittings, and probably a new router bit. I'm probably just stating the obvious items, but we'd be off to a pretty good start once we have these items.

I'm in. I can group order supplies, but can host cut/glue party (no work shop). Luke C.

Jacob, Well said! Clownfish4, Do you plan to keep him in your qt. If you move him to another tank with other fish, are you concerned he might eat your other fish. This is something I've been worried about. Maybe there is a particular type that stays small that you can have with much larger fish w/ no problem. Anybody know the best type?

Talking about sand sifting critters, I heard that the nassarius snail also feeds on sand bed fauna. Do you think this is true? And what is fauna?