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Everything posted by rdavidw
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My 150 is starting to get a bit crowded. The three that are going the craziest are the colt coral (Mostly on the right side), the pulsing xenia (Mostly on the left and across the top) and the green star polyps (Middle left and right). I don
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What is the best way to do water changes? I used to have fish only and would simply mix up the new salt water in trash cans and then drain my tank down while vacuuming the crushed coral. I would mark how far to go down to match the new gallons then pump the new water in with a power head. I now have some softies and one of them is growing up to the edge of the water. I am hesitant to drain a portion of the water and risk killing it. Should I devise a way to pump the new water into the full tank and figure out a way to take the overflow out of the sump? What about a T in my return line after the pump with valves on both sides? Would it harm the mag 9 pump to run semi-dry? There has got to be a simpler way to do this. Am I missing something obvious? Thanks for your help. Dave
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From the album: Corals
The progress so far -
Part of my Pulsating Xenia has turned yellowish and looks to be dying. Anyone seen this before? I just noticed it today. About a week ago my tank temp dropped down to 73 for a few hours. It typically goes down to 77 at night and up to 79 during the day. I have had the big Xenia for about two months and my other stuff looks ok, except some of my pink coralline has bleached a bit in the last few days. Nitrates = 0 Phosphates = 0 Calcium = 430 Alkalinity = 10 dKH Temp = typically 77-80 PH = 8.2-8.3 Salinity = 1.026 ish 150 gallon glass tank (6) 96Watt Compact Fluorescents 30 gal sump with refugium (5
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From the album: Corals
Any ideas? -
From the album: Corals
Any idea what this is? Its still pulsating. -
From the album: Corals
Coralline bleaching -
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From the album: My FOWLR - less fish
Cheato gone crazy -
From the album: My FOWLR - less fish
Who wants some? -
From the little research I did, both the Reeflo and Panworld pumps are very durable. The Reeflo has the advantage of running quieter, using less wattage, adding less heat to your tank. They also have the design advantage of operating more efficiently the more the flow is dialed down. The Panworld type pumps typically are pressure rated and have the advantage of being able to use smaller diameter tubing and will push smaller amounts of water higher. IMHO the Reeflo is a clear winner if you do not have a significant head (over 6 feet) and can use the larger diameter tubing.
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It happened to me about three years ago. I woke up to the sound of running water around 4am. I ran downstairs and glanced at my 150 glass tank. It had a crack running from the front bottom corner up to the front center of the tank. I must have woken up fairly quickly as the water level was still fairly high. There was a steam of water shooting out in a sheet along the crack. I was fairly groggy and the first thing that came to mind was to try to keep the water in the tank. I ran and got a trash bag and put it in the tank along the crack and that slowed it down. I then ran and got my water change trash cans and filled them up. Once they were full I siphoned the water out the window. The tank was still leaking while I was doing this. I tried to put duck-tape over the split but it would not stick. I would guess about 50 gallons hit the floor. It was a very long morning. I had mostly fish at the time and was able to get much of rock in the trash cans with them and then hooked up my wet/dry to the cans. Luckily, my tank is over an un-finished basement so the loss to the floor below was fairly minimal. I had carpet at the time and tried to get a wet-vac on it right away but it was just too much water. I had to have the sub-floor torn out and replaced and then up-graded to hardwood flooring. Insurance covered some of the cost and the tank company sent me a free new tank. It turns out that the plastic center brace slowly split and the front glass panel bowed out till it failed. I would keep an eye on them, especially if you got some hot lights on it. Here is the brace crack.
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From the album: My FOWLR - less fish
Bad -
From the album: My FOWLR - less fish
Very long day -
Cool! - Let me give it a try . . . . That was easy. Thanks Tracy. Dave
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The clicking stopped. I will post up some photos. How do you get the photos to show up in the body of the post? I see a place for a URL but don
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Hey Jason - I would like to ditch the barbs but went for the ease of 1" non-kink tubing. I hooked them up on Friday and they are working well. The weight of the door should be off-set by the water flow pushing up from the bottom. I used lots of Weld-On # 16. I have my Dart valved back, it was just too much wide open. The crushed coral substrate was getting kicked up and the fish looked scared. I have 2" non-kink running to the Dart and then out to a 1.5" union and ball valve to a three way 1" Y. I guess its not a Y but you get the idea. One of the 1" lines goes to a 40watt UV with ball valves on each side to regulate flow and for easy removal. The other two lines each goes to a SWCDmod. I have a total of 6 one inch retuns running over the back of the tank. The UV on the loop and the sump return are a constant flow of around 600 ghp each. The other 4 run two on at a time and I would speculate they are pushing a little over 1,000 ghp each with my main valve turned 1/4 way down. I have them angled oposing eachother and down at the front glass. I want to change to a sand substrate but am worried it will get kicked around too much. I now see why the under-substrate returns are popular. One of the SCWDs makes a ticking sound mid-rotation. Its not very loud but noticable. I don't think the door is hitting anything? Its about 10 sec each on the switching and the flow is very random.
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I built my refugium about a month ago and put a fist sized ball of chaeto in it. I run three bulps for 12 hours. The 16" cube refugium is now almost solid chaeto. I had high nitrates before and now its too low to messure. The chaeto is teaming with pods and little brittle stars. Anyone want some? I am in Germantown MD. I am new to this also. Should I be throwing out some every week or so. Its starting to push out of the water its so full. If I should chuck a bunch is there any trick to getting the pods and other good food life out of it? Every time I rotate it my fish line up under my sump return.
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Very well so far. I hooked them up to a dart on my loop on Friday. I have the dart split into three 1" lines with two going to the new roboSCWDs and one to a UV with a ball valve. I had to turn down the main flow - I would guess it was over 3k fully open and all the sustrate was blowing all around my 150 gallon. I have it down around 2Kish gph now and the flow seems good. One of my RoboSCWDs makes a kocking sound mid-rotation. I read another post that had knoking with a non-mod with high flow. Its not loud and the other one is silent. I made sure there was clearence on both before closing them up. Its about 10 seconds each on the switching. There is no noticable flow out of the non-active sides. I have them hooked up to two pairs of returns over the back of the tank so the flow is very random. I will post any failures or updates.
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http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?s=&a...m&album=251 Thanks Jason for the mod. I replaced the SCWD dam with a bigger one and did not carry the 1