Origami

Dave, I'm going to touch base with him and see what I can do. As for passing his name along, I can't do that obviously without his permission. He's not in the business of reselling, nor is he set up to do so. He's a commercial landscaper. He's also like family to me (I sat with his mom for weeks a couple of years ago up until she died of brain cancer) and the relationship is very important to me. While I know that he'd do it for me in an instant, I don't want to abuse the relationship, you know?

I've never heard of a failure like the one you're describing. Did you get the same kind of failure with the other bulb? Just curious: Was this hole in the inner or the outer envelope, and about where on the bulb was it located? I'd agree with James - chalk it up to cheap bulbs. 14,000K Phoenix bulbs have great color all on their own. Depending upon the T5's you're using, you may find that the supplementation changes the overall look.

David, my top-off runs through my kalk stirrer and is delivered using that peristaltic pump that I got from you a while back. the pump delivers a liter an hour and I run it, this time of year, about 12 hours a day.

Gotta catch up .... huff.... puff ....

Steve, the work looks kind of sloppy to me. Is that the way they shipped it to you? It makes you wonder: Haven't they any pride of workmanship?

Congratulations, Bob. You're averaging 5.57 posts per day according to your profile. Some of us have some catching up to do!

Hmm.... I wonder if you have a bad ASOV (automatic shut off valve) or if it's hooked up right. Just a guess, but that's the component that's between my third canister and my 4th canister on my T3.

Cold water definitely slows production. I've boosted the pressure into my T3 (by boosting the house pressure at my regulator) to 70 psi. I regularly produce 30 gallons of RO/DI overnight, so I have good output. Your situation seems way outside of normal to me. Have you called the guys over at AWI? They're very happy to help determine whether or not your unit is operating properly. We had another guy here a little while back who had an issue that he posted about. I decided to drop a line to AWI myself that linked to the thread and they took it from there.... Like I said, they're more than happy to help.

Similarly, I'm looking for a high-wattage (500W) heater to double up in my expanded system (right now I'm running 3 x 250W Visitherm Stealth). Champion Lighting has their titanium Blueline heaters (available in 500 & 1000W, as well as lower wattages) which are supposed to be re-branded Aquamedic heaters. Does anybody have experience with Blueline heaters? The reviews online seem to be few. For those I've seen, they've been modestly positive, and not negative, but still not enough to give me the comfort I want. I guess that I cold just throw another 250W stealth online but that means either using 4 outlets on my DC8 or using short extension cords to give me more outlets to plug heaters into.

Bob, here's something interesting for you (a DIY sulfur denitrator design): http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2009-01/diy/index.php MQ, your sandbed is minimally thick (especially to the fore) to be considered "deep." How old is your lighting? Overfeeding may be, as you've observed, the source of both phosphates and nitrates - both of which can fuel algae growth. It's possible you also have high dissolved organics in the water. Do you run carbon? How big are these fish of yours in the 75? Three tangs could represent a pretty high bioload in a 75, if not now then later when they're larger. You could definitely be a candidate for an RDSB or even the denitrator linked to above.

That's why I bought two when I was looking for a 'fuge bulb. Anyway, it turn's out that the temperature of the lightbulbsdirect bulb is 5100K, not 6500K. Sorry for the error. Anyway, that's what's so nice about the HD bulb that I've posted information on (above). It's 5500K, 100W, and, at $7, cheap. You will need a reflector, but you can get one cheap at HD for something like $5 as I recall. And, better yet, no shipping. I've not tried it, but at this price, I'm sure that somebody here will.

Have you thought about just making a 3-dimensional egg crate frame, zip-tying the rocks onto the frame and covering the gaps with pond foam (plucked and coated with sand)? This exact approach was used successfully to aquascape a tank described in a thread on RC. It's not only removable, but also allows you to put stuff behind it (if desired) such as power heads and the like.

You may find this link helpful: http://www.melevsreef.com/fuge_bulb.html I have both a reflector CF with a Kelvin rating of 2700K ($7 at HD) and a TCP bulb (6500 K, from lightbulbsdirect.com) over my fuge. This, non-reflector version from HD looks interesting. It's 5500K and only $7 each: n:vision 27 Watt Daylight Compact Fluorescent Light (CFL), 1 Pack, Model 5M82755K, $6.97/EA Each http://www.homedepot.com/webapp/wcs/stores...03+90401+530232 I've not tried the last one (and it would require an external reflector, but at $7 for 5500K - that's pretty good.

Good luck guys.

You did what you could given the circumstances and the product. It's tough. Sometimes we're too eager. Most of the time we dodge the bullet, but when it gets us, it's hard. They'll be OK during the fish-hiatus. The ich parasite requires a fish as a host. Get your fishes out and their life cycle will be broken. Some people crank the temperature up on their tank (80 F) to speed up the life cycle. I'd probably just leave things as they are and run six weeks without fish. You may also want to run carbon sometime toward the end of the downtime just to remove any trace of the medication (which will probably be gone, but it doesn't hurt).

Kick Ich is not copper-based (which are the meds that are affected by the presence of live rock) and is not affected by biofiltration. It's effectiveness is reduced by carbon and skimming, though. Somebody else here was using kick ich a few weeks ago with some fish. I don't recall their outcome, though. For some reason, I thought it was not good. Hmmm... I'll have to search to refresh my memory.

For future reference, some treatments are rendered useless in the presence of live rock and other calcium substrates. Carbon, too. To be safe, let your tank rest six weeks before you introduce fish again. Sorry for your loss. You're not the first to feel the sting, but the sting is no less painful. Good luck on the next go-around.

It looks like ich with something else going on (most probably a secondary infection in the eye - the browning of the head area looks like the onset of LL disease though I'm not sure that it can come on so quickly). Depending upon how long your tank was in hyposalinity, bringing it back up quickly may have been extremely hard on your fish's kidneys. Fish can tolerate a rapid drop in salinity but are much less tolerant of it going up. My advice is get your fish out and into a quarantine setup right away. Treat them outside the main tank for a month to six weeks. A variety of treatments are available to you, including hyposalinity, copper, and methylene blue / formalin. Treatment can be stressful and you may lose some fish. It looks like, however, without action you may be at risk of losing all of your fish.

Good thinking....

I've got about a cubic foot available to any taker(s) who would like it. It's in my sump for now. Please PM me if interested, otherwise it heads for the dumper tomorrow night.

Steve, I'd give the live framing look a try. It sounds like you could always revert if you don't like it. Done right, it could look quite natural.

Sweet stock, Johnny. The Pearlberry and Red Planet are in acclimation now.

Agreed. I thought the same thing - just a simple PVC pipe. Maybe a threaded adapter at the top and a plug that you can mount the float to, yet still get at it if you need to. Pretty cool.

Innovative! I love the out-of-the-box thinking, Dave. The success depends upon the long-term integrity of the check valve, which may or may not be more reliable than a float valve, but I love the concept.

Your calcium level will deplete 20 ppm for every 1 dKH that is used up in the calcification process. Just monitor your calcium levels and add calcium as the alk depletes naturally. Personally, I target 425 calcium and 10 dKH alk in my system, but there's a wide range of "acceptable" parameters. Alk seems to be the most critical figure for growth. Keeping it above 8 seems to be the generally accepted wisdom.