astroboy

I'd like to buy a few handfuls of cheato, is anyone going to bring any to the meeting?

Hi Dave, I'd like to sell a skimmer and a sump. Are there any steps to take before hand, or do I just show up with price tag, so to speak?

Well, I soaked the whole thing in CLR for 16 hours after which it worked just fine. I'm sort of surprised since it looked clean before the first soak (1 hour) and even cleaner, if that was possible afterwards. Very strange. There must have been some buildup of something that was hard to see with the naked eye.

I've had it for seven months worked fine until this evening. The impeller and interior of the pump are clean, impeller turns nicely, this still happened after a soak in bleach and then CLR. Same thing happens when the float switch is turned off, or when it's turned on and the float is in the "keep pumping" position. I hooked it up to a different Octo controller and the same thing happens. This second controller came with a VarioS-2S skimmer pump. Does anyone know if the different VarioS pumps use the same controller? They look the same but on the back they have a number: C 066404 for the VarioS 6, and C069200 for the VarioS-2S. Not sure if this is a model number or just some sort of serial number.... I also switched out all the cables from the two controllers/pumps. No difference, a few turnovers and that's it. One thing. It turns over (and then stops) when I plug the power cable into the controller. If I turn on the on/off button nothing happens regardless of the cables & controllers I'm using. I do see a spark when I plug the power cable into the controller and offhand I would think that was a problem but the pump still fails with the second controller, with no spark. Perhaps the jack on the first isn't working so well. All this seems to indicate the pump itself is at fault but I can't think of what kind of hardware (solenoid & rotor?) would turn over a few times and then stop, when everything is clean. Sometimes it turns over a few times more than others but for never more than a second or two. Any ideas of what the problem could be? I'm really puzzled here.

I got a backup power supply used for computers and replaced the battery it came with with two 12V marine batteries in series so that 24V is being fed to the power source. I expect some power sources run on 12V but I think that's rather rare. Car batteries work OK also but marine batteries are supposed to be less liable to a shortened life span if you run them all the way down. Power supplies cost next to nothing on craiglist, or on eBay if one is listed close enough to pick up. I calculate that my powerheads and return pump for my 90 will run for about 3.5 days on such a backup. There are instructions on how to do this on the WAMAS site and youtube, easy to do. I paid about $275 for the entire setup, batteries are not cheap, but cheaper than replacing fish and corals. FWIW, in 2007 power went out for four days in Bowie, temps were about freezing the whole time. Didn't have a backup at the time, temps got down to 50 degrees in the tank for two days. Everything survived (LPS and a few fish), surprisingly. I'd prefer not to repeat that experiment again, though.

I've had a mirror up for a couple of days. In fact, put one at the other end of the tank two days ago. The second one seems to have encouraged or prodded the brown to come out of its nook. Seems to be working quite well so far.

I'll give that a try. I let the blue out of the net cage a few days ago and it bickers with the brown but not extremely badly. I had hoped the brown would have decided after two weeks it owned the tank but it's staying out of sight in a corner. The blue comes by every once in a while to give him a dirty look. But the less stress on the brown the better, of course.

Thanks Tom. I've had the original fish in a net cage in the tank for a couple of weeks now; I was hoping scent might be a factor....FWIW, neither fish is trying to attack each other thru the netting, or even paying any attention to each other. Years ago I had a powder blue and powder brown in a 75 and they got along fine, so as I said, I gave into temptation. If things go bad one of them will be up for sale.....

I'm in Vienna; have a trap that worked well on a PBT. Should be fine for a purple tang. Send me a note and you can borrow it as long as you like. (Vienna)

I'll keep that in mind, although I'm hoping I can release the blue and it wasn't give the brown (the landlord) much trouble. Are there drugs you can give fish to mellow them out, take the edge off reality for a while? Seriously. I'll probably throw a blanket over the whole tank and keep it dark for a few days but I wonder if anyone has has a 'better living though chemistry' experience.

I had a closer look, both tangs' bodies are a hair over three inches. Big difference than 5" with fins! So I guess they're OK for a year or two yet in the 90 and so is my marriage. Well, if worse comes to worse I bought a nice fish trap on amazon and I can sell one of them, or return it to the store I bought it from which is run by a WAMAS member I've known for years. But I'd like to keep them both. The powder blue would school with a hippo and yellow tang I had, which makes me slightly optimistic it will peacefully co-exist with the brown, maybe.. The hippo and yellow slowly wasted away, I think now it was because my RODI setup combined with bad test kits was producing much worse water than I had though. I also lost a couple nice long-lived corals I'd had at the same time. I had MH lighting (new good quality bulbs) but with ballasts I think now were was going bad in strange ways (in retrospect, nothing evident to the naked eye). The light looked OK but I wonder now if it wasn't putting out more yellow or UV or something not easily seen by the naked eye that put stress on both the fish and corals. Anyway, new RODI filter, more new test kits than you can shake a stick at, new DC powerhead pumps, new skimmer, and new LEDs that are reviewed highly. Everything looks much better, I'm hoping I'm at the point where I'll know just what to do to keep this tank at optimum. As long as the fish will make an attempt to chill slightly. I hope they do, they're really pets to me.

Yeah.... since the blue was so mellow I gave into temptation. And, 90 gallons is not too big for those fish, I agree. I figure in a year or two I'll have to sell them, or, get a new wife and a bigger tank. Or vice versa. Same result either way.

I've had a powder blue tang for a few years, always a pretty reasonable fish. A few weeks ago I took a chance and got a powder brown tang. Both fish are 4-5" long including fins, in a long established 90 gallon with a lot of nooks and crannies. The powder blue almost immediately started to harass the power brown. I would guess it was more like marking territory as opposed to a mano a mano fight since as soon as the powder brown swam into a corner or other nook the blue left it alone. I put the blue into a net cage, the sort of thing where you keep pregnant guppies, about 6x4 inches, on the hope that the brown would stake out the tank as its own territory and the blue would mellow out. It's been in there two weeks. Aside from the tangs I have two small (docile) clowns, a blue chromis which keeps entirely to itself, and a lemon peel tang I bought a month ago, so overcrowding doesn't seem to be an issue.... Does anyone have any idea of when it might be worthwhile to release the blue and see how things go?

The probe is only a few weeks old. The meter itself where the probe connects to is very slightly corroded. I'll see if I can clean that up and it if makes a difference. I recalibrated with some brand new solution, it seems to be working OK for now....

I have a question about GFCIs, the kind that plugs into the wall, but is not mounted inside the wall itself. I have one plugged into an extension cord that has only one outlet. The wall outlet itself is behind a bookshelf and pretty much impossible to get at. It seems to be that since the cord has only a single outlet the GFCI would still work OK but I've read where this is supposed to not be the case. From what I've read the GFCI is supposed to be first, so to speak (plugged into the wall socket) and the extension cord second (connected to the GFCI), although in these posts its not clear if the extension cord has multiple outlets, ie, a power strip, in which case I can see where a GFCI plugged into one of the outlets obviously is not going to give you any protection for the other outlets in the strip. Any thoughts? Thanks.

Any ideas on how reliable? I calibrated mine the best I could (calibration solutions 7.01 and 10.01) and it says my tank has a pH of 7.65, which is possible, I suppose, except that the vivosun pencil pH meter I have says it's 8.1, so a difference of 0.45. The vivosun gave readings on the calibration solutions of 7.2 and 10.2. I did the measurements/calibrations with two different sets of solutions. So, something is wrong. The solutions, which came in sealed packets, were three years old. Do those go bad after a while? Anyway, does anyone have an opinion on the American Marine meter? I used to have another one years ago and I never got measurements that I trusted. If the $15 pen meters work just as well I'm greatly tempted to toss it.

I'll turn off all the current in the tank and put brine shrimp on it. They disappear eventually but I haven't seen the coral actually ingest anything. It doesn't do anything with tiny bits of fish..... I have a couple of clowns but they never go near the elegances. I don't have any shrimp or snails. There's no direct flow. I haven't seen any filaments. I'll read upon ECS. I'm greatly tempted to toss it before it infects (if that's the word for it) the other two elegances. I had a couple of elegances about 10 years ago, never was able to keep them alive. Got a couple of Aussie elegances in 2010 (with the same clowns), in 2021 they went from great to dead in about three months. I hadn't added anything to the tank for years so I don't think infection could have been a problem. Looking back, the ballasts on my MH fixture failed soon after and I wonder if that didn't result in some sort of bad output from the bulbs. I've never heard anyone claim ballasts could do that but I suppose it's possible. I lost two other corals I'd had fo years at that time also. Couldn't get new ballasts of the same sort and the fixture was 20 years old and really showing its age so rather than experiment I decided to get LEDs.

Thanks very much! Current parameters: pH 8.11 Temp: 78 Alk : 7.38 PO4: .03 N03: 2.3 Mg: 1200 Ca: 430 Salinity 35 ppt A week ago I measured the TDS from my RODI water and it was at 7 ppm. I think now it had been that way for three or four months although right before I put in new media (still waiting on an RO membrane) the parameters were about the same. I did have a fair amount of algae on the glass and some of the corals looked a little bit stressed so I think the water quality was not as good as I thought it was. Right now, the TDS from the RODI reads zero and after a 90% water change the corals that looked a bit droopy are perking up. This particular elegance is at the top of a 90 gallon with 300W Maxspect LED lights and I've wondered if that might too bright, however, the other elegances next to it look fine. The club PAR meter arrived yesterday so I'll do measurements with that. Current is fairly low, enough to move the polyps but not much more than that. I've had the coral that's doing badly about three months. The other two nearly that long

I bought an elegance three months ago that's been going downhill to the point where the polyps are basically non-existent. The mouths are still there. I'm not sure what's wrong since I have two other elegances that are doing fine although I recently discovered my water quality wasn't all that great which I think damaged the elegance. I've since corrected that but the polyps are still non-existent. For whatever reason it seems the elegance is starving.. I was thinking about using a toothpick to push small bits of food into the mouths. Has anyone ever tried this? Any recommendations on what elegances in that condition might like to eat?

Welcome back!

I have three tickets with a camping spot for the yearly observing session the Northern VA Astronomy Club has at Spruce Knob, WVa, Friday August 18 - Sunday August 21. This is a really great time for kids and adults with lectures on astronomy, bird watching, geology, etc. There are good activities for kids. During the nights hundreds of telescopes are set up and people are happy to let people have a look at any number of objects in the night sky. Spruce Knob is one of the darkest night skies east of the Mississippi, the Milky Way is clear as a bell and stars down to about the 7th magnitude are visible. August is a good time for observing since the direction towards the center of the galaxy is above the horizon which translates into great views of dozens celestial objects such as nebulae and globular clusters. The Andromeda galaxy is plainly visible. Day trips include things ranging from caving to the Cass Mountain Railroad, a steam engine up to the top of the mountains one valley over with a magnificent view of the Green Bank Observatory (radio telescopes). The AHSP has been great times for me and my kids but we can't make it this year. Information is at the website below: https://www.ahsp.org The tickets and camping slot total $245. Asking $150. Thanks, Mark

Thanks for the advice folks. I'm going to give various a try.

The pump is in the stand. I've considered running it from the basement but long story short that's basically impossible. Thanks for your recommendation, I'll read on it them.

I need to get a new return pump for my 90 gallon. I'd like to get one that's really quiet. I've read that DC pumps are quiet and use less energy so I'm inclined to get one of those. Does anyone have any reccommendations?