Integral9

Wow. After reading the whole article, and while I don't actively use carbon filtration, I'm definitely going to be more choosy about the kind of carbon I buy and use when I do use it. fwiw: I have a scopas tang in a tank full of algea, cyano and detritus w/ zero signs of HLLE. He's actually what I would call "fat and happy". A bit of a bully though.

You might be a reefer if: - you think taking a part and cleaning a poop filled skimmer is rewarding. - you use up your vacation time to stay home from work and wait for the Fed Ex man to arrive. - you spend more time at work reading and posting on this forum than actually working. - you have more aquariums than cars. - the deciding factor on your next car purchase is whether or not you can put a 180g tank in it. - when you hear the word "MP40", you don't automatically think of a sub-machine gun.

oh, I hadn't realized you had moved your tank. Taking the rock out makes more sense now.

I think you could have saved yourself a ton of work by leaving the sand and rock in the tank. Not to mention all the other livestock. But what's done is done, live and learn. I am concerned about you pulling the sand bed out and then putting it back in though. It's highly likely that you have stirred up the anaerobic layer and released a ton of ammonia and nitrates into your tank. Eek! Have you tested your water? Also, i like to keep a few powerheads laying around in case I have to take down my sump for one reason or another. So if you don't have any extras, I'd pick up 2 so that they can make up for the lack of flow from the sump. As for your skimmer, sometimes electric motors get stuck and a bump or two will set them free. However, if it's been a while since you cleaned the skimmer pump, you might want to do a thorough cleaning; paying particular attention to the impeller blades, impeller shaft and to where the impeller shaft seats in the pump housing.

Call Chuck Norris, he'll settle 'em down with a swift round house kick to the head! but seriously, I'd get rid of both of them and make it a goby tank and maybe some spiny head blennys with a some tiny inverts like porcelin crabs, teddy bear crab, & sexy shrimp.

I've thought about that and I am always looking at the FS/WTB threads anyway. But I haven't decided if I want the "new" tank or not yet.

Another long over due update: First off, the only update to the tank is the 18" strip off the side I have been able to remove with my dremel. My strong man bailed on me, or rather, his doctor told him to bail on me. So I am forced to tackle repairing the frame by myself. As such, the tank is staying where it is as I cannot lift a 180lb, 6ft long glass aquarium off its stand and haul it outside. So I am forced to try and remove the frame with out soaking the silicon in alcohol. The stand is taller than the ones made today which puts the tank up higher, which I like. But this also means I am working about 6ft off the ground which makes it hard to get leverage against the silicon. When I finally got the first peice off, i nearly fell over backwards. Fortunately, there was a wall there to catch me. After that I started to work on the next peice. I figured I might be able to cut this off in pieces easier than whole. However I am not having much luck and I am getting tired of spending all my weekend free time (which is severely limited) doing a lot of work with nothing to show but a small cut in a small piece of plastic. So I am starting to consider just buying a new tank. I have no idea what a new 135g tank would cost and looking for a used one is not very fruitful as a 135g aquarium is not a common size. I could go with a different size, but the 72" x 18" foot print the stand has, doesn't fit many tanks of different sizes. Not to mention that I don't have a truck to haul a 6ft aquarium out of someone's house with.... In hind sight, if I had gotten a 120 I could have replaced the tank twice by now.... ughh.. (face, meet palm) This project is starting to look more like me just downgrading to a 30g as I've already comitted to taking down my 55 and w/out a 135 to move into... there isn't much choice. That's too bad as I've already gotten a reef keeper, ATO, light, skimmer, etc for the 135. I could use the ATO and RK on the 30g, but the skimmer is probably 30g by itself and the light... well I could put 3 30g tanks under it. While I was saving up some money to fix my Audi, some kid backed his truck into her. A blessing in disguise! So his insurance paid up and since I got more than what I was going to sell her for, I took the insurance money and sold her for $1 to a mechanic / SCCA Miata racer. If anyone knows of a 135g for sale or feels like moving a tank one day this or next weekend, lemme know.

I've used chemiclean once before and it worked without any noticeable detriment. But I didn't like using chemicals so now I use what I like to call the "hand swoosh method". I think you know where I am going here, but for the noobs this is where you take your hand make a big wave over the sand and rock effectively stirring up all the loose cyano. The pumps chop it up into tiny bits and since air bubbles stick to it like glue, the skimmer gobbles it up. That takes much longer than the chemical route, and as long as you don't bump a coral or get too rough, I don't think it has any adverse effects. I used to use a turkey baster, but I found that I could easily get over zealous and damage a coral with a direct blast. best to use your hand or a pump like the koralias. lol. my directv dvr has a similar issue.

I think it's about the territory more than the kind of fish. My clowns would also go after snails and hermits that got to close as well. I'm not saying you can't do it, but I would watch for issues down the road. If the clowns are juvi's, then it won't be an issue until they host an anemone (or something else), pair up and become adults. After that you'll notice the territory issues. In my 29g I had a clown w/ anemone and she was fine with other inhabitants. In my 55 I had 2 b&w w/ anemone that I bought as juvi's. When they paired up and started hosting the anemone, they had the entire population quarantined off to the other side of the tank. They never laid eggs to my knowledge, but I hear it gets worse when they do. I had to seperate them after they started treating my tang like a chew toy. funny to see a fish using another fish twice it's size like a rag doll.

cool. but creepy at the same time. I like it.

I think once your clowns pair up, you'll find they will become very territorial, especially if they lay eggs. Personally I would be cautious about mating clowns in a 24g with other fish around. just my $0.02

The 10x and 5x rules of thumb are generally for fresh water tanks. Saltwater I'd say requires 10x at a minimum and genearlly 10x to 30x is recommended. Personally, I would go for a little over the top as your pumps will degrade in performance over time. If I were setting up a 75g, I'd go with a mag7 or mag9 return pump as trocka rec'd (depending on how much of that flow is going through a fuge). Then add some koralia evolution power heads to get the flow up to a little over 30x. If I had the money I would buy the koralia powerheads that are controllable so I could have a wave system. But that'll increase your costs significantly.

Whatever you use (tape or compound) I think as long as you get a few turns on the connection it should seal properly. Hardly anything fits perfectly these days and over tightening could make it never seal properly. So I would just hand tighten it as best you can and then put an extra turn on it with a wrench. Beyond that and you could bust the connection, like OUsnakebyte said.

I'm not sure if it was them or flex-pvc, but I've gotten all kinds of candy with internet orders lately. Seems to be the promo thing to do these days. I don't think candy would react well to being shipped in live orders.

I think your problem is the alkalinity. I see similar stress in my corals when I let my alk drop. I'd raise your alk up, do a water change and if you can dip the stressed corals in a solution of tank water and Restore and Coral Amino to speed their recovery. You can also add those directly to the aquarium if you can't remove the corals. However, you will need to shut off the skimmer for an hour or so after adding the amino acids otherwise the skimmate production will go through the roof. For maintenance, you may want to look into making a simple kalk drip witha 2L bottle and some air line with a valve. One of the problems I have with small tanks with heavy sps populations is being able to keep the calc and alk up throughout the day. eg: When I had my 30g tank fully stocked, it would drop 50 points in a day. Without a kalk drip I was doseing twice the maximum recommended amount everyday just to keep up with the demand. The 150W halide w/ 4x24" T5 supplements certainly encouraged rapid growth.

I don't believe both resins have the color changing dye in them, so that could be what you are seeing. But as a fail safe, I'd check the TDS and if your not seeing a drop in TDS after your RO water runs through the DI canister(s), the resin is spent.

I have an 18" CPR Aquafuge + PS hanging on the back of my 29g for at least 3 yrs now. I got the tank from a backyard in FL and has the name O'Dell printed on it. No tellin how old it is. I had to use a bit of egg crate to mount the fuge as close to the back of the tank as possible as the mounting screws didn't thread far enough. I'd say as long as you try to maximize the weight of the fuge pushing down on the frame and not pulling out (by mounting the fuge as flush as possible to the back), you shouldn't have any problems. +1 I used another bit of eggcrate as a screen to catch most of the algea. I also added a nano powerhead to the fuge to increase the flow in there as it was becoming a detritus trap and my cleaners kept falling into the skimmer section and getting stuck

I have retro fit 4x T5 over my 55 which I am very happy with. After that I got a Outer Orbit Pro series (150w hqi + 4x T5 + LED) to put over my 30g. Which looks awesome, but it's overkill imo. I built a DIY LED light for a 9g that got too moist one day and shorted out. But all of that will be going away and I will be going back to T5s when I finish setting up my 135 (if ever). Over that I will be putting a 14x39w T5 Aquactintics Constellation. I decided to ditch the hallides for two reasons. Cost and heat factors from the hallides and I keep seeing TOTM in RK mag that are purely T5s. I will be interested in LEDs, but I am waiting for the 5W LEDs to come down in cost and become more mainstream.

Yup. I'm contemplating putting the car up for parts / repair on craigslist. About the Tank: After a closer inspection of the damaged frame, it will not be repairable as the breakage extends to the glass. So there is no place for me to attach a patch piece. So I ordered a new frame , hopefully it will be here soon. Anyone have any thoughts on how to / how not to remove an old frame?

That's kinda warm for an american lobster, isn't it? I thought they were mostly fished out of water in the 30's. My wife's from maine, so that's about the extent of my lobster knowledge.... Anyways, if you are looking for more inhabitants, the SF bay might offer some opportunity. I saw some very colorful stars and palys in the "Aquarium of the Bay" while I was there last year. Not sure on their availability or even their names... I think I have some pics I can put up. I'll have to check my photo library when I get home. Also, I've heard that some cold water anemones can be very colorful as well.

IME: The key to flood recovery lies in a de-humidifier. I used to live in a house that's basement would flood about once a year, if not more. Also, my main water line burst and flooded my basement for 4hours before I got home to deal with it. Pulled all the furniture upstairs and shop vac'd the heck out of the carpet with the carpet squeegee attachment. I must have emptied the shop vac 15-20 times. Then flipped on the de-humidifier and emptied the bucket every hour or as often as I could. It still took about a week to fully dry out, but the carpet wasn't ruined and there is no mildew smell. fwiw: Mildew likes cool damp places, so make the room as warm and dry as possible. Also, I walk around barefoot so I could feel the dampness and wouldn't track much / grind much into the carpet. Good Luck.

Hmm... I might try using the regular stuff. I know the low VOC cement gets thick in the cold, making it difficult to work with. Got a call back from the repair shop on my car.... $2700 to fix the radiator, fan assembly, expansion tank, oil change, coolant flush, transmission flush, battery, and ignition module...

Apparently my wife is on a roll this week. Last night the radiator fan disintegrated in the Audi while she was driving home. I think it also took out the radiator as it was out of coolant this morning. I am having it towed into the shop for inspection. As for the tank, fortunately it was still empty, so it's not a total disaster. I haven't finished the plumbing as I cannot glue the PVC together with a 1yr old in the house (VOC issues) so I am waiting for a day where the glue won't freeze before it has a chance to set. I have been looking around the internet for possible solutions to fix this brace and I have found a couple. I have seen others using the nylon nuts and bolts to repair. However the largest tank I've seen that used on was a 55g. My tank is over twice as big so I wonder if the nylon bolts would be strong enough. Regardless, I need to take a closer look at it to see if i will even have enough room for the screw bits. If not, I will probably try to bond the broken peice back in place with some 2 part epoxy. If that fails I'll have to give BRK a call to replace the frame.

Disaster... my wife was showing off the tank at my son's 1st b-day party and dropped one of the doors for the canopy onto one of the cross braces breaking it clean off. Luckily it didn't go through the bottom too! From what I understand these are critical to the tank's support. I have no idea how to repair the bracing or if it's even possible. ughhh....

I am planning on using flex plumbing between the two so I don't have to worry much about the difference in the heights of the bulkheads. Otherwise, I would probably end up having to put something under the fuge to raise it up a bit as it looks like the bulkhead on it sits lower than the one I drilled on the tank. The sump is acrylic, so I would need to support the entire base, not just the edges.