Integral9

Hope it was just #1, and not #2...

You too Tom. I wish we had some time chat, but my boy was ready to go home and mom was waiting. Thanks for the carbon fiber rod and all the work you did for FF. I think it went very well. My boy had a good time too. He really liked watching the coral get sawed up.

Interesting looking fish. Kinda reminds me an anteater for some reason.

I hope to. Trying to convince my 3yr old to tell his mommy he wants to go.

Thanks I'll see if I can get over there tomorrow. For now the pump is working on about 1/2 a shaft. It's a little noisier than normal though. I keep checking it though expecting it to fail.

I might try that. At least for a temporary solution. Another option I read about is to get a stainless steel rod and do the same. Anyone know of any hobby stores near sterling? The one in Dulles town center closed.

Was cleaning my skimmer and I noticed that the pump stopped running after a while. when I took it apart the shaft came out in 3 peices. Anybody / LFS have one? The soonest I can get one online (w/out paying rediculous shipping) is friday the 26th, no matter if I order today or Sunday.

+1 (but only rinse my hands off before hand most of the time)

Took me a minute, but I figured it out. That's a good rat burger.

Now we live in the fish bowl and the fish play god on us

Just read through this and I can say that my experience with biopellets has been very similar to what has been discussed. I got 600ml of brightwell pellets and put it in my M5 avast reactor with some a microbactor7 and let it sit for a day before turning it on. This is supposed to help with pellets floating and gives the bacteria a chance to colonize the pellets before being flushed out. At first, not much happened. About a week later the water clarity improved dramatically. Then my skimmer went bananas. I had to completely stop restricting it and was still emptying it almost every other day for about 2 weeks. Shortly after the skimmer started to go nutz, I had a bacteria bloom followed by a hair algae bloom. I found some dead snails though, so that could have attributed to the blooms. After removing the dead animals I have not seen the bacteria or algae start to come back. I have not had any macro start dieing off yet, but I hope that one day it will and I will have a fuge with nothing but sand and water. Then i will take the sand out and replace it with live rock. So changing my fuge over to LR is my "win condition". FWIW: It is possible to have a low nutrient system and still have a flourishing algae colony. The algae colony being the reason or one of the reasons the nutrients are kept low. So if you do not remove all the nutrient sources or have a carbon solution that creates a nutrient sink of a magnitude greater than your nutrient sources, you may never actually kill off the macro.

Sounds like bacteria in the lines getting blown out when the pump starts up. Which is not uncommon if the tank had been around a while. I wouldn't be surprised if the the reduced nitrates aren't starving it. The black stuff in the skimmer means it's working, probably pulling the dead bacteria out. You might need to adjust it though. I try to keep mine up so that it needs to be emptied about every 3 days. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

I tried the rio (turns out it us a rio 180, not sure why thought 50), and it was not any better. So ihooked up a 3/8" line to the mj600 and reduced it to 1/4" just before the check valves and kalk stirrer. The pump runs a lot better now and I get much more flow. I am able to keep up with evaporation much better now. The flow would be too much if the pump ran for too long, but I have a second float switch to turn the pump off if the water level gets to high. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I747 using Tapatalk 2

Yup they just beat on each other constantly. I bought 5 once upon a time. After a couple of weeks, 1 was obviously the odd man out. Named him #5, because I would always count the chormis when I went over to the tank and I would always go, 1,2,3,4.... where's #5... oh, there he is hiding behind the rocks. Eventually it became a game of finding #5. Then one I day I only got to 3, then 2, then 1... Not sure what happened to #1. But #5 was still in the tank... He lived for about 2 years alone. I don't recall what happened to him. It's been several years. So IME to keep Chromis alive, only buy 1. Also, having a coral large enough for the school to host in might be helpful. They like to host SPS. Mine hosted my GBN once it was large enough (baseball). fwiw: there is a very cool but short shot in the Planet Earth series of a school of chromis synchronously bouncing in and out of a coral the size of a car. There must have been 5000 fish in the school. It was as if the coral had sprouted minions and was sending them out to collect food and bring it back in some kind of aquatic ballet.

I share that sentiment on live rock. The last 2 tanks I've started up, both with live rock had some very undesirable hitchhikers. I will NEVER EVER buy live rock again. But I wish I had the cash to just swap it all out with new dry rock. It's gonna cost almost $300 for 100lb of new rock, vs $10 for 1lb of CLC. And since I also have 2 small children and little time to work on the tank, and even given that it may not work, I'm still willing to try it for $10. 35% Chlorine: http://www.poolgeek.com/BioGuard-Burn-Out-35-P338.aspx vs the 6% or so in a bottle of Clorox.

That's what I am hearing. I am willing to try one more thing before I go that route though. Good old, Biogaurd granular calcium chloride. Mix 1lb of that in a 18g rubber maid bin and soak the rocks in it. If that doesn't kill it, well. I am afraid the only that will is probably copper.

Welcome to the club... Except my problem is Neomeris annulata... For a such a difficult algae to keep around, I am freaking amazing at breading it. It's on almost every single rock, coral stalk & bit of plumbing in my tank. Yes, I have 135g of Neomeris... Ran across this today: http://www.nano-reef.com/topic/301388-green-wormy-things-are-taking-overneomeris/ Where they discussed several different solutions: biological, vinegar, peroxide, drying, chemi-pure, and more... None were successful. The most recent post being: "ok then, neo is currently deemed the worst invader possible to date" *sigh* FML

This is a really old MJ600. Probably one of my original pumps, so that makes it about 5 years old. I'm kinda surprised it still works, tbh. The volute on it is very loose, which I admit could be contributing to the noise. Well, I'll see what the Rio50 does. Could be good, could be worse. I dunno.

The noise is the pump vibrating against the bottom of the bucket, but it is worse than normal operating vibrations because the impeller is cavitating with all the back pressure of being reduced from 1/2" to 1/4". I think the tubing is restricting the flow of the water past or very near the pump's minimum rate of flow. I am hoping that the smaller powerhead will be able to operate at a lower rate of flow so at least it won't rattle as bad.

You can also get them at home depot. it's near to the acryllic in the window / door area at my home depot. I think they'll even help you cut it, or at least show you how.

No I don't. Is that the size pump you are using? btw, I how loud is yours? My 600 rattles quite a bit.

Went out last night and got the parts for what I am dubbing "The Origami ATO Mod". Put it all together, and it works. I think my Maxijet 600 is having some trouble though as I am no where near the 59" height and the pump slows to a drip, but at least now it can keep up with my evaporation and I have an air pump (the aqualifter). I swapped out my old 1/4" line with new 1/4" line and there was no difference. I think if there was a little bit more room to move the water, the MJ600 would be ok. I have a Rio 50 that I think might work for this too. I'm going to try it out and see what happens. If not, I might look into modding my K1 to accept a 3/8 line. edit: btw, I went with sanding down the MJ output nozzle, vs trying to bore out the CPVC tube. Same difference, but I think it's a little easier to sand depending on whether or not you have a drill press or a 1/2" drill bit with a tapering tip. My 1/2" bit is a meant to bore holes; the tip is shaped like a capital Sigma instead of a V so it doesn't take much for me to miss the angle on the tube and drill out through the side wall.

Well then, I guess if you live in HI, you're better off going to their website they are offering 20% off their entire website and free shipping @ $49 Exclusiong apply (as always) but I couldn't read it all because their website was lagging out on me. I was going to post the local ad for DC, but their website is experiencing eternal lag and "aint nobody got time fo dat"

With 2 little boys, I have little time for this hobby anymore. But I am trying to keep with it. My kids love the tank. With my pH issue resolved, the halameda and gonzo noses (I can never remember the right name for that algae) took off again. I am really getting frustrated with them. Starting to seriously consider basing all of my rock and starting over with it. Also doing very well are aiptasia. Lucky me right? I'm starting to feel like Cruella DeVille with aiptasia.... Tried a few peppermint shrimp but my wrasse ate one as it hit the water, so I put the other 2 in my sump while I try and catch the wrasse. That's one hard fish to catch.... I got my reactor switched over from carbon to biopellets which is working well. I tied the output to the airline feeding my skimmer so it outputs directly in front of the skimmer's intake. I empty the skimmer now almost every single day. The water is crystal clear, but I still have nutrient issues. I'm not sure why, but snails always seem to die in one corner. Pulling them as fast as I can. My UV started to leak, which I havn't turned on in a while anyway, so if I can ever find a used Mag 3 I will pull it entirely, but for now it's the bypass for the biopellet reactor (mag7 is a little too strong), so it has to stay in place. The leak isn't much more than a little extra salt creap. I should be able to fix it with a little silicon, should I put it back into service. However, i am considering adding a fluidized carbon reactor with a 100um sock filter. Still not sure about it though as I have 3 tangs and I don't want to upset them.

Koolance got back to me with the following: So if I go this route, i will need the following: 1 x PMP-300 pump $39.99 2 x NZL-V06B Fittings $7.48 1 x Shipping & Handling $10.90 $58.37 + 7 x days to wait for delivery >.< 1 x AC to DC power supply 12V 1.6A (old PC power supply) I think Tom has a cheaper method and I think I will swing by homedepot on my way home from work today and pick up the parts. Hopefully it will work. Thanks Tom.