Integral9

This is the only way to contact them that I have found. I will let you all know how it goes. http://www.hydor.com/main/contact

meh, It came in little vials with screw on tops. It's probably bad then. I'll have to get some new stuff. Thanks.

Some people use a schedule, but I go by when the pressure drops on the RO unit. That means that water is not moving through the sediment filters readily and it's time to replace the sediment filters.

Hmm... the probe was calibrated a little over a year ago (when I started the tank) so it does seem appropriate to recalibrate it just in case. Do you know if the calibration solutions go bad over time? I still have the ones that shipped with the unit.

Just over a year after using this product, the impeller has swollen and seized against the housing body preventing any kind of movement. After extracting the impeller it's obvious that water got inside the magnet and caused it to rust. Given the pump has a 2yr warrenty I am going to contact Hydor about a replacement, just as soon as I inspect my other 1400. I have been in this hobby for 6 years and I have never seen this happen before. I really hope this is just a chance failure and not indicative of the product line. btw does anyone know if rust would increase pH? I've been trying to track down the source of my ever increasing pH and at first thought it was my kalk stirrer back siphoning into my top off reservoir. But I shut that down and disconnected the feed line, rinsed out my top off bucket and the pH still rose up. Then I thought it was my RODI water as I found my TDS to be higher than I like ( need a new in-line TDS meter now ). And now I've found the magnet on the impeller swollen and it looks like iron-oxide (rust) leaking out.

I coral the fish to the side of the tank I want to, then I use egg crate to section off the tank to limit their movement to that part of the tank. That requires a break in the rock wall so the egg create will go to the bottom. But you won't have to take the entire wall down; just enough to slide a piece of egg crate to the bottom. After that, it's just a matter of cornering the fish and picking it up (this is usually much easier with the limited movement / places to hide). I prefer to use my hands to pick up my fish, but you might find that difficult with a lemon peel as they can be quite skiddish. btw, don't drop the fish on the floor; keep the transfer bucket / bin close by and use two hands or a net if you have to. Don't get frustrated and start aggressively chasing the fish around. This will only make it harder to catch them (as now the fish will see your hand as a threat).

Sediment filters and chloromine filters should knock the TDS down. What I think you are thinking of is input water to the RO vs the waste water from the RO. If so then yes, the waste from the RO should be higher than the input water (after the sediment filters). But the waste water from the RO will probably not be higher than the tap water before it goes through the sediment and chloromine filters.

I like you guys, but I'm still not getting a facebook account.

I have been feeding my tank Jan's food, which has been going very well for everyone. But the wrasse will eat just about anything I put in the tank including the urchin's spawn and if you watch the video I posted on my tank thread, you'll see the wrasse actually tried to eat the urchin. I also have a fuge which keeps the pods constantly populated.

Unfotunately, the hippo didn't make it. After several more weeks of watching and hoping it would pull through, it became apparent that it was slowly starving to death. After watching it in the DT, I think the dip blinded the fish. Regretably I had to euthanise it. If you followed my "What's up w/ my wrasse" thread, you'll know that I had an issue with that guy recently as well. Fortunately he pulled through and is swimming well. None of my other tankmates were effected with whatever effected him. My urchin continues to spawn about every other week and coraline algae has really started to take off. At least I am doing something right.... New additions to the tank include a CBB (last one died of unknown reasons) and a jouvenile yellow belly hippo. Both were QT'd for a month and are doing great in my DT. A couple of new arrivals in my QT are a naked clown and a black clown, both from ORA (courtesy of the ORA group buy). They are doing well in my QT and I am hoping to pair them and fatten them up before I add them to the QT. They are still jouvenile and very tiny and I am concerned one of the larger fish might eat them. I also added from the ORA group buy a gold maxima clam and a squamosa clam as well as a german blue digitata and a green hydnophra. All are beautiful. After some hmm'n and ha'n over it, I finally setup my MD5 tall and 24W Aquanetics UV. Both I bought used off WAMAS folks so they needed some cleaning and refurbing. The MD5 just needed a good scrubbing and I had to change some of the fittings once I plumbed it in. The UV was well used and I replaced all the rubber gaskets and o-rings and lubed them up w/ some silicone grease. Unfortunately, the dern thing leaked. After cleaning up that mess and spending a lot of time doing leak detection, (the leak was between the PVC housing and the brown thing inside that the bulb slides into. I got out my acryllic glue (the thick stuff) and put a bead all the way around between the brown thing and the PVC housing. That fixed the leak and now it's running great. I am unconvinced anyone needs a quartz sleeve for their UV. Also, I should have purchased some flow meters as I'm not sure how much flow is going through the UV or the media reactor. I have a mag 7 hooked up to power both. If I can find my Mag 5 impeller, I can downgrade the mag 7 to a 5 and slow things down. But for now, things are running pretty good. After installing the UV and new media reactor my skimmer went from a foul smelling bog like stench to just a dirty smelling mud like stench. I have also noticed a huge reduction in algae growth. I have about 4/5 ROX carbon from BRS and 1/5 phosban in my reactor. For a couple of weeks, I have been battling a continually high pH. For some reason the pH in my tank was continually rising. So I started backing out changes I had made recently (shut down the UV and media reactor, and even disconnected entirely the kalk stirrer. But stlll the pH continued to rise, so I checked my RO water. pH = 9.38 (HOLY COWFISH). I set up a pump w/ a venturi on my top off bucket and will look into getting an airpump & stone for my resevoir. Hopefully the air injection will be enough to knock the pH down in my top off water. If so I will turn the filtration back on and once the pH reaches a nominal level, I'll start dosing kalk again. Last night at the end of my full daylight shift, my pH was 8.67 I will see if I can get some new pics up tonight or tomorrow.

This looks like a really nice one. Dual ball bearing, speed controllable, 22CFM, 32dB, dual screens and aluminum blades. $20 http://www.amazon.com/Control-Aquarium-Lighting-Incubators-Amplifiers/dp/B007ZLKCNM/ref=sr_1_7?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1357232319&sr=1-7 One thing to also watch out for is the depth / thickness of the fan. Also, here's another one. Slightly cheaper w/out the speed controller. http://www.amazon.com/AC-Infinity-LS8038A-X-Standard-Cooling/dp/B009OXTWZI/ref=sr_1_17?s=hi&ie=UTF8&qid=1357232549&sr=1-17

I have to clean out my koralia's about every other month as bubble algae tends to grow inside the pump behind behind the propeller. The pumps in my sump though (skimmer and mag 7), I might clean once a year. W/out any light, the only thing that seems to grow on them is the bacteria. For my return pump, the iwaki, I pull the impeller out about every 6 months to check it. Havn't found anything in it yet. I have noticed a considerable descrease in the algae growth after installing my UV unit. So perhaps I will need to clean less now. :-)

hehe. Good idea. :-P Seriously though. The Wrasse is BACK! Slowly but surely he pulled through. I never caught him or figured what was wrong. I did notice however, that if I didn't feed the fish for a day, he seemed to get better. So I started to feed every other day. He got a little better each day. Now he is swimming around the tank again, staying upright and mostly avoiding the rocks. His buddy tangs aquired a new buddy, so he's not swimming with them anymore. I guess he got replaced in the group. bummer.

Me too. I used to manage the workstations for my division, from design to surplus and everything in between. Now I am a DBA for several databases, and one very very large one that's double top sekret. Awww mannn. I just got de-throned. I was the T5 bulb king around here with 14 over my 135. One of these days, i'm gonna get me a chiller. Nice tank though. I like the Powder Brown, I have one myself.

About a week or so ago, I noticed my wrasse wasn't his usual self, swimming with my powder brown and yellow tangs. Then I found him upside down under a rock. Thinking he was a goner, I tried to pull him out, but he was still alive and very quickly swam away from me. Looked like he was drunk though as he ran into just about everything in the tank like a drunk driver. I figured if he had that much kick left in him, he might pull through whatever is wrong. Then I didn't see him for a couple of days. I figured he was a goner and my critters had cleaned him up. Yesterday, he popped out of a rock, and then just as fast swam right back in. Still drunk though. I'm starting to think he's a consumate alcoholic with a still in the rocks, or he's been eating the green mushrooms.... I did some searching around, and most people who've encountered this behavior lost their wrasse the next day or right after transfering them to a QT. Assuming I can catch him, I'd like to do that get him in QT, but I am not sure what is wrong. The behavior looks like a swim bladder infection (abnormal swimming). Anyone else have a wrasse just spook out on them like this?

Hello, A BBS'er eh? Welcome. I remember those days. I used to run a WWIV board named the Black Hole BBS with my friends. Sometimes I miss playing TradeWars2002....

yes. 1 x 2" > 2 x 1" V = pi*r^2 3.14 sq.in. = cross sectional area of a 2" pipe 1.57 sq.in. = cross section area of 2 1" pipes but both are sufficient for your needs of a 1.25" pipe 1.22 sq.in. = cross sectional area of a 1.25" pipe

This is exactly how I started the siphon on my over flow tubes when I used them. The trick is to put the airline on the back side of the tube as the air bubble gets trapped back there when the water starts to flow. If you don't pull enough air out, the force of the water won't be enough to push out the remaining air. Also, the u-tube has low pressure, so if you don't put your finger over the air line before you pull it out, it will suck air back into the tube and stop the siphon. One problem I had with my CPR over flow, that caused me to convert to using PVC pipe was the clear plastic allowed algae to grow inside (yes I know foil will stop it), but in all the cleaning I did to keep it clear, I eventually cracked the tube and that resulted in a loss of siphon.

If cleaning the neck doesn't work you might also want to check the skimmer pump and air line to be sure nothing is blocking it. sometimes a snail shell or pebble or something will get sucked into the pump and clog it. Also, calcium & salt can build up in air line where the air line enters the intake. RO water will clear the air line, but stubborn calcium build up near the bottom requires a little flick of the finger nail to break it off. fwiw: If you haven't cleaned the skimmer body and any plumbing it has in a while, it might be a good time to pull the whole thing out and give a good once over in the tub or outside w/ the hose.

^^ that's why I do it. To eliminate the feeding frenzy at the feeding site. My main return pump disperses the food in 4 seperate places in the display. In general, fish food that's soft and pea sized or smaller should be ok to put through a pump. larger items might be ok too as long as they aren't hard or crunchy. If they are hard or crunchy it could damage the impeller. I also don't like to put flake into the sump as the pump just disintegrates it into nothing, pellets are better. I am feeding Jan's food to my Iwaki and it says "Yuuuummmm". imo: Mag drive pumps are great for this because if the impeller gets stuck, it's not that big a deal and you can open the pump up and remove the clog. The direct drive pumps could have problems if the impeller stops suddenly. I don't know about a Mag12, but I've seen a Reeflo Dart turn a clown fish into fish / coral food in about 0.25 seconds. Poor guy got lost in the sump and decided the intake pipe was a good place to hide.

+1

I have a 48" DIY canopy that I built for my 55g tank that I've been holding onto for no reason at all that I would like to donate. It has 2 sunpak ballasts and Tek II individual reflectors for 4 x 48" T5s, I did install some night lighting LEDs, but I'm not sure if the LEDs still work. I'll have to check on that. It would need new T5 bulbs. I also have an ASM Mini-G skimmer (original design) that I'd like to donate. I can also donate a heater (150W, iirc) and can dig through my fish closet to see what else I have been holding onto for no reason. The canopy was built and painted by me and my wife and friends. There is a door on the front that opens and then in addition the entire top opens in a clam shell fashion after unhooking some latches. The design on the front of the canopy is an attempt at Aboriginal dot-art of 4 fish swimming in the ocean. I will say though, painting is not my forte. My wife did a good job though. If you are interested, I can send you a pic of canopy.

can you put the autofeeder over the sump next to return pump? I don't have an autofeeder, but that's where i put the fish food.

FYI: Be careful with the "organic" stuff. My Aunt-in-law used to work at USDA (Director of Fruits and Vegetables for the NorthEast) and she said there is a big probelm with people claiming their food is "organic" when it's not. Apparently, anyone can claim their food is organic just by putting the words on their package (Freedom of Speach or something). However, if it has the USDA logo then it has passed the USDA's quality controls for being "organic". eg: There was a recent issue with a certain milk company on our area that claimed their milk was organic, but wasn't USDA organic. In addition, they labeled the milk fat % on their cartons with an emblem that closely resembled the USDA Organic logo, but instead of saying USDA Organic, it would say "2%" or "Whole", etc. After that marketing coup was made public, they applied for USDA Organic certification and failed the first time. But corrected the issue subesquently (apparently some farmers were letting their organic heards mix with non-organics, so they couldn't be 100% sure the milk was organic.) Here is the USDA Organic logo to look for. http://www.ams.usda....olorsealgif.gif Getting that logo is no small endevor either. eg: iirc, For vegetables to be considered USDA Organic, it has to be grown in the same soil w/ the organic method (what ever that is) for 14 years. So it's good to protect it.

not all nori in the grocery store is just rinsed and spun. Some is "toasted" or cooked to help it break down faster in your mouth. If you buy nori in the grocery store for your fish, try to find the stuff that's just nori. Sometimes there is a preservative added. Raw nori is either rinsed and hung to dry or rinsed, spun / shreaded, and hung to dry. I don't think we can get the even more raw / fresh variety here (at least in our area) the seaweed farmers just pull it out of their holds and hang it up to dry on the dock. No machine processing that I could see. The finished product was much more irregular in shape than what you typically get from the bags / boxes in the LFS.