Tink

I'll give it a shot, thanks for the help

I was thinking maybe the light too, but then I figured they had been fine for about 2 weeks prior. The shells in the picture are dwarf cerith snails, they seem to like that rock these days. The coral has been this way 24/7 for the past week. The thing that bugs me about them is the mouth on the mushroom seems swollen and bleached, as opposed to the tiny little hole it normally is.

I received a few of those turquoise/blue mushrooms from a buddy of mine a few weeks ago, and all was well for the first couple weeks. Starting about a week ago I've noticed that my mushrooms aren't looking so well, and not opening nearly 1/4 as much as they were. The picture is of the one who looks the worst in the bunch, also happens to be the largest. The tank has only inverts at this point, and nothing new has been added in that time frame. I've also noticed that not all of my GSP are opening as well, even though about 3/4 of the colony still does. I've done a 30% water change as of 2 days ago, and still no luck. Here are my parameters: Temp: 80 pH: 8.1 KH: 9dKH NO4: between 2-5ppm PO4: .03 C: 500 Mg: 1350 Lighting : 4 x 39W T5HO about 24" off the sand I know the calcium is high, but for whatever reason that's what I've been getting out of my batch of Seachem Reef Salt. I haven't added carbon yet, but that was my last idea. Any ideas or insight folks? As always, any help is greatly appreciated.

Bummer! I've had this guy for about 5 years now, it's sad to see him possibly go this way. I can't imagine what would have caused it, everything else seems just dandy. Thanks for all the help guys, and thanks Jan for going through the trouble to find/post that link.

I have a serpent star that appears to have somehow gotten a hole in it. I noticed because my cleaners shrimp and peppermints have been all over the wound. Will this be life threatening for the star? Any advice as to how to proceed in order to help him to recover if possible? Thanks for the help folks

I'm in the process of trying to save a yellow tang I picked up. He seems in pretty good shape besides needing a LOT of fattening up. I have him in my sump atm for easy observation and removal if need be. Today I noticed a brown splinter looking protrusion on his left side. I did my best to get a picture of it, and here is what I came up with: Any idea what it could be? Should I attempt to manually remove it? It looks just like a splinter in person, slightly sharp lookindefinitelyinetly sticking out from the skin. Thanks

I have RO, but am unable to use it at the moment. Not to mention, I wonder if the bacteria would cause the membrane to clog faster? The problem isn't the iron in the water, but the brown slime and bad smell left by the bacteria. It's kind of nasty to have the inside of the trash can, powerheads, air line, and heater all covered in brown stuff. I've noticed that it will leave deposits in my fresh water aquariums to an extent as well.

I have well water with a bit of iron in it, thus causing an issue with iron bacteria. What it does is coats my mixing containers with a brown slime that smells like rotten eggs after a couple days. The problem is starting to get a tad old, so I'm looking to do something about it. From what I've read the best way to kill it is with chlorine. Here's my question: Is it safe to treat my new water with bleach? The plan was to add a little bleach to my new fresh water and let it sit for 12 hours or so. After that I'd aerate it and add some Prime, then after 24 additional hours add the salt in. Does this sound doable? Has anyone else delt with the iron bacteria issue? Thanks for the help folks

How about an Iwaki MD-70RLZ? 11.4 GPM at 4' of head, with a max of 66' of head. Not sure if it'll be enough flow, but if you search them on google the first hit has them used for $50. I use one from that site to pump from a water storage barrel in my basement to my first floor.

For inside the tank I was thinking an elbow at a 45 degree angle with a strainer. I have no experience with how quiet these are though? While looking around I stumbled upon the Beananimal design, and it's supposed to be pretty quiet. If I went that route though, I'd have to have a skimmer box in the tank. I'm also curious about the spa flex.

I was thinking the same thing origami, I'll amend my plan to 1" drains. The reason I was shooting for 2 was that I figured it was good to have a backup, it would be better to have 2 so that 1 splits to the scrubber and 1 to the fuge ( as opposed to 1 splitting to 3 locations), and that I thought the max flow of a single 1" pipe was around 600gph which will be pretty close to a Mag 7. Perhaps another consideration would be more dispersed water area being drawn into the sump, as opposed to it all being in one corner or the other. This is just my thought process mind you, I don't know if I'm making the right assumptions. Thanks for the replies folks. Any return ideas? My reasoning for the 1" return was that I read that you should increase the pump output size 1 step to avoid any flow restriction. Sent from my Kindle Fire using Tapatalk

I've acquired a 45 acrylic tank, and plan to drill the back for the overflows. I will be using a Mag 7 as my return pump. My question is this, what size do you think I should make the drains? I plan on using two and I was thinking something along the lines of 3/4". I plan for 1 to tee off and feed the algae scrubber, with the remainder going directly into the sump, and the other to tee off and feed to fuge with the remainder going to the sump. Next, I was considering how to do the return. I was planning on having a solid 1 inch line go to a 1 inch bulkhead, then to a three-quarter inch reducer into a three-quarter inch wye that splits into two 1/2" Lockaline nozzles. My other idea, was to have two separate 3/4" bulkheads going into their own 3/4" section of lock line. As a side note, for in tank flow I have a MP10 powerhead. As always, any and all help is greatly appreciated. Thank you

Aquarium Depot has gone down hill a LOT in the past couple of years. They are down sizing right now to move to a smaller space in the same shopping center. I hope that when they move they take the time to set it up nice. They are a tad high on some things though. And are junk for plants now Exotic Aquatics is nice and has seen a bit of down sizing but is still looking good. They are missing a few items you'd figure they'd have (sponge filters for example), but have a decent equipment stock. Plenty of fish and a bit of plants in the back section of the store. Their customer service has come a long way in the past year as well House of Tropicals has an old dirty feel to it, but a TON of equipment and fair amount of fish. As far as plants its hit or miss. Some weeks they have a lot, others very low stock. I've spent plenty of time and money here. Sent from my Droid using Tapatalk

Ban me will ya!

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking it over today and have decided maybe I could do it this way. I will have the Mag 7 set up (external maybe??) as the return from the sump making for about 480gph through the sump (sump + fuge + DT = about 185 gallons total system volume). I was then going to have a ReeFlo Dart set up on a closed loop with 11 outlets (6 under the sand, 4 up top, and 1 sent up to the fuge), I figure that would give me about 300gph to each outlet. That would have me running a Mag 7 and the dart on the system, with a Mag 3 for the skimmer. Do you think the Mag 7 will be enough flow through the sump for a system this size? I was thinking of just having the dart as the return and circulation pump, but that would lower the total GPH to each outlet, as well as have about 3500gph flowing through my sump, that sounds way too high.

Also should I rinse the sand from the existing 55 before I use it? If so why? Thanks

Well I'm working with a lot of stuff I presently have to step up to a 125 from the 55 I have now. I plan on having the 55 set up as the sump for the 125. My first question is how much flow do you reccomend I have travel through my sump? The fuge is going to be a 30 gallon tank I have up high and gravity returning to the DT, so that's not a factor in the sump. I do however want the sump to be somewhat of a "benthic zone" in order to grow some natural filtration, so I will do my best to get it very low light, if lit at all. Any design suggestions? As far as flow from the DT I was going to install 2 2" bulkheads (the extra for redundency). The reason for the large size is that I'd like things to be as quiet as I can make them, and I had read that the bigger pipe will keep the noise down. Should I join the 2 overflow pipes into 1 before they hit the sump? I was going to try my best to have them on a slant instead of straight down (again for noise reduction). For now the skimmer in the sump will be my Aqua C Pro driven by a Mag 7, or I was thinking I could use a larger return pump and use it to drive the skimmer as well, maybe even feed the fuge. I was concened however that in that application the 1000+ gallons flowing down to the sump would be awful loud? I was considering having a remote DSB (in addition to the DSB in the fuge) installed between the overflow and the sump, good idea or not? As far as the fuge is concerned I was going to have it fed by a Mag 3, is that enough or too much flow? Thanks for the help as always

I've been there a million times, it's not a bad place at all. Prices on fish can be a little high sometimes. I'm not a HUGE fan of their customer service either, I've been there many many times looking around for about an hour and almost never get asked if I need any help (that may be a small issue to some, but it's a bit of a CS gauge for me, and this on weekdays with not many else in the store). As far as getting there, just hop on 695 towards Towson for you I would guess, and hit exit 30B. You'll come to a light (right off the ramp) with a Jerry's Chevy on your left and a large shopping center on the right, ahead of you. Has a K Mart in it, Exotic Aquatics is right in there.