hypertech

Why? Because there is ammonia in it? Fish tanks are giant ammonia processing machines. A little ammonia isn't going to hurt it. A lot might cause problems, but eventually it will be processed and usable again. Worst case, let it soak in saltwater for a while and then put it back. in.

My evil algae outbreak happened when I sucked out a sand bed and replaced it. Maybe its a coincidence, maybe not, but I've still not been able to get rid of it. Disturbing a sand bed can wreak havoc.

The tank with the live rock is probably processing the ammonia. If I understand correctly, your TDS out after the DI is 4? If you recently replaced it and it is already reading that high, perhaps it isn't packed in tight enough and there is channeling in the DI resin. In that case, the DI wouldn't be doing much.

Does the test kit work on freshwater or is it meant for saltwater? I don't know if it matters for ammonia tests but it does matter sometimes.

Interested, yes. Funded, no. If someone has one and wants to try it, I've got a few aiptasia that could be lasered and have no problem trying it out on my tank.

FWIW, losses are generally very high with small hippo tangs. You can do everything right and still lose them pretty easy. You are much better off getting them in the 3"+ range.

If it is what he says it is it won't be fine and it should be removed.

The rock will be fine. The thing may crawl out on its own before you even hit it with the water. When I take a big rock out and frag zoos off it, after a minute or two, all the bristle worms start crawling out trying to find the water again. I have to be careful not to get bristled. II would go in this order: 1) Just take it out and let it sit for 10 minutes 2) Dunk in RO or carbonated water 3) Throw it in a muriatic acid bath

I think the confusion is that the purpose of the macro isn't to process nutrients in a way like the bacteria in the live rock. Its purpose is to absorb them and trap them. So, adding a bunch doesn't really help. You want to grow a bunch and then remove it. If you have a 40B fuge, this very well could be effective in your tank.

The macro itself doesn't do much for processing nutrients. The idea is that as it grows, it takes them up and then when you prune the macro, you get the nutrients out. Other than that a larger clump might grow a little quicker, adding a bunch won't help. I used to prune mine down to the size of a softball when I was running a 20H fuge and it would fill the tank in a week or two. It did a terrific job maintaining nutrients on a 40g tank, but to rely on it to noticeably affect water quality, you need the fuge to be much bigger than most are.

I've got one that I think is a 300W I use for heating up new saltwater. You could borrow it for a little while, but eventually I'll need it back for a water change someday. In Alexandria.

At $1 a gallon it won't take that long to pay for an rodi unit.

Only you can decide if its worth the trouble. If you can't get the drain as quiet as you would like, its worth considering.

No, it will raise the water level. Really, you don't want to fill that drain so there isn't any air. Because, if there is no air, its running at capacity as a siphon. If anything gets into at that point, it will be below the needed capacity and it will backup and the tank will overflow. Basically, that's the principal of running a herbie drain, but you don't want this unless you have an emergency backup drain in case it does do that. What you want to do is manage the airflow to quiet it down. This is the idea behind a durso and things like stuffing an airline down the drain. I think I wrote this in this thread (and if I didn't then I haven't written it lots of other places) - Dursos, etc can be quiet. Herbie's are practically guaranteed to be quiet, but they do require two drain lines.

I doubt one would do it, but it might. The flow patterns are generally considered better when you have a power head on each side of the tank. I'd put two on the tank, one on each side. If it is more than you want, you can always turn them down.

If the box is up all the way already, you could put a piece of acrylic in the back behind the teeth slightly higher than the where the bottom of the teeth are now. This will do the same thing as raising the whole box and raise the water level. Don't sweat the micro bubbles. They will eventually go away on their own unless there are more being added to the tank by the pumps. For example, if the pump is sucking air at a small leak on the return plumbing, it could be adding bubbles. Those types of drains can be tough - just experiment till you find what works. Be careful not to restrict it as this could eventually lead to an overflow. When I had a plain standpipe, what worked for me was stuffing a piece of air tube down it so that the air could escape and it didn't make the sucking noise. You could also try restricting the return to change the flow down the pipe, but do not restrict the drain since you only have a single drain.

The sides and bottom of the box should be cemented together. I don't know how you would move the sides without the bottom.

I'm not sure what you are talking about sides vs bottom. If you start the return and it doesn't push it high enough, you need to move the whole box up. Basically, you need the teeth higher to set a higher water level. The overflow doesn't work if it isn't sealed, so the whole thing needs to move. Just cut it from the glass, slide it up however much it needs to go up and re-silicone it. Make sure to clean the glass and the box well to remove the old silicone.

Also, do you have at least 2" between the left side rock and the glass? Pirhana magnets are fantastic especially with the razor blade attachment. You'll want clearance to be able to get in there and clean with something like that.

The bubbles are normal and will go away. The return pump will make the water level rise about a quarter inch or so. At this stage of the build though, I would drain it down below the box, cut out the box, let it dry (help it with a blowdryer if impatient but be sure it is completely dry) and redo the box. Its a little bit of a pain now, but once the tank is established you'll probably be kicking yourself you didn't do it and it will be a big pain then.

If you didn't rise the rock, it may turn yellow. Carbon helps get rid of that. I don't know exactly what it is, but I've noticed it using that rock. On my tank, I filled the whole works with tap water and ran the pumps for a couple days to "rinse" everything really well. Then I drained that and filled with RODI and salt. Its also very common to have a sand storm with a new tank. It takes a little time to have all the fine powdery stuff work its way out/settle.

I won't know if I can help till the day before on those dates.

When?

At the end of the day, the only opinion that counts is yours. If you like it, that's what matters.

How did the food processor fare? I've heard you should buy a cheap special fish food one or face the wrath of the chef for making it forever stink of fish.