Dragon Eye

Ummm..... Did you read what you wrote? Acid. Do I need gloves? Would you normally play with acid with your bare hands?? Sorry it seems like an obvious safety issue.

Blow in the airline to get it started. They are known to have starting trouble with some pinwheels and mesh mods. If that's it you can change the pinwheel. You'll have slightly less performance but the starting problems go away.

That's a different problem. Once you close the bypass to the restrictor, it will then pressurize and you'll get the spike on the output. Basically, run it normally but dump the product water until your output TDS is down to the normal range. Then turn on the valve to the DI and shut off the valve for dumping the product water.

Even in the low teens, a refill should last for a lot of water. How many gallons have you made on that cartridge? Also, think about adding a bypass for the product water to the drain. It takes some time for the membrane to reach its full performance when it is pressurized. You can see the spike on your TDS meter. It can sometimes take a minute or two to go from the tap TDS down to the normal level. Each time you run this through your DI, it uses up more resin than probably dozens of gallons of water at regular operation. On mine, I have a valve to dump the product water, I turn it on and wait a minute or two, then I turn on the valve to the DI and shut off the bypass. The resin lasts much longer. At my last place, incoming TDS was 800-900 so I started finding tricks like that because I was burning through a lot of resin and it was getting expensive.

That's it! No wonder I couldn't find it again, I was searching for the wrong type of valve. http://www.usplastic.com/catalog/item.aspx?itemid=32220&catid=662

Yes, there is one and I've seen them online. But, I can't find them now either and I'm looking for one too. So, if you find them, please post.

It is NOT a power supply. It provides a logic level circuit only. You need to power your LEDs from something else.

You could consider yourself lucky. A lot of people want the bubbly tentacles over the longer ones. There are lots of theories, but really, its going to do what its going to do. Just make sure it has plenty of light.

Is the stairwell wall a load bearing wall? If it was an exterior wall it sounds like you'd be good to go, but not so sure about the stairwell. I'll second the "anything that's downstairs won't be a total loss if wet" For instance if your big screen tv is right below it- Don't even think of putting the tank there.

We've always gone with new sand and about 50%-70% new water. I'll second the pour new water into a bowl method to keep down the sand.

So where would one look for a fish that was in the sump yesterday and gone today? Looked everywhere- it's a clownfish and it's MIA. Not stuck to a pump, not in the skimmer, hasn't taken a 8"leap into the top off container, can't find it "around" the sump either.

Get a flash light to check the overflows and sump. fish are sneaky- they are almost always in there unless they jumped ship or something ate it.

I think the focus is stopping at the glass and not going through into the tank.

It appears you are having a white balance issue. A custom balance may be in order if your camera can do that.

I've seen one ton pallets of io at the Mall of America's aquarium. It's still small compared to these tanks.

A fellow photographer would burn through nikon cameras about every 4 months with prosumer use - flashes would melt, etc. The first camera I actually wore out was a Canon xsi- over 200K of photos in a year and a half- never melted a flash. In reality it shouldn't of lasted 1/4 that long- needless to say I'm forever a happy Canon user. Based on his experience I'd get the warranty (he actually did start getting the warranty on it and every 4 months would take it in for replacement).

Eric S- Yes noise or grain equates to the same thing in the final product. Yes you can reduce some noise post processing, but why not just take a good quality photo the first time that shows the details you are searching for in coral and reef photos? There is no need for the use of flash in this application- you just need to know how to use your camera correctly and have the right settings- meter it if you prefer. In the Ocean, yes you may want a higher ISO and strobes, but we aren't in the ocean and you have all the time in the world sitting in front of your tank to get the photo you are looking for. Aaron why not try the same photo again at a lower ISO- like 200. Then you probably won't have to say it's "usuable" shrunk down for the web but "not great". You may even be able to have a poster of it made then and capture all the details your looking for. FWIW My monitor is calibrated, so the photo to me looks to be a tad overdone in the color enhancement department.

Yes the skimmer goes off, and I can't answer the vortech question for you as we have tunze.

I wouldn't bother using old sand. It will eventually seed itself.

Did you bake your baking soda?

Ohhhhh ahhhhh

Are you running sump less?

This is wrong- High ISO will lead to very grainy photos of corals, there's also no need to use a flash. What you need is a low ISO and tripod to support a longer shutter speed. Personally I would of gone with the 100 mm macro- a 35 or 55 are better for portrait photos.

Extra tips- make sure you get 100% silicone- the kind that DOES NOT have a mold inhibitor in it. We found that rubbing alcohol on your finger when smoothing the bead helps the silicone not stick to your hand as much. Make sure you leak test it outside or somewhere where if it does leak it won't flood your house.

I don't want to take this thread off track, but I'll be glad to speak with anyone. Different isn't bad, different is just different!.