Dan

also watch our for additional chlorine. usually with a large break, they will disinfect the pipes as they are installed by swabbing with chlorine. the treatment plant might also increase dosing of chlorine as well to make sure everything is safe to drink.

i think it made it easier to get the food in his face. in the 10 gallon, the food would spread around and it didnt seem to "find" it. i think they end up eating the frozen food when they just happen to "breathe" it in by accident and get a taste of it. by keeping it confined in the small breeder box, i was able to concentrate the food around it, which is when i started having success.

i have a mandarin in my 29g cube. there really was never many copepods in my tank. i got one that was not ORA raised, just from the fish store. i picked one that ate live brine. he was the only one in the tank. i put him in my QT tank, and confined him to a small mesh breeder box in the tank. i was able to train him to eat frozen food that way. kept him in that breeder fattening him up for three weeks before he went into the main tank. A bit of advice on training them - use the Nutra Ova frozen brine eggs. awesome stuff. he wouldnt touch regular frozen food but went for the nutra ova. After a while a added Jan's frozen food a little a time and weened him off the Nutra Ova. He is super happy and eats like a pig in the tank now. it takes some time to train them, but its the only way to keep them alive in the smaller tanks.

i was at Quantum a few weeks ago and got instant ocean super cheap, they also had reef crystals. no minimum that i knew of.

15 minutes, 29 gal cube

its not that difficult to re-silicone the tank. would recommend re-sealing the entire tank at one time. It is much easier to have another person helping when re-sealing

not sure, but i always heard to dilute muriatic acid 1:10 for cleaning up a tank. just remember to always add the acid to water, and not the water to the acid (but you probably already knew that).

i got most of mine with a propane torch, no problem. as noted above, cook it for a while with the flame. i have two very small sections left, going to just cover them up with super glue or something this weekend and hope it finishes them off.

I dont use a grounding probe, never will. Many people debate the use of them. I think having a GFI is sufficient along with regularly checking for stray voltage. I usually check for stray voltage before every water change.

agree, the GFI should not be tripping regularly. The only reasons it should trip is something is faulty and causing it to trip or your GFI is worn out. I replace GFI every year or two or when something like this happens. you dont want your GFI to trip unless there is a problem, or else you could have your tank crash without power for that long.

So i have a good amount of hydroids on about half of my rocks. The plan this weekend is to take out the rocks and get rid of them. There are some hydroids in areas where it will be easy to scrape them off, other ones are in tougher areas and for those i am planning on employing my propane torch. since i am doing all this work i figured i might as well give my tank/rocks a good cleaning. Figured i would remove all the rocks and most of the tank water to one of my 15 gallon buckets, and put the fish/inverts/corals in another bucket. I can clean remove the hydroids from each rock and place back in the tank, i figured i might as well hook up a powerhead and try and blow out any deterius from the rocks as well. Put back alll the rocks/corals and then eventually all the fish. Sound like i have the right plan? i will keep all the liverock submerged in water and moist and only remove when am taking out the hydroids.

Pretty cool, a carnivorous sponge and very neat loooking http://reefbuilders.com/2012/11/06/chondrocladia-lyra/

agree 100%. my green mandarin even loves this stuff. at first he picked at the smaller items in the mix, but now he pretty much eats everything! corals looking good as well. How many times a day are you feeding your tank, and about how much?

Do you have DI filter on your RO setup?

regarding the bleaching/global warming impacts on corals, etc. I dont think its cool for us to go thru amateur experiments that damage/stress the corals. A small scale experiement like this does not provide real data, especially since you already know the answers the problem. If you want to teach your kids about coral, i think there are more positive methods to teach them how to care for them that dont involve intentionally changing parameters that YOU know are not beneficial. For a 6th grade science experiement i would stick to the basics, like the brine shrimp experiment i mentioned. PS - i am in no way a tree hugger, so thats not my motive with this post. Good luck

well being that global warming is based on very long time and small changes, i.e. one to two degrees over 100 years or something like that. our tanks go up and down 2 degrees at least every day, maybe more. what you are talking about would have to be a long term experiment, and definetly not something appropriate for a 6th grader. what you are talking about screams "my parents did my experiment"

i think i remember doing a science experiment involving hatching brine shrimp when i was in elementary. varied temperture/salinity and measured growth rates. after the experiment is done you have some fresh treats for your tank! win win!

when it goes on sale for $79 for black friday, along with a 20% coupon it would be about $65. i might grab it, good insurance and easy to carry around for short power outages. As far as neighbors not liking you run a generator, i wouldnt let that affect me using it. I would never complain about someone else making noise in a time like that. sometimes it helps to let them plug in as well!

also, keep your eyes out, there will be great deals on generators during black friday. I bought a Champion 3500w generator last year for $280 free shipping. There are other similar deals as well. i use this site to find deals: www.slickdeals.net if you sign up you can create deal alerts. i did that for "generator" and got a really good deal on mine. I am glad a i got a bigger generator for blackouts. in June when we lost power for 5 days, i was able to keep my fridge running along wtih my tanks and plugged in the sump pump as well. Well wortht he money. Think about how much $$ is in your fridge/freezer that would have to replace. probably almost pays for the generator, let alone the cost of your tank inhabitants.

it will be $79 during black friday, not sure if you can add the 20% code but if you can thats a deal: http://slickdeals.net/f/5324998-Harbor-Freight-Black-Friday-Chicago-Electric-Portable-Generator-900W-Max

i just re-read your post and i think you were talking about adding concrete to change the slope of the floor, but not necessarily you were talking about the floor underneath the tank? not sure. I would take zygote up on his offer. putting in a floor drain is the way to go in the long run, do it right the first time!

i wouldnt worry about the uneven floor if you are building a stand to hold the tank. you can just level it by cutting vertical supports so that the surface the tanks sits on is level. If you are using an existing stand that may get a little tricky but i guess you could try to shim it to level but thats not really ideal. If you decide to pour concrete just use regular concrete from home depot, and form it up so that you make sure the new concrete is at least 3 inches in depth, if you go too thin its not going to have any strength and its just going to crack. also use some wire mesh for reinforcement (placed in middle of concrete) on the new slab and try to score the old concrete surface first so that it is rough so the new concrete will bond better.

thanks for the info everyone. Looks like its time to wipe them out. I am going to try the blowtorch method first on the individual rocks. I have already defeated bryopsis and aiptasia, now on to the next challenge!

So i have a bunch of these growing in my tank. tried to get decent pictures but to no avail. I have read up online and have gone back and forth. i have convinced myself that they were hydroids and then i was sure they are micro feather dusters. the tubes are hard/crunchy and the tips will retract if bumped by something. Please let me know what you think. i am leaning (hoping) towards feather dusters right now

I never leave gas in my generator, only bad things can happen. drain it after every use, in addition to draining the tank read your instructions on how to drain the carb. you can use the gas that was left over in the generator in your car. keeping the carb drained is the biggest item. other standard maintenance is cleaning the air filter and oil changes per the hourly recommendations for your generator. If possible avoid gas with ethanol, not easy to do which is why its very important to drain the carb.