swimmatte

I'm kind of surprised so many people are suggesting you use only one heater. It sounds like you have two of the exact same heaters. If that's the case, I would recommend using both of them, but turning them further and further down until your tank gets under 80 degrees. You said it reached 80 by just turning it down to 72, and the heaters haven't cut back on yet, so I'd have to imagine you're headed under 80 shortly. The reason it's good to use two heaters is because if you use one, and that heater fails completely, you'll wake up to a tank that's way too cold. If you use two undersized heaters, and one goes down, the other one will keep us as much as possible, and buy you more time before the tank hits possibly fatal temps for your livestock. In my opinion, heaters are more likely to fail and not heat at all than they are likely to boil your tank....... just my opinion.

Has everyone checked out the 2014 MACNA Conference exhibitor list? See anyone familiar? Maybe located in the "E" portion of the list? http://macnaconference.org/2014/exhibitors-and-sponsors/exhibitors/

Ha! She makes anything people want. She french trained, and our business niche is bite sized desserts. "One Sweet Bite" is our name, and we take orders and we participate at the Montgomery Village Farmers Market on Saturdays from 9am-1pm. https://www.facebook.com/onesweetbitemd http://onesweetbitemd.com/ You don't ask, you don't find out.......... Dude! You weren't supposed to tell anyone, that wasn't for public WAMAS knowledge Ehhhhhh......maybe?

Quick Update: I FINALLY DRILLED MY DISPLAY AND GOT THE SUMP UP AND RUNNING!!!!!! I ran into a TON of problems, but I got it done. I'm not at all happy with the plumbing, but will be redoing it at some point. I've added quite a bit of equipment, and am finally running like I should be. Here's where I stand, equipment wise, items that are new within the past month will be bold. Display SWC 120 Cone Skimmer Evergrow IT2060 LED Fixture Jebao WP25 Powerhead Vortech MP10 Powerhead Avast Deluxe ATO BRS Dual Reactor running GFO and Carbon Mag 9.5 Return Pump Glass-holes.com 1500 GPH Overflow Eheim Jager Heaters FRAG TANK Eshopps PS 120 Skimmer Jebao WP25 Powerhead Avast Deluxe ATO BRS Dual Reactor running GFO/Carbon Eheim Jager Heaters Glass-holes.com 700 GPH Overflow Evergrow d120 LED Fixture I'm excited to see how my tanks do now that they really have the equipment they need to thrive. The next two things on my list are to build my clear mesh screen top for my Display now that the HOB skimmer and Heaters are gone, and to figure out a way to hang my d120 over the frag tank without hanging from the ceiling, and keeping it looking clean. Will get some pics soon.

So I fed my tanks Roggers tonight for the first time after switching to an SWC 120 on my display, and an Eshopps PS 120 on my frag tank and did not have any issues! I'll blame the other skimmers......not the user!

Oh trust me, I know. And we keep the house between 69-73 all year. Luckily, I have no temp issues with my tanks. Both stay at 78, give or take .5

Lol, I SWEAR when I looked earlier, Alan's was #6! Operator error huh? Well, I have two new skimmers up and running now, will be feeding in an hour

My tanks are only about 100 total gallons of salt water and another 29 of fresh, all running LED's, so I'm not using too much power. It's definitely the baking. Our oven is often running non-stop Wed, Thurs, Fri, from noon to midnight during the summer. I can't believe we're still on our original.

Post 5 is Alan's.....did you mean six?

LMAO......$210, that's all? I broke $400 for three consecutive months this summer. And I don't even have a big house, just a 2,000+ sq ft townhouse with only two exterior walls. Granted, I have 3 full refrigerators, a huge deep freezer, and a wife that runs a pastry business out of our house. My three tanks are the least of my worries........

I use the regular GFO stuff. I emptied and cleaned the reactor really well then added new media, and let it run overnight. Everything has cleared up and seems to be back to new. I'm going to monitor the reactor closely, but I'm wondering if I was just tumbling too much.

I agree! I messed around with it the day it came in the mail but haven't had the opportunity to really take some good ones. I plan on taking some top downs soon though!

BRS Extra Thick and IC-Gel are both great. I've been using the BRS Extra Thick in bottle form lately, which I like much better than getting glue in the tube.

78

I rinse my GFO and Carbon before putting it in the reactor and both reactors are less than one month old.

I've got the algae under control. Just pulled every frag and literally took a scalpel and cut the algae off. I think Marco nailed it with the Carbon tumbling too much. Question, can I put the gfo and/or carbon in mesh media bags then put those bags full of media in the reactor?

Dino's? Diatoms? If so, it's definitely not diatoms. This is something to do with the GFO/Carbon for sure, and I'm guessing the sudden algae explosion was do to the GFO/Carbon releasing all the crap it had stored. The algae isn't as much of my concern as the fact that my reactor basically exploded.

So...... I run a separate BRS Dual Reactor on both of my tanks, with GFO in one chamber, and Carbon in the other. I was out of town all day yesterday at a swap with Richard, and didn't check my tanks when I got home last night. This morning I came down stairs and almost every frag in my frag tank was covered in brownish looking hair algae that looked like this: There was also a weird brownish film on the glass around the entire waterline ring. I looked in the sump, and my filter sock was completely clogged and was a brownish orange color. I checked the reactor and it too was completely brownish orange. After taking off the Carbon chamber, this is what I found: I pulled everything out to clean it out, and this is the sponge: Below are my questions: 1. Can this harm anything? There's nothing but about 100 zoa frags and a lawnmower blenny. 2. Any idea what could have caused this? There was no algae on Friday, and everything looked fine then as well. 3. I run less than a cup of GFO, and about a cup of Carbon in my 40 gallon total volume frag tank, and about twice that in my 70 gallon total volume display. Is that the right amount? 4. I know you're supposed to tumble GFO, but not Carbon. Unfortunately to tumble my GFO, I need to slightly tumble the Carbon. Is that ok? I'll follow up with any additional questions as I try to clean this up. Thank you in advance!

Yeah, favias grow pretty slow. If you see it starting to attach, just move it.

+1 This is important. As for the rest, it's funny, because I was just talking about this with someone. Honestly, except for the Hanna Checkers, I think they all really suck and can be easily misread. For the most part, once your tank has cycled, you really shouldn't need to be testing for Ammonia or Nitrite (at least I don't). I currently have the following: Nitrate: API but I hate it and have a Red Sea Pro Kit on the way. Haven't used the Red Sea kit yet, but I'm sure it'll be better than the API. Phosphate: API but I also have I special digital meter that cost about $200 but I got it from my work. pH: API and other than Ammonia and Nitrite, this is the only API kit I'm ok with. I've tested it against my expensive pool equipment and it is accurate. Calcium: Red Sea Alkalinity: Red Sea Magnesium: Red Sea I'm considering switching over to the Hanna Checkers soon for as many as I can.

You're such a woman.......... Nice post Isaac.

Lol, I did think to myself.... "What the heck? Is he really asking if BRS ships?"

I'd split the 250ml with you if you're going to the swap..... http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/fauna-marin-ultra-lps-grow-color-medium-pellet-coral-food.html

Nice! Only 45 minutes instead of the predicted 60-120! I starting getting WAMAS withdrawal symptoms after about 35 minutes, thank god you completed that so quickly!

I meant $1,300, lol