Newms118

Allright, got the full conference registration and the T-shirt. Can't wait!

Do they do day passes?

Ok so this may sound stupid, but its a good idea for the gasket to be wet before tightening? I'm asking bc after I cleaned the overflow and gasket last night, when I was retightening it, there was no way to fully dry the surfaces, so all were still wet. I had a feeling that this may be bad. But its actually better?

Ok, anyone seeing this "you'll break a bulkhead before you crack the bottom of the tank," what are your thoughts? Is the bottom piece of glass that strong? I've read numerous times not to do use a pair of channel locks to tighten the bulkhead.

Thanks for pointing that out flowerseller, wasn't thinking about putting the bulkhead in the non traditional way. The gasket goes with flange side is much more specific. As far as retightening the bulkhead, that just makes me nervous. At the least, I could untighten and then retighten so that I know how much more I can twist the nut without it going too far. Just don't want to hear a crunch from the glass...

So do the tickets with the early bird pricing go quick? Just wondering if I should get this now or can wait a bit.

Probably depends on the coral. If its a leather, I had luck using a razor to cut at the bottom very gently to separate it.

I hand tighten, and then when its harder to turn, I do another 1/4 turn. I don't use a wrench for fear of breaking the glass or deforming the gasket. I just think when I bumped the drain it may have wiggled the bulkhead a bit to let it leak. But its stopped leaking so I believe If I re-seat it I should be good to go.

Yep, gasket on the wet side (not the side with the threads). I have some silicone that I never used. When i take the gasket out I'll put it with some of the silicone and see if that helps it. Such a mess to have to clean out the overflow to work back there. How often do people re-seat their bulk head due to leaks? Is this rare or something that should be expected from time to time?

Just be sure that the fish you get look pretty healthy. I got some fish (2 clowns) from there that went through Quantum's quarantine treatment, but when I got them back to my tank, I lost one in 3 days and the other a week later. Both due to gill flukes (I treated to late) that had to have come from that store since these were my first two fish. I've had success with King of Corals for healthy fish.

So where are you getting the fish?

Beat me to it

I've read that you're not supposed to put live rock into a QT bc it will absorb the medication. When I set mine up, I just used PVC elbows for the fish to hide. I usually replaced about 3 gallons every 2 to 3 days. I checked ammonia daily and really didn't have issues. The ammonia badge is great to use though. After about a month of the tank running (I ended up having them in QT for 2 months), the tank cycled and the QT care was easy. Water changes were done more so to lower the nitrate level than any other issue. And yes some say that its not possible for the nitrate level to climb high enough to cause an issue, but the fish (1 clown, 2 yellow-tail blue damsels, and one royal gramma) were visibly distressed and responded much better when the nitrate levels dropped. From what I've read, if you are going to treat, no carbon since that will just pull it out. I used an hang over the back filter stuffed with filter floss to just collect the particulate matter. The trick was making sure the fish ate ALL of the food added, and if any is missed, just scoop out with the net so that it doesn't add to the build up of ammonia. For medication, I'd get Prazipro (for internal parasites) and some form of copper (I used Coppersafe but many use Cupramine) for ich and gill flukes. If you use Coppersafe, the only copper test that will work is the API which tests for total copper. If you get cupramine, than the salifert copper test will work. Of course testing for copper is required because of how toxic it is. You may already know all this or have a lot of experience but I figured I'd just add some details since I just went though this QT business over the summer. And for lights, I didn't really pay much attention to that. the fish were kept in the kitchen (on the Island) so if they wanted somewhere dark to go they had the PVC elbows, one for each fish so no fighting.

I have my tank overflow plumbed Herbie style, and haven't seen any issues (tank was filled back in February of this year) until today. I was putting a powerhead in my sump and potentially touched the drain pipe somehow. I didn't notice any type of leak until I actually turned on the powerhead. At first I saw the drops coming from the junction between the bulkhead and the PVC, but when I dried the pipe I could see it was actually coming from the bulkhead. I turned off all my pumps and the leaking stop. I dried everything again making sure to not bump the drain pipe and turned my pumps back on. So far no more leaking. I haven't tightened anything but am wondering if the best course of action would be to drain the overflow, clean the glass, reapply the gasket, and tighten the bulkhead again. What do you guys think? Just clean and reapply gasket, or buy a new gasket altogether?

Well my QT has been up for so long its been through the cycle, no ammonia or nitrites detectable, just nitrate that slowly builds. I'll try and get some cupramine, really hate to have to go through that again. What makes me doubt anything else is going on is the fact that the other two fish don't seem to show any signs of disease. Perhaps the clownfish is just stupid lol.

So I've had 1 clownfish, 1 royal gramma, 1 yellow-tail blue damsel in a QT since the beginning of June. I had issues with white stringy poop and noticed the white ich on the fish, so I first treated the fish with a weeks worth of Prazipro, followed by a full month of Coppersafe for the ich. I thought these guys were fine, and then about two weeks ago the clownfish looked a bit sick (swimming on the bottom with closed fins) and was flashing on the PVC tubes. I didn't see any signs of ich and the other two fish seemed fine, so I treated the fish with Prazipro. This seemed to help the clownfish. It was swimming normally and its fins were up and about. So after two doses, Ive taken the Prazipro out and after about 4 or so days, I've noticed him go into a bit of shakes followed by a few flashes on the PVC tubes. Any idea whats going on? The other two fish don't seem to be sick, its just the clown, so I'm wondering if perhaps I need another round of Coppersafe.

Bump I use the salifert phosphate test and I get 0 phosphate. I run chemi pure elite so that should help pull the phosphate out. Came in after work and both are balled up again, I just think it's too much light, which is strange bc when I first put them in I had the leds at a higher percent. I only had to turn them down when I put more corals in that we're bleaching out. It's like they lost their tolerance to the light. As for the feeding, I feel if I don't feed them they'll die since they have been shrinking. One thing I should mention is that I've been using zeovit sponge power, lps amino acid, pohls xtra, coral booster and coral vitalizer. Think any of those guys can cause issues?

It seems clear, like mucus. So it seems to have opened up a bit now which just doesn't make sense to me. Its as if its getting to much light and opens at night bc only my actinics are one and at a low intensity. If it didn't like the light, why won't it more down? Its like its intentionally starving since its been shrinking. And no clownfish yet.

I started the tank up in February so I think it should be old enough to support the anemones. The larger one has been shrinking so I've been trying to feed it mysis once a week. Ive tried turning the lights up but started bleaching the corals, so couldn't go much higher than what Im using today. Right now the anemone has some stringy substance coming from it. I can't tell if its from the mouth since its still closed up. I also did feed it yesterday.

So I have 2 green bubble tip anemones that have been refusing to open up the majority of the time lately. The first indication something was up was the larger anemone starting roaming around. I thought it was just not getting enough light since it got on the glass and crawled all the way to the top, where it sits now. In this spot, he does receive lots of flow, so I attributed his closure to that. However when I keep the flow down considerable all day, the anemone still stays closed. The smaller anemone appears to be doing the same thing. It didn't roam around but I rarely see it open up to stretch out its tentacles. The tank is a 65 gallon with a 30 gallon sump. So far it has corals and cleanup crew since I've been fighting some ich/flukes with my fish (their in QT). My lights are 2 units from Build My LED (14000K and 20000K) running at 56% of max. All my corals (2 torch, some birds nest, some leathers, 2 favias, 1 hammer, 1 frogspawn, 1 red planet, 1 GSP) seem fine and have good polyp extension, which makes me confused bc I figured these guys would also being showing signs if something was off with the water. Here are my parameters: Ammonia = 0 ppm Nitrate = 2.5 ppm Calcium 500 ppm Magnesium = 1140 ppm Alkalinity = 7.8 dKH Temp = 79 degrees C pH = fluctuates between 8.2 and 8.1 Salinity = 1.026 I'm afraid these guys are on their way out since its been at least a week in this state. I don't want to have them nuke the tank, so any suggestions would be much appreciative. Larger anemone Smaller anemone

This may seem like a silly question but since its also my first frag fest, when you say tossed out to members do you mean available for purchase or raffled/given out for free?

I'm thinking it wasn't RTN because I found that limpet on the coral. In fact the bit of SPS tissue at the very tips of the coral that weren't eaten are starting to grow back. To my understanding if it was RTN I should have lost all the tissue and that would be the end of it. For the other smaller birds nest coral that was looking fine, I broke the healthy tips off and left them sitting in the tank for a week to avoid anymore trauma. Yesterday I glued them onto a frag plug and they seem to be doing fine with good polyp extension.