mr11

I 2nd artfully acrylic. I just picked up my tank from them and it's awesome. I'm going to start a build thread soon so you can check it out.

You can get an RO/DI unit that just hooks up to the faucet. You don't have to mess with the actual plumbing.

I'll rework the return a little bit today. So ball or gate on the return? From what I understand you only really need the elbows on the open channel so you can get a partial siphon with the air vent out the top of the elbow. It's not required for the full siphon or emergency although I think it makes it harder for critters to climb in.

Appreciate it. Should I just replumb the whole return, try and even things up a little bit, or will it preform well enough with the ball valve trick? I have a gate valve on the main siphon. The ball is on the open channel and anytime there's water moving through it it will remain fully open. To be honest I'm not sure why I put it on at all except I heard a couple people mention they have one so I just added it.

While we are at it, any opinions on this return line plumbing?

Thank again! These are compression fittings, used to repair broken PVC I believe. They were recommended on R2R to make the plumbing removable as you mention but also allow you to rotate the entire plumbing apparatus downstream from that junction.

Awesome thanks Alan. So if the water level isn't where I want it I can just raise the center open channel drain? If I want to do the "hole in the pipe" vs john guest I would need the hole in the fitting to be lower than the emergency drain correct? And I bought some compression fittings, does anyone know if these are supposed to be glued in? They have rubber gaskets one each end.

Hey, so I've roughly put together my beananimal plumbing (nothing is glued yet) and I'm looking for some critiques. I still need to figure out the john guest fitting, I'm not sure how to make that work or what alternatives I may use. Anything I did obviously wrong here? Appreciate it.

Suck of some of the cyano and put in a solution of tank water/H2O2. If the water turns pink and the cyano turns green it's probably true cyano and sensitive to H2O2. You can start dosing H2O2 to defeat the cyano. If this does not happen then it is probably a relative of cyano called spirunlina and chemiclean should do wonders. There are some great/extensive threads on this with some pseudo-scientific testing on R2R.

And I thought that was an actual restaurants web page... Thanks.

Hey, Has anyone come across a particularly easy to follow bean animal plumbing guide or know of a parts list? There are a ton of build threads which detail this process but I was hoping someone would know of one or two in particular that are the gold standard. I have no experience plumbing except for when I busted a sink in a house we were renting. Any and all help is appreciated. Thanks!

Do they look like little swirls up close? If they could be spirorbid worms (a type of feather duster).

Woohoo you guys nailed it. It wasn't quite the venturi, the blockage was downstream in what I though was the silencer (and also though it was not integral to the function of the skimmer, whoops). But I cleaned it out and it's working great now. Thanks everyone

So I took the pump apart today. I'm really not sure what I should be looking for. Any tips? Nothing looks overtly broken. I didn't find any obstructions.

What coral is 6th down? Is that a blasto?

Do you have the ability to run salt water in your ATO until you get the salinity back to where you want it?

I recalibrated my refractometer and it was slightly off but salinity reads 1.026 after correction. That's actually what got me thinking something more serious was going on with the skimmer, it didn't react at all with chemiclean. The skimmer is only a year old but it is a "budget" skimmer...

So I had a bad cyano/spirulina outbreak that started sort of around the time this started. I dosed chemiclean but this was after the skimmer problem had already started. If it was the impeller would it still be producing microbubbles? Is it worth taking apart the pump to see? Not sure what I'd be looking for. Thanks for your help

Nope sump water level has remained constant

Any idea why my skimmer might not be producing a foam head? It also stopped pulling skim more or less. I took it apart and couldn't find any problems but I don't know a lot about these things. This has been going on for a couple weeks now. It's an SCA 302.

I see aiptasia

72 days is what's recommended.

I was considering a 20g. The issue I have with that is that I can only swing a 10g water change at most in short notice, ie <24hrs and thats pushing it. I unfortunately don't have the room to store premixed saltwater. So I'm sacrificing swimming space for the ability to react quickly with a large water change. I don't know what's better. I could still take the tank back and get a 20.

Awesome reply, thank you. A lot of great tips. You mention you cycle your QT, do you have a QT permanently running? I do also have red sea and API ammonia, trite, and trate test kits which I plan to use, I just want the badge there as a back up/alarm. I was considering Kanaplex but heard it has a relatively short shelf life and it's not something people generally treat prophylactically correct? I figured I could overnight it with amazon prime if I end up needing it. I'll look into API General Cure. Any opinions on ParaGuard? I'll definitely throw in some pipes for hiding as well. I'm not sure if I can swing an ATO, would manual top off every other day or so be too unstable? It's just a 10 gallon QT. My DT isn't too large so I won't be QTing and tangs or triggers or anything like that.

I took advantage of the petco $1 per gallon sale and bought a QT tank, fluval aquaclear HOB filter, and heater. I also ordered: Seachem Prime Seachem ammonia badge Seachem Cupramine Hikari Prazipro Does this seem like a good list of on hand medications? Would you add anything else? As far as seeding, I run filter floss in the baffle of my sump. Would this work? It's been in there about a week. I also bought those filter pads for the HOB filter which I will place in my sump to start accumulating bacteria.