Jon Lazar

Actually this doesn't surprise me. I've found aiptasia in out-of-sight places like between rocks, inside the little plastic top plate of a MJ 1200, or inside a PVC pipe. They can hide in there for a long time, then one day move (to your observation tank rock) or reproduce. I keep a peppermint shrimp in my Red Sea Max. I always know when the current shrimp has died, because I start seeing tiny aiptasia popping up.

This is a fraudulent coral. They're responsible to make things right to you. Their wholesaler or distributor is responsible to make things right for them. And so on, back to the point of the fraud. If you want to help the store, add to the demand signal of pissed-off customers so they can go back to their supplier and demand restitution for all the lost sales. You could also get your 100% refund, then offer to purchase the coral at regular sun coral prices. Or you could buy a different, healthy coral. Or buy a gift certificate for a future coral. If we hobbyists just shrug and chalk it off to experience, the problem will continue.

It's about time for me to buy another pallet of salt. (Well, it feels like a pallet load when I'm schlepping it into the basement.) Any sales going on or planned on IO?

I've noticed the plastic bag yellowing when there's a teeny hole in the bag and moisture gets in. Sometimes the salt gets clumpy too. I still use clumpy salt unless it's completely turned into a giant brick.

I have a low flow sump and used to get a surface slick. So I bought one of these aquarium surface skimmers and hard-plumbed it into my MJ1200 skimmer feed pump. There's no extra pump required, and the surface scum goes directly into the skimmer. The whole contraption is held in place against the back wall of the sump with an old MJ magnet set. I used a die to thread the intake of the MJ, so the PVC ell screws on and off.

Mine turn pretty freely. You can feel a slight drag from the magnets if you spin it with your fingers.

I want to remind everyone how important it is to support your local fish (reef) store. Now, I admit that I usually turn to online orders for livestock and dry goods. I work long hours, and it's very hard to make time to travel to our community brick and mortar stores looking for this part or that, or waiting for them to order an out-of-stock fish. It's easier and saves me a lot of time to go to BRS or DD and click my way through an order that's delivered to my doorstep. But I recently re-discovered how valuable a brick and mortar store is. One of the Vectra circulation pumps on my display tank froze up the other day. I immediately went online and none of my bookmarked vendors had one in stock. Couldn't find one anywhere. I even went to R2R and clicked my way through their many sponsors, looking anywhere for an Ecotech Vectra L2. While I was searching for an online vendor, a Google ad told me that Reef eScape had one in stock, and for the same price as online. I called to confirm it was in stock, paid by credit card, and drove to pick it up. An hour later the pump was humming away on my tank. My LFS saved the day. Many of our community's local reef stores are small businesses, owned and staffed by people who share our passion for aquatic critters. With all the economic challenges ahead, it's more important than ever for us to support them now, so they'll be there to help us when we need it most. Whether it's a replacement pump, medication for a sick fish, live food for a finicky eater, or whatever, we'll all have a crisis someday. So do what you can to help keep our local reef stores in our hobby community.

I use the Reefbreeder fixtures. I found them to be a great balance of performance and cost. You can program them to ramp up and down if you want. I turn the whole thing on at once.

Do you like the Aquamax reactor? So do you pack the carbon between the sponges? My reactor is downstream of my filter socks, so the water is pretty detritus-free. I run the carbon reactor outflow back into the filter socks again in case there are any fines released. That's exactly what I use. But it fits inside a clear DI-style canister: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/brs-gfo-carbon-reactor-single.html

My media reactor always clogs within a week or so. I'm looking for recommendations for a lower-maintenance replacement, or ways to tweak my current setup so I don't have to clean it every week. I use a BRS media reactor, a MJ1200 feed pump, and BRS rox 0.7 carbon. If you're not familiar, the reactor looks like a DI canister and feeds water from the bottom. Inside there's a plastic screen and a sponge at the output end to keep the media from escaping. I've tried using only a small amount of carbon, putting the carbon in media bags, lowering the flow with a valve, and running it with only the screen and no sponge.

Your diagram shows sand, rock, and maybe macroalgae in the refugium chamber. Have you thought about doing a remote refugium outside of the sump? An in-sump refugium makes great sense when you don't have a tank room and everything has to fit inside the stand. But you've got this awesome tank room to work with. I like a remote refugium because it elevates the refugium and makes maintenance or viewing easier. You could use something inexpensive like a 40 gallon breeder with an internal overflow, or find a larger used tank like a 120 gal. Pump water up from the sump to the refugium, and let it gravity drain from the fuge back into the sump.

Lymphocystis tends to present on the edges of fins. Is that what we're seeing on your Koran?

Welcome! You'll find this is a great community. I would investigate why you don't have polyp extension. IME this is a sign of a problem that's going to cause your corals to decline. Some of your corals, like the echinata and red dragon, can have minimal PE. Corals like your millepora generally have much more PE than your pictures show.

It's hard to resist adding fish and corals, but it's a solid approach to long-term success. I would also consider adding live rock from the ocean for the added biodiversity. You'll get all kinds of little critters that will spread throughout your rock and sand, if you give them time without predators. And I'm not talking about live rock from someone's tank. That won't be as good because competition, predation, and environmental events will have already whittled down the biodiversity. Fresh live rock, shipped overnight, and dump it all in.

Do you have a skimmer picked out? If so, does it fit in a 10" space and run well in 12" of water? Some skimmers work best in a particular depth range. If you don't have a skimmer picked out, you could look at several contenders and make sure they'll all fit with possibly room to grow. Also, you might consider adding filter sock brackets even if you don't plan on using filter socks full time. IMO it's nice to have the bracket installed so you have the option of using them if ever needed. That might require you to move the right-most divider some. For your ATO, I would consider adding a manual float shut off valve in addition to the float switch for redundancy.

I haven't tried this, but my theory is that an MP40 is quieter than an MP10 for equal flow settings, because the MP40 can run at a lower power setting to achieve that flow. There's lots of reasons that might not be true. The MP40 might be a naturally louder pump; the MP40 might generate sound at frequencies that are not absorbed as well, etc. But it's worth looking into if volume is important.

I know this isn't what you asked, but you may have better results by making the pump more quiet in the first place, rather than trying to muffle the sound. Much (most?) pump noise is from vibration. Have you tried placing the pump on a vibration-absorbing silicone pad? If that doesn't work, maybe the whole skimmer?

Keep up the great work and thanks for the update! Tell us what sorts of things you've been doing to help the little fella along? Target feeding? Ensuring there's sufficient nitrate/phosphate/alkalinity for growth? Just leaving it alone to recover in peace?

Take your time, the fish will be fine. I've had an orchid dottyback in the external part of my overflow for something like three months. Every time I try to catch him, he darts from the external box through the bulkhead into the internal box where it's impossible to reach. Apparently the dottyback likes his personal ~3 gallon nano/overflow box over a 350 gallon community tank.

This is what I bought: IMT Heavy Duty Pencil Glass Cutter Oil Feed Tungsten Carbide Tip Metal Handle, Professional Mosaic/Tiles/Stained Glass Cutting Tool with Free Replacement Head - 6mm-20mm TOYO is also supposed to be a solid brand.

Buy a decent cutter. I tried cutting glass on a 40 breeder using a cheap $5 tool from HD. Every now and then a cut would work, but mostly i just ruined the glass. I ordered a $20 carbide tip pencil cutter from Amazon, and the cuts turned out much, much better.

Steve, I used 0.25" acrylic to make my baffles and would do it the same way if I had to do over. I'd feel ok with 3/16", but I wouldn't go any thinner. A paper-thin baffle will function the same as inch-thick material, but I'd be sure to accidentally break the thin stuff at some point later, when repair is most difficult. I've worked some with material from HD. It worked ok, but I had too much edge chipping from both my table saw and router table. But it could be it was polycarbonate and I just forgot. I buy my acrylic stock from usplastics and pay the required extra arm for shipping. But it's good material and easy to work with. I've read online in DIY groups where people go to acrylic fab shops and buy scrap acrylic dirt cheap. Never tried this myself. If this works, a sump would be the perfect application for slightly used acrylic. I also recycled some of the original acrylic partitions in my sump when I rebuilt it.

I use a 300W Eheim Jager controlled by my Apex. My total water volume is about 350 gallons. I've also used the Finnex heaters and have been happy with them too. But I've seen too many DC8s with an outlet stuck on to feel comfortable giving the Apex total control over a big heater. Might have to look into an inkbird controller too.

Reefcentral has a sand calculator.

My water station uses 2 55g drums. I chose a Pan World NX-50PX-X (1110gph) for mixing and pumping, and plumbed the system with 1" plumbing because that's what the pump connections are sized for. I'm happy with 1" for my setup, and would not do it smaller if I had to do it again. I usually run the Pan World overnight when mixing a fresh batch of saltwater. The pump is right-sized for mixing a 55g barrel of water and for pumping water. I could go with a slightly larger pump, but not a smaller one. I believe Mag pumps have a reputation for leaking when used externally, but I have no experience with this. What I DO know is that every Mag pump I've owned wears out in a couple years and I have to whack the pump to get it to start spinning. I suspect this is due to impeller bearing wear, which allows the impeller to be get close to one of the magnetic field poles so it can't start.