jamesbuf

Yeah, I always rinse the new socks before use. Been there, done that, with the consequences of not doing so. Thanks for the instructions. So I'm taking it that you wait until you have many of them dirty until you run a load, which means the socks have time to dry up while being dirty. Even after letting them dry and set, they still come all the way clean for you? No detergent correct, only bleach? Wasn't sure since you were rinsing so many times. Even if some remnant bleach is on the socks, the bleach will evaporate from the socks right? Thanks for the input. P.S. Don't let your family read this, they'll figure out that smell in the house is coming from the dirty filter socks laying around

Gotcha. I knew you were trying to move slow, but 3600gph of flow for only $150, I wanted to at least make sure you know about it. Why don't we both get one and split the shipping? Just kidding man......unless your you're serious hahaha. I'm sure you'll have no problem finding a good used pump when time comes. Thats an advantage of picking out pieces over a long time period. Its no problem waiting for the great deals to arrive.

I've always just used mine for a month and thrown them away. I used to clean them with the hose, but it clogged up again in no time, so I didn't both with the hassle. I'm wondering what techniques others use to get more life out their filter socks? I remember someone saying something about washing them in their clothes washer. Who has done this, and how did you go about making sure they were safe to use in your aquarium again?

Until you have the demands of a Ca reactor, you should just stick with a Kalk stirrer. The higher the pH, the better, and the Kalk stirrer will help raise your pH quite a bit. You'd be surprised at the level of sps you have to get to before a Kalk stirrer won't get the job done. Especially with the amount of top off water you'll have running through the stirrer for a tank that size. In general, the effluect of the Ca reactor lowers most peoples pH in the tank. Forgot to add in, while searching through premiumaquatics "clearance" section, I found this pump: http://www.premiumaquatics.com/Merchant2/m..._Code=Clearance They started with 12 of them about a week ago, and are down to 3 now. I was almost tempted to get one myself at that price, but I have enough crap laying around already.

You need to get in touch with ybenormal. I just send a notice to him so next time he logs on, he'll be able to help you. He's on pretty much every night, so it'll get taken care of pretty quickly.

Thanks man.

Chris, I have experienced exactly what you're talking about. I was trying to let some water evaporate to let me salinity raise a couple points, so I turned off my ATO with my ACII. So I thought. My ACIII website said my ATO was OFF, and I confirmed it on the unit, but the Tom's aqualifter pumps was still going. I have a dual top off pump. This exact unit: http://www.autotopoff.com/products/DS1/index.htm This is plugged into the ACIII, and the aqualifter pump is plugged into the ATO. I thought the water might have been being fed by gravity, but after touching the aqualifter pump, it was vibrating and definitely on, even though the ACIII said it was supposed to be off. I ended up unplugging the ATO so the water could evaporate with getting topped off. I've run into this problem twice. I don't know if the power is so minimal for the aqualifter pump, and the ACIII doesn't register it or something. The pump still cuts off when the float switch gets high enough, so I'm not really worried. Its just weird that the ACIII says that its off, but its really not.

Hopefully the mushrooms have a small bit of rock attached to their foot still. If so, get some super glue and glue that little piece of rock to a frag disc or small piece of liverock rubble. Getting shrooms with nothing on their foot is tricky. I use a small plastic container and put some small pieces of rubble in the bottom, then lay the mushroom inside on the LR. In my tank I even have to use a clear plastic top to keep the flow really low inside the container. The flow needs to be really low inside so the shrooms will attach. I'llt take a few days, but it usually works for me.

Finally get to see your tank. The anemones are looking good. Looks like they got their bubble tips back too. You don't have a clown in there do you? Looking good man. Tagging along..................

Too funny. Its crazy how many of those things are in your tank once its established. I changed my filter sock yesterday and there had to be a couple hundred in there, not to mention the hundreds in my frag tank. My 3 stripe damsel (original fish I started the hobby with many years ago) keeps the population in check in my sump/fuge, but I'm sure there's plenty living still living in the cheato.

I am no English major, but shouldn't a new sentence start with a capital letter? I'm with him. or i'm with him. Can someone please tell me which one is right? I'm confused now

I'll second that they are really impressive. I've seen the 4', 5', and 6' tanks at ThatPetPlace and I will definitely be getting one. When I have a house to put it in of course.

Lets get some pics of the setup!!! In regards to LR, not really sure. I've had so many LFS tell me about new bans in place, or coming soon. I'd say go for Marshal Island, but I haven't seen any place have that in forever.

Don't use this site to post pics. Register for a free account at photobucket.com and upload your pics there. Then you can copy and past the IMG code from photbucket into the thread, and the pic will show up. Far and away the easiest way to do it.

Not to mention that you want to be pulling out dissolved organic material from the water, not clogging up your meshwheel with solid debris that will make its way into the main body of the skimmer with the type of configuration that Jason described.

Its not like I get stung all the time. I've only really had truly bad run ins with them when redoing my aquascaping. I also have a ricordea garden in the middle of my 92gal, and the rubble the ricordeas are attached to slowly sink into the sandbed. I periodically pull the rubble pieces out of the sandbed so they are resting on the DSB, and that is when I usually noticed a bunch of baby bristleworms everywhere. If you have a frag disk, or LR rubble piece laying on your DSB somewhere, pick it up sometime and I'll bet you have some worms hiding out underneath. I like to get my turkeybaster out every now and then and shake up the sandbed where the ricordeas are. Make the baby worms shoot out and the wrasses are quick to come out later to scoop them up. LOVE IT!!!!

$75 Oh wait, thought it was an auction . If you're careful, that's quite a few new frags there.

Oh man that is soooooo tempting. Why couldn't this have been in a month or two when I'd have paychecks flowing in again :(

I'm with you. Keep expenses down and pass the savings onto us. I would be cool though .With the fast flow of livestock going out of that place, there's gonna be kinks in any system put in place. Having a magnetic strip along the actual tanks, to place the prices of the stuff inside a given tank, would be nice though. I would think it'd make it easier for the employees to keep track too. I don't work there, so I can't say what is easier though. Either way, keep up the good work. I look forward to future plans and changes.

Yeah, but with that goby, don't you have a constant cloudiness in your tank. I had one in my old 180, and it seemed like the haze would never go away. I'd love to have one again, for the same reason you're describing, but I really hated even the slight cloudiness of the water that was created. Don't get me wrong, that fish is great for keeping the sandbed clean. I even put one in my Mom's tank since her porc puffer laid waste to the nassarius snails. But she too is experiencing the constant particles in her tank.

So you're saying that I shouldn't have just a prizm skimmer on my 300gal tank?

Couldn't have said it better myself. My first purchase on here was used skimmer I got for $200. It would've cost me $600 new, so I figure I made back many many years of my membership off that just that first purchase. There's a reason why hundreds of people renew every year, it saves you money in the long run.

And anglerfish would be cool. Have a school of Chromis in the tank for him

Thanks for the link.

Very good advice has been given. Everything I was going to say, has already been said. I wouldn't want to have a 30" tall tank, but at that price, I say go for that one. It would be nice to have the 30" of depth, but being 8' long means alot more expenses in regards to lighting and such. I guess you could just go real simple and have a metal halide only system though. I've seen plenty of nice tanks without all the additional supplementations, just gotta have the right bulbs so you don't need actinics. Have each of them turn on sequentially from one side to the other, a few minutes apart from each other, so you can still simulate sunrise and sunset. Thats what I plan on doing anyways. Just trying to throw some ideas in your head. In regards to the 30" tall tank, are you prepared to have to use those plastic reachers evertime something falls onto the sandbed? And to have to use a stool to even reach halfway down into the tank. If that's not an issue for you, then get that tank. If you're like me, and cringe at the thought of not being able to reach everything in the tank with my bare hands, then get the other one.