madmax7774
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Posts posted by madmax7774
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uh-oh. Things are going down hill fast. I got him into my 30 gallon and he is floating like he is dead. The gills are still going, but it's not looking good. Anyone have any idea's?
:bigcry:
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well I went to Minerva for lunch, and next door was a petco. I am need of a powerhead, so I went to check prices. I was shocked to find they had quite a few saltwater fish. I was even more shocked to find a nice 3" harlequin sweetlips in a tank alone and not doinf well. It was floating upside down and swimming very slowly. Not a good sign. I had to rescue it. I am not normally one to act this foolishly, but It just bothered me that the fish was obviously in distress and no give a *@ about it. I bought it like fool, even thought the moron behind the counter said it was "Gonna die anyway" and made me pay full price. So I brought him hame and put him into my 30 gallon small tank. My 30 gallon has a UV sterilizer, and excellent water conditions, so I am hoping to be able to save him. Does anyone have any suggestions or tips on how to help this poor guy out??? I apprecaite it.
John
:bigcry:
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Assuming that I can get past this silt crisis with this crappy aragonite sand I bought, next week, I will be ready to purchase my live rock for my home reef tank. I will need about 80lbs of decent rock. If anyone is selling any, or knows of any good deals locally, I am all ears.
John
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So the next step in 100 gallon setup odyssey is to get 80lbs of sand for the bottom. I get the two 40 lb bags home and start to rinse it in the shower with a bucket. so I rinse, and I rinse and I rinse, and I rinse, and I rinsed the sand for the whole weekend. All i did was rinse, rinse, rinse. Well even that wasn't enough. It's now wednesday, and I have a 1/4 layer of fine tan silt everywhere in the tank. I can't seem to get rid of the stuff. what a PIA! If I can't figure out a way to make the silt go away, I am going to have to tear it all down and clean it out and start over with some other type of sand. That means I will have lost $140 worth of salt and sand not to mention the bachache from spending the whole darn weekend playing with buckets of sand in the shower. I have to say I am really disappointed with the aragonite brand I bought.
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well, after some thought, I disconnected the RO/DI filter from the faucet where I had it and bought one of those line piercing taps from the hardware store that you use to add a water line for a refridgerator with an Ice maker. I placed the tap on the supply line of my hot water tank, where the cold water goes in. I checked the line and the residual heat from the tank that radiated up the line keeps the pipe warm at a nice 90' I placed the tap there and mounted the RO/Di filter next to the tank, and routed a line to a graduated 5 gallon container and started testing. I am actually getting about 24 gallons/day. not quite the 100gallons advertised, but good enough for my needs. I added a shut off vavle to the setup, and all is well for me. At least I don't have to lug a 5 gallon jug to the fish store anymore.
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OK, time for complete honesty, I have no idea what I am supposed to be testing on a regular basis. I bought a beginners saltwater test kit that tests for ammonia, PH, Nitrate, and nitrite. I talked to a sales person in a LFS and they said I should be testing my alkalinity as well, so I bought another test kit for that. As for the CA value, I don't know about that, and have not been testing. I will be going to the LFS sometime this week anyway, so I will get a CA test kit amd see where I'm at.
John
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slowly added a small amount of saltwater solution to the tank to bring salinity up a bit. I have no idea how to change the alkalinity. What do I add to bring it down?
John
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Oceanic 30 gallon Hex
Remora protein skimmer
Eheim canister filter
9watt UV sterilizer
1 powerhead for circilation
15 lbs live rock, 25 lbs other rock
150W 20,000K coralife MH light
temp 80F
salinity 1.020
ph 8.4
DKH 11.2
ammonia .25 ppm
nitrite 0 ppm
mitrate 5 ppm
Everyone in the tank is living together peacefully so far, and these water paramters have been pretty consistent for the last 3 months or so. Are they ok??
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So as my primary light system, I purchased 2 Retro kits from Hellolights.com, and I wanted to give a report on them. THey came with the reflector, and the mogul base already t go, and the ballast was already in a box ready to go, I simply had to attach the powe cord from the ballast to the bulb base, and install it in my hood. the bulbs are the XM 175W 20,000K bulbs. ( I love the blue color!) All I can say is wow. I was worried that 350W total light wasn't going to be enough, but I was wrong. The light from these suckers is so bright, it's incredible. For $305 you cannot go wrong. Replacement bulbs are only $65. Hello lights rocks! they packed the items incredibly well, and it arrived fairly quickly.
:D :D
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ran a test through each of the tubes and fittings, looking for a blockage. Everythinh has a high rate of flow until it gets to the RO filter on top, then it just goes really sloooooow. removing the filter makes it speedy again, so it's the RO filter itself is just really slow. I am going to call buckeye and ask for tech help with the RO filter.
thanks
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no, no sort of valve. it's just a straight shot through 30' of fube to my tank.
John
:bigcry:
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I purchased the value series 100GPD RO/DI filter from Buckeye Field supply. Supposedly it has 100GPD rating. I have it plumbed correctly, and I am not getting much flow at all. Supplying it with water from a bathroom sink faucet, I am lucky to be getting 5~10 GPD. Is there some sort of a break-in period for these things? There is good pressure coming from the faucet, and there are no blockages anywhere. I am really upset at how slow this thing is. I removed all of the filters and re-seated them to be sure everything was good. Everything looks ok. I have an adapter screwed into the sink faucet which converts the line to 1/4OD plastic tubing into quick fittings on the unit. It just seems to me like the filters in this thing are not letting the water pass through at any rate approaching 100GPD. Not even close. Anyone use one of the ones from Buckeye field supply and have similar results?????
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I am building a 75 gallon reef system at home, and am about to make a major purchase for lighting. I am looking at a pair of 400 watt MH retrofit kits from hellolights.com:
http://www.hellolights.com/arocu25rekit.html
I will build my own hood with extensive ventilation, but I am worried that this is too much lighting. The tank is an 48" long by 21" high by 20" deep acryilic tank. Is there such a thing as too much lighting? I was going to run 2 XDM 20,000K bulbs, as I am a huge fan of the deep blue color. The price is right for my budget, and I am more or less looking for confirmation that this is not a huge mistake to get these.
Any thoughts?????
Thanks,
John
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I check my water alot, and I have started to track my alkalinity.
Normal water levels for me are:
80` F
1.022 salinity
8.3 ph
.25ppm ammonia
0ppm nitrite
10ppm nitrate
My alkalinity reads around 12.4 DKH or 300ppm of something? is this in an acceptable range?
What is an acceptable range for alkalinity?
The test it I purchased is a SeaTest kit
and for what it's worth, it sucks. the dropper is very difficult to use, and the vials are cheap plastic.
John
:wall:
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After a week of use, the Remora HOT protein skimmer I bought is still blowing a lot of micro bubbles into the tank. It does a fantastic job of cleaning the water, but the bubbles are irritating. Anyone know of a way to stop the bubbles from getting from the Remora into the tank. I was thinking of maybe stuffing a piece of sponge into the overflow hole to try to stop the bubbles.
John
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I have been searching high and low for a valve that requires electric current to stay open. The idea being that by installing it into my plumbing system, it acts as a failsafe. This way if the power goes out, the valve snaps shut and a backward siphon catastrophe is averted. I find it hard to beleive that this doesn't exist, and was wondering if anyone has something that does this??? I did find something sort of like this for the lawn and garden industry that has an electric valve, but not enough information is given about these valves to be sure it does what I think it does.
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I have been reading about attaching silicone baffles to a glass tank with epoxy, but I am concerned that the epoxy wont adhere well to the smooth glass. Has anyone tried to rough up the glass using a dremel tool or something similar to help adhesion?
John
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if there was a way to grind the glass where the baffle goes, so it wasn't so smooth, the epoxy idea would work fantasitc. anyone tried grinding the glass with a dremel or something like that?
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Tank is a 30 gallon oceanic hex, with 20lbs dead rock ,and 15lbs live. 2" live sand bottom. Very heavily stocked ( too heavy). Using a ehaim canister filter with a newly added remora protein skimmer. THe UV is an 8 watt that is driven with a small powerhead to purposely slow the flow down very slow. maybe 40 gph currently. As fas as who made it, I forget, as I got it at the LFS.
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So the protein skimmer chugged away all weekend, and what a difference. The anenome is clearly alot happier, and the skimmer was about half full of green Goo. I tested the water today, and I am very happy to report:
ammonia - 0ppm
Nitrate - 0ppm
Nitrate - 10ppm
ph - 8.4
salinity - 1.022
80' F for a temp.
Clearly the protein skimmer has made a huge difference. I an curious though, what is the correct cleaning procedures for the skimmer collection cup. do we rinse and scrub it spotless ( which I did), or do we just drain and leave the green growth behind? It seems like scrubbing may have been a bad idea, as now the bubbles are not reaching the top anymore.
John
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I was wondering if anyone had any experience using the tahitian moon black sand. I have always wanted to have a black sand bottom on a reef tank, and was sondering if using that instead of live sand would hurt my reef system. I was thinking of 75 lbs. of live rock on a black sand base about 2" thick. anyone have any thoughts on this?
John
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I have a small 30 gallon oceanic that is overloaded with livestock. I am in the process of setup on a 75g acrylic at home to take some of the livestock. The 30 gallon has one of the Aqualight pro clip on metal halide lights. I am without quality lighting for the 75 gallon yet. I am toying with the idea of stripping the light from the 30 and adding a second one to make the lighting for the 75. that would be 2 150W 20,000K coralife bulbs as the main lights. This would a $250 investment instead of the $700 that I am facing for an aqualight 48" strip system. At this point, money is the driving force here, and I am trying to find a cheaper alternative. Anyone think two 150W metal halide lights wouild be enough for a 48" long reef tank?
John
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Last night was the big moment!! I finished building the stand for my home setup, and laid in the plumbing, and ran the initial proof on overall system integrity. I have an acrylic 75 gallon tank with 1 overflow which drains into an all-glass 30 gallon sump. I am then using a SEN500 to pump back into 3 jets in the main tank. So last night was the moment of truth. I filled the sump 3 times and used the SEN to fill the main tank. Once the main was full, I filled the sump 3/4 full and then left it to run overnight looking for leaks and problems. Quickly found 2 problems. One, I need a check valve on the return jets otherwise, when I turn off the SEN pump, it siphons the water back into the sump, which is bad. Two - I need to be able to adjust the flow from the return to stop the incredibly annoying sucking noises. But 24 hours with no leaks at all!! not to bad for a newbie. Next step is to finish the stand outsides with nice wood, and then to add a decent protien skimmer to the sump. After that I am going to hunt for a decently priced water filtration r/o type thing to hook into my house as a clean water source. Then of course, comes the lights. If anyone has 48" Metal halides they want to sell......
Anyone interested in a large green brittle star?
in General Discussion
I have a very large green brittle-star that with his legs extended is probably 14" across. He eat very well, and it not usually aggressive towards my fish. My tank is a 30 gallon hex, and it's just too small for him. I would like to trade him for a small fish or something. No damsels though. If you are interested, email me at john_hess@cox.net
thanks.