madmax7774

AC3 controlling my auto top off, lights, heater, and kalkwasser. MH1$-A01 MH2$-A02 ACT$-A03 KLK#-A04 HET&-A05 If Time > 09:30 Then MH1 ON If Time > 18:30 Then MH1 OFF If Time > 09:30 Then MH2 ON If Time > 18:30 Then MH2 OFF If Time > 09:00 Then ACT ON If Time > 19:00 Then ACT OFF If Temp > 82.0 Then MH1 OFF If Temp > 82.0 Then MH2 OFF If Temp > 82.0 Then ACT OFF If Switch2 CLOSED Then KLK ON If Switch2 OPEN Then KLK OFF If pH > 08.35 Then KLK OFF Max Change 005 M Then KLK OFF If Temp < 78.5 Then HET ON If Temp > 79.0 Then HET OFF

I have always had no problems getting my butterfly's to eat Danichi pellets. I get them at BRK. In fact every fish I have ever had has taken to them. John

Having tried several types of Kalk powder, I have found that in my tank, nothing works quite like E.S.V. brand. I tried the mississippi lime, and ms. wages pickling lime, and one other brand of store bought kalk powder that I can't remember at the moment, and nothing beats this stuff. http://www.marinedepot.com/ps_ViewItem~idProduct~EV2102.html They sell it at BRK. I highly recommend it. John

here's my real life experience: I have a 2 year old 110G system that was pretty far gone with an aptasia problem last december. It was so bad in fact that a good friend of mine who works at a LFS told me to just get rid of all the rock and start over. I was hesitant to do that considering the huge effort I put into building my rock towers. As a last restort, I bought a pyramid butterfly from BRK, and several "peppermint" shrimp. After 4 days, all of my aptasia was gone. The Pyramid was like an aptasia lawnmower. and whatever he left behind the peppermints got. Personally, I think the pyramid butterfly is kind of ugly, but since he does such a fantastic job of keeping aptasia under control, he has earned himself a permanent spot in my tank. In my opinion Joe's juice is a waste of money. The same thing can be accomplished with lemon juice, or boiling water, or kalk solution, or baking soda. all are methods that have been tried and have found success for some, and not for others. You are always going to have aptasia. Even if you manage to get them all now, more will find it's way into your system eventually as hitchikers on other things you bring into your tank. Your best bet is to find an animal that you can tolerate in your system that will keep them in check. John

About 1 month ago, I upgraded my AC jr. to the AC3. Being gadget happy, I log into it remotely a few times a day to look at the parameters. Well, I logged in today, to find that my lights were unexpectantly off. What the heck are my lights doing off in the middle of the day??? This couldn't be good. I left the office, and raced home to investigate. Turns out that my lights were off because my temperature had climbed sky high. Thankfully I put a catch statement in the program to turn off the lights if the temp gets too high. After backtracing the problem, It turns out that the mag7 pump I use to supply my chiller with a constant flow of water had seized, causing the chiller to shut down, causing the temps to soar, and shutting down the lights. Why was the pump seized? Pure and simple: laziness. I haven't cleaned the pump. It was loaded with calcium buildup, and the impeller had jambed. I have it soaking in vinegar, and hopefully it still works... moral of the story: don't be lazy like me, clean your equipment !!!

Thats awesome Bruce. really ingenious setup you have there.

the problem is the grey plastic is metric, not english, and it is nearly impossible to find. They sell rubber boots/adapters at the hardware store that allow you to join odd sized pipes together with hose clamps. It would be much cheaper and less of a headache to go that route. I have a friend who uses one on an octopus skimmer and it works fine. Ehiem pumps are nice, but are too expensive. Since this is a rebuild, it makes more sense to keep the cost low, I would look into a GenX4500 with the mesh-weel mod, and definately look into the recirc mod as well. Recircs are the way to go. Do research on the web for the ASM skimmer mods, as this skimmer looks very similar to the ASM, and that would provide you with a good set of instructions to copy from. http://www.asmskimmer.com/modifications.htm http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...365#post3707365 two helpful threads I found fairly quickly....

I use a small 70 watt halogen light bulb that they sell in lowe's for $5.99. it goes into a regular lamp socket, and works great. in fact, the stuff grows almost too fast in my tank.

I still believe that the cheapest possible solution is an AC power inverter run from your car. you can pick up a 750W to 1000W inverter for around $50 from places like wallmart, Target, etc. From there you run an outdoor extension cord ($20 at lowe's) into the house and use it to run your return pump, a single heater and maybe your protein skimmer. keeping the water warm and circulating will get you through even several days of horrible weather. Most people usually have enough gas in the tank on any given day to let a car idle overnight if necessary. This method is cheap, effective, and foolproof.

I wish I could, but I am not coming to the meeting. My wife (director of redecorating, weekend activites, and budgeting) scheduled a weekend event that conflicts with the meeting. Since my parents are in town visiting from Atlanta, my veto powers are temporarily suspended in favor of family gatherings..... :(

partition off an area for a deep sand bed if you don't already have one. make it at least 6~8 inches deep. Add to this as many different cupfulls of live sand from other people's tanks as you can aquire. It increases bio-diversity. I went to Puerto Rico on vacation a while back, and I brought back a spaghetti sauce jar full of wet sand that I got from offshore. I also had another jar full of wet sand from offshore of a beach in south Carolina that my dad got for me. (don't take sand from the shore, it's dirty. You have to be willing and able to swim out quite a ways to get to the stuff that is less dirty.) I also added cheato, caulerpa, and some red algea that was at BRK, and some live rock. Some folks here might think it crazy to add ocean sand like this to the tank, but I have been doing it since I started this hobby over 2 years ago, and I have nothing but positive results from this. I believe my tank has a strong diversity of micro critters, and I think it is one of the reasons my tank is doing well. By the way, I need to remove a bunch of cheato and caleurpa from my fuge, so if you want some you are welcome to it. John On a side note, I have heard several horror stories about how bad caluerpa can be, but I seem to have luck with it. I regularly take handfuls of it from my sump, and dump into my display to feed my tangs. They love the stuff. I have never had a problem with it attaching or growing in my display. I am not sure why it seems to work for me, and not others....

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures! this thread needs pictures!

I track my magnesium, and it is at 1280ppm, so that's not the cause of my problem. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm see the corrections for zone 4 part of this article, it is what I am using as my guideline. My tank is now primarily SPS. I used to suspect that my calcium test kit was off, but I have taken tank water samples to BRK on 3 seperate occasions to have it checked. It is consistently in the 460ppm to 480ppm range.

Chip, I do not add 2 part. I just run my topoff through one of Dan's stirrirs(with ESV kalkpowder). As I understand it, a kalkstirrer doses calcium, and a calcium reactor doses alkalinity. As a temporary solution I have been adding baking soda to keep the alk up. Once I get the calcium reactor up, hopefully it will level things out. I may have to reduce kalk topoff levels to reduce calcium, but since i have been keeping the alk up, the growth has taken off significantly, which I'm hoping will use up more calcium, and get things back inline.

I have the exact same problem, and have been dealing with it for a while now. I took an empty juice bottle, filled it with RO water, and then added a box of Arm & Hammer baking soda to create a high alkalinity solution. I have to add roughly 1 cup of this solution every couple of days to keep my alk at 9.8dkh. I find that my alk drops 1.4 dkh per day for each day I don't add from this solution. My calcium is usually around 490ppm. I run my RO topoff through a GSA kalkwasser with ESV brand kalk powder. From my research, I have determined that for me, it is time to add a calcium reactor to my system to keep the alk up. I am in the process of slowly acquiring the equipment to setup a calcium reactor. For now I do the regular dosing with the baking soda solution.

that would probably work. It really all depends on how good your fabrication skills are. Inevitably you will get 90% of the way complete, and then realize that you require a fitting or part that doesn't exist. That's where the real fun begins.

dude just try it out, you won't know till you try it. Worst thing that will happen is some light leaking, and probably not even that. when you try it for the first time be prepared to shut it off quickly and mop up a mess. most likely you'll find it ok, and then you can begin optimizing it

Imagine If I was wearing one of Howard's famous wamas G-strings?

bare bottom tanks are like public nudity on a street corner. It just ain't right!

my name refers to my colorful driving history: At 15 I taught myself to drive one weekend while my parents were out of town, by borrowing my dad's car and driving off across New york state for no apparent reason. At 16 once I got my permit, I managed to accidentally rip the rear bumper off my dad's car in a grocery store parking lot because I thought it would be cool to try an "e-brake" slide in a snowstorm. at 17, I was driving my mother's 2 month old Saab 900 with her in the passenger seat when I got into a head on collision, and totalled the car. To be fair though, it was icy, and it was the other guys fault. at 18 I was caught going 104 mph on the NY state thruway by a state trooper who didn't take too kindly to my desire to find out just how fast my car would go. later that same year (at 18) I managed to roll my car over, going around a corner on my way to see my girlfriend. and totalled the car. between the ages of 18 and 25, I probably had 8 or 10 moving violations, and one disorderly conduct for an incident involving a motor vehicle and some dunkin donuts, that I don't care to recall. Thankfully through a healthy regiment of intensive therapy, strong psychotropic medications, and occasional electro-shock therapy, I am happy to announce that I am now a relatively safe driver. Just don't cut me off.....

never tried a kalk pump, so I can't really say. my hunch is that the pump would very quickly get crusty and fail with all that calcium in there, but that's just a guess. John

Idea's: (1)Build & Dontate a massive multi-stage protein skimmer for the Wamas tank at the national aquarium. Granted the skimmer will likely hold more water than the tank, but hey, I believe in over-skimming... (2)Design a limited run product line of monster skimmers called "Titan Skimmers" for the exclusive 1000g+ folks use them as missile bodies for your own designer patriot missiles, because everyone needs their own backyard missile, right? (3)Heat them, and bend them into a giant donut shape, to create your own super collider ring, because there are always physicists looking for new toys to play with. (4)Add lenses to the ends, and paint it black, to have your own giant star-gazing telescope. (5)give one to me to play with. (6)cut a door in one and add some plumbing, and voila - instant man portable shower.

a 5 gallon pail of kalkpowder would last you well over a year or more. As far as Kalkstirrer's, Dan from GSA has the market cornered on them. He makes a fabulous product that is very inexpensive. You can't beat his product for the price. They sell them locally at BRK, and I believe they have a few in stock. The problem with a simple kalk drip is that without the agitation of a stirrer, the powder settles out to the bottom of the container, which is a pain.

no, nothing as exciting as that. It's just that I recently became the owner of a very pretty scribbled fox, and lately I have noticed that when I reach into the tank, she comes to investigate, and I get a little nervous as to what could happen if I were to somehow spook her and cause her to sting me. I was allergic to bees when I was a kid, (haven't been stung since I was a kid) and I am wondering how that bodes for me if I take a hit from the fox. I am not particularly interested in spending time at the hospital.

Has anyone in wamas actually been stung by a Lionfish or a Foxface? if so please describe in intimate detail how it happened, what it felt like, how long the symptoms lasted, etc. I am interested in first hand accounts, not friend of a friend stories... Thanks, John