madmax7774

I use 4 maxi jet 1200's on a red Sea wavemaster pro, and although they seem to have a bad reputation, mine works great. Even after I managed to drop it into my sump while still plugged in (oops!) I just dried it out, cleaned it, and it started working again no problem. someday when I hit the lottery, I will be buying a tunze setup... John

I would be willing to clean aquariums for frags....

I've been a reef crystals user since day one. why? I have no idea, just because.

Which Salt mix do you think is the best? Why? Which do you use? Let the battle begin....

that's a lot of Calimari !!!!

Rebecca, If you order from them, let me know how it goes, as I have been eyeing that site for some time now. I wonder if they would support a Group buy... If they do, and you are up for it, I would be willing to go in for a trial run with them... John

that does look like it would make things easier. I'll bite, how much? John

yup, that's what I was referring to. Cool, I need a couple of those.

All good points. Anyone know a good source for getting the IV drip controller wheel thingy's that you use to set a drip rate? John

I have been regularly dosing B-ionic for some time, and I have it down to a routine where I regularly add a specific amount of parts 1 & 2 every day. I have been thinking about some cheap and easy ways to automate the Dosing. I keep coming back to the idea of drip rate controlled IV bags. They are cheap to buy surplus, and would be extremely simple to setup. The hardest thing to work out would be how many drips per time period to achieve the same dosage that I require. I can't see any immediate flaws with this plan, and I was wondering if anyone else out there has tried a similar approach to automatic dosing. I don't really want to get into buying expensive litermiter type pumps, as I am looking to do this on the cheap. I know B-Ionic has offered their own automated system on the market now, but let's face it, the price is approaching ridiculousness for some plastic tubing and some pretty plastic containers with graduated marks on them. The heart of my idea would be to control the dosing by controlling the drip rate. Thoughts?

even if it is a shellfish/coral allergy, you still ought to be able to continue with the hobby, you'll just have to wear those unsightly full length arm gloves, and be sure not to accidentally drink any saltwater when messing with syphoning things... And if it came down to it, you could always train your wife on how to care for the tank.

Power came back finally, Not sure what caused the outage. My neighbor had a power inverter, so The plan was to use that, but luckily it never came to that. Thanks everyone for the pointers and help John

Thanks JohnnyBV for the offer but I could never get there in time. I will grab one this weekend, when i am there. The mention of the car power inverter has jogged my memory, and My neighbor has one, I am going to borrow it, and run it from my car, and then string extension cords into the house to get the return pump going. Once that is up, I should be Ok for several hours. If things turn out to be overnight or longer, I may start looking to borrow a generator... thanks everyone for the good idea's You know this is happening to me because I had to go and run my mouth to dhoch about how my power has never gone out in 4 years.... I should have never said anything!! God I hate Murphy's law! John

Oh sh1t! I called Dominion power, and they are reporting a widespread outage in my area, that is not expected to be restored until 8pm. That's 4 hour length of time. Will my tank be ok for 4 hours with no power?????

My wife just called, and the power just went out at my house. This is the first time this has happened in the 4 years I have lived in Northern Virginia. I am not completely Panicked yet, but I am nervous. What should I do? I don't have a generator, and I don't have a battery operated air pump. I can stop at the LFS on the way home, and buy one of those battery operated air pumps. How long can a 120G system last with no power? My heat is gas forced air, so I ***think*** the furnace will still work. THe downstairs will stay fairly warm for several hours anyway. Suggestions??

I've heard of some folks talking about reef conservation, and things of that nature. I wonder if we as hobbyists could take a frag and grow it into a sizeable coral, and then transplant it into an ocean reef, like off the coast of florida, or something like that... would it survive? Heck if placed in the right location, It might even grow huge. Wouldn't that be a hoot, if we could start returning corals to the reefs? On another note, Could we create an artificial reef, and then place corals in it, and allow them to propegate, and then harvest pieces of them for the hobby? Would that be legal? Since we created the reef, and put the corals their, we ought to be able to harvest from it right? I think I would like to coin the term "Artifical reef insemination"...

Steve, It is possible that your reaction could have been caused by the chemical compoud Cynaoacrylate which is what superglue is made of. Wikipedia - Cyanoacrylate I only bring this up, because I used to be a big radio-control airplane hobbyist, and most of the folks in that hobby use a purer form of superglue commonly referred to as CA glue to build the planes. I spent over 10 years in the hobby, and I had several good friends leave the hobby due to suddenly become allergic to CA glue. It is a strange allergy, because for years many people can use it and never be allergic, and then one day, you react badly to it. I have a theory that the human body can only take so much exposure to CA glue before you start to develop reactions to it. It would fairly easy to figure out if this was the cause, as you could just expose yourself to some superglue without exposing yourself to the saltwater, and see if you have a similar reaction. Conversely, you can rule out the tank, bye taking a dip in it, but not exposing yourself to the glue. Good luck, John

I can say anything I want about Deltec, and not one person can say boo about it, because I *own* a Deltec. As a matter of fact, I own the king of the single pumpers, the AP851. I am actually interested to see how the Dantec works out, because knowing Dan, and the little improvements he makes on designs, I am betting that his will outperform mine!

Ok, you can have the credit for naming his Kalk reactors, but I get full credit for naming his line of protein skimmers!!! I call them "Dantec" protein skimmers and from what I have heard, they actually work better than the Deltec's.

Let me know if you get rid of the tang, I want him!

Dan, What are you charging for the Kalk reactor? Are you doing calcium reactor's too? I want to start looking into getting both a kalk and a calcium reactor. John

well, I would have to guess there is a wiring problem. Check the wiring again. Maybe you have a bad connection somewhere...

Gorgonians are actually a lot tougher than I thought. I had a lot to learn about mine. When I first got it, it became coated in a slick algae, and I thought it had died. I liked the way it looked, and so I scrubbed the algae off with a toothbrush, and left it on the tank as a decoration. A few days later the polyps came back and it was good as new. every once in a while, I would accidentally break a piece off of it when aquascaping or cleaning, and I would just let it drift away, thinking it would get eaten or die. The pieces almost always lived, and some even grew. Since I switched to my new tank, The thing has really taken off. the base where I epoxied it to the rock has been sprouting new branches, and it is doing better than ever. One thing to keep in mind with gorgonians, is that the branches need to be free of algae for the polyps to extend. if it gets slimed (like mine does every so often) just scrub it with a toothbrush, and it will be good as new. also, mine likes medium light, and lots of flow. Your red one is a real beauty, I am going to have to get one of the red ones. John