Rascal

You're much more ambitious than I, my friend! I put a 10G guppy and crayfish tank in my son's room, with a 6 gallon hermit crab tank underneath it. The crayfish we caught together in a creek at a nearby park, and the guppies were the offspring of a male-female pair I put in the backyard pond last spring. Kids are fascinated by crustaceans of all sorts, so a few friendly crabs (hermits, sally lightfoot, mithrax) and a shrimp or two would probably be a big hit.

That pill bug thing is amazing. Have any of them migrated out of the tank? Can you tell what they are eating? Oh yeah, the tank looks pretty nice too.

FYI, Ushio does make a 250W 14K DE bulb which is great. Doesn't help you though since you are looking for a SE bulb.

What is the Alk of your reactor effluent compared to the Alk of your tank water? If it is not significantly higher then you are not giving the CO2 an opportunity to react with the media. If this is the case it could be either because your bubble count is too low or your drip rate is too high. In the latter case, you would be just driving down your tank's PH without raising either the Alk or Ca. IMO -- use the reactor to get your Alk stable first and then worry about the Ca level. When/if it comes time to adjust the Ca by itself, yes you can just buy Calcium Chloride (ex: Kent's "Turbo Calcium") and slowly dose it until the level rises to where you want it. Once there your calcium reactor should maintain it without further dosing. For Calcium Reactor tuning, this is a good thread: http://www.wamas.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=9103 And from another thread, follow this good advice from Dandy7200 on how to make adjustments:

Just so long as no one starts talking about getting a bundle of sticks for their pet donkey . . . Not that there's anything wrong with that.

I get mine at Roberts Oxygen near the Merrifield Post Office.

Yes. The figure for Max Flow is with 0 head. Max Head means how high the pump will push water, period. Look at the table at the top of that page. As the head height goes up, the flow rate goes down. The RLXT is not a pressure rated pump, so the flow rate drops off even faster. At 12 ft you get only 600 gph. At 15ft, practically nothing. According to the table & chart, this pump would not push any water 18' overhead, even without a T.

That's sounds a lot better. Could probably put one of the smaller tangs in there (yellow, kole, tomini). But surely you can convince your mother to go for one more foot! It's only 12 little inches.

Your tank dimensions are only 24" x 28". No offense, but I don't think it would be responsible to put any tangs in a tank of that size. The hippo and the powder blue could each get to be close to 12" in length, and they aren't like lion fish that like to hover around in one place. Tangs need room to swim. I would keep working on your mom to get a longer tank if you have your heart set on tangs. Otherwise you need to look at other stocking options. Plenty of cool fish you could fit in a tank that size. Would be cool to come up with a stocking list with the goal of finding different fish to occupy different zones in the tank (bottom, middle, and top - maybe a hawkfish or other fish that likes to perch up high).

I have always used moonlights, and at some point I would like to try something like the lunar simulation. In theory, it seems to me that anything we can do to simulate nature can't but help our tanks, and a full moon on a clear night in the tropics does throw off a lot of light. Old fishing lore says that you'll catch more fish on a day after a moonless night, for whatever that's worth. Having said all that, the main reason I like them is it gives me an opportunity to see what's going on after the lights go out, or before they come in the morning. In other words, like Jason said they just look pretty at night. I have 2 blue LEDs on the side and 1 red LED in the middle. The theory behind the red is that sea critters can't see it (b/c red light is filtered out in the ocean?) so they will move around undisturbed. All of that completely undercuts my comment above about wanting to simulate nature, but it does create a pretty cool looking effect.

Yes to sand-sifters and inverts but a big NO to the sand-sifting star fish IMO. Read here: http://www.wetwebmedia.com/sndsftstrfaqs.htm. A good detritus and algae eating clean-up crew is what you are after, particularly those that might reproduce (or at least try) so their eggs and larvae will feed your corals. For sand sifters stick with nassarius snails and worms.

If the "T" is at the surface but the pipe extends farther into the water so that the end of it is fully submerged, this won't fix the problem. The opening of the pipe/tube at the end of the plumbing needs to be partially out of the water and at a 45 deg angle at least. Try it this way: Manually lift the pipe/tube up until the water is literally pouring from it into your sump, at an angle. No more bubbles, right? But now it is too noisy and you've got a splashing issue to deal with. So lower it until the noise is reduced and the splashing goes away. IME this will happen when the end of the pipe is only about 1/2 submerged in the water.

You already did (for a very fair price). I bought a blue tort and red table acro frag from you at the meeting. Both are doing great so far.

A lot of fish aren't considered compatible with dottybacks. You might consider putting the dotty in your sump for a month or two while any newcomers get established. IMO you could put a smallish Tang (Yellow, Tang, Tomini) as long as there was plenty of swimming room for it and you didn't overcrowd the tank with other big (for your tank) fish. I do not think it would be a good idea to buy a small Tang of a species that gets big and needs a lot more swimming room. Personally I would not recommend a Hippo for a 3 foot tank. I know there are those who have done it and been successful, but I think they are the exception rather than the rule. I second the recommendations for Royal Gramma and Midas Blenny. For small pretty fish I have been happy with my purple reef chromis and Talbots Damsels. Both are nice looking, stay small, and non-aggressive. Also look into blue and yellow neon gobies and perhaps a couple of clown gobies.

I ended up going partly that route. Here's the recap: Day 1: Remove all acros to QT, 2-10 min (avg 5 min) Revive/TMPCC dip in the process. Good PE and color on most corals in frag tank, with the exception of small frags which RTN'd. Day 2: 15 min dip in QT tank with TMPCC and Levamasole (still hadn't figure out the right dosage of this, though). Corals seemed fine afterwards. Day 4: Corals looking extremely stressed. Lots of bleaching and tissue loss. Tissue loss seemed worst on part most affected by FWs, but some corals that never had a bite mark also looked bad. Decided to return corals to display but wasn't completely satisfied I had dipped correctly so I did the following: (a) Full 40 min dip at 40 ppm Levamasole followed by 5 min dip in Revive; (b) cut and remove dead or dying sections as well as any parts that looked as if they had been severely affected by AEFW; © return healthy corals to display. Days 4-7: Lost sarmentosa and ORA Blue Tort -- neither of which had a single bite mark. Tried to save a frag of blue tort but lost it. Still have a tiny frag of sarmentosa which is doing well. Day 8: Decided to cut my losses and save what I could. Aggressively fragged everything I had left. Anything within 1" of a bite mark was cut and removed from the display. In some cases this meant keeping most of the colony, but in others it meant only a few small frags, and in a couple of cases I didn't even chance that and the whole colony was removed. Anything still alive but not deemed worth the risk of going back into the display went into the QT tank. Also began the process of re-stocking - picking up some new frags from Fins&Feathers, Dr. Mac, BRK, and Leishman. All new frags are going through the same dip process as salvaged corals. Losses at this point: ORA blue tort, Chips Acro, CaribeanJake tricolor. Day 9: Removed acros from display and dipped them in Fluke Tabs - 10 tabs / 10 gallons for 40 minutes. It had been 5 days since these corals had been treated. Corals seemed to tolerate this MUCH better than the levamasole. Slimed heavily but showed good PE and no further color loss within 10-20 minutes of being placed back into the tank. Day 11: Mostly as an experiment, and b/c I figured I had nothing to lose, I decided to dip the remaining colonies in the QT tank in the levamasole once again. 40ppm for 40 min. It had been 7 days since these corals had been treated. This seemed to push many of them over the edge. Lots of bleaching immediately afterwards, and lost a few stags and some large frags of other acros by the next day. Conclusions / Lessons learned so far: 1) I WAY overdid it with the dips in the first few days. Mostly this was because I did not take the time to make sure I was doing the treatments correctly, and the resulting uncertainty kept making me want to treat again "just to be sure." 2) I underestimated the corals tolerances to these treatments. This stuff is not like interceptor, which resulted in a near instant improvement in coral health and appearance. All of these treatments are hard on the corals. The levamasole kills not only worms but algae (all of the coraline in my QT/Treatment tank was wiped out), including the zooxanthalae. 3) Parts of the coral which have been nibbled on by AEFW are not likely to survive the treatments, so you might as well write them off as gone and frag what you can at the outset. 4) Of all the treatments I tried, Fluke Tabs is by far the easiest on the corals. It remains to be seen whether it works. My thought is that even if it is not as effective on adults, it will still kill the juveniles, which is all I need it to do at this point. I have not seen so much as a single flatworm, or egg, since the first day of treatment. I think this is mostly due to getting rid of the affected portions of the corals. Although there have been reports of AEFW laying eggs everywhere (even amongst zoanthids) for the most part they prefer the bases or dead/dying portions of acros. I think (hope) that by getting rid of everything close to those parts, I have gotten rid of the eggs as well. My plan at this point is to continue to remove most corals from the display and do the fluke tabs dip once a week. If I don't see anything after 2 or 3 more weeks, I will tentatively consider myself free of the pests. If I still don't see a sign of them in 6 months, I will consider it safe to sell/trade frags again.

I'm with Dan on this. I applaud the search for a biological control for these buggers, but I don't think this is the solution. Putting corals in a tank with something that eats them doesn't seem like a good solution to me. For Redbugs interceptor works with minimal impact on your reef. For flatworms the dips (Betadine, TMPCC, Levamasole), will kill or remove all the flatworms on coral. Seems doubtful that the shrimp would be able to get all of them, even down into the little crevices of the coral where only the worms can go. More likely they would clean out the flatworms they could easily get to and then start in on the coral tissue. I'm not saying its not worth further investigation and testing, I just don't personally have high hopes for this one. Unless you have a 100% kill or removal rate, it would not be effective as a dip because you would still be introducing the pests to the all-they-can-eat buffet that you call your reef tank. Of course, I decimated most of my colonies with levamasole, so what do I know?

Josh: Glad to see that it is working OK for you. Looks like a nice chamber full of bubbles. Happy to help.

LOL. Your skills far surpass my own, and it was probably fine before, but yeah . . . I like that better. You won't regret the mitre saw purchase either.

Columbia Pike (Rte 244) runs from Rte 27 at the Pentagon to its end Rte 236 (Little River Turnpike) in the center of Annandale. If you take a left on Rte 236 you will eventually cross I-395 and it will turn into Duke Street (still Rte 236) heading towards Alexandria. If you go right you will cross I-495 heading towards Fairfax. If you go straight across 236 you will be on Backlick heading towards Springfield. On Columbia Pike at Bailey's Crossroads (intersection of Rte 7) there is a Petco (in the same shopping plaza as Best Buy & Trader Joe's). They have saltwater fish. Petland is in Fairfax in Pickett Shopping center. http://www.petland.com/FindPetlandStores/V...fax/Fairfax.htm. They have a great selection of freshwater fish and plants. They also have saltwater fish and some soft corals, mushrooms and anenomes, maybe some LPS.

IMO the air is entering your drain as it should, through the air hole in the top of the durso. If you completely plugged this hole, you would have no air mixing with your water as it went down the drain -- but you would have a complete siphon. The siphon would draw the water in your overflow down to the strainer, when you would hear a sucking sound, and then it would rise until the siphon started again, and repeat that process over and over again. Not pleasant. The air hole helps maintain a steady rate of flow down the drain lines. You can actually adjust the rate of flow by adjusting the size of this hole. So, I don't think your problem is the fact that you have air in the drain lines, just that it is causing large bubble in the sump. This is a simple fix. Basically you want to position the drain so that it enters the water in your sump at an angle, with a portion of the tube above the water line. This allows the air to escape before it gets down into the water and causes bubbling. There are many ways to do this, my favorite (using PVC) is to use a 45 to get then angle, and then a T entering the water, with the T part sticking up to let the air out.

Back to the stand design, I'm a big fan of diagonal bracing. It's almost definitely overkill but on the other hand it's quick, it's easy, and it adds a ton of lateral stability -- just in case someone decides to go careening into the tank from the side. Like I said, probably not necessary at all, but it provides a lot of piece of mind for 20 minutes of work. I think it's a good idea to glue the foam to the stand before putting the tank on it. Like you said, you will likely end up sliding the tank back and forth a bit to get it into just the right position, and you don't want the foam shifting with it.

My experience in patching leaks with silicone is that it doesn't work if you try to do it wet. In other words, if there is still water pressure on the leak the water will work itself through the newly applied silicone and leak again before it cures. Hate to say it, but I think you are going to have to drain the tank down to the point of the leak while you patch it, and leave it that way at least long enough for the silicone to begin to cure.

Good idea.

I would go with 5" to start, b/c it will settle some over time. The plan of a 4" pipe with strainer seems good to me. Once everything settles I don't think you will have a problem with sand getting in. Keep in mind that you won't be able to remove the intake strainer for cleaning without taking apart your rockwork. Over time it will tend to get a little clogged with algae, sponges, misc. debris. If possible you could try to leave yourself a way to access it with a brush, but it will probably turn out to be impossible to do that and still hide it from view with your rockwork. Another thing that will help though is to open up the openings in the strainer a bit. I find that the strainers are a bit too restrictive as is. The openings just need to be small enough to keep any fish or snails from getting sucked through, but no smaller. At the very least you should drill a few 1/4" holes in the top (end) part. I also like to cut out every other piece of the strainer itself, in effect doubling the size of the openings.

Not an expert by any means, but you can also try feeding silversides from one of the asian grocery stores around here (Grand Mart, et al ...). It is just a few $ for a package with a few hundred of them, and there are a variety of sizes. Try to keep the clown away until the anemone has consumed the food. I just use the feeding tongs to ward them off. Good luck.