Rascal

Single type will look the most natural, but might limit your aquascaping somewhat, depending on what you want to do. Another thing to think about is that multiple sources, from different stores and different systems, will give you the maximum biodiversity in your system.

It was my radio call sign in Iraq. During our work-up we decided we needed something a little better than the pay-grade-rank-first-letter-of-last-name-thing demanded by protocol (as in: "echo six sierra" = E6 (Staff Sgt.) Sprano). So at first I came up with "Rabbit" because once upon a time I used to be sort of a fast runner, and Marines refer to such creatures as "rabbits". Then one of my guys started calling me "Rascally Rabbit" in his best Elmer Fudd imitation. I decided "Rabbit" didn't exactly sound very tough, but "Rascal" at least had potential. Anyway, it stuck.

Sounds great. I did the same mods to my ASM and they were about the easiest DIY projects I've ever done. Jason - you could knock a project like this out in no time. Really does a lot to improve the performance and ease-of-use of the skimmer.

Not sure if this was covered or this is what you meant, but keep your actinics on the whole time. actinics on -- MH on -- MH off -- actinics off. You could go a lot longer than 9 hours with the actinics if you want. That's how mine is set up, and it works just fine. Only caveat is that you have to oversize the plumbing a bit -- which unfortunately I did not do. But the concept is just the same as the Durso. For more info on this type of set-up, look up "horizontal overflow" or "Calfo overflow". Here's a start if you're interested: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthre...threadid=619976 I can DEFINITELY relate to the frustration w/ Annandale HD. Only one worse is 7-corners. Confused about the bulkhead though. A 1" bulkhead means that it takes 1" pipe. The inside of the bulkhead itself is basically a coupling. The hole in the tank has to be a lot larger than 1" to accommodate the bulkhead fitting, and the size of the hole that is needed varies depending on what type bulkhead you use, but if your bulkhead can only fit 3/4" pipe then that means it is a 3/4" bulkhead. Not a big deal b/c probably sufficient for a 20G, but FYI in the future. So right now you have the 2" 90 facing up and basically acting like an overflow? How's it working? How much flow do you have going through it? How is the noise level? Do you have anything there to keep snails and such from getting in and clogging your pipes?

From the description (black rubber with hose clamps) it sounds like they are using one of the check valves designed for a sump pump. No personal knowledge here, but I would guess the more expensive PVC ones are more reliable. It looks like everything is hooked up to the return, not a closed loop. I personally wouldn't trust either a siphon break or a check valve with all of the returns on the bottom of the tank. Even a slow leak could be enough to drain the tank if the return pump lost power during the middle of the day while the tank was unattended for a few hours. However, in re-reading that post I noticed that since the picture was taken they have added two returns on each side 4" & 8" from the top of the tank. In that case the plan makes more sense to me. Even if the check valve fails the most that will drain is the top 4". A messy situation to be sure, but most of the reef would still be submerged. As for the pump -- I agree w/ what's been said about not restricting the intake. Dial back the outlet if you still want to use this pump as a return -- but that also poses problems. If you dial it back to 1000-1200 gph, that will be divided between 12 x 1/2" outlets of only 80 - 100 gph each. If you want very dispersed gentle flow, this could be perfect for you, but I don't think it will be enough to get currents bouncing off things and creating turbulent flow. Opening the Dart up and letting it run unrestricted at 3000+ gph probably provides great flow in the tank with those manifolds but it seems to be too much for your sump to handle. Which brings me back to the idea of converting the Dart to a CL pump using the bottom manifold and then getting a smaller pump (or even another dart, dialed back to the desired rate) as your return going through just the upper manifolds. You could even use the "super sucker" as the CL intake -- you'd just have to add a T to prime it (for ex. see here: http://www.melevsreef.com/closedloop.html). Also, if you place these upper returns so they just break the surface of the water by an inch or two and angle them slightly downward, it will create nice turbulent flow by colliding with the currents from the bottom manifolds AND take care of any flooding concerns caused by back-syphoning when the return pump goes off. HTH. Best of luck whatever you decide.

Yes. Most of it is fairly soft IME, so any regular old drill bit will work.

First, your questions. You can dial down the flow with a valve on the outlet side of the pump. Nothing wrong with using metal hose clamps on the outside of the tank. Next, a couple of comments: Personally I think the Dart is too much pump for a return on that size tank, especially with the small overflow drains. Even with the "super sucker" (nice idea, btw), 3000 gph is an awful lot of flow to be running through your sump. More importantly are you absolutely sure that you want to trust your entire reef to one black rubber check valve? A little bit of something (snail, sponge, you name it) gets in there and prevents it from sealing properly when the power goes out and you will end up with a lot of water on the floor and a lot of dead stuff in the tank if you don't catch it quickly enough. Why not put the Dart on a closed loop, with true union ball valves on each side of the pump, and then plumb your return with a smaller pump (Mag 7 - 9)? JMHO.

I agree it is there for a purpose, but in theory at least it seems that you could cut out the center brace and then replace it with Euro-bracing.

My reasons: 1) Heat. 2) Maintenance. 3) Light (as in - less of it, when you don't keep up with #2) 4) Gas exchange.

Sure. Nothing fancy though. The bottom one is the closed loop return. Basically just a rectangle that sits on the rim of the tank with 3 outlets front and back, directly across from each other, each with a locline Y. That gives me 12 outlets for my Dart - very dispersed flow. On top of that is the return-from-sump. It is just a T to each end of the tank, with a locline Y on each end facing towards the center of the tank. Everything comes up the back of the tank over the top. I'll try to get another pic in the next couple of days.

Here they are. Like I said, my carpentry skills leave much to be desired . . . but it works.

Colors will vary between tri-colors and between tanks. I have 4 in my tank and they all look distinctly different from each other, and from how they looked when I got them. The one in my avatar is an ORA tricolor. In my tank the green is all gone, but I gave a frag to another member with different lighting and he tells me he gets all 3 colors in his tank. Part of the fun is seeing how things will color up in your tank. Do you have PE on the white tips of that slimer frag? If not you could be having a problem with too much light (or at least, not enough acclimation). You might try shading it for a little while.

Beautiful tank. I love the aquascaping - wouldn't change a thing.

Just about. It doesn't lay all the way flat. There is about a 5 - 10 degree angle. No worries about it swinging shut accidentally. I took a couple photos just now. Let me try to get them uploaded and posted tomorrow.

Not sure if this is what you mean, but on the top of my canopy I have a piano hinge about 1/3 of the way from the front. The front face of the canopy is fixed in place to the top, so when I open it the whole front part of the canopy swings up and out of the way. For lights it goes like this: T5 - VHO - hinge - MHs - VHO - T5. The T5 & VHO in the front swing up along with that part of the canopy when I open it. I just have enough slack in the wires to allow that to happen. A better carpenter would have made it look a lot better, but overall I am very happy with the design. The best part about it is the access it gives to the tank. I think I could throw on a mask and snorkel and get my head in there if I wanted to. Probably wouldn't be the best thing for skimmer performance though.

What is his bioload in terms of fish? If not too great I think the 175+ lbs of live rock should be able to manage things. Regardless, it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to reduce feeding for a little while and be prepared to change a lot of water if he started to see any ammonia or nitrate. Might not be a bad idea to have some carbon rinsed and ready to go too, just in case.

I agree it sounds like cyano. If your Alk is at least 10 dKH and stable that is probably not the problem. Flow seems adequate to me. How long has the tank been set up? Sometimes tanks just go through a little mini cycle of cyano. Quite possible that patience (along with regularly blowing it off and syphoning it out) is your best remedy. Other possibilities: Is your skimmer functioning well? Are you sure you aren't adding excess silica to the water? Keeping up with your water changes?

The Dart uses 2" intake and 1.5" outlet. Unrestricted it is rated for 3600 gph. If you use locline you can put "Y" fittings on each of your "x"s to turn those 3 returns into essentially six if the velocity is too much. There are 2 measurements you are interested in in determining flow for your tank. One is the total gph being turned over in the tank. The other is the velocity of the water impacting the corals. You can get a lot of flow without too much velocity by increasing the diameter and number of your outlets. I just switched to a Dart and couldn't be happier with it. If it is too much flow you can always dial it down a bit with a valve without doing any harm to the pump. BRK runs a couple of them on their systems if you want to see/hear for yourself.

Yes. Another thing that works well is to have the water enter the sump at an angle rather than straight down, which you can do by putting a 45 before the T.

I second that, at least for Alk and Ca. What are your levels now? How much do they drop between water changes? If you have a new tank and not much growing it's possible you don't even need to dose anything yet. If the levels are fine and your frags still aren't growing then maybe you should focus on something else before worrying about kalk reactors and calcium reactors and such. What are your goals for this tank as far as corals go? Softies? LPS? SPS? A mixed reef? What do you have for flow right now?

Easy corals - like purple, red mushrooms; brownskirtw/orangecenter zoas; xenia; purple monti digi? small skimmer - I have an unused CPR backpack that is just sitting around collecting dust. Same with a swing-arm I'm sure. I will not be offended it you hold out for better offers. The tank looks great and I'm sure the kids love it. My kids tend to be rather ho hum about the tank too, until they get the chance to show it off to their friends. I would love to do something like this for one of their schools someday. I think pre-primary might be a little to soon for the whole glass+water+electricity mix though. One concern I would have about setting up a reef tank in a classroom for older kids is the noise, especially without being able to employ higher-end equipment. Have you found this to be a problem? (Davelin feel free to chime in here too if you're reading)

Can't he avoid this just by setting the water level in the return section of the sump at only a couple of inches above the pump? From the looks of the pictures, that would give the water a good 6-8" to rise in that section before it got above the overflow baffles, and then it would have another 2" to rise before it overflowed the sump. Granted, this would lead to noise and microbubble issues with that much of a drop going into the return section, but it should avoid a flood if other methods are also employed to reduce the amount of back siphon and overflow drain. Fishcam: instead of cutting it out and re-siliconing, you could just take a dremel and cut some holes or overflow teath into the tops of the "over" baffles.

Yes Yes What he said. I also think it's neat to see the fish start to use the corals as habitat once they start to grow in a bit, especially with sps. A good test for whether your tank has enough hiding places is what happens when you turn the lights out. Most fish will immediately look for their sleeping/resting spot. If everybody settles in nice and comfy like without too much of a fuss, that's good. If your tank looks like a game of musical chairs with a few too many chairs missing, that's not so good.

Crabs don't make their own shells. Snails do. It's a match made in heaven, if you're a crab. Lunch and an upgrade all at the same time. I went crab free in my main tank when I did my interceptor treatment back in Jan/Feb. The snails do a fine job of keeping things clean if you have enough of them but aren't as cool to watch IMO.