Buucca

I've actually never seen these in reef tanks and always thought flatworms were the the pinkish brown worms living in our sandbed. So I'm reading up on these... http://www.coralscience.org/main/component/content/article/7-front-page/151-flatworms-compete-with-corals-for-zooplankton Also I clean all my equipment, splash guards, etc. in muriatic acid which I dilute to 20%. After all its hydrochloric acid just like in ours and the fishes stomachs, just give everything a good freshwater rinse when you're done.

Just saw the pix of the flatworm. I stand corrected, it was the other tank worms I thought we were talking about. http://www.coralscience.org/main/component/content/article/7-front-page/151-flatworms-compete-with-corals-for-zooplankton

12v deep cycle marine battery + trickle charger + power inverter. Parallel a female cigarette lighter socket off battery, plug inverter in to it. I run two Hydor evolutions(1-750 and 1-1050) and a air pump w/2 stones. I've only tried it for an hour but pumps did'nt slow down. Best thing is, if the battery does die you can move the inverter to your car, plug into cigarette socket and run an extension cord to the pumps. Run you car engine intermittently to keep the car battery charged.

I agree with zygote2k. I consider them part of my clean up crew as they are very effective scavengers and haven't ever seen them doing any damage to anything alive. Back in the day I used scoop out sand and rinse it in saltwater and pick out the little criiters with tweezers until I learned they were more help then harm.

From what I see in the pix it looks like diatoms, probably from the mini cycle you spoke of. Doing large water changes just worsens the situation IMO because all the fresh water knocks your bacteria out of balance. If its possible siphon water from your tank down to the sump with a fine filter bag over the end, and siphon as much a you can off the rocks, coral and sand. The red algae meds won't affect it.

+1 on the birdsnest, a lot of nice colors out there. Bill

I would soften the hose with hot water and get it on the nipple as far as you can. Then clamp it far away from the end as possible with a metal hose clamp to get it (hopefully) running and contact the manufacturer for replacement parts when they open back up Monday.

I'm sorry this must be a real PITA. If your water changes raise the ammonia even higher something is amiss. The ammonia is getting in to the tank somehow during your water changes. If so making a large water change might not make a difference in lowering it and you waste all that money in salt and RO&DI (?) water. How else would you suspect the ammonia is getting in? Bill

Jan, I don't know all your particulars but if your ammonia etc. levels don't constitute an emergency I wouldn't recommend such a large water change. IMO any more than a 25% water change would unbalance your system bacteria's and cause the tank to start another cycle I recommend a slow but steady water changes to get your levels normal. Bill

Try your local Dodge dealer. They will order it for you as long as it's still being made.

I would try to dry fit without the vent. If you have enough slope you should be ok, if not try the vent.

You don't mention if the water in the Rubbermaid tub is being aerated. I had an incident where my Ph was creeping up so I recalibrated the meter as you did. It just didn't make any sense so I used a dip test strip and that showed normal range. My reagent had obviously expired and gave me false recalibrations.

There's a diy mod out there that I used back in the day that described getting rid of the stock airline valve and replacing it with a air valve that you can pick up at Petco or Petsmart. It said to shorten the inner reaction tube by an inch and a half to give longer contact time before reaching the collection cup. Try searching diy seaclone mods it's out there somewhere. I did it and got mine to produce good skimmate. I've since then gone on to more expensive upgrades.

Check out the Vendor list and also there is "Oh aquarium" that I think services your area.

I had the same problem with a 55g. The metal halides dried out the plastic frame and after a while the center brace cracked in half. I bought one from elmers aquarium but I think they closed. Try http://cciaquarium.com/ they sell frames also. If you need info on changing out the old one pm me.

Are you using tap water or ro? I've see where people using tap water the chlorine levels slowly build up to dangerous levels. How often and how much are your water changes?

For what its worth, I had a similar problem with two of my CPR overflows making an annoying whooshing sound. After several futile attempts I corrected the problem by installing 90's inside the sump drain line and installing a pvc tube to extend the input flow to the bottom of the water level. This added back pressure solved my dilemma. Good luck.

The brown diatoms are a natural part of the cycling process. You will need to mechanically remove what you can and perform the cleanup right before your water changes.

I'm sorry you didn't read the information correctly Kevin. The package from Christina was shipped and delivered to MY OFFICE and placed in my office by my assistant. I don't know why she keeps harping about my house fire as that tradjedy is a different issue entirely.The fact that her response to me when I called and reported the DOA all she could say was "I'll have to call you back". That's when I informed her not to call back on my house phone number but instead call me back on my cell #. She also had almost 2 months to rectify the refund and thats a fact and enough said. Please read http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...hreadid=1569712 http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/s...hreadid=1559870 As far as buying locally I'm a big fan and do buy most things locally. For health reasons I can't always drive the 2 hours round trip to the Va. stores and my last check most do not offer the coastal feeder shrimp my seahorse eat, so I'm forced to buy online. But now I know that cheap prices are not always the best deal!!! Sorry the links didn't work. You can read them at RC vendor experience.

Well, Christina reniged on her promise to refund me for the DOA shrimp. She even posted some less than professional comments about me and some other buyers that complained about missing items and DOA's on the RC vendor experience site. There's like 3 different threads going on there about her and her shabby business ethics. PayPal finished their investigation and ruled in my favor and gave me a full refund back to my card. Then she disappeared from the sponsor list on RC for a few days and now she's listed as a sponsor again, so I don't know what that's all about. But, again I reiterate "BUYER BEWARE OF THIS VENDOR" I hate to see our members lose out on their hard earned money as I was fortunate the credit card company got my money back.

I just purchased 250 feeder shrimp, 50 nassarius snails and a ricordia from these people just before New Years. When the package arrived at my shop the morning of 12/30/08 at 9:20 AM it was placed in my office. I was late getting to work because of a catastrophic house fire at my home the day before. I lost all my fish, seahorses and most corals. Anyway, I arrived at work that morning at 10:40 AM and opened the pkg. to acclimate the contents. I immediately saw that all the bags containing the shrimp had no movement in them only several swimmers at the most. I opened the first bag and got a whiff of a very putrid odor. I then turned to the bag containing the snails and saw no movement or syphons sticking out. I called "Christina" at Reefs2go and all she said was "I'll have to call you back". At that time our power was flickering off so I told her to call back on my cell number. The return phone call never came! I felt the water temp in the bags and it was quite fridgid. After an hour the snails warmed up and started moving. I took pictures and waited to here back. I had my daughter call again to get some kind of instruction, all we got was voice mail so we left another message. After several days I recieved an email requesting the picture again. My daughter sent them immediately. After several more days "Christina" claims I'm not telling her the whole story, but is refunding the cost of the shrimp. After several more days My wife and I tried calling numberous times but no one answers and says mail box full. Called Piece of the Reef and "Christina" answers. We told here there was no credit on our PayPal card. She said she would do it right away. Well, it's be three more days and NO REFUND!!! What is with this double business anyway? How come she doesn't honor her words or warranties? Why would they only put 1 small heat pack in a box this time of year - Do they not know what they are doing? Spend you hard earned money with a more reputable company. I'll keep you posted on my progress with my PayPal.

Someone else may want to chime in, but my tank corals or inhabitants suffered no ill effect. I did lower it slowly and kept it there for about a month before slowly bringing it back up after I was confident the Ick was gone.

Thanks for the Filefish info vaironman. I switched from Joes Juice about 6 mos. ago to Aiptasia X and noticed they return threefold. Maybe it's just me, but I'm going to switch back and consider the Filefish. If anyone else has noticed this effect with Aiptasia X it will be interesting to hear.

My Hippo got Ick about a year ago and he to was too active to catch. I decided not to go with the hypo immediately, but did a partial water change and replaced some of the water with RO to lower the SG a couple points. A day later did it again and so on til I got to .018 in the tank. Puchased some Rid Ick and bought an appropriate UV for my system. A week later no more Ick. I don't know how bad the infection is but its worth a look at.