R2R2

ARM media more than coral skeleton... ARM is aragonite, which is fossilized ancient coral reef material which has been mined from a terrestrial site. As you can imagine, there are several points in the evolution of this substance which could add excess PO4. Some folks drip the outflow through Phosban to eliminate PO4. Ryan

I wish to thank Mike for a great transaction brokered through these pages. He was prompt and responsive, cooperated with bringing a timely conclusion to the deal. He was a quality buyer to deal with. Thanks again Mike. Ryan

Thanks The frag tank has sold, thanks for your interest. Ryan

skim with care... The medication/chemical you used has changed the surface tension of the water which in turn alters the shape and density of the bubbles in the skimmer. Not only will your skimmer pull out excessive amounts of water(wet foam) but it may also pull out solids with high saturation levels like Mg, Ca, and pH/alk buffers. Watch closely for this. With the risk of upsetting the "chemical balance", and the inexpensive, positive effects of waterchanges, I have to say that small serial waterchanges seem like a good solution to me. Ryan

Black Hole that sucks in time, life, everything... Being an officer in a club is one of the most thankless jobs around! (my hobby is taking a bunch of crap off of everyone in my club!) There are 2 kinds of people that seek office in a club: those that seek power and fame through intrigue, and the others that selflessly try to make the club a better place for their friends and peers. Jay(and Stacy), thanks for being the latter. We need to keep these facts in mind when dealing with our club officers; their only purpose is to help the rest of us. Ryan

Thanks Thank-you for including the picture. Ryan

I have the 5ft long, 1" thick acrylic frag display tank I used at last years coral farmers market for sale. I don't have a picture handy but I bet somebody does. It was made for the event by James at Envision and comes with stand, marine scene skirt, and a pair of skilter 400's for filtration/gas exchange/current. The set-up is in excellent condition and I believe was the best looking display at last years event. For sale at less than the cost of the acrylic to make it. $350 Ryan

The kalk that Joel has available at Waves should be the best quality available and at a fair "bulk" price. If you were to buy an animal or 2 at the same time, Joel might even see his way clear to offer you a "good-guy deal" on the kalk as a reward for your patronage. Often, it is easier for the lfs to make good deals on the second or third item of a purchase. Good luck.

Looks great Rich. See ya 'round the hospital. Ryan

Beckett skimmers don't suck, they blow!!! Many folks have moved away from the big downdraft and high pressure venturi type skimmers as they take up lots of room, require big pumps, are usually expensive, and dump lots of bubbles back into your sump. I used to have some big PM skimmers that dumped more bubbles back into the sump than most other skimmers made! They were noisey and required lots of flow, pressure, and maintenance, but were the most efficient and powerful skimmers I have ever seen. Love'em or hate'em, but you just can't beat'em. Ryan

There have been a few problems with these pumps on certain devices(like the rps skimmers) where the pump would build a static bubble around the venturi/pump head after a power outage, but these have been few. There may seem like many due to the great number of these units sold and in use in our area. The fix is usually just replacing the impellar which is simple. The pumps on the ca and kalk reactors are in harsh environments and slight user error can cause the bushing inside the magnet to ride unevenly on the shaft, which quickly will wear the bushing "out-of-round". Again, the fix is usually as simple as a new impellar and care to reduce the solids going through the pump head. Pleasantly working with PCI will most likely result in solution of your problems. As for some of the other feedback you have been given, I can only suggest that you not be overly concerned by their inflammatory advice, as it might be more a feature of the author than the subject. Ryan

I would like to start this with a big thank-you to PFO for the lighting, Envision Acrylics for the tank, Pacific Coast Imports for the goods and support, and my Mom for the really nifty skirt around the base of the frag tank stand. I needed all the help I could get with this one. Also, a special thanks to Mike Wilson for giving me all the assistance he had to offer and then some. I should also thank SPAYNE for stepping in to write invoices for my sales. Thanks to all. We had a good show, selling about $1700 of mostly coral. I was telling folks we about broke even, but as it turns out, we did a little better than that. Words of wisdom: keep it simple! I tried to take on too much in the time we had. Less is more. I would have done just as much(if not more) if set-up was complete by starting time. The other vendors had many fewer corals, nothing very run-of-the-mill, but small and expensive. We tried to have large frags at a reasonable price. Perhaps this is not as important in a frag show as it is in the store. Finally I would thank Steve Tyree and his host of assistants for their efforts to make the show happen. Ryan

I'm gonna be buying a bunch of chemicals in the next week if anybody needs any kalk, CaCl, or MgCl.

Hexahydrate

Oh ya Joel, well,... we hear you use all kinds of "stuff" at home that the rest of us might not want to get into...((chuckle)R2

Just missed this topic Hey Dan. We talked about using both Kalk and calcium reactors at the last meeting. I shared my experience that they compliment each other nicely. Some members said they had a situation where the alk and ph were already high enough without the kalk reactor just from the effects of the calcium reactor alone. This has not been my experience, but we agreed that living systems don't always respond the same. We have several at the shop including one running. C'mon by. Ryan

Lone fathead and monti From the showtank

Maybe I don't understand the problem, but,... is the solution to your problem not as easy as elevating the outflow of the reactor to a point above the highest water level in the rubbermaid? For example, if you had to, could you not clip the outflow tube from the reactor onto the inside of the overflow of your tank so that the end of the tube was hanging in an air space but the flow would join the water draining from your tank to your sump. This would keep the rubbermaid water from running uphill and keep tank water from backsiphoning. R2R2

When using a kalk reactor downstream from a ro/di, you need to be sure not to feed full line pressure into the reactor with a valve after the reactor. Frequently, ro/di can still have 30psi after the filters and membranes, which is more pressure than plexiglass reactors were made to withstand. It might work, but it might fail(spectacularly). Careful not to make a plexiglass bomb under your tank. R2R2

Have her bring in a water sample and don't do anything rash(like dump in a bunch of stuff) until we know what is up. Ryan (ps call me at home)

Back in the day... I had a 71 that I auto-X'd for several years and then converted into my novice car for regional road racing in the early 80's. My wife had a "premium" sedan that was dark blue with a white vinyl roof and an automatic tranny until we sold it to a family friend about 5 years ago. Lotsa fun to be had with these little cars. Many of the engine, drive train, and suspension parts, from the Z car line will bolt right up to the 510. The 510 engine is just a 4 cylinder version of the 240Z engine, pistons are interchangeable. R2

oh yeah.... There is very little lost to drinking RO/DI water. At a TDS of 50ppm, solids only account for .005% of the total volume and of these solids, few would be nutrients.(not that this thread really has anything to do with RO/DI water, but if we are going to run this point into the ground, then let's do it right!) R2

Take it easy geek, these discussions don't require a winner, only arguements have a winner and a looser(and usually all that argue are loosers). Ryan

Hey Fellas, let's all just take it easy. None of us want to admit that we got in a fight while chatting on the reef tank forum. Geek, the way you post causes others to take offense. Even if this is not your goal, you are responsible for it and need to adjust the way you are saying the things you are saying. The rest of us need to take this into account when we read posts by reefgeek. If he is trying to bait us into arguement, don't take the bait. I choose to believe he expresses himself in a manner that comes across as offensive, but means no harm. Either way, if we avoid arguement and stay on topic, we get the best outcome. Let's all try. As for the topic of harmful additives, if a substance is "food grade", or "consumption grade", it is free of certain toxic elements and production residue, and must be labeled as such. "Lab grade" is generally the most pure, but may be in a form or concentration that is less desireable for use in our aquariums. I would suspect the disclaimer on the Magflake is a "cover your own arse" measure intended to protect the company and allow them to offer a black and white answer to the small segment of their market that was flooding them with questions about using their product in aquariums. On the other hand, they could easily be protecting a customer like Kent, Seachem, or Warner Marine, that buys the product from them and doesn't want everybody else doing the same. The pet industry has done this sort of thing before. Ryan

Yes it is,(in response to Mike) but not Mag Flake. R2R2