rude944

I like the tile stand. Very cool. You gotta tell me how that was created! I may do that on my next one. With cement Backerboard, this may be the way to go! Water resistant and all!

I think that whatever the case, the DSB will be disturbed. Joel's advice is to pretty much clean it out, and I think this will really change the dynamics of the microfauna. I think that if you were going to do this, you would want to replace most of the sandbed with fresh sand and start from scratch. This way you are using the current sandbed as a "starter culture" John's idea is to keep it as intact as possible. Leaving all of the stratisfied cultures in place. It's the best idea by far, if it is feasible. Think forklift! I dunno if this is realistic. Draining all that water will leave concentrated areas of debris and detritis, and this can starve the microfauna of clean water. On the other hand, I have drained a tank to it's sandbed and left it for two weeks with no flow, no heat and no lights, and still saw pods scurrying around. In fact, I took out half the sandbed and put it in a bucket. Then I left the bucket on an outside patio. Two weeks later, fireworms were looking for food at dusk. Just to give you an idea of the durability for some microgfauna. I have changed tanks and used the entire existing sandbed in the new tank, which resulted in an algae explosion, but what I think will happen inevitably is you will see some "sorting out" of the system after you start out with the transplanted tank. That said, I think I would go with Joels method with half new sand. I would also get a few other sand sources (make a day trip of it) and get cultures from other fish stores with healthy sandbeds and few preditors such as red bugs etc... This way you would be in a place to have a greater amount of biodiversity and allow this to populate a new sandbed. I think you would be hard pressed to move a stratisfied sandbed in it's entirety, so go with the most positive outcome of moving it. ya kno?

With my 28, I cannot reach the bottom to clean coraline.

Isolate the fish in a quarantine tank (qt), treat the qt tank with copper and over the course of a week, drop the salinity to 1.017. Also raise the temp to 84 F, I have not lost a fish in years with this routine.

Where does air get injected into the unit? Is the skimmer a venturi design or needle wheel (or dare I say air-stone)?

Yeah, I saw her leaving the supreme court with a couple hundred Mill! BTW, no pre-nup over here!

What did you use to keep the impellor from spinning out of the transformer? What about to get it spinning in the correct direction? Are you an engineer?

I agree with Keith. You are going to utilize wasted energy plumbing it into the return pump (further, the pump being throttled back serves to create heat, as it needs to work against itself). I would put a ball valve in a "T" fitting so that you can get a good flow rate through the chiller. Also give some thought to where the new chiller plumbing circuit will terminate. You will have a new current point coming from whatever terminator you choose. I used LocLine coming from my chiller, and put it close to the flow from my return to reduce any cold points being directed to sensitive livestock.

I think that most UV units would need to have a very low flow rate through the unit. That said you may have more flow through the sump if you are using a mag pump. So I guess I would suggest splitting the flow through the bulkhead sump line to the UV and the sump, and use a ball valve or other restrictor to get the correct flow. I think most people would dedicate a line from the sump to the tank and have a separate feed pump for this task. This is how I run a chiller and a phos/carbon reactor in my tank. The return line from the sump to the tank has a "T" on it and this feeds the two units. You want the UV to flow back into the tank, so that you can get "dirtier" water cleaned, and not send sterilized water into recirculation in the UV? Does this make sense? Routing the skimmer inline would have a similar flow issue. As far as the closed loop is concerned, this needs to be closed, and not have any thing else plumbed in it. If you just use this as the sumps return, it's not much of a closed loop. Hope I helped. If at all.

What is the problem with it? Where is the water level? Are there bubbles? How much flow? What kind of skimmer/pump? Send pics.

I would consider using ice as a media for taking down surface deposits that I could not remove by hand. Add some acid to it to break down the calcium-based deposits. Vinegar would work well, the muraic (sp?) acid would as well. You could even use lemon juice if you wanted to. Put it in there with a third liquid up to the ice and shake it up. Be sure to have some room for the ice to move up and down and this should make it sparkle. Copper is bad, unless you are fish only and wanna keep it that way.

I'm headed to a wedding in June (the Hawaii trip) that is casual. No Jeans however. The thought of wearing Linen in Hawaii keeps me sane through all of this! We've decided to not make any crucial decisions until June, tho. Allows us some time to think about options. I think she has already made a lot of the decisions, however. To be honest, I don't want to make any! I mean, think about it... I am marrying her because I think I found someone who I trust to make decisions for me. And that I love that she makes great ones. Or that I just love her. But would you marry someone who makes poor decisions? J Howard Marshall married Anna Nicole, but that's notwithstanding... look at how much good that marriage created!!!

You said it. She's already looking at dresses!

thanks. exactly.

perhaps I can convience her to get married underwater...

I used to be the Malibu and Coke prefunker... back in Eugene at Oregon. Alright, here's a nice drink for dessert. It's called a grasshopper. But, you have to do it right: 1 oz Creme de Menthe 1 oz Creme de Coco 1 scoop vanilla bean ice cream ice cubes. Blend to Puree, pour in a tall frosted glass. It's like an adult slurpee.

We had our first date at the Portland International Film Festival, so I asked her at the Portland Art Museum. I wrapped up two champagne flutes in a box and gave her those, to throw her off. She opened the box, I produced a bottle of bubbly and she asked what should be the toast. I replied with my written Robert Browning "grow old" speech and produced my two months salary. Then the crying ensued. But we got drunk, so it was all good!!! Rounded it off at first thursday, where I had attempted to assemble her friends for the unveiling. Took months to plan all that crap, I was initially gonna do it 20 feet underwater in Hawaii, but that got too complicated.

Yeah, register at the fish store!!! She'll love that. After all the headache about getting engaged, the last thing I wanna worry about is the wedding. If I have my druthers, I can put this off for a quarter.

I'm engaged! party

If Travis says they are 8 inches, take that number's square root and divide by two. So how much are they, then... for other people, I realize after that comment I will pay a premium.

I agree, and purpose a bunch of new forums. SPS, LPS, equipment and so forth... breaking it out would be easier for the individuals who are looking to follow relevant (to them) threads. What say you?

you got it... the goal is to get his entire body inside and make a hasty escape less... hasty.

Ok, take a pop 2 liter bottle and cut off the top, right where the circumference is greatest. CA glue it inverted inside the body of the 2 liter. put smaller holes in it and affix some weight to the sucker so it sinks. insert food. Big food, like squid from the grocery store. That stuff is pretty stinky to fish, trust me, it's the only thing you can train baby sharks to eat. Put it on a string and turn the halides or daylights off. Crack a beer.

(I am not a fan of the smileys) Thanks for the feedback... Called Travis and he advised to rinse the phos media as he has seen this happen too. Just an FYI in case this thread dies quickly.

So my prized piece, a large Table Acro Mille, has started to recede after I changed water two weeks ago. When I performed a water change I decided to replace the Phosban in my reactor. I have noticed in the two following weeks that my large Danae bleached and I started witnessing recession. I took the reactor offline in the first week, but noticed yesterday that some of the phos media had become stuck in some filter floss. I removed the floss yesterday when I performed a 30% water change. I also removed all the fish(!!!) as I am trying to reduce bio load and get rid of some far too aggressive fish to keep in a reef. My readings right now are: Ammonia=0 Nitrite=0 Nitrate=0 PH=8.2 Alk= 2.5 calcium=400 Temp=81 Salinity=1.024 The acro is hanging in there, and half of it's encrusted base is gone. I hope the rest of it stays together, sometimes you just can't catch it and you have to just cut the thing up. This makes me sad. :( I moved it to a place with a bit more flow (tables like flow) and light. My question is, has anyone else seen Phosban make problems for them?