J & Jr

This is a great thread for me also as I just got a BTA I am sad to hear that what I thought was a very pretty BTA is probably a bleached out and stressed one. At first it hid out in caves and low light areas now finally it has moved high up in the tank on top of some rocks and has stayed there for about three days now. Should I look for this to start coloring up? Turning brown or red? Here is a picture of my BTA can any one tell me the name so I can study up on it? thanks

if you can't find what you need at tap you might call Laird Plastics the use to have a good selection of hdpe in their scrap bins.

If thats all they do more power to them:) I can allways use more flow through my rocks!

I had the same problem, I mixed it thinner than I wanted then strained it through glass wool to get out the solids then let the water evaperate over night. I know it sounds like a lot of work, but it worked for me. good luck:)

Its nice to get some good news on a hitchhiker for a change,like you said cyenna not exciting but at least not harmful. thanks for helping guy's

Thanks illcssd for helping wih the pic's also I tryed to edit to get them right but no go. I'm glad to know they are not another pest to deal with

I'm hoping someone knows what these are and that they are not some kind of pest. for a size they are about ¼” x ¾” I just thought they were part of the live rock till I was doing some rearranging and noticed them snap shut when I touched the rock.and there are two of them so I am concerned they might multiply if the are a pest. thanks

I second that I have the same problem, frogspawn has been healthy with 2 new heads and fully extended then I changed two things added a new much larger skimmer and a whitish green BTA which looked fantastic in the store now neather one fully extends. they are 2' apart both still look fine just smaller. any clue what might be Wrong? sol I hope with help we can figure this out if it is the same problem. good luck

Thanks everyone and sol was right its only 20" deep although seems deeper when you are cleaning or moving things. can anyone recomend a good book on clams or does the club have any for loan? nice colection of frags Impur almost makes me Jealous.

Its a 75gal 4'x18"x24" I think the light is a Tek6 bulb 3" above the surface. Do clams like or need a certain spectrum of light more than others?

any one here keeping clams with t5's? I almost bought one today then chickened out and decided to do a little more research first. I'v seen here people say you can and would like to talk to someone who is doing it now.

very nice small tank I enjoyed looking at it in person today:)

one thing I haven't been able to get right so far is the flow in the tank. for some reason no mater how I direct the closed loop returns it seems the current wants to blow the sand out of the right front corner of the tank then all the snails & hermits tend to all pile up there. I guess I will have to change my rock scape to alter the flow or possibly this will stop when I add the OM to the loop.

I'm located on 82nd Dr. near the HWY 212 exit. I also have the 150gal FW my son is laying in front of there. It is in my office just trying to convince my wife if she likes this one we need a new bigger one at home(whistle)

Yes that was my first try there are some things I would do different next time but all in all I’m happy with it . the return pump is a sealine 6540/760gph, the CL pump is a sequence snapper. the bulkeead fore the overflow is 1" the intake for the CL is 1 1/2" the hole I drilled for that seemed huge(scary) thanks for the complement.

thanks all for the kind words. SeanF it just goes to show you the simple solutions are easy to overlook thanks.

I bought some of that window tint but found it almost impossible to put on after the plumbing (note to self background before plumbing) tried painting didn't like the brush strokes even after several coats. So I went with the high value, sophisticated, must be qualified to use white cardboard hope coralline or GSP will cover soon.

Hi, I’m John the J and my son Jack is the Jr in our screen name we decided it was time to introduce ourselves. First we bought a tank that was suffering from neglect you could hardly tell there were fish in the tank for all the algae covering the rocks and glass. Water was a mess PH 7.8, nitrate 30 and salinity 1.019. It had a under gravel filter and three old PH’s just hanging by the cords. We tried to fix it up (cleaned up and added skimmer) and finally decided to start fresh. So off tank hunting we went after a long search we finally found a store we had been told of (Waves) and ordered a nice shiny new 75gal tank with a built in overflow. The first order of business was a stand, as I’m not fond of crawling on the floor at my age I wanted a stand tall enough to look at standing or at face level sitting in a chair. The only way to have that I found is to build it yourself. After some thought here is what we came up with. Next we decided to try our hand at sump building (its harder than it looks to get perfect seams) and here is what we finally ended up with. Not to bad for a first try though I will make some changes on the next one(laugh). Next we needed to drill all five of the holes for the closed loop. Due to technical difficulties with our new camera (the wife wanted to take some pic’s and deleted all photos on the card) there are no pic’s of this step. I will say it was easier than I thought it would be just a little intimidating at first. Then comes the plumbing not to hard Once you get all the leaks stopped I can't wait to get a OM for the closed loop though. Finaly in goes the new sand and water crank up the pumps and a final check for leaks.(dancing) Decided to throw in a few rocks and fish and let run for a week or so. Then the big move(clap) even without water I didn't realize how heavy a tank sand stand and pumps could be.(note to self next time build the setup in place stupid) four hours later the new tank is in its final position all the rock is in and the fish are happy(clap) and a final shot of the tank after settling down. I will add to this as I finish the project ( new bigger skimmer, a nice surround for the stand…) for now a few shots of the present occupants. The originals: A frag from last years BBQ and the newest one thanks to Dsoz it was beautiful but I only saw it the first two nights it has found a place to hide and not be seen:( Well so long for now thanks for looking, john & Jack

I think the pulsing has more to do with the lights. when I was running the PC's they hardly moved at all but when I switched to the t5's they showed more movement as time went by.

Thanks for all the sugestions I guess it was stupid of me not to check the heater sooner but it had worked fine for quite a while and when I checked in the morning the temp was low78.8 and just seemed to climb durring the day so I asumed it had to be because of the lights. the only thing I had changed. I had been hanging the lights from the ceiling with string and the lights had been about 5"to 6" above the water and with the new brackets they are only about 2 1/2" to 3" since the new heater water has stabilized and evap has slowed consideribly. Thanks John

I just may have solved part of the problem, have been watching temp closely and caught one of the heaters still on at 80.1 and I had turned it way down yesterday hoping to start the day at a slightly lower temp. seems it stuck on(scary) I pulled it out and plan to replace it tonight. That may solve part of the heating and evap. problems we'll see

It's a 75gal with about a 30 gal sump. now that I know how to post pic's I will start a build thread in members tanks this weekend if I can find the time between easter egg hunts:)

we will see how today goes I have a 6" fan blowing across the sump. "Given your set-up I am wondering if your lights are too close to the surface. Do they generate a lot of heat? Once you add a fan or 2 you'll cool down and that should decrease evapporation." Thats why I went with T5's I thought they had less heat problems, the lights are about 3 1/2" from the water is this to close? With the amount of evap. I feel I need to get on the auto top off very soon.

just learning about this new tank I was was suprised at the rate of evaperation I lose about 1 1/2 to 2 gallons a day and thats without a fan. which I will be picking up tomarrow

I'v got two of those in the new tank have been trying to get a pic but mine only come out after lights out and never go to a good spot for pictures let me know if you identify them.