wobble

How mature is the tank?

Tank's been set up for 2 years.

As long as it's staying put leave it alone. It should start coming out in a day or 2.

 

What lighting are you running?

(4) 54w T5 HO's w/icecap reflectors in a 75g tank. New bulbs a month ago. He's about mid level in the tank.

I got a beautiful 6" diameter RBTA and maroon clown from Patrick (Saltwater Fantaseas) on Saturday. When I placed it in the tank, it slowly sucked itself in between a couple rocks. It's been sitting on the backside of the rock since. Is it just acclimating itself to my lights or will it most likely stay there? It mainly faces the back wall so I can't really see it or the clown. Obviously this just won't work for me. (laugh) Should I adjust some flow to make it move or should I leave him be?

I went through this on both of my tanks. Don't overfeed, do regular water changes, and it should eventually go away. Do you have a skimmer? I was battling it on my 29g for the first six months. I added a skimmer about a month ago and now it's almost gone.

If you're interested in it I can ask him how much he wants for it. He was going to sell it on craigslist and I asked if I could have it, otherwise I'd just give it to ya. I really don't have the $$$ to set up another tank right now anyway.

Probably give it back to my buddy. He'll probably sell it on craigslist.

Well I got it all cleaned up today and noticed a small deep scratch right in the middle of the front. I went to LFS and the scratch repair kit was $40. I don't think I'm going to bother with this tank. For $95 I can get a new 40g glass tank with almost the same dimensions.

Saltwater Fantaseas carries it too.

Thanks for the heads-up. I'll try the usual vinegar for initial cleaning and just use the magic erasers for regular algae maintenance.

I'll give them a shot. The tank has some hard water stains inside it. I was going to use vinegar, but I'll try those pads first.

I just checked out some lighting prices for 36" tanks. Wow. I forgot how much lighting is. This project may have to wait until my wife is back to work and not on unemployment. :(

I have a stupid question. I currently have an external overflow on my 75g and would really like to try an internal overflow this time. Is there any special I need to know about making internal overflows for acrylic tanks? Just drill a hole in the bottom, add a bulkhead, and attach internal overflow box?

How easy? He has a larger tank (48 inch long) that he's going to throw away. It has some scratches in the front on the outside.

Nice link! Thanks!!

Now to find some DIY plans for an aquarium stand...

Thanks for the info. I think I'll set it up and see how it goes. If it turns out I don't end up liking the acrylic, I can always go get a 36" glass tank and swap it out. It's not like I wouldn't be able to use the lights, etc on the glass tank.

I've seen the tanks in your store and remember how clean they always seem to be. How do you clean coraline off acrylic? I currently use a razor blade on the front/sides of my glass tank. Obviously that won't work well with acrylic.

Hmmm. I guess I could just use it as a QT.

I'm kind of a klutz myself. I put a few scratches in my 75g glass tank while aquascaping and they bug the crap out of me every time I look at the tank. My eyes seem to go right to them.

True, but I don't want to put any money into getting it set up if I will regret using an acrylic tank in the long run. I've used glass aquariums for the last ~20 years. I have zero experience with acrylic.

A buddy gave me his acrylic tank and wet/dry sump w/overflow tonight. It's in great shape with no scratches. I think it's a 45g (36x15x20h). I've been wanting to upgrade my 29g to a 36in tank because of limited 30" lighting fixture availability, but have heard so many horror stories about acrylic. Is it really as bad as they say? Would it even be worth the cost/effort to get it going?

There are several threads on RC that state it's not accurate to do that. I used to calibrate with RO until I read some of the posts there by reputable members. I ordered some calibration fluid and recalibrated with that. Turns out it was actually 1.019 when it read 1.025 while calibrated with RO. No wonder my inverts and coral were not doing well.

Yikes! Hopefully you caught that in time.

Are you sure it's a defective refractometer? Maybe it just needs to be calibrated. Something to try before buying a new one.

He may be molting. Mine hides very well when he's molting.

I strongly suggest you use RO/DI water. Whether it's buying your own filter or buying water from a LFS. If you really want to use well water, you should send a sample to a lab for analysis. Copper, even in small amounts can be deadly to coral, inverts, etc.

Elevated alkaline levels can be achieved by the salt mix. If you need further buffering, there are products available out there. I just use baking soda occasionally though. It's cheap and works well.

I'd be willing to babysit your frogspawn if you'd like if it's not too far gone. Unless someone else in the area with more experience with corals is willing to. I'd hate for it to die on ya.

Nice tank! I like the aquascaping. I'm new to the forum as well. It's nice having a local forum with representatives from local fish stores.

I also live in the Sifton/East Orchards area. Born and raised in the couv. It has definitely grown over the years, but what town hasn't.

Have you tested heavy metals in your well water? My buddy tried using it for awhile but his corals didn't respond very favorably to it. He lived in Ridgefield though. He ended up having to go back to using RO/DI.

Are you referring to my cult comment in the other thread? (laugh)

Well stated. I still want to spend some more time with OS/X, but just don't want to shell out the cash. Besides, XP actually works very well for my needs. I'm not really a gamer anymore, but I still use alot of applications that I'd have to find alternatives for if I switched to a Mac.

I also agree that Vista is a crappy OS. I run five computers with XP Pro and one with Vista at my house. The only reason one of them is still on Vista is because my daughter likes it for the built-in dvd making software. I own two more copies of Vista, but I ended up going back to XP on those computers. IMO, Vista is just too buggy, too much of a resource hog, and suffers from an extremely non-intuitive user interface.

I also have a few test boxes at work with Vista and Win7. Vista suffers from admin application incompatibilities. Not being able to use Windows Server Admin Tools is a pain. Pretty sad I have to log into the server to do minor things like user administration. While Win7 does seem to be an improvement over Vista, it seems more like Vista w/sp2 to me.