AquaJohn

I would say choise of sand would be determined by how much flow you are going to have in the tank. If its high flow I would stay away from the super fine stuff or your gona have sand storms

Its actualy a nano one I got used 2 ish years ago. I tried giving it a boost and no dice it just wobbles like its trying to start but cant get a move on. Kind of like how I feel Monday morning.

I don't think its worth messing with thanks for the reply

if they stop spinning is it time to trash it and get a new one ? or can they be fixed I have not scraped all the caroline off of it yet so im not sure how they come apart or if they do. I probly should just step up and get another mp40 but its really only a small dead spot and a 2nd 40 would move more of my sand bed lol.

ya know there are several ways to start a new tank via live,dead,or a mix of rock I would say read a few threads on it and decide there are + and - to both ways and only you can decide what would work best for you.

if you use a sponge make sure it does not have some kind of cleaner built in.

if the food and chems are 3 years old toss them. The sand and rock are fine. I would put the sand in a buck and run a hose in it till the water runs clear then dump it on a plastic tarp and let air dry when its dry add it to the cleaned aquarium. Then take the rocks and let them soak in a bucket of water then swoosh them around a bit till all the crud is out of them and the water is clear let them air dry add them to the tank, add salt to some ro/di water mix it for a while add it to the tank and go from there. there are tons of how to start a new tank on the site

As for cleaning the tank it depends how bad it is If its bad I would use vinager and water then rinse a few times with clean water and let air dry.

the only bad thing would be pests that may be in it when you add it to your tank.

if its under 2" deep there is not much danger in mixing it in other than releasing some old nutirents that will spike phosphates some. Its when the sandbed is deep and traps bad gasses that it is deadly when you mess with it.

look at how much sand gobies , rays and other sand dwellers mixup.

ya and then you never see them again because they stay in there lol

and how old is it ?

Does this have a pump on it ? or if it needs one what gph would it take ?

im single with a good job no sneakin here

I think it depends alot on how deep the sand bed is if its under 2" deep I dont think there is much of a problem in stirring it up. I think the problem comes with deep sand beds that have gasses trapped in them that if stirred will release into the water and nuke the tank. Altho it will probly spike phosphates for a while because of all the trapped crap being released but I don't think its that big of a problem if you do a large water change after sifting it. If it was me I would do it in one shot so you dont have multiple phospate spikes.

I will be the first to admit I am not an expert and my be totaly wrong so might want to wait for others to chime in.

Thanks man one more thing does the +12vdc connect to pin 4 and the - of the 12vd hook to pin 11 along with all the other -terminals from everything else ? Im heading to Radio Shack and gona give it a shot. I think i will see if they have a breadboard that fits that chip and go from there.

The reefkeeper light modual has 2 channles so I am going to put one on each and then run my 4 white dimmers on one and the 4 blue dimmers on the other. That should give me full and serperate dimming of each color.

so if I were to build it and wanted to test it without the reefkeeper could I use a 9v battery im place of the reefkeeper ? the refkeepers output is variable from 0-10v

and thanks for stepping in

From my understanding this will give me 4 40Ma channles one for each of 4 Meanwell dimmers and the reefkeeper light modual has 2 channles so if I make 2 of the gizmo's I should be able to power 8 meanwells at 40 Ma each.

http://www.datasheet...-datasheet.html

that is the data sheet its the second one down on the list.

ya each of the pins 2,7,9,14 will be going to a meanwell dimmer I just did not understand why it looks like pins 1,6,8,13 look like they are "spliced" into the 2,7,9,14 is that what the line with the blue dot means ? or is it saying that 1,6,8,13 are telling the 2,7,9,14 what to do ?

Im trying to boost the output of my reefkeeper light modual to power 8 meanwell dimmers. The reefkeeper only puts out enough to power 2-3. I found this diagram on Digital Aqautics site and I want to make sure I understand it correctly before I blow up mu controller lol.

the chip is a lm324

So the question is if I read this right and I dont know anything about it.

Im going to jump pins

1 and 2 to the + side of a meanwell

6 and 7 to the next meanwell

8 and 9 to 3rd meanwell

13 and 14 to the 4th meanwell

then join pins 3,5,10,12 to the + side of the reefkeeper

then add a 12vdc power + to pin 4

Tie all the - from the reefkeeper meanwells to the 11 pin on the chip

I am not using the pot or the toggles for manual mode that was something the original poster wanted but I do not need.

Does that look right. it just seems kind of strange to tie pins <1,2> <6,7> <8,9> <13,14> together

I assume I can just solder wires to the pins of the chip or should I use a bread board >

thanks for the help

I don't want credit for 1:1 its the basic setup from rapid and to me it looks good but then again I have more fish than coral but im working on it.

My brown was a mean mofo and tormented my yellow tang that was 2x as big and was in the tank before the brown. Im not saying they are all mean but I had to remove him he was relentless.

As far as the color produced from a 1:1 blue white combo. I think the people that complain are the 1% that are obsessive compulsive lol. If you go dimmable then you can raise or lower the blue content all you want. For me I have my 29gal nano about 2 ft from my 110 and with a 1:1 royal blue to white <standard rapid kit> it looks colse to the same as my 110 that has 2 400watt MH and 2 48" t5's and I am running the leds at the same power so did not have the blues at say 80% and the white at 50%

With the plug and play make sure you will have enough leads from the led's to put them where you want altho with a bc29 the spacing should not be a big deal.

the good stuff starts at about post 60 if I recall right