KimP

That looks incredible! What are the dimensions?

It's taken me a few times reading through to understand what you're describing. Would I be putting the jars in the sump, plumbing a way to run water into them, then the water would just overflow over the top of the jars into the tank? If that's what you're describing, it sounds really interesting! I wonder if they'd just all crawl out though? I wonder if I could use something over the top that water could get through but not the berghia? Hmm. And figuring out how to rig up the plumbing. I do have an open spot on my manifold. Thanks for the idea!!

I've been overdue for an update. Things are running on autopilot at this point, at least for a few more weeks until the first batch of babies is ready to get out of a jar. The aiptasia tank is working well. There are several teeny tiny aiptasia on the glass and sandbed now that have been really easy to scrape off and drop in the jars with the eggs and juveniles. I read in an article that dark cycles cause the aiptasia to bud off a bunch of tiny baby aiptasia, so I've kinda been trying that. It's been interesting focusing on all the things you can do wrong in a tank to favor aiptasia. Mostly I've just been really inconsistent with the light and feeding the refrigerated oyster feast, roti-feast, etc etc. Put some neat hermits in this weekend to contribute to a bioload. As of Fri i have 3 jars going, the main tank with the adult berghia, and the aiptasia tank. Doing the same method for water changes, although with my heater busting on my DT, I did reconsider using my big tank for water change water. I think this is the best way to do it though.

Sounds like you're doing pretty well! Do you have a build thread for your tanks?

Do you have the return near the surface of the water, as much as possible, in the display tank? When you turn off the pump, it should only be able to siphon minimal amount of water into the sump. And keep the water level in your sump low enough that it can hold all that drains down. Having your return pump up higher is only helpful if a drain gets clogged.

I'm curious about this too. Until recently I never had any luck with these types of corals.

That sounds like a neat idea! Looking forward to see what you decide to do.

That frag tank is painful to look at!

Welcome to the club! Your tank sounds like a great project to do with your kids. Lots of members collect things at the coast so hopefully some of them will chime in with details. You can also search the forum and dig up some of the old threads. There was even an ARC coast collection trip one year.

You've been busy. Looks great!

What a great deal! I wish I lived closer!

Coming along nicely! The only things I can think of are to not plug the heater in until you're sure you need it, and if you're going to use an Apex or similar, keep the temp probe in a different section from your heater, and pH probe away from a doser if you end up dosing alk. Or away from your ato if you use kalk.

Yay! That's great news!

I know, isn't that crazy!? I reeeeally lucked out. Especially since I left it in the tank cracked like that for about 24hrs! Off at least, but still.

I'm kind of embarrassed to report that it was the heater! I thought of it at first but dismissed it to check last, if at all, because everything in the tank and sump looked fine, and when I glanced at it it wasn't obviously broken or puffed up or anything. It sits kind of dirty at the bottom of my sump. So I was checking all the fans, pumps, etc thinking maybe it was the DC pump that runs my closed loop. Whenever I'd plug it in I'd smell that fried electronics smell just a little bit stronger, but it ran completely fine! So Timfish happened to be in the area, walked into my house, right away pulled out the heater and found this: So I think what threw me off is the skimmer aerating the smell from the water, so I kept thinking something in that section had to be what was wrong. The DC pump would've done the same thing to a lesser degree. I'm so thankful for ARC friends! I guess on the plus side, my skimmer pump got clean for the first time in 3.5 years. I now have polyfilter running and all is well. What a stressful event!! I'm so thankful nothing died from the ordeal (yet?) except a little RTN at the base of some SPS this morning. I don't plan on putting another heater on the tank. I'll see how the temp holds up this winter.

If you find yourself south I can give you some cheato full of feather dusters and micro brittle stars free. I was just at the Dome and they have a bunch of different macros in, green and red types.

Lol, this stage of the build is always so fun!!

It's definitely some kind of worm like that. Hopefully someone that's more familiar with the other kinds, like fireworms and all, will chime in. The bristle worms I've always had are pink and blue.

That's a beautiful sump, wow! Everything's coming together nicely.

Put fresh batteries in both air pumps and calling it a night [emoji53]

Pulled out the skimmer and it smells just fine. Looks fine. I'm going to take apart the pump and clean it at least. Cleaned it, inspected it, and ran it. No problems and no smell. (I take it back Timfish )

That sucks, is the power supply going out on them, or the light strip itself? I still use my little 1' BML from years ago.

Thanks everyone. I finally got back down to mess with it. I've plugged in everything except the lights, assuming the problem is in the stand. I think it's the skimmer. Everything stinks the same. The smell is just everywhere as far as I can tell. The skimmer's the only thing that didn't sound quite right when I plugged it in. Is it possible for the pump to go bad and not pollute the water? Am I looking for something that won't turn on at all? If it is the skimmer, I'm thinking I might have some sabotage on my hands from the anti-skimmer crowd.... ...Timfish...

Several hours ago I started smelling that awful burnt electronics smell. Took me a minute then I realized my tank might be close to catching on fire in the stand or something! Kicked the boys outside to play and pulled all the doors off the stand and unplugged everything. The smell was very strong in the stand. Totally overwhelming, yuck . Again I found myself so thankful for the back up air pumps! I searched what I could and nothing was hot and there's no obvious melted plastic or anything. I'm not completely positive it is the tank. The smell was kind of everywhere. I left the house to run an errand because I got nauseous and a headache, and now that I've returned the smell has cleared out. This further suggests it's something from the tank since it's the only thing I cut the power to. (My husband was home keeping an eye on things while I was out) As soon as I can get the kids up to bed I'll be hunting down the cause. This is not what I had planned for my evening! I just hope nothing gets in the water and harms the livestock. As of right now I don't see any problems. The feather dusters are all out in the sump and before the corals closed up from the darkness, they looked the same as they have been. Fish are acting normal.