victoly

Seems like the mandaran might also be at risk.

It's going right here:

emerald crabs are too new wave and untested

I admire that dude every time I go in there. I don't have anything to offer in terms of experience, but they definitely catch my eye. Good luck.

The analogy isn't that you're buying a new car, it's that you already have a car, and are determining whether you should buy a new car with better gas mileage. And trust me, we're on the same page, I have LEDs and unless some amazing new technology comes, I won't be switching anytime soon. It's just that sometimes it's easier to use what you've already got.

C4 is a plastic explosive. i am not nearly as excited as everyone else about getting blown up.

I'm paranoid about introducing nuisance algae to my tank. Part of it has to do with the method that you're receiving the coral (fresh frags are not as likely to have algae), and the size of the piece (larger/older colonies tend to have more algae on whatever they're attached to IMO. I think it's part of a broader subject, improving LFS coral husbandry. It seems as though presentation is a low priority in their sale tanks. In terms of a moving as many units as possible and from a business perspective I totally get this. However, I think that I would be much more motivated if they had a shallow, large, bare bottom tank where everything was racked on egg crate to reduce nuisance algae and more thoroughly evaluate a piece on it's own merits instead of the tank at large. A good example of this is how Vivid does their sale tanks (check youtube). So to all the sponsors who I can only assume read every post on the forum and take their advice, do that and I'll probably buy more coral from you instead of hobbyists who have a stronger focus on giving out nuisance free livestock.

so why have nerites gained favor over turbos? i would suppose a size thing?

I addressed this in my response. It's probably more of a convenience thing than a long term cost benefit analysis. Alternately, maybe the initial cash hasn't been approved by the bean counter to spend on LEDs. Try telling your wife that you want to spend half a grand on lights when you already have lights. It's gonna take a purse and a massage or something to get that one green lighted.

I tend to agree with everything there. My next project is to saltwater acclimate a plecostomus.

yeah, I've ebayed mine. Doing pretty well, my 32 gig went for like $240, the 16 gig is up currently. Ebay is the way to go IMO.

It's gone Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

What have your experiences been in terms of the ability of your tank to sustain a cleanup crew over time? I'm a light feeder and have noticed that I just can't sustain a large poplation of dwarf cerith or nerites. nassarius seem to be doing fine though. Does anyone do supplemental feeding just for the herbivores?

I'm not sure that switching to flex is going to reduce the sound :/ From what I understand it's not so much the "falling" of the water, it's the "sucking" action of the pipe and the fact that it's not a column entirely filled with water. There are solutions to this (bean animal, durso, etc) but I'm not sure that in your current configuration of overflows that it's possible to implement. However, if you're just trying to save space in the sump, that's totally valid and might be worth it. It would just suck to go through all this work of replumbing a tank that is already up and running, only to have it not achieve all the goals that you had which moved you to rip it up in the first place.

If you really feel like messing with it, it may streamline your operation a bit. I dunno though, since the tank is already running, I'd almost be inclined to leave it unless there is something driving you to change it up.

oh so straight PVC for the section behind the tank and then under the tank using flex? You should be able to get away with just about whatever you want, although the thicker the diameter the less flexible the pipe is. I was using some 3" flex on my pond, and the flex was not very flexy.

do you mean just below the overflow?

PS crumps plumbing in north austin carries flex PVC. I'd recommend our sponsor, but shipping is a ***** on flex.

I think you could make all those turns with a single elbow downward right at the bulkhead. You could do a single union right after the downward elbow so that you could disconnect the "spaghetti arms" from the back of the tank. You can always dry fit elbows at the sump itself to direct the water downward. A word of caution, your pipes are going to be pretty heavy when filled with water, so even though you have flexibility, you are going to need to strap the pipes so that they dont sag (consider unistrut or strong straps hanging from the top of the tank).

So I'm going to make a case as to why I think this is not the best idea for a marine tank. You can achieve the same thing using much safer and cheaper methods. Most people with overflows use filter socks right off of their sump intake. The reason for that is that they are very easy to change out and clean. 2 filter socks is going to be much cheaper than building that tower, and has an exceptionally small chance of failure. I can think of numerous failure points in that tower which could lead to a huge mess. These socks are going to take up much less space and provide sufficient mechanical filtration. As for the biological component, you are not going to need the bioballs in your system. The live rock, substrate and DSB (if you choose that method) will provide ample biological filtration. This trickle filter also has a huge space premium both vertically and horizontally in the sump. You have to move the tower out of the sump to clean the bottom filters, which is a pain. If you intend to run a protein skimmer or any other in-sump device, most of the space will be consumed by this filter. Additionally, having a non-sealed drip filter like that is going to give you salt creep all over the inside of your stand. If it were me, I'd just go with a simple sump that you can fill as you choose.

So to continue, explain the tray system that you're thinking about? Let me preface it by saying that superficially, I think you'll be able to achieve your goals without it, but you might convince me otherwise.

Why is running a skimmer with water changes not a long term solution? It is a long term solution if you do two things that both cost money. I choose to increase biodiversity. Patrick Using a skimmer and water changes are not mutually exclusive to building biodiversity....

and he's out. down to just the purple firefish and the clown pair. After another escape from the breeder net, I lucked out and caught him in a hand net. Currently everything is going along swimmingly. thanks much to etannert for her fish suggestion, it was the correct one.

Why is running a skimmer with water changes not a long term solution?