FarmerTy

You always have all the goodies Tom! Find me something good out of that collection of yours!

Hey all, Looking for a return pump to power my new UV configuration. It just needs to be 350 gph or higher. Let me know what you got! Thanks! -Ty

If it's the tank I saw at RCA, then it looks awesome! If there are a couple of unidentified fingerprints on the left glass pane... it wasn't me. [emoji6]

Sounds like some good meeting fun! Jim, the Calcium Reactor primer will be at Dan's this Saturday. For the January meeting I'll be hosting, I'll be covering the basics of keeping SPS for those interested and may throw in a live dipping "how-to" demonstration for SPS.

Ich probably came in with your foxface. Even though he may not be showing symptoms at the time, doesn't mean he didn't have it. At that point, it got into your system. The only way to remove it is the 72 days of running your tank fallow. Juiceman and I subscribe to ich management, it's in the system but just keep everyone well fed and stress free and none will probably ever die from it. They may get relapses of ich from time to time when stress is high or just seasonally but life will go on and as long as they are healthy, they will live. When you see the periodic spots on the fish, it's the ich going through its different life stages.

That dial on the carbon doser is ten times easier than those needle valves, that's for sure!

Oh yeah, that carbon doser is awesome. I picked up a used one myself! So do you just have the Apex turn it on/off if it goes past your set limits for pH? Mine hasn't drifted more than +/- 0.02 since I put it online. I did set my pH limits to have it turn off if my pH is below 6.65 but that hasn't happened.

Man, you get all the cool toys! I want a digital flowmeter! I'll just have to wait and see how much Neptune plans to charge for theirs before I make any moves. Fortunately, my new/used MTC CaRX has a flowmeter installed so I can at least look at my rubber ball floating in the glass.. it's not digital though so I lose cool points there. If you are using a standard solenoid to cut/turn on flow of the CO2 for your system, I'd highly recommend tuning the system without the solenoid first and then once the bubble rate is spot on, turn the solenoid back on as insurance for it getting above or below your pH level. I've had 4 solenoids go out on me over the course of 4 years... they really only last about a year for me. My saving grace is when it goes out... my bubble count is close enough that my alk level doesn't skyrocket or drop when the solenoid doesn't work anymore. Just a CaRX guy looking out for another CaRX guy. Haha.

I mean, uhhh... that mega colony is one of the few sources you'll find of warp speed in all of Texas!

When's the last time you topped off media in the CaRX? How are you increasing your effluent? By increasing the flow out of the reactor or by dropping the pH in the system? I've found as your mass of alk/Ca uptaking corals increases in your system, I've had to generally tweak my pH levels in my reactor (I never change my effluent flow) about once/month and then at about the 6-month mark, top off my media in the CaRX and slightly bump my pH levels back up since I have a lot more media to work with again.

Oh, I should add that I will also be trying to plumb the UV sterilizer directly to my DT and not in my sump. It is currently in my sump, sterilizing all water that returns to my DT. I think it'll be more effective sucking up the free swimming stage of ich if the intake was actually in the DT, slightly above the sandbed level, and the return in another portion of the tank. I've been reading that it is helpful to have it plumbed this way and I believe even our very own Timfish mentioned this to be an ideal setup for UV sterilizers. I haven't figured out how to do this without it being too intrusive yet with PVC/tubing but hopefully something will come to light for me. Wish me luck... and with another project that'll keep me busy with the tank to stave off complacency/boredom with the tank.

Understatement of the week!

Oops! A couple dabs of superglue and it'll grow back over the break in a week or two! Dan and Meg are the lucky winners! Have fun with the fragging party!

Hmmm...now where did he learn that from??? That's me after Tuesday basketball night! He was trying his best to be an 80's action star, just couldn't hold on long enough! Stallone made it look easy!

So, I wanted to bring this discussion back to light as I am contemplating some things during my more extensive research into ich sterilization with UV. It started when I ran across an article on the Emperor Aquatics brand of UV sterilizers, basically the main competing company of UV sterilizers to the product I own, the AquaUV sterilizer. Both are highly regarded for their performance and customer support and are considered the better UV sterilizers in the industry. What struck me as odd is the higher recommended exposures recommended for killing marine protists by Emperor Aquatics. Here's what the two companies suggested for exposure levels to kill marine protists: MODEL Exposure GPH 57-watt AquaUV 90,000 uW/cm2 1066 50-watt Emperor Aquatics 180,000 uW/cm2 ~300 That's 2x the recommended level of AquaUV! So that made me do some more research and found that the marine ich kill exposure of 336,000 uW/cm2 is mainly an extrapolated number from freshwater ich kill exposure of 100,000 uW/cm2. Awesome! Soft science! Well, that's the best I have so I'll run with it, which basically means I need to only run ~300 gph through the UV sterilizer, instead of the 1066 gph recommended by the manufacturer. Great reference on ich: http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fa164 Chart I found for reference... no idea of the source though:

This was him the next day... resting the body in his lounger.

I swear, the clean-up crew are like a bunch of comedians in my tank! Always entertaining!

If you upgrade to the Salt Lick model, I heard you'll only need one hole.

Update picture of the RCA Baton Rouge acro! Blood red!

I got mine with rhinolining already on it. It's pretty awesome! I probably wouldn't have done it myself because I'm cheap but the rhiniloning does its job!

No problem sir!

You should PM Good Greef. He just bought one a month ago.

You got me! I just thought the question relevant as it would probably change the stand builder recommendation. My guess is the steel stand would be more expensive unless you go all out on your wood stand. Maybe Dan and Meg will chime in about their builder that built their awesome wood stand. I think Jeremy (offroaddodge) still builds metal stands and I recommended a guy to SChrisEV that built him a steel stand as well. The welder modified my steel stand for me and did great work.

Just pull him out and put him in a cup with tank water. Then start adding some clove oil to the water and the fish will start to go into a trance-like state. It is oil so stirring a bit to help mix it is useful. Keep adding clove oil and eventually it'll stop breathing. Once it stops breathing for 10 minutes, I freeze it just in case though it should be good and dead at that point.

Holy gargantuan bubble algae! You could farm those things and stop world hunger! Funny thing is I found a crab exactly like that in my sump last night too. I'll watch where my fingers go down there from now on! Goodbye Megatank... And mega bubble algae too!