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Cheap tricks


FarmerTy

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  • 1 month later...

Black 3/4" soft tubing cut in lengths of any need and glued together to form a platform for glueing to back wall to mount plating coral on. Superglue sticks to this like majic and the black is invisiable against the black backdrop. Also works well w/ magnets. one inside the strip of tubing and one outside the glass. Clear tubing works well for clear applications such as side glass. Withmagnet appication any wall can become another mounting surface as you can move them when needed to clean the glass.

Battery operated electric toothbrush by Oral B. These will inialate hair algae to the roots.

A small table tile saw w/ the water tray loaded w/ saltwater. Makes easy work of cutting bigger rocks for fraging. Place the coral side up lets say a colony of Zoas or Palys and run against fence for entire length at depth almost to other side but not quite. Maybe a half inch short of thru and thru. Move fence every pass by two inches. Do entire rock and then turn rock 90 degrees and do again. Now the colony is scored on the backside in 2 inch squares. Easy enough to finish by snapping off peices w/ channel locks or pliers while holding from sides. Be sure to have a razor handy to use where needed to seperate polyps when needed. Definitly want gloves and mask for this project But you frag out a 6 X 6 colony into 36 frags in just a few minutes. I find 2 X 2 on most zoas produces ~20 head count per frag. MONEY !

Small food processor to puree mysis to feed to my LPS

WIFI security camera to watch my tank when I'm at work. Shhhhhhhhhhhhh ! Don't tell my boss that's what I do at my desk all day =[:>D}

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"Battery operated electric toothbrush by Oral B. These will inialate hair algae to the roots."

Which one and is it submersible?

Dave-

I use one of these: http://www.sonicscrubber.co.uk/, the yellow one is what I have. You can get them at walmart and a bunch of other places. They have interchangeable tips and are great. Have been using mine in my fresh and saltwater tanks for about 5 years.

Also, if anyone has an apex or other controller, you can get peristaltic dosing pumps on ebay for about $30 each. Not dirt cheap, but the best I've been able to find.

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My foxface rabbit is an algae hog. He eats the dried stuff super fast and when I throw the live stuff in it doesn't hit the bottom of the tank before he destroys it. I've tried planting the tank but he eats faster than it grows. I'm considering adding a tang and that will only increase me issues with this.

Solution? The algae box.

built it out of eggcrate and zip ties. Crammed it full of dragon's breath macro algae and let it grow out for a few weeks in another tank. The algae extended out through the eggcrate.

Once it went into the tank the rabbit fish quickly nipped off the parts he can reach. The algae then grows out more and he cleans that off. Keeps him super busy swimming all around it looking for new growth or parts that the current has pushed out to where he can reach.

I will eventually mount it a little better. I'll also probably pull it and drop it in the sump for a few weeks to grow out again and pick up a fresh load of pods. Oh did I mention that the thing was literally dripping with pods when I put it in there?

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Also, if anyone has an apex or other controller, you can get peristaltic dosing pumps on ebay for about $30 each. Not dirt cheap, but the best I've been able to find.

you can get 12v peristaltic pumps for about $20 shipped from ebay. cheap....er?

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I did the same thing when raising two baby clownfish in my main DT. I used the stitching fiber instead of eggcrate (smaller holes) and used chaeto for them to hide in while living there. All my tangs started grazing on any chaeto that would stick out of it but it wasn't enough full access that they could eat all of it. Kept them nice and busy for awhile until I removed the clownfish grow out area.

-Ty

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another handy tip:

After knocking my Tunze wave controller into a half-filled bucked while still plugged in, it started to freak out (leds flickering, not remaining on etc)

I took out all the screws, shook out all the water I could and still the problems persisted.

repeated and placed it in a ziplock bag with dry rice and sealed it up. Left it overnight and works perfectly this morning! (the rice absorbs the moisture in the bag)

Generally I would recommend 24-72 hours just to be sure

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another handy tip:

After knocking my Tunze wave controller into a half-filled bucked while still plugged in, it started to freak out (leds flickering, not remaining on etc)

I took out all the screws, shook out all the water I could and still the problems persisted.

repeated and placed it in a ziplock bag with dry rice and sealed it up. Left it overnight and works perfectly this morning! (the rice absorbs the moisture in the bag)

Generally I would recommend 24-72 hours just to be sure

yeah.. you'll want to rinse that with fresh water or alcohol to get the salt out before drying it out with rice.

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another handy tip:

After knocking my Tunze wave controller into a half-filled bucked while still plugged in, it started to freak out (leds flickering, not remaining on etc)

I took out all the screws, shook out all the water I could and still the problems persisted.

repeated and placed it in a ziplock bag with dry rice and sealed it up. Left it overnight and works perfectly this morning! (the rice absorbs the moisture in the bag)

Generally I would recommend 24-72 hours just to be sure

yeah.. you'll want to rinse that with fresh water or alcohol to get the salt out before drying it out with rice.

it was RO water... no salt...but valid point

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has anyone made there own fish food?

I have several times, but just use pellet food right now. Food processor. Get and clean some raw wild shrimp, oysters, clams, squid. Add some sperulina, nori, blanched spinach, and commercial flake or pellet fish food for additional vitamins. You can put it in ice cube trays or a plastic bag and flatten it out and freeze it. You can also add oyster eggs and other diet specific foods. I've heard of people using multi-vitamins, but watch out for copper and other metals if this is for a reef tank.

Just about anything will eat this stuff and it works well for fresh water in addition to salt water fish.

Best bet is to go to central market for the raw seafood. They usually carry everything fresh in their seafood section and you can pick it out individually. They will ask why you're buying small amounts of random seafood though...wink.png

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has anyone made there own fish food?

I have several times, but just use pellet food right now. Food processor. Get and clean some raw wild shrimp, oysters, clams, squid. Add some sperulina, nori, blanched spinach, and commercial flake or pellet fish food for additional vitamins. You can put it in ice cube trays or a plastic bag and flatten it out and freeze it. You can also add oyster eggs and other diet specific foods. I've heard of people using multi-vitamins, but watch out for copper and other metals if this is for a reef tank.

Just about anything will eat this stuff and it works well for fresh water in addition to salt water fish.

Best bet is to go to central market for the raw seafood. They usually carry everything fresh in their seafood section and you can pick it out individually. They will ask why you're buying small amounts of random seafood though...wink.png

Thanks I'm going to try it out

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I go to the asian market, MT supermarket, and load up on all kinds of random seafood and blend it all together and flatten it out in ziplock bags. Works great and way cheaper than buying pre-made frozen mixes.

Also, great source for dried nori (they have about a million varieties at the store, just make sure it is dried nori and nothing else).

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  • 2 weeks later...

Binder clips for sump cable management (clip them to the rim...and flip the arms toward the inside...run the cables up through the loop)

sounds great, but at the risk of another dumb question...are there plastic ones or do you not have to worry about rust because they are high enough out of the water and don't get splashed?

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Binder clips for sump cable management (clip them to the rim...and flip the arms toward the inside...run the cables up through the loop)

sounds great, but at the risk of another dumb question...are there plastic ones or do you not have to worry about rust because they are high enough out of the water and don't get splashed?

I use standard powdercoated black metal ones, I don't have a ton of sump splash so I am not worried about it...if you are worried...dip them in plastidip first

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