jestep

I didn't have room in my sump so had to use the compact but the hobby pumps are probably the best submersible pump you can buy. As long at the impeller doesn't get jammed or messed up, they could last 20+ years.

The eheim hobby and eheim compact+ pumps have always been great for me. I use the compact+ pumps on my current and last tank and haven't had the slightest problem with them. I used the 2000+ on my 50 gallon and the 3000+ on my 90. I've heard really good things about the Jebao DC pumps as well.

I can't keep mine over 8 and I don't have any problems. There's so many factors that affect it, it's largely something that I ignore at this point, with the exception of it changing due to a chemical like Kalk. Most likely CO2 or some other arbitrary reason for yours to change.

The biopellets realistically only remove NO3. I would cut back on GFO and leave the pellets as is. I could be wrong but I've never heard of zero NO3 ever causing a problem unless you're trying to grow algae.

Try the residential rentals option here as well: http://www.austinhomesearch.com/

What color is it, brown I'm assuming? Looks like sargassum to me but difficult to tell by the photo. This might help assuming that it is a desirable macro: http://www.live-plants.com/

I'm in the process of switching from 500W MH to to AI SOL's. My biggest complaint with halides is that they require a lot of actinic supplementation to get into a bluer spectrum which I prefer. This is speaking from using 20K plusrite bulbs which are more like 14K for mainstream brands. At this point it's much for energy usage and color control, but I also saw don duncan's tank and SPS growth who's using sol's and that pretty much sold me on the spot. There's several members running LED's with SPS dominant tanks.

I think it's mostly a myth or just not applicable to most water supplies. Mixed bed resin in our exchangers works by exchanging H+ and OH- ions with whatever it's removing after the membrane stage. H+ and OH- reconstitute directly back into H20. The concern would be, what if the water supply is heavy on one type of ion and not the other. This would result in an excess of either H+ or OH- ions in the effluent which would be measurable by ph, either acidic or alkaline water instead of neutral. Personally, I would skip the DI stage just for economical reasons. No reason that drinking water needs to be that much more filtered IMO. Otherwise, I would just test the effluent from the DI stage. If it's remotely close to neutral it should be fine.

Should be fine. It's common to run a drinking water tank off an RO unit. Most people plumb it before the DI stage just to conserve resin, but either way should be fine. Also ion exchange in the resin reconstitutes into water, so you don't get sodium and potassium like a water softener.

I'd get it outside and do a 2 or 3 day soak with muriatic acid and water. Buy a gallon or two at a pool store or lowes or HD and see how much coralline it gets off. Also, alway pour acid into water and not the opposite.

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It's fine, but make sure to turn off your skimmer if you use a lot of it. Sometimes you need to use superglue as well as it doesn't initially stick very well. Superglue gel, epoxy, super glue gel sandwich.

You could bend conduit and paint it and hang the fixtures from it. It's a pretty common way of hanging a fixture.

Have you checked out the build my led 20K strips? Some of the best color I have seen. I would hang the canopy / light fixture from the ceiling. You should be able to get away with 1 WP40 instead of 2 wp25's unless you end up with some dead spots. It's more than enough in my 90 gallon without any additional flow.

Mixing a larger batch of salt water to dilute it would be the easiest. Only way to actually remove it would be it being used up or precipitated out, neither of which are likely while it's sitting statically in a container. Does it need to come down a lot?

What did you raise it with?

Main concerns are the LPS which unless they're closely related they'll sting anything else near them. SPS fill fight once they grow close together. Of what you listed, virtually nothing should be in contact except the non stinging stuff, zoas, palys, rics. Everything else needs its space. Also, watch out for the chalices as sometimes they'll get long and very thin sweepers that you can barely see.

I clean mine possibly yearly with fresh water and a paper towel... Ph is just such a dynamic variable, I wouldn't spend any more than you need to unless you're running something that is reliant on a PH measurement, CA reactor, FW dosing, etc. Temp is far more important to me, but I'm not sure if there's a lab grade temp probe.

Are you East or West? Also, a tank / fish should be fine for 4 days as long as you have top off water. I routinely leave for 7 - 10 days and I've never had a problem.

This just happened on my last post. After writing a new topic and hitting post, it never redirected just sat waiting the whole time. I waited several minutes and opened a new window and the post was successful, but if people are hitting post multiple times, it would probably account for the double and triple posts I've been seeing. Edit, it's happening when I reply to an existing post as well. The green status indicator just keeps spinning and the post doesn't appear until I refresh the page. This isn't happening when just editing an existing post.

2 spot goby. Care is like a mandarin.

You could start breeding saltwater molly's if you want to keep a live food source. Kind of a good setup since they are probably the smallest algae eating fish you can put in a SW tank. Frogfish will eat anything that it even thinks it can fit in its mouth. I wouldn't trust it with any fish not at least the same size as it. I've seen some gruesome pictures of them catching fish twice their size and not being able to swallow them.