prof

Center braces are important I have lost seams on multiple tanks and they have been 25+ year old tanks.

You should keep your front door locked. Never know what the neighbors might do to your tank

My list is soooo long I don't even know where to start... My best is probably when I came home and water was running out the front door. I blew a seam on a 150g tank and it lost about a third of the water. 50g does not seem like much until it is able to run across the house, out the front door, and create a little stream down the driveway. I love my fish room! All spills can just run out the garage.

The size of the sump is not nearly as important as the empty space in the sump. I start with a 4" calculation to determine the amount of extra space needed in a sump. For example: For a tank with a 48x24" foot print. Multiply by 4 to get 4608 cubic inches, divide by 231 to get gallons: 19.9 gallons. So, regardless of the height of the tank I want the sump to be able to catch an extra 20 gallons of water in an emergency. This means running a 40 gallon sump, half full. Now, 4" is overkill. Properly designed overflows and returns should never siphon more than one inch of water in the case of a power outage but if you have a clogged siphon break and your return is 6" underwater....you will siphon 6" of water out of your tank. From the above example, that would put 30 gallons of water in the sump. I hope you have room I like to split my return line so I have two siphon breaks on one return. Redundancy. Dual overflows are also great for the same reason. In my opinion, check valves are a waste of money. It is much more likely that they will cause a problem then solve one. A common thing that people forget is that the tank can easily overflow over the top instead of through the plumbing. On more than one occasion I have had algae build up or a rougue snail clog my overflow. When this happens the pump will run the sump dry and all of the water will exit the system over the top of the tank. Maintenance is the best method to prevent this. Make sure your plumbing stays clean, is easy to access for service, and has good screens to keep stray critters out of the lines. Cheap water sensor/alarms can be installed to alert you to water on the floor and even cut off a pump before it emptys your 50g sump on the floor. When possible, a catch basin around the entire stand or a floor drain are great things to have. One design that I am beginning to use on sumps that I build is an extra catch bucket. It is easy to add 3-4 gallons of extra space in a side container that is designed to stay dry all of the time and only exist for the emergency. The rest of the time you can store supplies in it. Remember that water seeks its own level, and in the aquarium hobby that is usually on the floor.

Not sure what the best option is for glass. You might want to look into the epoxies that are used to repair windsheilds.

Just a few more comments: No one has 'just one' aptasia They are much to prolific to just have one. It is very easy to have hundreds of small aptasia in your tank and never see them. They tend to stay quite small and out of sight. Tanks full of aptasia are also full of nutrients. If you look carefully at any tank in the hobby (including your favorite lfs) you are almost assured to find multiple nussiance creatures(bubble algae, diatoms, aptasia, mujanos, etc.) Yes, dead fish should be removed quickly. When wholesale orders come in to any location the fish and corals are horribly stressed. It is inevitable that something will die, but it is also very possible for that tang that comes out of the bag swimming sideways will pull through. We buy live rock because it has creatures on/in it. But you will get some bad with the good. In this hobby it is not a matter of if, but when. I prefer a much more hands off approach to my tanks. I have aptasia, mujanos, algae, etc. I work to control these creatures but I don't worry about them until they become so numerous that they are a problem. I know plenty of people who scrape xenia, star polyps, and even zoas off their rocks because they grow like weeds. Ok, that is all for now. I could go on forever.

I build my stands completly out of 3/4" plywood. AC pine or oak veneer are my favorites. It takes a lot less stand than you would expect to hold the weight of a tank. Here is a stand I built for a 215g being tested with a 240g on top. Plywood is STRONG! When testing I did not get any deflection in the stand at all! The inside of the stand has almost the exact same area of the tank. 4x4s work great but are extreme overkill.

Looks like the overflow turned out well. How is it running?

This is an awesome coral. It needs a little bit of space because it is huge. 7" is the size of the skeleton, it will get much bigger when happy!

If there is little to no flow you have a clog or your impeller is not spinning/broken. If you are getting flow but no bubbles the airline is clogged. I would always drop the airline in the tank and let it pull water through for a while to clean it out. The Rio and the Accela pumps are both ok pumps but have to be kept clean. At $25 it is better to replace the entire pump rather than just the impeller.

I agree with reefman. Measure from your armpit to your hand and then consider how often you will need to reach the bottom of the tank. Taller tanks sure look cool but I generally prefer deeper (front to back) tanks.

Most tanks have a tempered bottom pane. This cannot be drilled. It is always best to check with the aquarium manufacturer to see what is tempered and what is not.

The fish will attack the crab in a regular shell. They will only try once and give up when they find out the shell is protecting the crab. Of course I don't keep crabs with crab eatin fish

How old are the filters? Even with good pressure a clogged filter won't allow correct flow. It is also possible that the wrong flow restictor was installed or that the RO membrane is not rated for your expected flow rate.

I am impressed. It is turning out great!

Some people are commenting that it is cruel but I don't really understand why. I would love to add a couple of glass shells to my tank to see if any of my crabs would move into them. Any idea where I can get some?

Hey everyone... It looks like I may not be able to make it to the meeting. My wife had a work emergency and I am going to be stuck at home with the kid. Not a bad thing for me. Tabitha and I will have a good time together. We will try to head up there together but I can't promise. I have the new meeting flag ready to go and was hoping to find someone who could stop by my place and pick it up to make sure it gets to the meeting. PM me if you can swing by before going to the meeting. Thanks, David

Ok, we are talking about two animals that are fairly common in the ocean. I am not sure this is much different from adding shrimp or damsels to feed a frogfish. And we could easily debate that keeping them in an aquarium is even more cruel. Don't get me wrong....I am not advicating this as a new olympic sport, but this is more like feeding mice to snakes, not backyard dogfighting. Good or bad, it is pretty cool to see.

Thanks everyone. It turned out to be a great day (even though I had to work).

A pair of goggles and a scrapper. The little ones are just the right size for cleaning that hard to reach glass Tabitha (almost 3) knows not to put anything in the water, including her hands. She does very well at the fish stores and at home. My tanks are generally out of her reach. She does get to help feed sometimes but it has always been supervised. She does not have her own tank in her room, yet. That is probably my next step in teaching her how to take care of fish, and pets in general.

Alright...The vote is over. 'Nemo' is on the way!

Hurry up and get your votes in! I need to get this ordered.

We found one like that in a bucket of bait shrimp last time we were at the coast. Cool creature!

FISH SOCK Epic Reef will donate one if everyone can pick one. Someone start a poll...

I like the blue glittery rocks from PetsMart... But seriously, any version of crushed coral is probably your best choice. Depends on what you want to keep. You will want a finer sand for burrowing type creatures. Beyond that it is mostly a personal preference.