Beretta

That's awesome. I want to see a pic of that. Instead of a calcium reactor, I'm considering dripping kalk instead. The only reason is I don't think I'll have enough calcium uptake to justify using a reactor on a tank of this size. I know the stuff is dangerous, but my other hobby is chemistry; I've messed with some pretty nasty stuff. Still planning on doing a sump, and just dripping kalk into the sump.

There's a 20g Long sump on there that I might attempt to make. Very simple design. I'll probably end up taking the tank and get it drilled at Binswangers (sp), and get the glass pieces cut for the sump there also. Thanks for the help.

I've got a 29g tank in my office right now that is a planted FW tank. I'm thinking of converting it to a reef tank because I can never ever get rid of algae, and I'm tired of fighting it. I haven't decided yet if I'm going to run a sump with this system, or go HOB. I'd like to go with a sump, mainly because I can hide everything and then I don't have a ton of stuff hanging off the back of the tank. My main problem right now is the stand. It's not a wood stand, it's a wire stand with adjustable shelves, like you might see at several of the stores here in town. This means drilling the bottom of the tank for drains is out of the question, because doing so will compromise the support for the tank. Is it possible to drill the back and run the drains outside the tank? My only concern with this method would be the weight of the piping and water putting pressure on the back glass. I want to do some kind of durso drains, mainly for noise reductions. If this is possible, it would allow me to do a sump, which I can then hide a heater, skimmer, refugium, calcium reactor, etc.

I've got a CSS 65 skimmer on my 10g. It took some tinkering to get it to work correctly, and I'm not done yet. It's a good skimmer for the money if you are willing to do some mods to it.

Don't go buy a new powerhead just yet. Mine typically don't work after mixing salt, because the salt solidifies between the magnets, especially if I don't run them in clean water afterwards. Take it apart to get to the impeller and give the impeller a spin. Then plug it in and see if it works.

Sounds like a good plan. Although it would be easier to just turn down the heater to your tank temperature and leave it in. Another good idea is to cover the container you're dissolving the salt in. This will prevent evaporation and keep dust, insects, cats, small children, drunk adults, and other things out of your saltwater. Remember, it takes awhile to dissolve salt at these concentrations, especially if you don't have that much circulation. The more circulation you have, the faster it will dissolve. Remember way back when your first set up your tank, filled it with water, and everything was working fine, so you added your salt? Do you recall how long it took to dissolve all the salt? In most cases, it probably took at least 48 hours to do so. The same thing is going on here, just on a smaller scale. Give it some time, it will eventually all dissolve, as long as you don't go past the saturation point, which is around a specific gravity of 1.030.

Rinsing mysis is always a good idea, as they have gunk on them that is loaded with phosphates.

I've always weighed it because I'm dealing in smaller amounts, and it's way more accurate for those smaller amounts. For IO, which is what I use, it's 151 grams of salt to a gallon of RO water will yield a specific gravity of 1.025. You should still check it once it's done, because I've had cases where this didn't hold true, especially if it's been humid and the salt is damp. That will throw off your SG whether you weigh or measure by volume. It's also a good idea to have a heater in the water so that the temperatures match when you add it to the tank. Also, if your house is cool, the water will stabilize to that temperature, and colder water can't dissolve as much salt. I've also found as you get into the higher specific gravities (1.025+), it takes longer to dissolve all the salt.

If you have a good RO system, they should not change. As the filters age, the TDS reading will creep up from, 0, to 1, to 2, to 3, etc. I think once you get to about 4, it's time to change the sediment and carbon filters.

1. Cut down on lighting schedule temporarily. Once it's gone, SLOWLY bring your lights back to your normal time. 2. Siphon out as much as you can. 3. Water changes, lots of them. 4. Check your KH. If it's below 8, it will make the cyano problem worse. 5. Cut back on feeding. 6. TEST YOUR TOPOFF WATER!!! If there is phosphate or nitrate in your topoff, you will be feeding the cyano everytime you topoff. 7. Use a turkey baster on your rocks before you do a water change. Every bit of waste you can remove will help. 8. Be patient. Remember, nothing good ever happens fast.

I'm glad you got it working. Now just remember how it's done so you can help me when I get my big tank.

River City Aquatics will test it for free. I have one of the hand-held meters. It works great.

If the unit is hooked up, see if you can pull a sample and test it with a TDS meter. If it's below 3 (ideally it would be 0), you should be good to go. The only other thing I would do is add a DI stage to this system. I bought one about a month ago, and I'm kicking myself for not doing it sooner.

I can't imagine how they get stopped up. I have an AC 110 on my 10g tank, and it works great. I've done some mods on it, and it houses my heater, live rock, macroalgae, a light for the macroalgae, and a piece of plastic to keep light from spilling into the tank. I had the surface skimmer, but I took it off because it was too loud. If you want to know what all I did, let me know.

That would work, except that I'm worried about back-pressure on the skimmer, and it's a pretty tight area I'm working in, so the bends would be pretty sharp. I went to AAI today, and they had a CSS on hand. we took the gate valve off, and it doesn't run all the way down the return pipe, it's just in the top elbow. So cutting the pipe shouldn't be a problem. It's just a matter of finding the right coupling and if the pvc cement will work.

Do I smell a group buy? I'm about out of calcium tests.

I paid $14 or whatever it was for the kent pro-scraper. Does an amazing job on coralline, and tough green algae. Just be sure to replace the guard over the blade when you're done. If you don't you'll get nicks in the blade, and you will get nice pretty streaks on your glass.

If you can find a small hose clamp, that would probably work in a pinch. It's not like the line is under high pressure, so as long as there is a decent seal around the bubble counter, it shouldn't come off.

I've got a CSS 65 on my 10g nano, and I want to do another mod on it, but I'm not sure if it will work. I want to turn the return so that it doesn't dump into my main display (the skimmer is HOB on the tank) and I want to rotate it about 90 degrees so that it will dump into my refugium, an AC 100. The bubble diffuser box is so big that it looks awful in the display, although I will say it does a decent job of removing microbubbles. It will fit in the refugium though. Are the returns made of pvc so that you can use pvc cement without the cement eating the pipe? Also, where is the actual gate valve? Is it at the very top of the return, or down lower in the main body of the pipe. I really don't want to cut into the pipe and sever something I really don't want to cut. I'd like to just cut the pipe, attach a coupling, and rotate the return so that it will dump into the AC 100. If this is simple enough to do, it will go a long way in making my tank more purty.

Yes.

Hmmm, I'm running out of places locally. You can try this website, as he carries a lot of parts for regulators. Only other place I can think of one of the homebrew places.

Try Airgas. They have regulators and other stuff. If they don't have it, ask them.

I don't know how a ca reactor works, but I'm guessing what happened is the feed pump pumped water back into the bubble counter. As long as the solenoid had the valve closed, you should be ok. The problem comes in when you get water into those regulators, as it is very bad to get water into those membranes. That's why I always have a check valve inline.

If it's like most regulators, it won't fill with liquid on its own, because the gas is running in one direction through your bubble counter. If you don't have one already, you should have a check valve inline between the bubble counter and where it goes into the calc reactor to keep water from getting in your regulator. I just fill mine on my FW tank with tap water (I'd use RO water if I had it handy at my office), although I do have to refill it every couple of months. You can use glycerine in them, and that won't evaporate, but I've had a hard time finding straight glycerine.

I've heard of it being done, but you have to do it in very small batches. The problem you will likely run into is that you will end up mixing the black and white sand.