hobogato

no, it isnt a typo, its my cheezy name for a reflector i made for my tank. i have wanted to put luminarc or luminarc minis on my tank, but there wasnt enough space. after studying a luminarc mini, i came up with this modified reflector that is 2 inches narrower, but the normal 14.5 inches long - it just so happens that will fit perfectly over my tank. one down and two more to assemble, then i will replace one spider reflector with one of these and take a quick pic to compare its output to the other spider reflectors in the tank. i am making them out of the solar tube material that they had for sale at lowe's. it comes out to about $60 to make two. ill keep ya posted

even better than fixin it yourself!

definitely! find out what caused the first one to go before you put another one in there. look for salt creep, or loose wires. a "slow blow" fuse can handle a haigher steady amperage before it goes, so if you dont fix what is shorting, you could potentially fry the whole ballast or worse, start a fire.

also, make sure you are using the right kind of fuse, not just the right amperage. i know metal halide ballasts that have a fuse require "slow blow" fuses and will instantly burn "fast blow" fuses of the same amperage.

never heard back from the guy dontknow.gif

sorry andrew, i just wanted to give him a suggestion. i picked mine up in dallas on a specified pickup date for $80 instead of the normal $350 for shipping to SA.

showoff what i have heard and read is that the females die after they have cared for their eggs in captivity (and usually in the wild). i dont think the males die after doing their part the cephalopods that die after breedeng are squid and cuttlefish.

my 240 came from glasscages.com check out their website, alot of people in SA have tanks from them in the 180 to 300 range.

havent heard back from the guy yet, but i am hoping i will also.

thanks! i called and left a message.

can you opost a link to it?

good luck, dont get arrested!

im a guitar and bass man myself, so i dont really know how to judge the sound. it does resonate a nice tone when you bow whole notes. it is much louder than any other acoustic instrument i have including the banjo. im gonna play around with it a little before i return it to my uncle.

this violin belonged to my great grandfather, probably his mother, and possibly his grandmother. it was made in either czech or germany around 1852 and is a factory produced replica of a stradivarius. it was in horrible disrepair from poor storage and from being reassembled by someone who made a total mess of it. i had to completely disassemble it and strip off all the finish. i also had to fabricate some new bracing and buy a few new pieces of the ebony parts. i finally finished it today, and it is actually holding a tune and sounds pretty good. i also had to refinish and rehair the bow. here are some progress pics before during beginning assembly stained and finished

if you have to ask, then you are aleady there confused2.gif

robert, i think you have been gluing too much acrylic in a non ventalated room! happy2.gif happy2.gif

thanks ed - i have it on a mag 9 right now and it is skimming like crazy with the pump flow resricted a bit.

that is awesome robert! isnt this stuff fun to build?

no needlewheel in this one, the skimmer could be run using a needlewheel pump instead of a regular pump and a beckett injector. where would you get one what?

now you're talkin! blob7.gif

ok - now testing with a mag9.5 (thanks jose) that is more than enough pump - i have the output of the pump cut back considerably. it would probably work with a mag7. overall height is now down to about 23". this is what it has produced in about 2 hours. i have it skimming a little too wet right now. it is running on the 20 gal fuge of my 29 gal classroom setup.

well, i was testing out a new idea for air injection, so i built a little skimmer. the new idea didnt work, but i converted the little skimmer into a beckett just to see what would happen. what i ended up with was a beckett skimmer that has a 8" X 9" footprint (not counting the drain) and is only 25" tall. probably good for a tank under 100gal. it could also be used with a needle wheel pump instead of a beckett for about the same size tank. looks a little rough, because i just used some scraps, and the water test is with a rio 1100 - nowhere near the pump needed to get the right bubbles from a beckett injector.

try adding an airstone on a pump very high in the tank. if the tank is overloaded (because of the low flow), the airstone will increase dissolvede oxygen and that is supposed to help with pH.

just re-tested, pH in first chamber effluent is 6.8 and second chamber effluent is 7.0 maybe it just had to run a bit longer to start working right :huh i just started it this morning.

well, i got them both up and running, and these are my test results as of this afternoon: tank: pH = 8.3 alk = 9.8 Dkh calc = 560 calcium reactor 1st chamber effluent: pH = 7.0 alk = 28 Dkh calcium reactor 2nd chamber effluent pH = 6.7 alk = 25 Dkh the calcium reactor results seem a little weird - i thought the 1st chamber (circulating) should have a lower pH than the 2nd chamber (static)