AlexKilpatrick

My hermits were DOA but all the snails seem to be making it. I ordered 50 dwarf cerinths and I think he sent about 100. I put them in a cup in a tank and about half of them have climbed out. I also got some fuzzy chitons, which haven't moved but are firmly attached to the rock they are on. Shaving brush (macro) made it just fine, of course. I think I would be fine ordering snail through regular priority mail in the future.

Wow. I had no idea. It was a nice big store, though.

The other issue is that those corals are adjusted to being out of the water everyday. It might be an acclimation thing.

Was Austin Aquariums the place behind Northcross Mall? I always liked that place, and never understood the hate. What was up with that?

Wouldn't you get little ripples of water in the overflow that would make it hard to see? It seems like even in the best case it would be harder to see things in this kind of tank than a regular tank. In the middle east the swimming pools are kind of like this. The water is level with the ground and overflows into a grate along the edge of the pool. Those look really good, but I don't like this for aquarium design at all.

A few years back there was a guy named Roger who I thought was the owner of AquaTek. Did it get sold?

Does Gallery of Pets (Duval and 183) still sell saltwater? I used to go there years ago but haven't checked them out in a while. There was also a place called Partners up in Round Rock.

Also, I think this may be one measurement the AC III doesn't do. Nothing earth-shattering, but kind of interesting. Explains why my circuit breaker keeps tripping (I computers on the same circuit)

Here is a shot of my Ph spike when I add two-part in the morning. And this is on a 150 gallon tank! I would have never noticed this without the controller. I'm planning to install some dosers this weekend so I can make this a little slower. I will probably start dosing around nighttime, to offset that Ph drop. I actually moved the Ph monitor from the sump to the tank. Yesterday when I dosed two part and had the monitor in the sump, it spiked all the way up to 9. I am sure the tank doesn't go that high, but that can't be good for my refugium.

I can just see this getting delivered to the wrong house; someone thinking they are going to get some cool stuff for free. I picture them opening the package -- "What is it? Jewelry? iPod? Camera? Ewwwwwww!"

Well, it won't be coming tomorrow because of the holiday. If it was shipped, it is probably history. I can't imagine much will be salvageable on Thursday.

Oh my poor snails.

I think you still have to do that with the Apex for a second DC-8. It just configures the first one by itself. One of the things I realized is that you don't have to have the DC-8 close to everything else. You can have it at one end of the tank and just run a single USB cable from it back to the main controller. That way you don't have this huge nexus of power cords coming in to one location. From what I can tell, there isn't a huge difference between the AC-III and the APEX. Mainly, the ability to have variable speed ports (useless to most) and a somewhat nicer display. However, with the web interface (and iPhone) the display is not really useful. I would have gladly bought one without a display if it had saved me money. If anyone is considering a controller and you see a good deal on a used (or new) AC-III, I would recommend it. You won't be losing any significant functionality over the Apex.

Also, on reefcentral in the Neptune forum there is a download link for a beta version of the firmware that fixes a few problems, plus makes Aquanotes mostly function. Interestingly, Aquanotes is not associated with Neptune at all. It is just written by some random guy in Canada.

I forgot to mention that the Apex doesn't work with Aquanotes (iPhone app) but that is supposed to be fixed this week, supposedly. Eckreef -- I haven't tried it, but this shouldn't have anything to do with the Apex. It has to do with your router setup. You have to map port 80 from your router to the Apex IP address. I can help you with this if you would like.

I finally got this today after a month delay back and forth with an awful vendor. (don't buy from Poseidon's Realms) It is a pretty spiffy controller. I had it set up and working in about 10 minutes. Just plug things in and it configures itself. It uses USB to link together the power unit, the controller, and the display, interestingly enough. This makes it easy to add on more power bars. Once I had it up and plugged into my router, I just navigated to http://apex and from there I was able to set the names of all the power outlets to meaningful things, turn them on and off, etc. It also started logging my temp and Ph, which is pretty cool to see. (It will be more interesting to see how it changes over the day). Programming was a breeze and now I have some cool things set up like turning off the lights if it gets too hot, emails to me if the tank gets too hot, feed cycles, etc. Tomorrow I am planning on automating my two-part dosing using some peristaltic pumps from bulk reef supply. I had a controller many years ago and this was *so* much easier to set up. If you are considering one, I would take a look at the Apex lite, which I think is coming out this month. It drops the 4 variable speed outputs and the second pH port. I can't imagine most people even need that, and it is about $150 cheaper, I believe. If you want to check it out, just drop me a line and stop by sometime.

And I though chillers were expensive! But it does have an LCD screen... http://www.reefbuilders.com/2009/11/09/fluval-g3-g6-canister-filters-priced-market/ (this is a pretty interesting blog for reef stuff, btw)

Just posted an order for around $36. I was planning to do $50, but they were out of several things I wanted.

Do you have a durso-style overflow? I know on mine, it is just held in place with friction, so I can pull it out to clean it. If you have something like that, you could pull it out, causing the overflow to drain. At that point he might be out of the water for a few seconds, but he would be easy to net.

Wow. We have over 1,000 members here. That would be three threads a day with birthday wishes! I'm flattered and thank you, but I am a birthday grinch. I won't turn down present offers of frags, though. :-)

You should try something like this: http://www.marinedepot.com/Tom_Aquatics_Aqua_LifterDosing_Pump_Accessories_for_Aquarium_Overflow_Boxes-Tom%60s_Aquatics-OE1137-FIOFOA-vi.html It you cut a smail hole in the top of your overflow tube and use this to continually suck air/water back down into the sump, then your siphon will always start.

Microcontrollers are a blast. A few years ago when I had an overflow box, I built a microcontroller (Basic Stamp) based monitor. It would check the water level in the tank. If it got too high because the overflow box lost siphon, then it would shut off the return pump, and send me a page and email. It saved me from a flood a couple of times.

Yep -- no way to make this work. I have thought about it as an abstract problem and it would actually be very hard to solve. You would need some very precise float switches and a microcontroller, along with some very fine-grained control pumps, and even then it would be dodgy. Internal overflows are best -- they are almost bulletproof. An overflow box is almost as reliable, if you can add in pump to make sure the siphon starts.

I was planning to do about $50. Are you doing a FedEx order or priority mail?

I actually just got an order from them yesterday (bunch of two-part stuff). Bad timing, I guess. One of the things they have that I though was really cool was a set of frag mounts that are actual rubble. http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/Fragging-Tools/c119/p835/%C2%BD-Gallon-of-Natural-Coral-Frag-Mounts/product_info.html I like the idea of mounting frags to these instead of those round disk things. It looks a lot more natural.