Derry

You know you can't make a claim like that w/out more pics to prove it, right? ; )

and this month, the most painful one ever my little Goldflake Angel

Oof... Painful in more ways than one!

Vivid's penchant for listing corals that are "Pre-Order" only and/or fish that aren't really available is starting to wear thin. I requested in-stock notification on the ORA Rose Mille about a month ago. When I didn't hear anything in that time, I thought I'd drop them a line and ask for an update. Here's the response from Zach at Vivid:

"We place ORA orders randomly, so I couldn't give you a exact time frame. Maybe in a couple of months. I know that sounds like a long wait, but we just got an order in a few weeks ago and we won't re-up until later."

Why on earth list a coral on your site when you know for a fact that it's going to be ?!?MONTHS?!? before it's available to your customers again? If Vivid doesn't tighten up their business practices, I'm not going to be in a big hurry to place more orders with them in the future. Mark, I know you've got friends over there, but they need to hear about the frustrations they're creating with their customers.

Any sign of our goodies yet?

Crinoids are absolutely beautiful. What's the feeding regimen?

My beloved 6" male blue jaw trigger tried to go amphibious on me about two months ago with negative results.

Sorry, what's "Rhizos" short for?

I'm switching to a calcium reactor, so I no longer need these dispensing jugs. They're from BRS and were used when I was supplementing with their two-part system for maintaining calcium and alkalinity. They're only worth $5 each when new, so throw a small livestock trade offer my way, and let's see what we can work out. I don't need any algae or kenya trees, but I'm open to almost anything else, particularly zoas.

GONE

So a while back, I got my hands on a used Knopp C calcium reactor. However, I wanted to use a pH monitor inlined with the reactor to control the CO2 flow instead of playing games measuring the effluent manually. I bought a bulkhead specially designed to hold a 1/2" pH probe, only to find out that the top of the reactor isn't large enough to fit said bulkhead. Well, Jeremy (aka, offroadodge) suggested that I use a 1/2" John Guest fitting in a T off of the reactor to mount the pH probe. Problem solved!

Well, almost... See, Knopp is a German company, hence the PVC on the reactor is in mm, not inches (see pic #3), with a 16mm outer diameter to be precise. Being the stubborn type, I grabbed the trusty calipers and measured the inner diameter of good old 1/2" PVC. Turns out, the inner diameter is NOT 1/2", but rather 5/8" (uh, sure...). Doing a quick conversion, I discovered that 16mm is just .005" bigger than 5/8". All I had to do was bore out the 1/2" PVC a little, sand down the 16mm PVC, or some combo thereof.

After staring at a pile of various PVC bits and tools for a while, I remembered that my Dremel has these neat little abrading/sanding drums that I thought might be close to the right size. Wouldn't ya know it, but the Dremel drums were the perfect size to enlarge the 1/2" PVC for a snug fit with the 16mm PVC. You can see in the picture how the 16mm fits into a modified 1/2" collar, which in turn is glued into a 1/2" T fitting. Once the glue cures up, I'll thread the 1/2" John Guest fitting into the top of the T to hold the pH probe, and away I go!

Sorry, Ken - two others beat you to the leathers. I'll PM you if one falls through, though.

Got a few more frags for sale:

1 frag of ~20 yellow polyps, with the actual frag pictured. Asking $15 SOLD

2 frags of leather toadstool (Sarcophyton sp.), both about 1-1/2". The main pic is the mother colony, with one of the frags insert. Asking $10 each SOLD

1 frag of ~20 zoa polyps that most closely resemble a morph of King Midas. I got these from ZoaNuts about a year and a half ago, and ZoaNuts didn't have an official name for them. FULL DISCLOSURE: The zoa pic has been Photoshopped to make up for my crappy camera. The doctored pic more closely resembles the zoas' color to my eye, but resulted in the overdriven reds in the photo. The left half is under 10K with actinic supplementation; the right half is actinics only. The actual frag is in the foreground. I'm guessing these will show more golden color under bluer lighting than mine. Asking $15

I also have a sheet of GSP that I pulled off of some rock and is currently unattached to anything. The piece is roughly 5" x 3". I don't have a pic for this one. Asking $15

So are we all ordered up now?

Or put me down for a bag of frag plugs, and I'll bring cash with me when I pick everything up. Your call.

Put me down for 2 polyps of Dragon's Breath Favia at $39.99. That should get us over the hump, no?

Give me 15-20 mins to get back to my computer and look around.

Derry

You're right, Mike - on the re-read, that was definitely NOT my clearest piece of writing! Looking like replacement's my only option. Thanks for the input!

MIke, you've had too much caffeine again... I'm not talking about the fittings under the stand, which I agree should be either glued or threaded, lest one invite disaster. I'm talking about the return standpipe in my overflow box. Cost has nothing to do with this conversation - I never mentioned it, and I've already got enough spare PVC in the garage to rebuild the standpipe assembly if I have to. I'd rather not drain the overflow box and remove the standpipe along with its connecting bulkhead unless I absolutely have to because draining the overflow box would kill all of the critters currently living in there. My question was whether anyone knew any tricks for getting dry-fit PVC unstuck, under the assumption that it was just dry-fit together and not glued together. Got any suggestions there?

It's a standard corner overflow with a Durso drain pipe and a return that exits from a Loc-Line nozzle. I took the Loc-Line off today, and it's clear. I tried using the channel locks with some vise grips to hold the return pipe still, but no luck there, either. I might not have a choice but to drain the overflow and remove the bulkhead...

Yep, and all that does is make the bulkhead spin.

I think I've got too much calcium buildup in the return pipe from my sump, which is restricting flow and therefore turnover from the tank to the sump. Unfortunately, I can't seem to get the frikkin' 90-degree elbow off of the return pipe, much less get the pipe out of the bulkhead at the bottom of the overflow. I can't see any visible glue residue (which I know only counts for so much), and gluing the overflow pipes together seems to be less than the smartest thing for the tank constructor to do. However, I can't get anything to come loose. I know I can always drain the overflow and unscrew the bulkhead, but my overflow operates as a pseudo-cryptic zone, and I don't want to kill off everything living in there. Anybody got some clever ideas for me?

I know! i am actually going to grow him out in my tank before putting him in my mothers 90 next summer when i have to leave austin

Cool, sounds like you've got it all planned out!

I've still got two quarter-ish sized pieces of GSP if anyone else is interested.

Yellow Eye Tang (Ctenochaetus strigosus)

Small: 1½"-2½"$ 28.99

Will, just a heads up on these guys - I have NEVER had a saltwater fish grow faster than my kole tang. He was about 2-1/2" when I got him almost a year ago, and he's nearly tripled in size in that time. He's already bigger than the yellow tang that I've had for 3 years.

I'm going to have nightmares

LMAO! An update from Glassbox said neither fish made it. Talk about your eyes being bigger than your stomach...

A yellow tang is going to outgrow a 40g breeder in fairly short order, so you might reconsider that one. There are a handful of dwarf angels that would work in a tank that size, with the flame angel and coral beauty generally considered the "most" reef-safe. If you're looking specifically for a reef-safe yellow fish, you might take a look at a midas blenny. Any of the clowns would be good choices, and there are a number of beautiful reef-safe wrasses to choose from (there are also lots of NOT-reef-safe wrasses, so do your homework! ; ). Dottybacks and basslets are colorful and a good size match for your tank. Just be aware that some can be fairly bossy, and some won't co-exist with shrimp very well.

Hope that gets you started!

Derry