NonSequitur

+1 on the RO water, unless you're also adding a dechlorinator (Amquel, Prime, etc) and possibly an ammonia neutralizer (Amquel, etc). According to the guys at Aquatek when it is as dry as it has been lately, tap water quality has declined, leading to increased organics, ammonia, potentially chlorine in the tap water. You can treat the water for these contaminants, but if you have access to RO water it will definitely make things more consistent.

The only issue I've had with running RO water in my freshwater systems is it seems to speed up snail shell erosion, so if you're looking at keeping (or breeding) mystery snails, you'll need to add some Ca, Alk, Mg back into the RO since snail shells are primarily calcium carbonate on top of an organic matrix. I ended up switching back to dechlorinated and nitrogen compound tested tap water for my planted tanks just to keep my snails happy.

Also, I've found guppies and other "starter" fish to be surprisingly unstable lately. Not sure about the size/parameters of your tank, but have you considered a female betta or two? They're often just as colorful as males, tolerate imperfect water quality well, but aren't territorial like the males, and with (IMHO) better personalities. I have about 10 of them in one of my tanks now and they're a blast to watch.

+1 to the kalk paste. The commercial products (aiptasia-x, joe's juice, etc) work as well, but a heaping tbsp of kalk powder mixed with just enough water to make it flow through a syringe is cheap and effective, just turn off your pumps, let the water become still, and squirt the kalk onto the anemone, being careful to minimize collateral damage.

Looks awesome! Is that buttercream icing? I love the strawberry marshmallow blend idea. I gave up trying to make marshmallow icing when I couldn't find a marshmallow fluff that didn't have a gritty texture, plus it was kind of hard to spread, but using it as a filling is a great idea. Chocolate buttercream blended with strawberry is worth a try as well if you haven't yet.

Plus, kudos on not covering the whole thing with fondant. Never understood why people use that stuff. Yuck!

Neither of my flasher wrasses would eat them, but then the eel ate the flashers so that was the end of them. My blue/green chromis doesn't seem interested, mandarin didn't touch them. I've heard a yellow coris wrasse will eat them, but I can't keep one in the tank long enough to make any difference, the yellow tang keeps chasing it into the overflow. Tried less feeding, more skimming, no go, so I'm going to tag along on this one.

+1 to above posts. I had the same experience when I did that.. the skimmer freaked out for a few days, just empty the cup frequently, keep an eye on your salinity, Ca, alkalinity (topping off with that much fresh water could lower it so you might need to top off with saltwater). It'll calm down once the skimmer is able to remove the cause of the foaming.

+1 on the reef octopus. I have a 110 and a 200 on my heavily stocked 90+27gal system and really like them (really, too much skimmer for the tank, but the 110 was undersized considering my bioload and I got a great deal on the 200.)

Awesome looking tank!

I usually discard the first 6-12 gallons (I have 2 pressurized 3gal storage tanks) whenever I change membranes, filters, etc, just in case. I also use my RO for drinking water, so I tend to be more careful for that reason.

IMHO it's always better to waste a little water than to use some some that is of unknown quality, you can always use it to water plants or some other non-sensitive purpose.

Have you looked at the Reeflo snapper? Costs a bit more than the mag18, but has a higher flow rate (1900 vs 1200 gph at 4" head, 2500 vs 1800 at 0') and only pulls 98 watts vs 145 for the mag18. Plus it's pressure rated.

That's normal. Their prey animals tend to be more active during the day, and they get a lot of their energy from light, so they're a lot more likely to be open (and vulnerable) during the day, and retracted (for protection from predators, mechanical damage) at night.

He was out during the day, he went behind the rocks during the night. Should I expext him to do that then? Maybe ill see where he is when I get home today

Many anemones are very protective about their "foot", so it isn't uncommon for them to move around the backside of the rocks for protection, and then extend out into the light. I panicked when my first GBTA promptly moved to the dark side of my rockscape, but within a week or so it was stretching up between the rocks to get to the light, retracting back at night, when doing a "personal waterchange", etc.

As above, it's moving because it finds something about it's current position stressful, so if you keep moving it to put it where you want it, it won't settle down, and could decide to completely let go of the rock and get blown around the tank by water flow. You don't want this, as it could kill your corals and/or end up getting sucked through a powerhead (been there, done that. It's a mess).

I wouldn't worry to much about it at this point.. anemones are pretty obvious about their health. If they're getting plenty of what they need, they grow, ultimately split. If not, they shrink and eventually disappear. Besides, it's mobile, so if it finds that the environment behind your rocks is lacking, it will move along until it finds somewhere else it likes.

All I can suggest is water changes, polyfilter in an area with a lot of water turnover (the more water it comes into contact with, the better chance it has of absorbing the contaminants) and skimming.

As Subsea said, plenty of micro-inverts are going to be having trouble, so skim aggressively to keep your nutrients under control as they die off, but expect another cycle (how big of a cycle is impossible to know). Adding amquel can help detoxify ammonia, but can cause your skimmer to foam, so use it with caution. If you have the option of temporarily relocating your corals and other sensitive inverts, that would be an excellent idea. It sounds like you're doing the right things, the only other ingredient I can think of is time for your tank to heal.

Also interested in getting in on this one, need more CUC since something seems to have eaten most of my snails.

That's awesome! Sure, you could have gotten a new one, but there's something to be said about preserving something to be passed down through the generations, and when your son is old enough to understand the difference, he'll appreciate that you *made* it for him rather than just whipping out the plastic to buy it for him.

And you're right on about getting kids outside and off of the game console.. so many kids now will never understand the joy of playing around outside, or riding bikes with friends, or just standing in the front yard and spinning in circles until they collapse. Sounds to me like you're on the right track.

Not to sound like a smartass, but eels are like that. In my experience their inquisitive nature often overwhelms their sense of self preservation. If they're not exploring places they shouldn't, they're jumping out of the tank.. my snowflake has jumped twice since I had him, toppled the rockscape a few times, nearly breaking the glass, etc, but he's still one of my favorites.

They're amazing creatures, but more like toddlers than predators. I'm really sorry for your loss, but if it helps any I don't think you did anything wrong, eels are just like that some times.

I still have'em.. had a string of illnesses go through my family, so I haven't met up with anyone to give these away, but the trees are multiplying by the day, so I have bunches. I think things are settling, so I'm ready to start passing them along.

River city usually has it, not sure who else in Austin, but Darby's Tropicals in New Braunfels has it, as does Aquarium Designs in San Antonio.

That's odd that the pressure at the unit is lower than the pressure in the rest of the house. Are you measuring the pressure at the inlet of the system, or after filters, etc? If you decide to go with a booster pump you shouldn't have trouble finding one that can provide at least 50psi. For example, bulk reef supply sells an Aquatec 8800 booster pump that can be adjusted to produce up to 160psi, though most membranes shouldn't be run that high:

http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/store/products/reverse-osmosis-filters-and-systems/ro-di-accessories/aquatec-8800-booster-pump-kit.html

Feeding the membrane with a higher inlet pressure will increase both the quantity and purity of product water, and reduce waste by allowing the membrane to run at peak efficiency.

PMs replied

The kenya trees are taking over my tank, so it's once again time to trim the forest. I'd rather give them away than throw them out, so let me know if you want a piece or two (or 5). Not available most of this weekend, but available to meet evenings next week.

The trick is to get the water as still as possible before applying it to minimize collateral damage. I've used both Joe's Juice and Aiptasia-X to kill majano anemones, and they both work well and didn't seem to damage anything else. Joe's juice is Sodium Hydroxide (NaOH) in water, which reacts thermally when it dissolves in salt water, creating very localized high temperature area that kills the anemone (or anything else it is deposited on top of)

I went home on my lunch break and switched all of my pumps over onto the generator. The model I have will run 6 hours on a tank of gas at 50% load, so a full tank of gas is plenty to keep it running until I get home this evening. I figure when I'm there I can manually transfer the load as needed, but while I'm away I'd rather have the peace of mind of knowing that even if the power goes out my pumps will keep running without having to call home and explain which cords to move and where to plug them in.

I can probably help on Sunday as well. Don't have a truck, but would be happy to help lift.

Not a bad skimmer, it'll do the job, but can be more dificult than others to dial in. I have one that I ran for a few months. It worked well as long as I kept it very clean, but unless I cleaned it frequently the output dropped off pretty quickly. The toughest part is adjusting the water level in the body. On the model I have, you adjust the water level by adjusting the amount of water flowing through the pump, and the amount of air drawn into the venturi, so it was very sensitive to changes in sump water level, obstructions in the air valve, and in general more difficult to tune than a gate valve or standpipe controlled skimmer. I ended up using the pump that came with it to run my euro-reef, which was much more consistent until the pump gave out.

Yup.. he carried it around for a few weeks, then dropped it into a powerhead.