NonSequitur

Definitely a good deal, I saw Lamont's tank yesterday and the corals all looked great.

Wow, they have some interesting items. I've been coveting some photosynthetic gorgonians, and they have some gorgeous zoas, so I might tag along as well when you order.

Do you still have the sand? I'd love to come and get at least a little bit to add to the biodiversity of my system.

I think I had a chromis recently meet this same fate.. whenever I feed the nems they try to steal whatever it is I'm feeding them. A few nights ago after feeding the tank one of them was missing, the anemone was retracted behind its rock, and the squid bits I'd just fed it were floating free in the water (being fought over by the remaining chromises (chromi?) even though they were way too big for their mouths) Never thought of clowns as trying to pull other live fish into their host nems, though.. makes me rethink the idea of getting clowns.

This is a good idea.. I hadn't thought of making a chamber to limit the water available to the return pump.. as it stands now if I lose siphon and my return pump is still running I'll have lots of water on the floor.. I'll probably add something like this in addition to the water sensing "scram switch" I'm building to shut the pump down in case of overflows. I actually have a container that is almost the exact height of my normal sump water level.. might try to experiment with it and see if it'll work to limit the pump.

Mine tends to do this when it's due for a cleaning.. the venturi starts clogging, which causes me to have to raise the water level in the standpipe higher than normal to get the bubbles to the right height, which apparently leads to microbubbles getting discharged. Running the pump overnight in a vinegar/water solution, then rinsing and reinstalling it really helps.

I used one of those to feed a finicky mandarin fish for a while, it worked well.

Well, not only did he eat tonight, but when I got home I noticed that one of the rocks was nicely undermined in true engineer goby fashion. I think the little guy is going to be alright.

Oh yeah.. he eats very well.. just finished the last of his calamaris rings on Monday, so he's eating shrimp until my next trip to the grocery store (probably this weekend). It's funny, the guy at the seafood counter thought I was joking when I mentioned needing "eel chow", so I had to bring in a picture. Now whenever I go in there he points out what's freshest. The cloudiness in his eye has totally cleared up too, and he seems to have grown a bit. Definitely a fascinating animal.

It's very likely that he that something else injured him originally, the goby spends most of his time in his burrow, so I rarely see more than just the first inch of him, so I don't really know how old the injury was.. between rocks and anemones and powerheads and the pistol shrimp the tank is not a safe place. I had actually fed the eel the day before (he ate 4 shrimp) and offered him food last night before the incident, he didn't come out, so I figured he wasn't hungry. I always feed him first, and have never seen him show more than a passing interest in the chromis when he's hungry, so he probably sensed a weak, injured animal and instinct kicked in. I went home at lunch and so far the little guy's still hanging in there.. not digging yet, but alive and hiding in the rocks, so that's a good sign. I'm going to hold off on the meds for now, as long as he's eating I'll just leave him alone to heal.

Mark and Rainbody are probably right on this one.. that's actually how we calculate CO2 content in freshwater planted tanks.. comparing PH and KH. A tank with a low PH but high KH usually has a lot of dissolved CO2. An easy way to test this: take two water samples.. test the ph of one, place the other one outside for an hour or so, agitating periodically, then test the ph of it. If high CO2 is causing your problem the sample you put outside will have an increased ph because it will have attained (or at least approached) equilibrium with the fresh outdoor air rather than the indoor air.

After I fed the fish yesterday evening I noticed my engineer goby acting strangely.. looking closer I noticed a wound on his side. As I was setting up my QT I noticed the eel dart out and grab at him. He got free, but is looking a little rough at the moment. I put him in the QT with sand and a couple of rocks to hide in, but was wondering what else I can do to give him the best chance at recovery. He ate a little last night (mysis with garlic), but has been pretty lethargic and isn't digging at all. Would adding antibiotics or any dye based medicines to the water help? (I have sulfa, tetracycline, erythromycin (sp?), methylene blue, and malachite green on hand).

Liz had a good suggestion with checking with various LFS to see how they do it, and tank positioning has a role as well.. If you wanted to stack one above another above your sump (picture how RCA does it) you would only have to pump water to the top (keep pump head vs flow rate in mind) and let it flow from the top tank to the bottom, then to the sump. I went a different way with my setup: My 55g, 12g, and 15g fuge are all at approximately the same height, and all overflow individually into my 37g rubbermaid sump (probably going to upgrade this to a larger livestock tank eventually), with a common pump (mag 5) feeding them all. A combination of multiple siphon break holes and plenty of headspace in the sump allow for any backflow when the power is cut (tested this extensively), and valves on each return line let me adjust the amount of flow going to each tank. It took a bit of tweaking to make it all work smoothly, but now that it's dialed in I wish I had done it sooner. In my opinion the single return pump and oversized sump are the keys to doing something like this safely. There's one source of uphill movement, everything else is gravity, so with that pump stopped the only movement to be concerned about will be water flowing back into the sump. This is easy to handle with a sufficiently oversized sump (or low enough normal water level) and enough properly placed siphon break holes in return lines. Also, make sure you keep this backflow in mind when positioning and adjusting your skimmer, depending on the size of your sump you could see a significant change in water level when the return pump stops, causing your skimmer to overflow if it's still running. You definitely have the right idea staying away from HOB overflows, though.. mine are a constant source of concern (I had to take my fuge offline last night to clear the accumulated air from it's U tube). My next project will probably be putting together a latching relay and some water sensing contacts to shut the return pump and skimmer down in case of water on the floor.

I got my TDS meter in last night and expected to see something similar (I'm also in Georgetown, off of Leander Rd) and was surprised to see the tapwater reading 275 (before my softener). I was more surprised to see that the second-hand RO unit I had been using for my tanks (with a new membrane, new carbon blocks) actually seemed to be running backward.. permeate water was testing at 300, concentrate at 145 (Huh?), so I installed the DI canister on the "old" RO that we use for drinking water (Tee'd off of the storage tank line so drinking water bypasses the DI, tank water bypasses the postfilter) and all is well.. 10ppm in, 0ppm out.

Thank you all for the information! I'm contemplating ordering a single meter to add to the source water line, just so I can keep track of the whole process, but that probably isn't necessary (I just like gauges).. I'll probably put that money toward a an interesting frag instead.

I'm about to put in my order with BRS (a dual tds meter, a DI canister, and an RO float valve/auto shut off), and was thinking about water quality. Do any of you know what the TDS of the tapwater in the area is (particularly in Georgetown, but values from surrounding areas is fine too since I'm asking more out of curiosity than to base any decisions). After RO (but not DI) processing, what TDS should I expect? I know after the DI stage it should read 0 or very near, but I'm curious what is normal for RO only water. I know I could wait for my meter and test this myself, but I'm curious if anyone has this info and can share their results while I'm waiting impatiently for my order.

My neurotic bird is actually a quaker... he's a good bird otherwise, but rather set in his ways, and a decent talker as well. He knows "step up", "dogs outside!" "what are you doing?", and a bunch of other things that are hard to understand. Our last lovebird was a surprisingly good mimic as well, but our current one doesn't seem to have much interest. Cockatoos are so sweet.. Barbara and I just birdsat for someone that has an umbrella 'too and an amazon.. the amazon was a bit skittish, but the 'too was so cute and cuddly.

I know exactly what you mean.. plus one of my birds tries to kill himself if his schedule is too disrupted, so he'd have to be boarded.. then when he comes home we get to listen to all of the noises of the vet's office repeated over and over.

An October trip would be nice as well. I used to go to Rockport over Thanksgiving weekend, and really enjoyed the area.. it was a little cool to go in the water, but it was great to be there when the tourist rush was gone.

The one above and to the right looks like palau nepthea, but the one in the center... hmm..

That looks a lot like the galaxia I got from BillB. If that's what it is, it's a great looking, hardy coral, just keep an eye out for sweeper tentacles.

This sounds like fun... I missed the last Port A collection trip on "the other forum," not sure when it is this year, but I'd rather go with ARC people, and the family loves the coast, so win-win. I'll run it by the wife and see what she thinks, but hopefully I can make this one.

He's right, it definitely looks better in person.. mine is gorgeous, though at the moment it's hiding behind a rock of I'd post a photo.