caferacermike

Hold on there a minute, slow that roll. Last Friday? Unless you already have a lot of experience under your belt and can slam a system together in a day, just take a moment and relax. This hobby is stressful enough as it is, take your time, have lot's of patience and the rewards are much much higher. I know several folks that won't add anything for 6 months to a new system. It is possible to minimize the amount of time and or the severity of the cycle but it's risky and is not a good idea for the first tank. Let your tank sit vacant for about 1-2 months. You want that coraline to grow right? Then leave it alone without anything to disrupt it's growth. You hear about "pods", mini "stars", hitchhikers and all that right? Let them populate the tank without any predators. The longer you wait, the better off you'll be. If your rock was of good quality then I wouldn't even add a dead shrimp to the tank. Let it naturally cycle out for a minimum of 4 weeks. I've never liked, or even considered, the idea of adding a "dither" fish to cycle the tank with. AFter you cycle the tank what would your plans be to deal with that fish? Many people have stated that they used a damsel, but the damsel then killed all new tank mates. Not to mention getting a fish back out of a tank full of rock is near impossible, just read all about removing unwanted fish in previous posts. Take samples of your water to the store you bought the set up from twice a week to be tested. Unless you are testing the water on a very regular pattern, then you will not have any baseline as to what is going on. If you just take a sample in 4 weeks they may find that your water is perfect, yet unknown to you and the LFS your tank is just about to cycle. You need to watch the tests get nasty and then slowly clear themselves up over time. As to answering any sort of questions about adding anemones, corals or fish to your tank would be moot right now as you did not mention anything at all about your set up. Sure you mentioned it in another thread but that does not mean that members reading THIS thread will know anything at all about this set up that you are now talking about. In fact I keep 4 saltwater tanks running at any time, unless I explain what system it is and how it is setup then the members may give conflicting advice as one will think of my 75g tank, another will talk about my 400g tank and another will end it with advice for my 8g octopus tank. It is that important to remind us in every post asking advice about a particular tank to give information about that tank. As far as anemones go, they are very difficult in a "fresh" tank. Take your time, wait about a year to establish the tank and get some good research under your belt before placing one of these captives in jeopardy. In time you will learn if you have the proper lighting, you will find out if you have the skills necessary to prevent a tank crash, you will learn the importance of good husbandry techniques like water changes. These are very sensitive creatures that will reward the owner with many years of growth, in fact they are considered to be "eternal" by some scientists researching them as they seem to be able to split and continue growing without dying "forever". Some fish will kill them, it is important to choose tank mates wisely. Some equipment will harm them.

Without pictures it will be very difficult to help. I believe you bought the tank from Dave, right? I do not remember it having a built in overflow so I am ASSUMING that he drilled the tank for you or it was drilled. You have not mentioned what devices are in place for the suction side. It's nothing more than an elbow screwed to a bulkhead you will need to try and raise it up higher. I think I remember Dave saying he pre-plumbed some of the tank for you and he is usually quite good about such things, so I'd be looking at your return line. What devices do you have in place to break the back siphon? Most of us will drill a 1/8th"-1/4" hole just under the pipe/elbow that enters back into the tank. This is in place so that when it is uncovered by the draining water, it will allow air to enter thus breaking the siphon. Some don't even keep it under water, thereby breaking the siphon almost immediately. Also it is always a good practice to further list what you have in detail. I'm guessing it caught you off guard and you quickly put something together to ask for help but how do we know if you have a 240g draining into a 10g? If I'm correct you left with a 90g tank. I'd want a minimum of a 30g tank as my sump with only about 4" of water in it. Maybe 10g of that tank sectioned off as a fuge. I have about 40g of sump under my 75g with a constant 4-5" inches of water and an 8g fuge. I can hold up to 5" of my 75g tank's water in the remaining space. To me having a sump that is not capable of handling at least 3" of your display tank's volume is to risky. Fear not as you can easily work through this, especially without a pull start generator at your home while you are at work.... I'm willing to drive by and toss out a few ideas, you live just off Palmer/Yeager if I've heard correctly through the ARC grapevine.

I just smashed the machine instead. OK no. Late last night the Misses and I paired up with her laptop and this machine. She searched for every other "buggy FSone with Vista" and relayed the "cures" to me. Between the 2 of us we downloaded every Vista patch we could find, every Vista service pack available and then manually loaded every driver for the video card we could find. Then right around Midnight it all clicked and the simulator fired off. Thanks for the ideas.

Not open until Tuesday, Monday is a recognized Holiday. I may breaky breaky this machine long before that point. Yes it uses a USB interface to my radio, it's just like flying your RC model. Supposedly it's freaky realistic with the amount of data and data crunching going on. Not only do they adjust with aerodynamics and engine performances but the claim is that even subtle differences in prop washout are calculated. But alas we may never know. Anyone got a decent PC on the cheap? I saw a nice Dell XPS minus a hard drive and Windows. I should be able to pick up an 80g drive on the super cheap and I saw some Craigslist ads for XP at $50 a disc and verification. Looks like i could have a machine for around $200. Is that the best way?

First off, don't panic. Some of that is completely normal in the life stages of corals. If it was going on several days you might want to get worried. One thing about Xenia is it smells wretched. If it even begins to die off you can smell it in the water. If your water begins to smell horrible then you might want to investigate further.

I'm running to the store, should see it in about 2 hours.

I'd be willing to DOUBLE that order and order with you Starfire if that will lower our shipping costs to FREE. Let me know if you'd like to do it that way. SO I'd owe $23? Our total would be $34.50. I'll Paypal the amount today if you'd like and then we'll square up at arrival.

Reybeast I have no idea what you are talking about. I downloaded the virtual machine, watched about 10 minutes of Windows Vista propaganda, opened the file and created a "new machine on XP". When I open that all that I see is a black screen with a few sentences and some sort of spinning icon. I let it spin for about 10 minutes before I gave up. I don't know what to do with my new machine. I guess I had hoped it would open just like my normal home page and I could just click on the FSone icon.

Did all that, tried every windows option. In fact I did that days ago in a futile attempt. I also found a "fix" from the manufacturer that did not work. It entailed unloading the copy, then I had to set video performance to "adjust for best performance" and unlock "user account control" in the control panel. Then I had to reload it all. 2 hours of loading 4 disks and ........... nothing. I then downloaded their latest patches hoping it might have some code in it that would help it work...... still will not load. I was really hoping that $70 I spent on a new video card would have fixed it since my old card was not up to the task.

My PC runs on Vista right now. I ordered a very nice RC place simulator from the manufacturer of my planes as I'd like to purchase a few more of their planes and this is about the nicest way to get a feel for them, it even interfaces with my current radio. Problem is I'm computer illiterate. When it arrived I went ahead and loaded it to the hard drive, all went well. Next day I tried to open it, all it did was make a blip and then go back to my regular home page. I then read the specs, it was designed to run on Windows XP. Well the PC isn't on XP. I also noted that my video card was crapola and not adequate. After asking around I was reassured that most anything that was written for XP will run on Vista, I went out and bought a new video card. Nothing. It still will not load and play through. So what do you know? Must it run on XP? Am I screwed? Are there any "magical" downloads that will allow my Vista to recognize the file? Do I need to reformat my PC and load XP? If so can anyone help me out?

Got me some. If Abdul is still selling from the remaining piece, I'd say go make yourself a deal. Nice guy, nice coral.

It's probably because your voices are SHOUTING around in your head. I'd kill myself if it was ever that bad. But seriously, you write in every forum area in ALL CAPS and have been asked not to already by the moderator's. Can you show some respect?

Interested in the SNES. It must work perfect as it will be used by a 7yo boy, and he can get pissed if a game freezes. Also PM me your entire list of Xbox as I'm not ready to get rid of my Halo edition just yet. I may take them all.

Look up "tunicate".

I was referring to the one in Georgetown. I did not even know they opened one down south. The one in Georgetown was pathetic but they made the list because at one time they were selling corals.

Of that list only 6 places are worth the effort. Aquatek, Aquadome, River City, Prof's Place, Kingfish and Austin Aqua Farms. One member pointed out that Darby's is quite nice, Not only is the store nice but the employees are beyond friendly. If you feel the need to visit San Antonio check out B&B Aquatics, Aquarium Designs and maybe even Polly's on the way out.

Partners, Petland, Gallery of Pets, River City, Aquadome, Kingfish, Aquatek, Prof's Place, Rivers and reefs, pet connection, Austin Aqua Farms and you just lost out on Horizon and Deep Blue/Austin Aquariums. Beefy Tang, you know you are still my best friend. It's just to bad you don't ever leave your house. Also there are at least 2 other people that sell only on Craigslist in Austin and there are a couple of other even more private locations that will sell to you but are mainly tank services, not retailers.

These folks sell so much stuff. http://stores.ebay.com/led-hk_W0QQcolZ4QQd...idZ2QQpZ3QQtZkm Many folks have been using old LED Xmas light strings as they come prewired and ready to go.

Subsea the idea behind 20 close friends is exactly why I'd like to see this club put something together for themselves. It's got to be better than trying to arrange for 4 different clubs to meet somewhere they've never been.

I had read about another fellow making his own, it was quite simple and cost effective. He used plastic rain gutter as his fixture. He drilled appropriate sized holes through the gutter to hold the bulbs in place. He ordered the bulbs from Hong Kong on Ebay. led-hk is a common seller. Last I saw 100 5mm super bright bulbs was about $8 plus they sell everything else you need.

No PM in my box. Are you not in a hurry to make the sale?

I'll go $110 for 25 heads. Please feel free to contact me via PM with details.

I'm in. Just need to check it against NOAA or a Farmers Almanac to see what the historical lows and highs are for those dates.

Ah just remember that when you reach the pinnacle of your game you lose interest. This will refocus all your energy into doing it all different. Not to mention that you now have a great fish only tank just waiting to be set up.

Any chance the shrimp are being killed? My pistol was kind of mean. It would snap at and eat other shrimp.