Ron

Nope but I can try explain it. Actually if you have a look at jumpsmasher's thread, mine are similar but I hook it up to a canister instead of an Aquaclear and I use OEM UGF plates instead of his DIY pipes. http://albertaaquatica.com/index.php?showtopic=43585 If you have a look at my pic, you can see the UGF translucent pipe on the left and the canister intake stung into it. Mine then goes into a pre-filter that traps small particles before entering my main filter with biomedia. I hope this will keep my main canister cleaner and reduce the times I have to disturb it. I'll try and snap a pic of it tonight. You can also have a look at my build thread http://albertaaquatica.com/index.php?showtopic=42933

I used UGFs hooked up to canisters on my last 2 tanks, so far I love the set up. It buffers the water to my desired pH quickly and uses the entire bed of active soil as benificial bacteria media. My second choice would be canisters with a SS mesh or sponge inlet. I also have sponge filters in my tanks to provide a grazing area for the shrimp. I've had different tankmates over the years, but now I choose to have none. My shrimp tanks are for shrimp and that's it. Lots of people put ottos in with their shrimp but I'm sure your endlers will be snacking on any baby shrimp they can find. If you have lots of moss, your shrimp population may be able to survive. Lots of the fancier shrimp require specific water parameters which I find easier to start with RO/DI water and remineralize to the desired levels. Also an active substrate may be required to buffer the pH, currently my 2 PRL tanks are at a pH of 5.1 and 5.5. But it all depends on the type of shrimp you want and who you're getting them from. Pic of my latest tank:

Just ask here, what are you looking to keep?

What pH are you looking for? I know you're not a big fan of akadama but I whipped up a tank for my erios that are on the way and I have a steady pH of 6.4, I believe my old tanks with Florabase resulted in similar pH. I have half a bag of akadama and almost a full bag of Florabase sitting around, you can have them if you'd like.

Cool, I'm interested to see if FSS has changed. I've read that the new FSS does leech out some ammonia.

Top off water is for replacing evaporated water, all of your minerals are still in your tank. It's best to use RO/DI as you'll still be adding some TDS with RO water. Have you tested your TDS, GH and KH lately of were those your original parameters? You should have noticed all of them rising as you were topping off with your tap/RO mix. You may want to consider using pure RO or RO/DI and a remineralizer in the future, SS GH/KH+ is very affordable especially if it can help you avoid this in the future. I only do water changes when my TDS starts to get higher than I would like and when I do, it's only a 10 - 15% WC.

I'd contact your supplier for support first. What parameters were they raised in? Prime is usually not the first choice for shrimpers, better to use 100% remineralized RO or RO/DI. Are you topping off with RO?

Safeway

Either would do fine but depends on what purpose you'd like them for. If it's for algae control, go with Amanos. In my personal experience, Amanos are hardier shrimp.

So you've bought used T5HO fixtures even though you have an Aquaray on its way?

Which light do you have? They have a 1 year warranty. Which basically says your poop out of luck because something built badly and cheaply will generally still last for at least a year. That being said LED power supply's are not reliable things and TMC only covers the aquaray power supply for only a year which is also crap. But atleast the rest is covered for 5 years. That's the hard stuff to deal with power supply is whatever if your even semi proficient at diy. I have an AI Hydra 52. Do you own a flat screen? What kind of warranty came with that? I still have my first Panasonic Plasma which only came with a 1 year warranty and it's going on 7 or 8 years now. Just because it has a one year warranty doesn't mean it gonna break on day 366. I would expect a no frills light to last longer, less options with less things to go wrong, kinda like a flashlight.

Finnex doesn't have CSA approval and have no intention or desire to obtain it, Canada just isn't a big enough market. When they were being sold here, the dealer took care of any problems people had with the lights so saying they had 0 warranty is a lie. I'm not a Finnex fan and I really don't care what you buy, I'm on the other end of the spectrum. I bought a $700 fixture to grow biofilm on my 35 gallon shrimp tank. It might take a little more juice but I think I've made up for it in my high efficiency home.

There are plenty of LEDs that are more expensive and it's because the bells and whistles. I want all the extra colours that don't contribute to growth but make the tank more pleasing to the eye. I want control of all the colours independently so I can change the look if I feel like it. How do you know Finnex lights don't compare in terms of PUR? I didn't see a summary of their units. I did notice they mentioned something about reds in the 620 to 780nm range being in the PUR range. The Finnex Planted+ have 660nm emitters, does that make them better? You say you know no one with real life experience, 2 posters on this thread just shared their real life experience. I have no idea if glosso is a high light requiring plant but it seems Jason had no problem growing it. Maybe you should also look in to what hobbyist said about both PAR and PUR being outdated ways of looking at light.

Again I'm no lighting expert but those sound like sales pitches to me. There ia a lot of good information in there but a lot of nonsense too. Not sure how many reefers he's spoke to but he needs to figure out their priorites before he writes about them. First of all reefing is one of the least environmentally friendly hobbies out there; it doesn't have to be, but it is. Many don't care that the live rock they purchase is being harvested destroying natural reefs or that most coral and fish are collected from the wild. So saving a couple bucks in light efficiency doesn't make most reefers blink. Yes a lot of higher end lights have emitters that don't fall into his PUR wave lengths but who cares, people want a tank they like to look at. If his arguement is about growth, I know people who have there lights change throughout the day so during the day, when no one is around, the lights adjust to promote growth and adjust back on later in the day for esthetic reasons. It's not a secret that 20,000K isn't great for growth but people like how their reefs look under it. If he wants to prove anything, why doesn't he do a head to head growth comparison with other LEDs. It wouldn't take long to set up a long tank with multiple lights, that way all water parameters would be equal.

Instead of sticking to your articles, you should search through planted tank forums where there are plenty of people with with real experience with LEDs. Posted in reply to yours in another thread. I'm no expert in LED technology but I have used them to grow aquatic plants for the last 6 years. Not really interested in high tech plants, my reef tank keeps me busy enough.

Not positive but I think you can only write off a percentage of the total bill when you are running a home business.

Some people don't have their systems connected all the time. In my old house I connected mine through the tap and hose bib connector so no permanent plumbing change needed to be made. I used to only make water ever couple of weeks so instead of valves, I would plug the lines with air hose plugs. I run mine every couple of days now so I don't worry about the membrane drying out. The way I see it, my DI canister acts as a buffer on my produced water line and would have to dry out before my membrane. The rest are protected by the multiple solenoid valves in the system.

Gotta disagree with you there, the waste line is a direct connection to the membrane housing and it would be a coin toss between it and the produced water line for which would dry out the membrane quicker.

I would definitely have valves on the outputs, they're the closest to the membrane. If you don't want to have one on the input, you could probably get away with it but for the $5, I'd have one on there too.

For your neos you can go with an inert substrate and a remineralizer that adds more KH to keep pH stable. For your low pH tanks an active soil is just about necessary unless you want to have a pH monitor/controller. The shrimp won't like the pH swings and depending on what shrimp you are planning to keep, a bag of active soil might only be the equivalent cost of one or two shrimp.

I usually get my John Guest valves at Lowes but I'm sure HD will have them as well. I used to mix RO and de-chlorinated tap water for neos, worked fine but you need to keep track of tap water TDS. Neos can adjust to a wide range of water paramaters, just takes time. Amazonia is about as cheap as it get's per liter. If you don't need a 9 L bag, some of the other brands may be cheaper. Go check out SKA Shrimps for all your supplies, bag of Amazonia is $40.

RO/DI water should have a TDS of 0 ppm. To keep the membrane from drying out, I would just add valves to the waste water line and produced water lines to trap water in while it's not in use. What kind of shrimp are you preparing for? You still may need an active soil to maintain a low pH, water with a very low KH is very unstable and you can get huge pH swings unless it's being buffered by an active soil.

I'd go with LED but not that fixture. If Finnex was still available, I would suggest them. I mainly use LEDs for my reef tank but I also have one for my shrimp tank. My Aqua Illumination Hydra 52 fixtures are probably more than you need and/or want to spend. A bunch of reefers have been giving Evergrow LEDs good reviews and Pets and Ponds carries a model made for planted aquariums. http://www.petsandponds.com/en/aquarium-supplies/c5813/c231289/p17722568.html Might be too small for the area you want but you could plan your layout like a mixed reef tank with high light demand plants in the middle and low demand towards the edges.

Should've gone with the Flipper Max, the smaller version shaves off the hard algae in my marine tank and they're videos of it taking coraline algae off pretty easily. No scrubbing it off like Velcro pads.

Concept Aquariums is in Calgary. I believe they make regular trips up to Edmonton so delivery shouldn't be a problem. Their phone number is (403) 230-7831. What are you looking for? If you need overflows, acrylic work and eurobracing, I would definitely get a custom one made. If you want an awesome aquarium with second to none silicone, get an ADA Cube Garden.