AndyL

Of course, break-in is 2 different things, and to some extent they have to be considered separately. The initial break-in (when it's brand new) can take 24-48 hours. In this time the manufacturing residues are being 'washed' off, the acrylic is absorbing water, and there is a coating of residue being added. When you clean, the break-in takes less time, generally you're not adding new residues, the acrylics already reached its balance of water content. Basically you're waiting for a new layer of residue to 'grease up' the riser. Generally doesn't take all that long. Andy

:drunk:

:thumbs:

yeah, test run and construction were done on a nice true level surface, wasn't an issue, but my desk apparently has a bit of a bow to it - thus the pump wasn't quite touching ground (was about to grab some foam rubber to fix that), but the stress + vibration resulted in a end to end crack through the intake for the closed loop... And well... I'm sure y'all can imagine the rest Andy

I still have the 5 - I'm still a member of the club :mad: :cuss: :cuss: I'ma gonna take my ball an go home! Hey J-roc I wanna be moderator again! :banned: :drunk: Andy

:cuss: :boom: :boom: :boom: :boom: :cuss: :mad: :mad: :mad: Wait, its only a sheet of glass, she shall rise from the dead soon enough. Andy

:mad: :mad: :mad: Note to readers - Never go pure hard lines to bulkheads... use some flex somewhere in the system... Otherwise you have 5g of water on the floor. Wait till you see the 10g :thumbs: Andy

Keeping track of pricing would be very... Very... Bad... LOL :mad: MB7 - Used cost me 60$ Mag3 - ? 70$? (had it onhand) Hydor flo's 2@ 19.99 each (pisces) Plumbing bits & pieces - 40$ Black paint - 5$ Acrylic top - Scrap laying around. The rest is coming out of my MB5, so no pricing on that sorry. Andy

Well, gotta admit, I'm a slacker - the minibow 5 was getting some really good green algae growth on the acrylic... And God knows I'm too lazy to scrape it - so it was time for a tank upgrade Tank's of course a minibow 7 - made out of glass, sweet little system in its own right. But that's not good enough. Drilled 3 holes for 1/2" bulkheads, one feed for the closed loop, 2 returns, equiped with Hydor Flo's (rotating nozzles, poor mans wave makers) - which if you're curious clip right into 1/2" bulkheads :thumbs: Flow supplied by a Mag 3. So here's day 1's progress:

Like FW it is possible to cycle a SW tank without liverock, its not often used anymore. There are only a few 'delicate' species that require that kind of care/attention (dwarf and some larger seahorses come to mind), usually its to avoid unwanted hitchhikers like hydroids, aiptasia, bristle/fire worms etc. Unless your keeping creatures that require such a 'sterile' environment, why would you want to avoid the known benefits? One of the major difficulties to keeping saltwater is to learning to think in terms of an ecosystem rather than simple individual 'fish' and invertebrates. Andy

I thought you were shuting the tank down and moving it into your MB5 till the new mighty MB7 was ready. No, once corals grow in a bit better, and things stabilize the cube will eventually end up at work... One of these decades (oh and I gotta build some kind of platform for the light to sit on), gotta quit adding more to it for that to happen. MB5 will run until the 7 is ready for action, just assembling the required parts to do that, and coming up with a good plan for the closed loop to keep all the equipment out of the tank. Andy

Poached? Cool! I'll send you the bill :rofl: Actually they went in the 6" cube (that's why I picked the smallest frags). Andy

I think the SW guys blow things out of proportion on the "difficulty" of keeping saltwater. In most ways its no different than FW. Gotta keep it an "elite club" like it was prior to the 90s. In reality, you don't NEED a skimmer to run a saltwater tank (it sure helps keep w/c's down - and you've gotta remember water aint free when you have to add salt), you don't NEED super expensive lighting (giesman are nice, but there are many other brands which are much more reasonably priced). And there are often good deals on DIY retrofits & used equipment. It's easy to get super technical, many reefers are tech junkies, but basically all you REALLY need in a tank is flow. Protein skimmers, calcium reactors, controllers, sumps etc etc etc are all nice to have and all - but it's just "gravy". You could always start with a smaller tank to begin with, see how you like it - 10-20g tanks are easy to keep, and pretty cheap to setup. Out of my SW tanks (65 FOWLR, 30 Seahorse, mb5 and 6" cube) I still consider the mb5 (what my old 2.75 project turned into) my absolute favorite. Andy

Um... !? I've never lit a canister filter... I know chad lights his, but he's the exception to the rule. Andy

There is no MINIMUM light requirement for a FOWLR - you could have a quite stable system with the factory 2x15w lighting. Live rock does not require light. Don't know who told you that, but 2.5-3wpg is closer to reef lighting. You'll notice you LPS/LFS generally dont light their tanks of live rock, if you go look on RC you'll see tanks as large as 90g with less than 50w on them. Live rock is afterall just porous rock, it contains your beneficial bacteria... Basically the same stuff you've got in your FW tanks biofilter - we dont light those filters now do we? Andy

Don't forget finicky fish formula... Andy

Blue green algae? Well, it's a cyanobacteria, treated easily with erythromyacin or longish term blackouts. Even sterilizing everything, you're not going to eliminate the problem, BGA bacteria is in the air, our drinking water, everywhere. Simply cleaning out the tank won't make it go away. You've got to treat the root cause of the outbreak (often caused by poor flow, high nitrates - and I still believe high silicates) Andy

Company is active electronics. Tank looks good if I do say so myself. :bow:

1000w halides also exist, can even get 10k bulbs for them.... Andy

Should be all the princess auto's - they're listed in the catalogue (power fist is the house brand I believe). No, Discus are long gone unfortunately. Andy

Just a FYI, if anyones planning some tank chopping... If you head over to princess auto, they have power fist brand diamond bits, cheap like borscht (8pc burr set for 9$, and 2pc diamond cutting wheel for 5$). After ginsu'ing a couple scrap tanks, they're as good as the 30$ each dremel brand units. BTW - I'm sure a few people are like me, and have been looking at the dremel 545 to do some cutting. If the power fist cutting wheel was any indication - much better choice than trying to cut one with a 7144/7105 bit. Andy

Paintball CO2 is no different than any other grade of CO2 - no oil added. That myth comes from back in the day when daisy air rifles had their little CO2 bottles that did contain oil. SERA sells a CO2 system based on a paintball tank - Karen's running one on one of her tanks. Andy

130$?! + Shipping to boot? Zoiks! Head down to burnco - or in calgary Ornamental Landscaping (between deerfoot mall and the airport tower) Tufa Rock (very similar to what these guys are selling) is often used as 'base' rock. I prefered the look of the "moon Rock" and no deaths in the 65 tells me it's reef safe too. You'll pay under 1$/lb for each... 3$/lb + shipping - you'd be cheaper to just get all live rock from golds. Andy

White fuzz on new driftwood is a common concern. Happens in cycled and uncycled tanks, and it will just go away on its own (although some speculate that otto's do eat it). If you want it to dissapear a little faster - adding a powerhead to point at the driftwood is quite effective I hear. Andy

Just wait... Soon you'll be walking by the (still seemingly empty) tank, hear a click, see something or go rocketing into a hole. And you'll spend the rest of the night trying to find that gosh darned <insert favorite pest hitch hiker>, or looking for more copepods Andy