Pies

I've tried both, blue looks better to me. Not to mention more realistic. My freshwater is black, and i'd go black again, but it doesn't look right to me. Doesn't make much difference after 2 weeks of algae growing on it anway (Oregon Reef has access to the back of his tank). Pieman

HAHAHAHA. Spineless coward. Pie

Only at night...

I built my 5 footer (now my sump). Drilled my own holes etc no problemo. Was an awkward job, but not difficult. I woulnd't bother again though, tanks are so cheap I think it took me a few days to do it, and saved me a few dollars. Would have been easier to just do some OT at work and have a professional make it. YMMV. Pie

I agree with Reef/Chimera. Leave it, looks great will work fine. Can't wait to see it grow. Give it 3 months and that white rock will be purple and it will be a stunner! Love the look of new tanks. The look so cool with no algae, salt creep and all that shite plumbing this creeps into the tank! Good work DOC, loving it. Pie

People re-silicone tanks all the time. Don't worry about it at all. If any silicone is left behind, great, silicone sticks to silicone Its only a small tank, not like its under any real pressure. If you going to buy a new tank, then why buy a normal tank. Start looking at something drilled with overflows etc. With no top braces for good light and easy operation without lids. Pie

I was just fooling with ya The skimmer is great and is doing an excellent job on your own tank. Good luck with the estimate. PS i'll give ya $500 for it right now Pie

Yeah interesting way to sell ya skimmer in the saltwater section. If your selling it, it must be no good for tanks 5 foot and larger. So $500.00ish sounds about right. Pie

They use TEC (Pelters), which are basically powered heat pumps. One side gets cold (bellow 0) the other side gets ULTRA hot. Used by some to cool the CPU on their PCs, Dick Smith 12v fridges use them etc. Waste of time and money for the tank IMO. Pie

Copper = death to invertibrates. Instant death. Pie

I thought chillers used titanium coils. Pie

I do! Pie

My skimmer has the hole in the collection cup so you can drain to a bottle or what not. Honestly wish it didn't, never used it and it gets in the way. Pie

Cracker your wrong about this mate, you have it all backwards. They way you have set yours up why don't you just dump the air valve (its doing nothing) and the elblow and just have the TAP. And if you put the TAP on the underneith of the tank, you wouldn't need to get your hands wet to change it. As for blocking, I don't think what you said it right. In you setup a snail could cause you to spill saltwater all over the top of your tank. Do you have snails? If you didn't have the TAP closing the intake (using the good old PROVEN air hole) then that snail could pass thought the plumbing. Not critising you mang, just pointing out what looks to be a small flaw in an otherwise outstanding setup. Pie

Carefull. Water going IN to the pump (OUT of the tank) should be larger (eg. 25mm +) water going OUT of the pump (IN to the tank) should be smaller (eg. 20mm). Pie

Its not like there is anything under the tank to worry about Why bother with the Durso? Why not just use a straight pipe and put a tap on it? IRA - When I was running you tank I had no issues with the hole, I know Suphew whos tank is identical as far as pluming and overflow, just has a hole. Tweak the hole size. I get noise from my overflow, but my issue seems to be one of velcoity, so much damn water Pie

Cracker. Understand the way the durso should work. If you use a tap to restrict the flow of water then if something blocks the pipe (snail for example) the tank will over flow. The idea behind the Durso is that because of the way air is drawn in that if the water level rises, more water is pushed throgh because of gravity, but if you have a pipe just big enough, then it may fail. FYI. Looking awesome, MORE PICS! Doesn't look too blue to me, looks spot on. Pie

I know, its hard to belive that you would get almost 8 litres of that out of the tank in 1 month! Skimmerless? Scary. Pie

I'm not actually convinced it makes much if any difference. There is no doubt that cleaning the neck of the skimmer (the exhaust for the non-submerged bubbles) makes the skimmer skim better, but in my own experance i've notice zero difference to the way the skimmer performs when covered in growth. It looks better when its clean though. Its part of my annual maintenance routine. Pie

Having seen CookieExtremes tank in person all I can say is the photos don't do it justice. Awesome. Piemania

I've been playing with my skimmer. And thought i'd share what i've been up to. First off - Deltec AP902. A fairly large skimmer by most peoples standards, 2 Ehiem needle wheel pumps. The skimmer is fed via a 25mm fitting which in my setup is fed directly from my overflow. It exhausts water from a 32mm fitting directly into the surface of my Refugium. I am going to try a few different configurations: The skimmer was cleaned on Sunday evening, the 2nd October. The neck assembly was cleaned out with hot water and the inner black flange was cleaned with paper towels. 10 days later, Tuesday evening the 11th October the skimmer looks like this: I wanted to see how long it takes to fill the collection chamber. In this test I am skimming as 'wet' as I practically can. The water level is up the neck of the skimmer about equal with the level of the bottom of the collection cup. If I skimmed any wetter than this i'd be pulling tea coloured water and emptying the skimmer daily. Lets have a look at the consistancy of the skimate: This was wiped from the inside (the neck) of the skimmer. It was approximatly 3mm thick. Its waxy and about the consistancy of slightly dry toothpaste: How much skimate: So thats just over 2.6 litres in 10 days. Its hard to show in the photos but the consistancy is dark, but not thick. maybee as dark as a black coffee. I would consider this 'wet' for a Deltec skimmer, although its probably darker than many other skimmers i've seen running (no disrespect to any other skimmer owners out there). Thats it. Whats next? Same experiment, but reducing the water flow through the skimmer. Currently its getting as much water as I can force through it, which I guesstimate to be approx 4,500 litres at hour. I've slowed it up by about half, so this time I will call it about 2000 litres per hour. Why? I am hoping to learn something about dwell time effecting the performance of my skimmer. Even though the manifacturer has reccomendations, I belive that each tank is different, so I want to tweak the skimmer for my own systems, and my own requirements from the skimmer. Stay tuned. Pie

I use a drilled hole.

How about this for my theory. The Zeovit reduction in phosphate/nutrient begins almost imediatly, but the zoox is the first effected by the change, as we know coral colour changes quickly in a good/bad environment. So nutrient removal happens quicker on the coral than the coral ability to absorb the nutrients back into its tissue. Pie

Someone has been reading the Davanci Code. Phi's

Don't forget about the stick...