JDM

you assume correctly.

bugger! the y peice i have for the co2-water feed line is too big for the tube, so its off to the shop tomorrow to get a y peice the correct size.

cheers bubbles, that link is awesome, it is much better than the manuel that came with the reactor. my plans for tonight fell over so i will be setting up my ca reactor :bounce: thanks everyone for you input, ill be back in a little while, once the reactor is set up.

i moved from fresh to salt just over 2 years ago, on the advice of the lfs i purchased a cannister filter, in my opnion this is a total waste of money and can cause more halm than good, i ended up wasting huge amounts of money on makedo skimmers which never did the job properly, if i had bit the bullet and got a good skimmer in the begining i would have saved myself a heap of mucking around and headakes not to mention the money. skimmers can be seen as very expensive for what they look like but its not what there made from as much as it is how well they work, i have used nearly all the cheep designs and now have a deltec 1250 the differance in my tank was well worth the money i spent. i have a cheep via aqua hangon skimmer in my qt tank (20gal) and it is nearly a waste of time, it works well when i set it, then a couple of hours later it needs resetting, this is quite oftern the case with cheep skimmers. remember the life we keep in our tanks is not cheep so the equipment we use to provide a healthy home for them should do the best job possable. in my opnion the skimmer on any tank will define how well that tank will do. $50 probably wont be enough to get a decent skimmer but if you combine that with the money a cannister filter would cost then that will possiably be enough for a skimmer to suit a 20gal. good luck, its great fun!

no sign of any flatworms :bounce: my tank is 4ft around 400 ltrs in the display, this set up is about 6 months old but most of the rock has been transfured when i upgraded so the rock would be around 2 years or more. i had nutrient problems towards the end of my last tank and i think thats where the flatworms were able to get a population started, then the upgrade came along which brought with it higher nutrients and bingo, even with the relatively lower nutrients that i have now they were still breading faster that i could syphon them out.

i am going to set up my calcium reactor on wensday night, i have all the gear i need to get it running. co2 bottle, tunze reg, and aquamedic ca reactor 400. just interested in any advice on setting up a calcium reactor, what to look for, what to test for, bubble rate etc. i have read a few threads on ca reactors, but i didnt see a thread that covers starting from scratch on setting up. dose bubble rate depend on tank volume? during the set up period how often should i test and what should i test and where? Kh an Ca are a given ph i would assume, should i test both as it comes out of the reactor and in the display? what sort of readings would i expect to see? the instructions that came with the reactor are very basic to say the least. thanks for any help you can give me.

good work wasp, i was trying to find pies old post which has a pic in it but i gave up.

i retreated tonight, couldnt see any around but did it anyway and still couldnt see any. i didnt bother with a water change tonight, i had done a 10% and a 25% on the day of first treating and then a 10% yesterday (day after first treatment) everything looks ok, still no death so must have done it right.

now 6hrs after treatment, all good, clams etc back to normal, super happy with the outcome. there are a few flatworms still around (ive seen 3) so i will retreat on sunday and that will finish them off. :bounce: :bounce:

ok, 25% water change done, prior to doing this i blew out all the rocks and created a sand storm during the rock clean so there should be little to no flatworm bodies left. i cant see any on very close inspection. happy with that. my clams (3) havnt opened fully, there open a little but there mantel is still retracted and my anemone is not as fulled out as it normally is, a couple of leather dont have there polyps out but other than that everything is as nomal, my frogspawn has full extension, my xenia and finger leathers look great, acros and montis dont have full polyp extension but still look great. when am i out of the "danger zone"? im pritty sure that if it was going to go bad it would have done so by now? 3 hrs since treatment, ill just keep watching everything. (its nice, the perfect excuse to sit and stare at my tank for hours on end )

treating today! :-? im just over an hour in, have treated as per insturctions, within 5mins the flatworms were coming out of no where (i had syphined all i could see just prior to treating). i syphened all the dead flatworms as they were being killed, this has seemed to help with the toxin as around half the flatworms were removed just as they died. i did a 10% water change while waiting half an hour and then turned my sump back on with 800grms of carbon in it. im just waiting for another 100ltrs of water to come up to temp and i will do a 25% change just to be safe. so far so good :bounce:

totally cool :bounce: i wish i had the ability to do the hole croping and sharpening, what program do you use?

thats great news trinity :bounce: they look soooo cute together. i very pleased it has worked out for you.

that is totally insane! i want one :lol: thanks for sharing :bounce:

how goes it chimera? are you windows staying dry? what do you think is the best benefit so far?

i had a 120 verson, it was more hassell and not as good as the custom made one i have now, and best of all the custom made one cost me less than the aquaone and thats with a solid timber stand not the cheep weetbix stands that the aquaone tanks come on. i went as far as drilling the aquaone and running a sump, halides etc, so the hood and filter it comes with were expensive ordments. cheeper, easier and better to get a custom tank and stand made IMHO

might try that, but im not sure i want to subject him to that ever again, i feel a little crule allready.

i tryed the mirror, moving rocks etc, he was still being harresed. :evil: got home tonight to find him in my overflow, tattered and stressed but alive and safe , so i have put him back in my holding tank and will let his fins regrow and then i will pass him on to a loving home where he will not be beaten up! shame really, i thort my clown would like the company. how goes it trinity? any luck with your new little fella?

hi trinity, has you new little one arrived yet? i think mine will be ok, he has plenty of room to hide but i guess i might be getting out the net, when he finally ventures out.

put my little guy into the display tonight, my big clown took a while to notice him but when he did he didnt waste any time in introducing himself as the boss! i dont hold much hope for my new little one as so far after 3hrs he is missing parts of 2 of his fins. he has hidden in the rocks and i am not able to catch him, so he will be there for the night at least. im not sure if he will be accecpted by my large clown, i guess time will tell.

looking good! :bounce: i started with the smaller verson of your tank, i think it was a aquaone 120?(4ft) i drilled a overflow into it and ran a sump. what do you think of the rounded edges? my clown used to spend most of its time between his anemone and the corner! :lol: what are you running in the canisters? some more pics would be great.

thanks guys for your input. today i brought a small maroon clown with whtie stripes. :bounce: :bounce: he is about half the size of my older clown so should be a good match. i have him in my "just in case tank" as i did not like the look of some of the other fish he was in the shop with. i will moniter his condition over the next few days and then if all is well i will put him in my display. he has eaten tonight, be it a very small amount it was still a good sign. cant wait to see what happens! hmmm :-? never thort of myself as a match maker :lol:

i should have mentioned, brian has sundays and mondays off. he will be there today, im off to see him today.

im runing a durso in my overflow. i get bubbles droping through the standpipe into my sump, they are then picked up by my return and chopped up and fed back into the display. :evil: ive been playing with differant things to try to rid my display of the very fine bubbles but nothing has worked, ive changed the position of my return pump pick up, i have put filter wool over the overflow inlet (sump end) tryed altering the flow of the durso, still getting bubbles no matter what i try. :-? i have around a 2inch drop over the over flow, as per instruction on the diy durso page. has anyone had this problem? how did you fix it? is a full syphon going to stop the air entering the sump, therefor stop it entering the display?

on the weekend i invested in some reliable test kits. :bounce: i was concerned with how accurate the aquarium pharmaceuticals tests were, but when i tested my Ca with the salifert test i was stunned, the salifert test said my Ca is at 500ppm when the other test showed it at 420ppm, so i tested it again and it said the same :evil: then i did the same again with my Kh, the salifert test showed 7 as apposed to the aquarium pharmaceuticals test showed 10! the good news is that the salifert po4 test showed 0.00-0.03 so that im happy with. i cant beleve the differance with the tests! has anyone else experanced the same sort of results with differant test kits?