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My experience and from what I've seen it depends on your definition of "Work" It helps, but it's not a cure on its own. Like salt treatments, it helps a little, but it's not a miracle cure.

This makes lambchop sad.

Yeah, noone has ever successfully used concrete in a fish tank, it might be full of scary chemicals. BTW, cement is what holds the concrete together, you don't use it alone. Below successful examples, and instructions: http://www.garf.org/class.html http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=58285&hilit=concrete+back+background http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=58184&hilit=concrete+back+background http://www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/diy_aquarium_background.php http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f20/concrete-background-26290.html http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2037046

Any time I've had similar, left filters unplugged for a few days, etc. I just gave them a good clean and plugged them back in. No noticable issues over the week or so it would take to recolonize the filter from bacteria in the tank.

You don't need to have splashing, just turning over the surface and rippling is all you need. That should be practically silent.

And water pumps to disturb the surface are far quieter than annoying loud as hell buzzy irritating, vibrating airpumps. :an!gry

Midget is considered offensive. The proper term is dwarf. :slfg:

Kind of on topic... My old anemone.

Bucket under the return, Volume*time=rate plus round it up. It was more like 3500 iirc. The return was 25mm or 32mm clear hose halfway to match the outlet on a PJ5000, 25mm the rest of the way. The siphon and bubbling was annoyingly loud, but it handled the whole flow of the pump.

The size of the tank isn't really the deciding factor, how much are you planning to flow through the piping? But, regardless 32mm should be heaps for any reasonable amount of flow. My tank that had an overflow was running about 4000LPH through 25mm and that was a bit borderline. You can have the return and drain the same size, or the drain bigger. That one needs to be bigger because it's not being force fed.

$3 sounds like a good price each to me anyway. All the time and trouble of finding them, fuel to drive there, a couple hours splashing around in muck, time dealing with trademe flakes...

Over exposure to activated carbon and Zeolite has been known to cause Lycanthropic Porphyria in fish.

I think any you find in the wild are more likely to be introduced frogs, so the more you take out of the wild the better.

Bracing isn't required if the tank is small and made from thick enough glass.

I figured my marine tank used about $60-70/month. That was mostly the 500 watts of lighting.

The white porous stones will be biofilter media.

Have you looked at the price of legos lately?

Not really. You don't want to replace biomedia with mechanical filter media like filter wool, and the filter wool would clog up and block the air flow anyway. Look on trademe for bioballs. I don't think it matters a bit if the substrate is sand or not. Oh, someone's selling bioballs in the private trade and exchange section. Should be enough for a dozen of these ghetto filters. I assume you're wanting it for something where being super cheap and ugly isn't a concern like a fishroom breeding tanks? Otherwise spend a few dollars and get a good cheap filter like a CF1200, it will be 100X more effective and nicer looking on a single display tank.

Find him and for lack of updates.

Nope, both of those are fine.

Temp sounds fine and you're not overstocked. I haven't seen bristlenoses being that lazy, but my redspot...

Sounds like a bristlenose(Ancistrus), not a plec, like Caryl says. Another thing is what's the temperature? They can be really active sometimes, but that's generally occasional bouts of activity between hours and hours and hours and hours of not doing a thing. So, it's hard to say if they're actually sluggish because they're sick or because they're just lazy.

Soylent Green.

No, not unless it hasn't expired. Hence why if you're smart you go for your warrant BEFORE it expires. I don't remember ever getting mine done before it expires. :slfg:

Yeah, but so would rainwater, and last time I checked a $200L barrel costs about $30, a RO/DI filter several hundred.