lduncan

Lots of things are possible. But when you take into account what you want out of a system, resources, and limitations, you end up narrowing down to things which are possible for your situation. People will always tell you there are many ways to skin a cat. Usually when they want to justify why they do something the way they do, but can't come up with a real reason. The key with this hobby is to recognise that there is always a single best way to do something. That best way may be different for different people and their circumstances etc, but the best thing you can do is look at the multitude of different approaches, weight them up against your personal priorities and chose the best way from the get go. You'll save a lot of money on bad ideas, bad equipment choices etc. One thing which baffles me is when someone says that they chose to do something a particular way because "everyone else seems to do it that way". (100,000 lemmings can't be wrong syndrome) Shows a real lack of thought. You should always have good reasons for the methods you choose. Layton

16 cents a liter for ASW.. cheaper than petrol :lol:

The endpoint for the KH test is when the solution stays pink permanently. High KH like from a reactor will do what you said, it might hover at the pink point then turn back to blue. It's done when it stays pink permanently. Same with calcium, the endpoint is when the solution stays blue permanently. Test like nitrate are different, they are time sensitive, and to get an accurate measure you need leave it and match colour at close the time specified by the test kit.

All the nice tanks i've seen have yellow pumps, so i'm going to stick with that and make sure I use yellow pumps. Are the tanks nice because they use NSW, or in spite of using NSW?

I know. I was just saying that the comments like "I use NSW and never had a problem with it" implies that either they have explicitly ruled it out by conclusive verifiable experimentation (yeah right :lol:), or that they have never had a problem at all (posts here clearly show that's not true either) People have problems with their tanks, I don't know how anyone can say that they've never had a problem with NSW, when the reality is they actually don't know one way or the other. Layton

I doubt that. Not attributing ill effects, is not the same as not seeing ill effects. The thing I really don't like about NSW is that you really don't know what you're getting. Too unpredictable. Parameters are off from where most people keep tanks anyway. One of the things other people like about it is that it's got lots of "life", they call it plankton... it's really just animals which end up decaying, and end up having to clean up with your skimmer. Placing unnecessary load on your system. Also personally it's much more convenient to use ASW So for me NSW has absolutely nothing going in it's favour. It seems that cost is the overriding factor for those who use NSW. They seem willing to fly in the face of all other factors. Many people use NSW and have ugly tanks too. Layton

No. They just stop working long before you over-skim your tank. Skimmer ratings are mostly hit and miss. Depends on bioload, how clean you like to keep the tank. A skimmer rated for a 125 gal might be barely adequate for a 40gal when stocked with certain animals. But might be more than adequate for the same tank if stocked with other animals. Rule of thumb, get the biggest skimmer as practicable. Layton

I was up there yesterday. The tank was looking impressive, it's hard to capture in a photo.

Sure can. That's why I wasn't planning on mentioning it until it was all ready to go. International 12 volt DC supply. So it will work in any country, on any mains voltage / frequency out of the box.

You may be interested in this in depth 127 page, discussion on them: http://thereeftank.com/forums/showthrea ... t=firefish Disturbing.

Damsels in general are one of the most territorial reef fish you could find. Unless you've got a big tank, or happen to find a well adjusted damsel, you're asking for trouble.

Similar style to this http://www.grotech.de/ENGLISH/index.php?c=1&s=teciiing but the control electronics will be a little smarter, so you can have the option of entering test results, your target levels, and it can calculate how much to dose daily, plus any one off dosing to get levels up initially. Two / three independent dosing channel, with variable mL/hr delivery. It will be a little more expensive than the reefdosingpumps.com models, not quite as much as the grotech. I'll have something working in about 2 weeks, but realistically it's at least three / four months away from being in a state to sell as a unit, some parts have quite long delivery lead times too. You're probably after something now though.

So it's both a skimmer and a reactor :lol: hmm, nothing specific comes to mind. But i'd still suspect something interfering with the test method, rather than the actual calcium levels dropping after going through the reactor. What's the pH in the reactor?

I'd suggest contacting Stan a reefdosingpumps.com and ask him specifically what the power requirements are in terms of voltage, current and also frequency if the pump motors are synchronous rather than geared DC. Unusual timing. I've just sent some prototypes of a dosing unit I designed a couple of weeks ago off to china for manufacturing. Should arrive next week all going to plan. Found some nice compact OEM pumps to use: I'm looking at a TEC III style unit, but with a little more advanced control, inbuilt dosing calculators etc. Layton

Personally I think tanks always look cleaner when all sides are scraped of coralline, whether inwall, against wall, or peninsula style.

Some people have different perceptions of how clean 'clean' is. I'd call this tank clean: You're looking through 10 feet of water to the other end of the tank! No sign of anything on the glass. Layton

Yip. It's the only practical way to hold large rocks in place.

It's various forms of algae. I keep all sides clean of it. Some people just keep the front glass clean.

I thought the calcium reactor comment was just a mistake. I assume he really means the skimmer? from the first post:

We'll if you think about it, skimmate is going to concentrate particular ions, when you get an increase in ions, you can run into Ksp troubles --> precipitation of stuff. There are a number of calcium salts which aren't particularly soluble, then considering that calcium itself is already super saturated in seawater, you might also get some organic chelates forming from the increased concentration or organics in skimmate, I could see how it could easily lead to a lot of aboitic precipitation, which would show as a low reading on a test kit. pH may also be a factor? Dunno how sensitive the calcium EDTA method is to pH though. For the alk test, there are a lot of assumptions made on where the buffering capacity comes from in saltwater. It's assumed that it more of less comes from carbonate / bicarbonate. But in skimmate it's more likely to come from organic acids some of which will be very skimmable. The alk test is just an acid base titration, it's not actually looking specifically for carbonate and bicarbonate ions. So it's easy to trick. Layton

Nope, no specific qualifications. I'm a professional engineer (solid practical science background), I've always had an irresistible urge to find out exactly how stuff works. I read a lot, and think a lot about stuff i'm interested in. The single most important thing I've learnt from this is that knowing your own ignorance's is equally as important as what you know. I think people would be surprised (possibly disturbed) where my interest in chemistry comes from :lol:. Remember that the results of these tests kits may be skewed by other interfering chemicals which can concentrate in skimmate. Potentially rendering the results useless. Test kits are developed taking into account the properties and constituents of saltwater and are not necessarily valid for skimmate. If you want a true measure of the calcium concentration in skimmate you'd probably need to look at lab testing using some mass spectroscopy method. Whether something is skimmable depends on the hydrophobic / hydrophillic nature of the molecule, but in many solutions you don't necessarily find ions like Na+ and Ca++ in pure isolation, sometimes they are associated with other molecules, sometimes water, sometimes organics, not as a true molecule or ion but as kind of a complex ion. These associations may make a particular ion more skimmable, or may make it less skimmable. Like I said i'm aware of the general concept, but not the specifics for these ions in seawater. But I suspect the effect if any is fairly trivial in the scheme of things So for all intents and purposes, i'd say Ca++ is not skimmed preferentially, and should show in skimmate roughly in proportion to it's concentration in seawater, taking into account evaporation and other factors.

Heliopora are one of those corals which grow like weeds, along with Millipora (fire coral not the acro)

If you mean does it remove unbound Ca++, CO3-- and HCO3- ions selectively, depends on how technical you want to get. But quick answer is not significant amounts. But it all depends on what the ions are physically associated with in the water, something i'm aware of, but don't know the details of in saltwater for these ions.

Depends how clumsy you are ;-) I've had a few rock slides, but no broken glass yet. The four foot has white HDPE (plastic cutting board) on the bottom, which looks a little better than just plain glass. Same as the stuff on the bottom of this tank: Here's one tank which is close to how I personally would setup a tank: http://thereeftank.com/forums/showthread.php?t=76460 He seems to change his mind on things every week, so the things I like in particular are: good skimmer, lots of flow, full siphon overflow, two part calcium / alk addition, BB, minimal rock. I'd add a UV to it, and that's probably it. Layton

Yeah, i'll get some pics at some point. I've torn down my old 6 foot tank ( http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/layton ... t4928.html ) and setup a smaller 4 foot tank. (For a number of reasons) But there are a few tanks around which I think are close to how I would setup my ideal tank, so i'll post some of those as well. Layton