suphew

Do you closely monitor how much your dauther is feeding? Also it could be that you are keeping the tank too clean and killing the bacteria that drive the nitrogen cycle. Are you waiting for the tank to cycle before adding fish? just moving water from a running tank doesn't avoid the cycle, there is very little bacteria in the water (compared to what its on the surfaces of filter media, gravel etc). The only way to MAYBE skip the cycling is to move a mature filter off a running tank onto a new one. Suggest you get you water tested and post the results, plus any info on filters etc. I dont know how old your daugher is but also keep a close eye on how much she feeds and what else she does in the tank (i.e. maybe it's also barbies swimming pool :lol: )

Maybe you just miss read, but just wanted to make sure you are topping up your evaperation with fresh water not salt water?? and where are you getting your fresh water from? If it's not RO/DI or purchased filter water this could be your problem.

How high is 'highish'? The higher you go the stronger your lights are going to need to be, IMO anything much over 600 should have 400w MH, just something to consider. Oh and the other thing to think about is reaching the bottom in a deep tank, my tank is 600 deep and to reach the bottom at the back the water goes to my shoulder

dose no trace elements

What do you use for your topup water? Have you done water tests? If not do some, and post them. Also helps if you say what test kits you are using, some are pretty dodgy. Other spec will help to, amount of flow, salinity, lighting etc. I had problems with brown algae when I first started discovered that my PH was low (because my ak/ca etc was low) when I fixed this it cleared up pretty fast. A year old tank should be getting pretty mature and stable now. Oh and welcome!

Nice post Layton, makes some good points and after reading it I'd now consider it an option. I don't think the cost difference is a significant issue, a couple of hundred $ either way isn't much in reef keeping terms. Also I run mag chips in my reactor as well, so would have to take this into consideration. However the main reason I wont/cant change is my sump area is pretty much full of sump and I dont have room to add two more containers. And if I did have the room I would be adding more/bigger fresh water top so I dont have to fill it every week.

Like the guy thats thinks he's sane and it's every one else thats mad.

My last reactor was an aquamedic, and it did work fine as you have said, but the adjusting is painful and I found the seal round the top was a little tricky to line up (I wouldn't trust it running out of the sump), not that I ever had to really open it. I never have to touch the korallin the only time I adjust it is when I want to because my levels are off.

Damn I must type slow, sorry for the repeat. As I understand it the extra stages on an RO/DI unit just make the expensive bits (i.e. the actual RO/DI) last longer by cleaning the water more before it gets to them. They produce different amounts of water per hour etc, but it takes hours to fill up a desent sized container anyway so who cares.

The concept of the calcuim reactor is pretty simple, you just have calcium chips in a container, add CO2 to drop the PH in the water which makes the chips break down. You need to control the amount of CO2 and the flow through the reactor to get the PH about right. You can in/decrease the CO2 and flow (drip rate) out of the reactor to adjust the Ca/Ak level in the tank. The only other thing they have is a circulation pump that moves the water inside the reactor so it flows round the chips. I have a korallin reactor they seem to be one of the better ones. From what I have seen the difference between the cheaper and better mostly comes down to ease of use, the cheaper ones are harder to seal, and go out of adjustment. There are things like effiency as well, but I don't really care if my CO2 lasts 3 months or 3.5 months

mines been running for quite a while now, have had no problems

Turn off all the lights in the room, and take the photo at an angle to the glass.

I have kept them as have many others, often when a tank has been newly setup to help cycle and as a clean up. Not many of them live for long, and the ones that do don't usually last more than 6 months or so. It helps if you acclimatise them slowly.

Every thing I have read on the reef central forums say the more air the better. They pump as much are as they can until it stalls the motor :lol: Also the bubble size in the skimer doesn't seemed to have gotten any smaller, if fact when I first put it on I almost removed it cause it didn't look like it made any difference, it wasn't until I had run it for a couple of days and saw the amount of extra skimmate that I realised it was working. However I'm not totally convinced yet, there has been tonns of skimmate in the last two days but far clearer than normal, today I lowered the water level in the collect cup thing so it could be that it isn't working any better just pushing the water level higher. I'll run it for a week or two and see how it goes.

Was reading some skimmer modification information the other day, one of the easiest mods is to attach an air pump to the needle wheel intake and force in more air. I decided to give this a go the other day. When I first connected it my skimmer had been running for 3-4 days since its last clean but I still ended up with around twice the skimmate I would get on a normal week. Still the same dark colour. When I cleaned it yesterday I took some photos, the first is the cup 10 minutes after it was cleaned without the air pump going. The second is about 1 minute later (as long as it took me to plug in the airpump and pick up the camera. You can see quite a difference in the amount of bubbles in the neck.

Does your clam normally open more than that? looks a bit closed up. I have the same plating monti (?) in my tank, does your grow like a monster!

You sure someone else didn't use you scraper for something? Had any trades men at the house? Partner cleaning windows??

My fish never used to like them. But I remember my father feeding them to fish years ago and they went nuts, maybe they aren't the same as the used to be.

Ditto for me

craft knife or box cutter blade works well.

I helped Pies do his huge one and have done a few myself, you can't really go wrong just use a sharp knife and hack it up. If you want to keep the frags just cable tie them to rocks, they need to be cable tied just tight enough so thare are held in place, the coral will shrink when you are stressing it and if the tie is to tight it will cut into the coral. But if it is too loose the coral wont be held against the rock and it will take longer to attach. I cut chunks off my soft corals all the time for people it usually takes a couple of days for it cover over the area and with in a couple of weeks you cant even see where is was cut. You might want to run some new carbon when you do it because they can release toxins, but I never bother.

Yes they are, almost as much of a PITA as standard bracing! Unless you want to use 20mm glass on a big tank it has to be braced IMO euro is the best way to go. I have a hole drilled in mine for the return plumbing and when I get round to it will drill a hole for the couple of power leads to my streams

The 20x+ is the turn over in the display, the return will make up part of this but isn't usually all of it. Power heads, closed loops, streams etc make up the rest. It doesn't really matter to much what the through put of the sump is, but if is too high you might have problems with noise and micro bubbles, if its too low you might have problems with the display not getting enough warmed water.

Sorry I missed you Steve, had visiters round, maybe next time!

My tank is almost 1800 long 12mm glass and has no center brace. But does have "euro bracing" round the top and bottom of the tank. Needless to say I measured the tank pretty carefully when I filled it to make sure there was no bowing. I am now completely convinced that I don't need a center brace.