bwahahah not even a gaping clams comment? :razz:

ok I'll quit now, sorry for ruining your thread marie, think of it as a comedic break :razz:

ROTFLMAO! Took the words right out of my mouth.

But point being, Marie's tank ROCKS!! Maybe she should give seminars and charge an arm and leg, or a frag per word.

There's nowhere in Powell River to fill up a CO2 bottle?? :neutral: There has to be something. Check the welding supply shops, the medical gas shops, the beverage supply places .. there has to be somewhere. Those drink dispensers at McDonalds et.al. - those are CO2 cylinders that drive those things, somebody has to be able to fill them up.

Are you still running this tank skimmerless BTW?

My husband checked around last year and he couldn't find anyplace. It is after all a very small town.

Even though my skimmer probably doesn't do much good, I started it back up any way... mostly for my piece of mind. It just didn't feel right not having a skimmer cup to clean out :lol:

Oops, forgot to mention fire extinguisher places, there has to be some of that.

I'm surprised is all, I thought Powell River wasn't, you know, that small (isn't it 20,000? That's not exactly tiny :) ).

Anyhow, I poked around in yellowpages.ca a bit and came up with this place, maybe you know it already, maybe they suck, I don't know. But hey, maybe they're worth a call since they say they're a Praxair depot:
http://yellowpages.ca/bus/British-Co...did=13795459aa

Also this place might be worth a call:
http://yellowpages.ca/bus/British-Co...d/3454250.html

Nope, both of those places send everything out of town. In fact it's Wick's that looks after filling my bottle along with all the fire extinguishers in town.

And while there maybe 20,000 people from saltery bay to lund there is less then 10,000 that actually live inside town limits



Edit, ok so I lied, there is actually 13000 people living in the town proper

Maybe you need to get one of those monster bottles? I think their like 100lbs or somthing...should last you a few months anyways:biggrin:

Sounds like it would be easier to have 2 bottles, have one dropped off at your CO2 shop to be shipped for filling and swap when other bottle is empty. More cost I know, but you wouldn't be out of CO2

Yeah, wow, I can understand there not being a place to fill it in town then, but you'd think there'd be something within a couple hours drive. Three weeks to a fill is .. well .. well, what can I say, I'd consider that unacceptable.. but I guess you work with what you got. I agree with Scav, I think you should get a 70lb bottle for your main and then use a 10lb or 5lb bottle as the spare.

That's actually what I do, I have two cylinders myself because I thought the 1 to 2 day turnaround for my fills was too long :p

And the real irony is I'm not even running a reactor right now. I've been dosing instead. Damn thing keeps leaking, it's driving me crazy. I've been contemplating ditching the reactor altogether when my new tank comes up and just go with the Balling method or a derivative. But, that's another topic altogether.

Sorry to hear it's such a hassle in Powell River. I honestly thought P.R. was sort of the nearest major centre for a lot of those coastal hamlets. But when I was looking for you last night, I agree, I saw basically nothing in the town of Powell River itself. I found places in Qualicum Beach though :rolleyes: .. You'd think there'd be something that could do better than 3 weeks. I guess all the restaurants/fast food places probably just have a truck come in once per week loaded up with cylinders, coming in from the L.M. maybe... :neutral:

I smell business venture... You should open up a CO2 refilling business, everyone would have to go through you :wink:

Marie,

If you want, I can try to find a spare CO2 tank for you, get it filled & bring it up next time I head to PR (with TomR).

Anthony

I have a spare bottle, It's out getting filled right now.I didn't think there was any rush getting the second one filled but then I wasn't expecting to start running out after only 4 months.

A couple of hours drive would put me someplace in the ocean or on the top of a mountain at the end of nowhere (Powell River is in the middle of nowhere :lol: )

Unfortunately I am at the mercy of other people who don't think I'm important enough to rush the job. The alternative is to pay $100 for ferries and go and get it filled myself

3 month frag growth

June 20
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../june20003.jpg

sept 17
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../sept17013.jpg

Marie,

If your current bottle runs out in the next month or so, let me know & we can pick it up & get it filled for you down here. Then either ship it back or hold it for you till someone goes up or comes down.

Anthony

my current bottle is due to run out in the next few days. The gauge started dropping 2 1/2 weeks ago so I hastily sent out my old co2 bottle to be filled, I dialed my calcium reactor way back to try and make it last longer and I am adding kent 2 part as well as kalkwasser.


Procrastinating is a bad bad thing :redface: Hopefully i'll have the replacement bottle back this next week

I just love the growth photos! Thank you Marie!

Do you run phosban or anything like that?

The only thing I'm using is carbon

Ok I gotta ask then, what reactor media are you using?

The reason is, if I crank up my reactor, I found I would get more PO4. I would notice this because it really seems to inhibit SPS growth. Talk about your catch-22. So I wonder if I'm sitting on a bad batch of media or something..

Any refugium growing chaeto or macros maybe?

I think my success is because I have more then normal (normal for most aquariums anyway) live zooplankton. I have 2 orchid dottybacks, a pair of mandarins, 2 pairs of cardinals, a pair of cleaner shrimp, a bunch of hermit crabs, snails and a very lively sandbed all pumping out babies to feed the corals. Even with the mandarins in the tank everything is covered with pods at night.

I do walk a very fine line between success and a tank full of algae. If I were to lose any of my herbivores I think I would be in trouble. At the moment I have 3 types of algae that I am keeping a close eye on, 2 of which don't seem to have anything eating them, bryopsis and brown wafer algae.
But at least somewhere in the system I can find turf algae, an unidentified red/brown macroalgae, dictyota, valonia, hair algae, bryopsis, caulerpa, brown wafer algae, that red cotton algae (the 3rd algae that I'm keeping an eye on, luckily I have a few turbos that eat it) and I also have the occasional appearance of cyano and the dreaded dinos.
So I have a tank that is rich in food type nutrients (I don't even try to stop detritus, It's all food to somebody) but it's low in nitrates and phosphates because the algae takes it up which in turn is taken up by my herbivores. It's as close to the real ocean as i can get it :biggrin:

Well you must be doing something right. If you have PO4 entering the tank it's coming out somehow. The growth pictures are awesome. :cool:

The reactor media I'm using is just the fine caribsea A.R.M. stuff

To show how efficient algae is at taking up nutrients, here is pic of my tank last year just after it sat with no fish in it for 8 weeks. It's also when I first discovered this wonderful red/brown macroalgae.
You can see how pale all the corals are (even the macroalgae was pale at this point) because they were starving. Growth was just about nil on everything except the algae.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...02brad0010.jpg

Hey Marie that's amazing growth just out of coriousity was that the frag Anthony brought up on his last trip to PR, reason I ask is because a frag I traded him was destined for you it was a blue teal acro! really nice tank maybe I should ship you all my frags to grow out hehe jk.

Yep I think so, but the colours in the second photo aren't true, it's more blue.

I believe this is a frag Anthony picked up from you back in feb.

pic taken april 18
http://www.canreef.com/photopost/dat...growth_018.jpg

pic taken sept 23
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2.../sept23011.jpg

:eek: Steroids ?? :p

Wow that's amazing growth. :cool:

Marie you do get amazing growth. I read your other post on RC that you are not doing to much to get those results but wow. You must be doing something right. You truley have a beautifull tank. Maybe it's something in the water up there. Thanks for sharing.

I think I could kiss the guy who invented the calcium reactor. I am without C02 at the moment and I am struggling with my cal/alk levels. I am up to 240ml of each of the kent 2 part and I can't seem to keep my alk above 8dkh for longer then an hour.

That is a scary thing....what about other options like some of the Randy Homes Farley receipies on RC?

I'm hoping this is very temporary (it's been 4 weeks since I sent my co2 bottle away) and I happened to have the 2 part in stock :mrgreen:

Marie! I so understand and my tank is far far from yours! I am battling keeping calcium and alk up now......I guess things are growing...but I've also added a LOT of coral so they're now sucking it all back......I so badly need a calcium reactor...when do you expect your bottle back?

2 weeks ago http://mazeguy.net/angry/irked.gif

OH NO!:surprise: that is really awful...

Now this is a bottle of co2 :razz: . No complaints from me for a day or too about running out :lol:

Thank you, Anthony and TomR for bringing it up and hooking it up for me

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...l/oct21001.jpg

Whew! :eek: That sucker should get the job done (for a few months anyways :wink:).

I say if you're gonna upgrade, UPGRADE!

She went from a 10 pounder to this 35 pound monster tank:biggrin: At the same usage rate, it should be good for almost a year & a half:surprise: Hopefully by the time this bottle runs low, her other one that was sent out to the Island will be back:wink:

Anthony

Hee hee hee. Don't drop that on your foot!