4,000, wow! I remember not so long ago I had more posts then you did. :mrgreen:

Oh yeah! I didn't notice. Congrats!

Here you go, gotta do it up right for 4000 posts.


4000 POSTS for BRETT :bananahuge:

Great now I look like twice the tool I already am (for posting too much nonsense) sweet thanks!

It isn't nonsense if it's entertaining!

What? You don't like the dancing banana with the pom pom hands?
2.14 posts per day is nothing. I'm the one who rattles on: 3.27 ppd :redface:

wow Lance that is crazy about the color change. I wish mine had done that. I sold it a couple of weeks ago, I was tired of it stinging the hell out of everything it got close to. Although I see there were a few hangers on left behind... :confused:

Yeah, we talked about this before. That's too bad; mine is not the least bit aggressive. The new colour is pretty nice. Under MH's it is brownish green; under actinics only it is a very bright green.

People! Check Your Overflow Emercency Drain More Often!


When I came home for lunch today I went to check on the tanks like I always do and was greeted by the sound of a pump sucking air. The water level in the 90g was close to overflowing. WTF! Looked into the sump and both overflow drains are barely trickling. Turned off the return pump which was sucking air, (return portion of the sump holds about 10 gallons which the display can handle.) Checked out the overflow and sure enough a large snail was upside down wedged tightly in the stand pipe. Pulled it out and away went the water; but why wasn't the emergency drain working? Went and got my electrical fish tape and ran it down the standpipe. Out of the drain and into the filter sock comes 6 good sized Valonia bubbles. I get a flashlight and look into the overflow box and way down deep, and in almost total darkness, is a colony of Valonia. Hardy buggers living in darkness like that.
It could have been so much worse: If I hadn't been so careful to make sure the display could handle the water volume of the return portion of the sump there would have been a nasty flood in the living room. And the pump could have burnt out. Either it must not have been sucking air for too long or Eheim's are indestructible.

In Conclusion:
1. Check your emergency drain more often.
2. Make sure your display tank can handle the volume from the sump.
3. Clean out the overflow box more often.
4. If possible, use 45's on the drain lines instead of 90's (I don't think the
Valonia would have got caught up if I had used 45's.

P.S. I'm going to the shop tonight to make a cover for the overflow box to keep the bloody snails out!

Wow there are nearly as many ways to ruin a system as there are to run one. Thanks for the heads up man. With the proliferation of valonia in my own tank I should check my own pipes out too.

I was over at a friend's house the other day and he has no valonia i could see in his display. I was looking closer at one of his vortechs and there was a mini colony living behind the impeller inside the housing!

I have absolutely no valonia at all in the 225g. It must be that either the Sailfin or the Foxface is eating it. There's a small Foxface in the 90g but he doesn't touch the stuff.

Just curious - shouldn't your ATO have kept your sump water level constant? It's probably a good thing that's not what happened because as you pointed out, there's only so much water your display can handle before it ends up on the floor.

Anyways... I'm glad it wasn't worse - and yes - Eheims are industructable.

My ATO set-up runs to the 225g and not this tank. This tank has the sump outside and is not really accessible for the water line. I feed the FW to this sump by gravity feed from a 5 gal reservoir using an HIV drip. A slow drip from 3pm when I get home from work to about 8pm is about right. The tank is covered and does not evaporate much.

3 Videos

Had the camera out to video the Fire Clowns spawning, (feel kind of like a voyeur :redface:) and while I had it out took a vid of each tank.
Click on the picture.


http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...h_MVI_2383.jpg


http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...h_MVI_2381.jpg


http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...h_MVI_2382.jpg

Great vids Lance! I gotta try that! :biggrin:

Looks great, Lance.:smile:

We get it Lance...massive organ you got there. I was trying to snack here when that was sorta forced upon me with the zoom action.

Also... NICE VIDS.

Nice video Lance. That nem is getting huge.

Good thing it wasn't in 3D.



Yeah he's a big one Darren. It moved 6" while I was on vacation and stung the crap out of my large Pocci colony. The thing hasn't moved in 6 months and decides to while I'm away. Grrrr!

Why would a Squamosa taste better than a Crocea?
The Crocea has been in the tank for 2 years and the fish have shown no interest in it. Put a Squammy in and they are all over it. Foxface, Juvi Chocolate Tang and Coral Beauty are all taking turns pecking at it. Poor clam is shut more than closed. Time to get out the strawberry basket, except I couldn't find it and had to make a cage out of egg crate. Stupid fish! Grrrrr!

Is he new? I think new clams are just stressed from the move and stressed clams smell like food apparently. I've had this happen with new clams that the fish were all over it for the first day but it got all better afterwards. If they are really picking at it yeah put the basket over top so that they can't but after a day or two it should just be "yet another clam, same as the others" to them.

Well.......... yes and no Tony. It is a new clam, but it was placed in the tank on March 5th. The fish just started on it last night. The basket is going on for a few days and we'll see what happens.

Oh ... ok, weird. Don't know then....

I just noticed there appears to be what looks like a little bit of algae growing on the shell. All three of those fish are algae eaters. I'm just wondering if that's what they were picking at, and the clam of course instinctively closes. I don't see any damage to the flesh at all. Sound feasible?

Could very well be, and the clam just isn't used to that. My tangs pick at shell surfaces all the time and sometimes they close up, sometimes not, so who knows why the difference, maybe how close to the mantle or how fast they approach or ... something like that.

JUST got around to watching the videos (it's been that kind of a week :redface:) .. the tanks look great! How many fish are there in each tank?

Thanks Tony,
90g = 9 fish: (6 small, 3 medium) Chocolate Tang will go in large tank when larger; he's just a juvi now.

225g = 14 fish: (4 small, 4 medium, 6 large)

I finally managed to get to Oceanic Corals and meet Paul; every time I'm in the city I can't seem to find the time to get out to Aldergrove. I made it this time. :biggrin: We had to go out to Langley and pick up my sister's new Rottie puppy. Perfect opportunity to go see Paul. We had a very nice chat and he fixed me up with some nice corals.



I'll take some more pics when they colour up more, but they're already pretty sweet. Thanks Paul.

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...1/IMG_2394.jpg


And of course I picked up one of these. If there's a new fangled gizmo on the market I've got to have one. :redface:

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...1/IMG_2393.jpg

Um.. That's and interesting looking probe. Can you demonstrate how it works? Bonus points for a video :D

Sorry Kien. Unless you're a Doctor of Proctology, there will no videos or demonstrations.

Hmmmmm love the doo hicky Lance can i have one :mrgreen:

Why? Having a problem with your doo hicky?

:lol: Oh man..

So, I tried out the "Aiptasia Zapper" this afternoon and the verdict is:

It does work; unfortunately most Aiptasia escape into their hole in the rock before you can give them a real good jolt. It does work very good on Majanos though. Fries them up nice 'n 'toasty. It does not do a very good job on mushrooms or leathers. :sad:


Score Card:

- 6 Aiptasia attacked: 3 Aiptasia destroyed/3 Aiptasia peeking out of their holes
and laughing at me.
- 5 out of 5 Majanos nuked.
- 3 mushrooms attacked and 3 mushrooms looking pouty but definitely not dead

So your saying it works but you need to be quick on the draw huh?

Doug, you have to hold the probe on them for a few seconds to really nuke 'em. If they have a hidey-hole you can't get at them long enough.

I think what we need is a crazy glue gel dispenser. It's built so you can twist it into an shape from a 2 foot straight stick to a curved attack rod. Depress the dry end to dispense crazy glue gel wherever you need it.

I counted 8 seconds in the progressive reef video, thats about 4x longer than I was doing it for.

Yeah, the ones I was able to get to were toast after 2 or 3 seconds. I'm thinking of soldering a longer piece of wire onto the probe so I can follow the little bastards right into their cracks.

Good idea. Mine just got half burned, they looked pretty rough when they emerged from their hidey holes with half their parts all burned off. Course they were all regenerated a few days later. Then I took the rock out and practically soaked it in sodium hydroxide :razz:

If at first you don't succeed............................. fry the crap out of them with caustic poison!

WEIRDO!
For years I ran 250W Ushio HQI 10K's with actinic T5's on the 90g. I was very happy with it. Great shimmer and decent coral growth.
When it was time to replace the Ushio, I temporarily swapped it with a Hamilton 14K I had laying around until I could get to the city and buy another 10K. I absolutely hated the 14K; it was too blue and the shimmer was not as nice, although after awhile I did get somewhat used to it. 3 months later I finally got to the city and picked up a new Ushio 10K. Got it home, pulled the Hamilton and stuck in the Ushio. Guess what? I don't like it now; too yellow and the corals don't look as bright. :der: