Lesson learned?

[marie]

Bad things happen overnight, good things take months

[mark]

To actually talk to other reef keepers and see their tanks first hand.

[EmilyB]

In addition to all the others, check flow first when you see a problem. MANY times I've just had a powerhead quit.

[Invigor]

make sure none of your pieces of equiptment leaks electricity. and always use fresh carbon

[niloc16]

good advice. speeking of kalk, i dont add any calcium aside from whats in the salt from weekly water changes. my calcium never drops below 400 and averages around 425, is it still necessary to supplement calcium if my level is staying up? another question i keep forgetting to ask you guys is flow. in my 55 i'm turning it over about 15 times an hour, sufficient? i get very little if any detritus collecting on the sand and when it does it seems to be in an area that i can access easily. for flow i use 1 maxijet 1200 and 2 maxijet 600 and the penguin 330 provides surface flow

[Richer]

Organize, plan and keep things as simple as possible... electrical components (ie. power bars) on floor + saltwater spillage = zap! GFCI outlet = your friend.

Flow wise... I ran bare bottom tanks... my last tank (30 gallons 24"x24"x12") had one seio 640, one seio 820 and a mag 9.5 return from sump... before I shut it down, I actually considered upgrading my return pump and upgrading the seio 640 to a 820. My return outlets were directed downward to blow detritus out from underneath the rocks and into the water column. The seio pumps were positioned to provide plenty of indirect flow for the tank. I found that I had to acclimate new fish in my fuge before putting them into the display tank... as the flow would actually push stressed out fish into my overflow and down the drain... which was unfortunately (for the fish) connected directly to a high powered skimmer. I had about a 70x turnover rate in my tank.

-Rich

[niloc16]

wow, now that is some flow. so in other words 15X is inadequate.

[Beverly]

Originally Posted by niloc16

good advice. speeking of kalk, i dont add any calcium aside from whats in the salt from weekly water changes. my calcium never drops below 400 and averages around 425, is it still necessary to supplement calcium if my level is staying up?

Your calcium levels are good. No need to supplement Caunless it goes below 380 ppm.

[Coldwater]

If you go with a sump put the plumbing together with the right kind of glue!

Matt