Disgusting brown goo

[christyf5]

My this thread has been busy. I've been watching the hockey game. Way to go Canada!!!

OK so, answers to questions.

Yes its brown gooey and has lots of air bubbles in it. Its almost impossible to siphon as it has clumped the sandbed and in order to remove it the top of the sandbed has to be removed as well. The last time I did this approximately 3 lbs of sand was removed. I was not thrilled to say the least.

Better protein skimmer. Yes. I have a CPR Bak Pak II right now and just blew $250 on new bulbs. Unfortunately a better protein skimmer is not in the cards unless someone is willing to donate.

Water circulation. I don't have much luck with powerheads. I just bought one from J&L and half the parts are missing (as with the last two I bought from other places). They are shipping them to me and will hopefully be here sometime this week.

Alk, this is something that confuses me mightily. The test kit I have (FasTest) says its at 2.5 meq/L. What the heck does this mean? Is this good? Everyone seems to be reporting different numbers in degrees of hardness etc etc. My conversion table is screwy because 2.5 seems to be okay but then when I convert it it is too low for the degrees of hardness. As well I was using Kent ProBuffer and I swear the stuff was getting sucked up by something because I was having a hell of a time keeping the alkalinity up so I gave up, until I can figure out what the heck is going on.

Trying regular water. Well as I said before the bulbs wiped me out for cash and I have run out of salt. I think I'll try to bum some from work because its like $30 a bag here and quite frankly I refuse to pay that much unless I am totally desperate (which I am not right now).

Victor,
I did #1, #2, #3 repeatedly (what fun, scrubbing rocks for 2 hours every week), nobody in Nanaimo sells kalk so thats a no go. As it was I had to get the kent buffer in vancouver, #5 (well I already talked about that. I had it up to 12 at one point but the next day it was back at 8), #6 (carbon replaced every week), #7 (we'll call that escargot for the hermit crabs, I just bought 20 and they aren't even making a dent, 5 were snacks for hermits so far), #8 done every time I get really ****ed off (about every 2 weeks or so), #9 using the mechanical filter to run the carbon and phosphate sponge thru changed every couple of days. #10 verrry interesting. I am going out today to get and airstone.

Great call on the snails Darren. Another $30 in feed for my hermits. No wonder they are getting so big [img]images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]

No nothing has recently died in my tank. However I have noted that this problem coincided with the addition of a lawnmower blenny. Man those guys can really churn out the waste. There is plenty to eat believe me. So do you think that maybe this lawmnower blenny is just too much for my tank. He is constantly eating and quite frankly his waste is probably equivalent to 4 fish. Any thoughts??

No no refugium. Every time I try to get organized enough to get out there and try to get parts for one, something else comes up (in this case, lightbulbs). Any ideas for an ultra cheap refugium, I have a spare 20G and 5G (Probly too small). What other parts do I need?? I have a crapload of caulerpa growing in the main tank which I ripped out while doing my last cleaning frenzy (there is quite a bit left still growing).


Keep those thoughts coming I'll try to post more pics of any success, otherwise you may see my stuff in the buy/sell forum [img]images/smiles/icon_razz.gif[/img]

Thanks for all the ideas guys, keep em coming!!

Christy [img]images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]