kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[kien]

Whoa! That is a very good point! Never thought about a snail ever getting into the outlet of the skimmer as the outlet is pretty darn big.

I just went to inspect my skimmer and I have a sock tied to the outlet to cut down on bubbles :-) So I think I'm safe? Anywhere else a snail could get in?

[shrimpchips]

You can also keep the bottle in your sump, so on the off chance it does overflow, it just does so back into the sump.

[mseepman]

Originally Posted by shrimpchips

You can also keep the bottle in your sump, so on the off chance it does overflow, it just does so back into the sump.

Haha...very good and obvious suggestion that never dawned on me.

[kien]

Ya, I was thinking about that as an option. Need to figure out how to weigh the bottle down so that it can sit in the sump water.. Although, I'm still having a hard time figuring out where else a snail could get into the skimmer's outlet since I have mine covered by a splash/bubble guard socky thing.

[Delphinus]

Well, snail is only one potential scenario. There may be others that I just can't dream up right now. I have no experience with your model of skimmer but the needlewheels I've played around with before, some have been worse than others for the occasional berserkness that causes them to overflow. The Bubble Magus is for some reason one of the worst this way for me, but I had a CSS65 on a 20g before that was just as bad and had I run that thing as hang-on as it was intended I would have emptied the sump several times. I don't know what the cause is whether it's something in the livestock taking a mondo poop or maybe a snail spawn or who knows, but it's something. But I had other skimmers that didn't do that (ASM) so .. yeah, who knows.

Instead of weighing down the bottle so it sits under the water level, you could just make a little eggcrate or acrylic (or glass) shelf that the bottle could sit on. The bottle needn't sit in the sump per se, it just needs to overflow into the sump.

It's sort of a balancing act though, if you have to tip your bottle sideways to maneuver it out of the sump then you might still be better off having it sit on the outside of the sump on a little shelf and just with a little hose that drains back to the sump.

[kien]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Instead of weighing down the bottle so it sits under the water level, you could just make a little eggcrate or acrylic (or glass) shelf that the bottle could sit on.

tru dat! I guess that's why we keep you around Tony. You're full of great ideas!

[kien]

Today Tony was gracious enough to lend me his Nitrate meter so that I may test my nitrates and see how them lentils were doing. They have been running in my Two Little Fishes reactor for a little over two weeks now. Lots of mulm production but so far no clogging. I suspect something is consuming it in the filter or they just eventually dissolve enough to escape the foam filter that's in the reactor. Anyway, two weeks ago prior to running the bio lentils Tony and I did a reading and we got 8 ppm. Here is the reading I got this evening..



It appears as though something has reduced my nitrates in half. I have not added anything else to the tank other than the bio pellets. I have not done a water change since installing the bio pellets. I usually do weekly water changes but put off the last one out of curiosity, so it has been two weeks since my last water change.

All other parameters in case you're interested:

Specific Gravity: 1.026
pH: 7.9 to 8.3
Alk: 8.5 dkH
Calc: 420 ppm
Mag: 1400 ppm
Temp: 79-81
Phosphate: tests out to zero

I dose Alk (Baking Soda) and Calcium (from Littlesilvermax in bulk) but nothing else.

I have only been running half of the recommend amount of bio pellets but this weekend will ramp that up to full dosage. Zero nitrates here I come!!