Blog Comments

Hey hat glad to see progress on the new tank I have even seen people hide a small heater in the water behind the front lip/ hood of the waquarium and set it to like 74-75 degrees just as a failsafe.

I lived in Killeen back in 2000-2002, but now I am in South Carolina.

Wow, that is terrible yiyi! But yeah great advice indeed Marc.

Thats excellent advice on the heater melev. I nuked a nano by not doing just what you described. My return pump fried and searching for the correct part to fix took me a few days, during which my temp plummeted and killed about 20 ricordea, but my sump was nice and toasty! A costly mistake that only needs to happen once to be remembered.

Yeah it sure is! I think for my sump I will replace the bioballs with rubble ruck and macro algae. It's the simplest thing to do for now. My sump has some slot for three dividers for media but the are missing. I just drop carbon and zeolite down in the sump and the water flow has to pass through it. I also put some filter material next to that. Tank is super clean and corals are happy, good enough!

That would be good. You just have to remember that if you end up in an emergency with a broken return pump or sump, move the heater back up to the display tank. It's one of those things you don't remember until you live through it, but it doesn't hurt to remind yourself of that little possibility from time to time. Preparation is key.

Thanks Marc, I'll try to make it as high as posible. (piping) And once I c
redo my sump or figure how I'm going to use it my heater will go in their.

I wouldn't run it that low in my tank at all. It isn't that it is wrong, it's just an enormous eye sore. If I could have magic flow without anything visible, I'd do it. I was joking about getting the motor side of the vortech in clear acrylic or glass. hehe

Krylon Fusion is available at Walmart for sure. Home Depot or Lowes may have it. You don't have to prep the material with anything, but it should be clean. If you use the stuff that was in the tank, rinse it well and dry it completely. Then spray the paint with a few coats, and let it cure for 48 hours. I rushed it once and the water got notably gray. It cleared away, but if you can cure it for a day or two, you won't see that at all.

Locline is adjustable, so you can orient it to where only the tips and a few lobes are all you see in the tank. Your PVC is also a choice, so you can place it where you feel it does the most for the tank to generate random flow.

Thank ya Marc, yeah in another post I made you told me about drilling 2 1/8th" holes 1/2", that's what I did. I tested it about 3 times too! By unplugging the pump, worked great not even close to the top of the sump.

I was going to ask that question next Marc, lol about painting the PVC. I've seen it done but didn't know what paint would be safe. Can I get that paint at Lowes? And yes, do yo think I should shorten the return pipe (locline) or shorten it and bring it to the top middle of the tank? What would you do?

Wow, look at all that space, and that nice clean tank!

Your locline return is submerged a lot. Did you drill anti-siphon holes yet? Be sure to drill one or two in that white section 1/2" beneath the normal water's surface.

I have a suggestion for you. Make an identical section as the one you have now, and spray paint it black with Krylon Fusion spray paint. Let it cure for a day or two, then swap it out with the current one. It'll be less obvious. Additionally, that locline doesn't have to be that long unless you feel it needs to be for some reason. You can remove some of those sections and still point them where you want the flow.

I'll have to check vortech out, thank ya Mccoy!

Thank ya Phil for the info!

I do the same as Melev, just turn it off for 15 to 20 minutes when I feed the tank.

Just a thought. You might want to look into a vortech. If the wet side falls off the pump stops spinning and you won't have the sandstorm problem again.

More Updates:

In the past week i've been trying to get my retro T-5 lights to put in my canopy, it seems my card has problems running, talked to bank, everything looks good but won't work "sometimes" for online purchases. ;-/. So, I'm going to Petco tonight and buying a light strip from them. ;-). I have an idea on how to hand it in my canopy, but what are some of y'all ideas?

Yesterday afternoon while explaining to my wife the upcoming plans I have for my tank I went to the tank and looked in it, note that I'm blind, are severly "can't see", my tank looked like it had a sand storm happening. Lol! So bad even I could see it! Well, the power head that came with the tank fell down on the sand bed. :-/ I quickly preped my hands and arms to put them safely in the tank and re-secured the powerhead. When the tank finally cleared up it looked like it snowed on everything. I used the powerhead to blow everything off.

Yesterday night I noticed that my blue acro that I had mounted on a rock on top was not on the rock. ;-/. Now, the problem here was the only place it could fall was behind "everything". Again, :-/ This morning I moved the mountain of rocks and found my acro. Needless to say I now positioned my mountain where nothing can fall behind it again. ;-)

one thing good about everything was I finally found two missing frags that wasn't on plugs. Both encrusting montis. :-)

Thank y'all for the info!

Agreed. I only turn it off to feed my reef, which is every night for 15 minutes. It keeps the food in the display and out of my sump, allowing the livestock to eat it all.

Every now and then the little hamster that spins the wheel inside needs a break! Seriously though, I don't think you need to worry about giving your pump a break. Most of the time when people shut electronics off from running full time its because they have the potential to overheat. Your pump has water going through it so I don't think overheating will be a problem. Some people turn their pumps off during feeding so this is where you may have gotten this idea.

i've never heard that. Mine just gets turned off when I do water changes.....

I'll check it out, thank ya Phil!