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Try this website show "in stock" and a little cheaper 29.99 than Amazon here is the link http://www.musictrends.com/pc100a-po...p-p-11243.html

hmmm not sure Amazon is where i got mine. I would try a music store where they sell the dance lights and such.

Ahhh, that's so cute. He will be ably to Skype with his fish and reassure them. Just kidding that is a great idea. You could also buy a cheap ip camera to accomplish the same

all the coral will be going down in bags and Tupperware within foam shipping containers from the LFS and the fish will all be in one bucket with an airpump. i also have a 50gallon stock tank i will be putting all the live rock in which will help me bring as much established water as i can, im going to clamp on a sheet of acrylic to the top to prevent splashing

as for setting up the actual tank i havent thought into it all that much...

once we get there i have 2 days to set everything up before i need to head home for another week with my dad so he can get back to work before the final moving day, so im going to be leaving my old laptop there with skype installed to auto answer, this way i can periodically skype my aquarium just to makesure nothing horrible has happened, in the event of a disaster i have 3 options,1) a LFS which is an hour away from the new house on stand and on payroll 2) my uncle who use to be quite the reefer extraordinaire and is extremly knowledgeable but has been out of the hobby for about 7years 3) the neighbors who are clueless but with skype I can talk them through just about anything

As long as everything is in coolers, brought indoors to temperate conditions, they should be fine. If the scenario gets dicey, you might consider adding a powerhead and heater to a contain (ice chest?) and put the corals together in a stable environment with circulation.

I drilled the tank yesterday, phew I forgot how long it takes to get through the glass, my arm sure was sore

Melev-the move is about 600km we will be renting a cube van for everything, my major worry is the wait the coral will have once we arive and begin setting up!

Looks good so far. How far is your move?

Kool man, I hope everything goes smoothly with the move.

ok cool thanks! i already have some of their coraline purple epoxy it does pretty well, i guess it looks like a different material white

thats just ocean wonders marine epoxy, a bit of there superglue was also used on the tort, the way i mounted with ease of growth in mind.

wow awesome frags! what kind of glue is that on the frags? i must have some

Glad to hear he's OK. Rainfords are one of my favorite, must-have fish. It always amazes me how such a little fish can keep the sandbed so clean.

scratch that....turns out my leopard wrasse likes to sleep in!....just like me

a little bad news, today i wokeup about 3 hours after lights on, and my leopard wrasse is nowhere to be seen
i hope hes just having a long sleep under the sand after his stressful day, if he died i think i would of found a body and lots of bristleworms. he didnt jump because i have the mesh top on...this is confusing

phil- yup its a rainford's! hes my favorite, minus the fact that he loves to sprinkle my acans with sand every now and then

Nice looking additions. Is that a rainford's goby in the forground of the wrass photo?

Some more interesting reading...

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-0...ture/index.php

Can't go through it all right now, I'm at work, but I've lightly skimmed the article and it seems to answer a few of my questions about venturi skimmer efficiency...ie they're not as efficient "theoretically" as air driven counter current skimmers, but they still work.

Blake

I think you've struck on the key to using Escobal's equations. I did a few more quick searches and the "purity coefficient" is described as the the coefficient required to achieve 99.99% clean water. I wonder, as you did, if you start with cleaner water or dirtier water how does that coefficient change, if it indeed does change.

As far as using Escobal's equations to check the efficiency of venturi skimmers, I found one source that suggested the flow through a venturi skimmer is established by how much flow is necessary to suck air in at the venturi. So it would seem manufacturers of venturi skimmers are more interested in achieving a specific water/air bubble ratio (Escobal seems to set this at 13%) than in keeping turn over below 2 times per day. This source also stated that Escobal's equations are for air driven skimmers and don't apply to venturi, beckett, etc type skimmers. Although anybody can post anything on the internet, and I don't know if there is actual data to back up these statements.

Honestly, knowing what I know now, I probably would purchase a counter current recirculating skimmer rather than the style I bought. Seems to me the counter current recirculating skimmers allow for the highest dwell time possible without building a monster tall air driven or beckett style.

Blake

I'm not sure (I'd have to re-read the links you guys posted) but doesn't Escobal give some kind of purity factor which indicates that water that is skimmed over and over again (some already skimmed some not) gradually gets cleaner and cleaner until it reaches some purity factor of 9.2 times T/G or something like that...? So maybe the 2 minute dwell time can be spread out as well...? I kind of doubt it, but maybe... I know when I had my Vertex IN 180 running on my 40 breeder awhile back (after a disaster from which I'm still slowly recovering...) it pulled tons of stuff out of the water despite people telling me that it wouldn't. In fact, it pulled nastier stuff out of the water than my previous skimmer. So, while I might have a "bad" skimmer for a different set of reasons, I can testify that there is a fair lack of understanding about just what is involved in slimmer function. I need to look at the dimensions of my skimmer and see what kind of dwell time I should be getting. That would be - perhaps - the most important variable in whether or not I was able to get skimmate. However, I'm definitely WAY over the 2 times tank volume per day ratio.

Perhaps our hypothetical system would require a skimmer with sufficiently long dwell time in order to pull enough stuff out of the water to reach an acceptable contamination level. So perhaps that is the driving variable and not the actual system volume. Also, I noticed that he says a maximum of 2 times system volume/day. He doesn't say that is the minimum so perhaps our hypothetical system would skim very efficiently for a short time period, then cut back off, and repeat due to the skimmer efficiency... So many ideas right now. I should probably wait 'til later in the day to post so that I've had time to process all of them. Anyway, more to chew on.

Yep, actual experimentation with low to very low bioload and high to very high system volume would be interesting. As I stated above, this idea is what made me start looking deeper to begin with, being an engineer myself (albeit a civil engineer vs mechanical or hydraulic). The one thing I can't get over is the stated required high contact time for some organics to attach to the air bubbles. This appears to be the controlling variable.

Actually the 2 minute contact time is a little concerning to me because the skimmer I chose for my 75 gallon set up has a little over 6.5 times the recommended turn over rate and is less than half of the recommended 4-foot height. I'm not sure this skimmer (which is the right size based on the manufacturer's recommendation) is capable of producing the required 2 minute contact time. Which either means (1) manufacturer's of venturi skimmers find a different way to provide the necessary contact time for these organics to attach to the air bubbles, (2) the manufacturers disagree with Escobal's derived formulas, or (3) the manufacturers of venturi skimmers simply have decided it's too hard or expensive to provide the necessary contact time and are willing to allow the more stubborn organics to remain in the water.

As far as the other part goes, there's no need to feel bad...misunderstanding happen. I'm just glad we're able to see it as a misunderstanding and continue our discussion. After all that's what forums like these are about, sharing information so we all learn.

Blake

Yeah, I've read those and they seem to be empirically derived formulas. That means that they are based on experimentation with fairly normal systems. That's why I would love for someone (obviously with more money than me... ) to try out the one goby and a 1000 gallon tank idea. I just still can't shake the idea that it would work. According to the links you guys have dug up I am totally wrong, but I just can't shake the idea. Reason being that (as long as the skimmer was plumbed into the return and not in some obscure corner) you would also have a really small return pump and thus none of the parameters that would normally change with a larger system volume (i.e. turn over rate) would scale like they normally do... Either way I'd like to get my hands on that book! Anyway, this thread has provided me with lots to chew on... And an event I felt bad about all day today. I'm glad you didn't decide to take off and leave Reef Addicts.

As another note, my fiancé is a few months from completing residency and I'm a semester away from completing a degree in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering so... maybe someday I will have the money (if not the time, lol) to try this out. I sure hope so because it would help separate variables... If bioload and tank volume can indeed be decoupled.