Equipment

Well, I finally finished installing the snapper pump. I learned a few things along the way and I'll try to give you as unbiased account as I can here.

First thing - I'm going to take a quick tangent here and report some about my personal experience with reeflo quality. I opened up my brand new reeflo pump and found the dart impeller cracked right through the middle upon arrival. It was as if someone had tightened it too much or it was subjected to an extreme temperature difference ...

I installed a SMR around January/February this year and had heard reports that it may trigger a cyano bloom that would eventually subside. In my case, that worked out to be true. I gave it a little encouragement with a popular product called Chemi-clean. But then it came back a month later. Slowly, but steadily. I treated again and increased the flow in my SMR to make sure I wasn't getting any dead spots in the reactor. I'm currently in process of my fourth treatment this year - and as a guy ...

For flow and power consumption reasons, I'm considering making a change for my main system pump from the PCX-55 to the Reeflo Dart. At first glance, it seems that I may be ?doubling? my flow with an 8' head - and potentially consuming far less wattage. I know the spec for the GENX pump (an Iwaki knockoff as far as I can tell) says something like 170W - but my experience has been more like ~220-240W. Currently, I use the pump to feed a manifold that serves my main tank, my skimmer, my fuge, frag ...

Recently I resolved some stray current issues and I wanted to share my experiences so others might benefit from my mistakes and learn some good techniques for current hunting.

About a month ago, I was working in my fish room with my shoes off and went to grab something out of the frag tank and got a fair "zap". The tone of the message wasn't "your life is in danger" - more of the "this might sting a bit" variety. I wasn't afraid to continue working, but ...

I'm wondering if some type of drawable blind is the answer. I like being able to see my aquarium from the fish room side, but I don't like being able to see my fish room from the front of the aquarium. Any descriptions/pictures would be much appreciated!