im 99% sure that is correct. look up the chiller. it works more efficiently with the correct amount of flow in gph, yous may not have that.
Yeah, I've been wondering if the flow through it is too weak.
not necessarily true. system may be out of balance w light and nutrients, ive seen worse.
Well, that's an interesting topic to me....and an intimidating one. As I've seen posted many times, it seems there are as many ways to make this work with a tank as there are hobbyists out there. And that makes it harder, not easier to know what you need to do if things are not working. But one thing I'm certain of--I had some seriously crappy lights up until recently. I started with a JBJ 28g nano cube with some insufficient advice from an LFS. A couple or so months later I met this guy through Craigslist who was selling equipment, fish and corals out of his garage in Santa Clarita (you said you don't know where I live--not too far from you--I'm in Porter Ranch, next to Northridge; I go out once in a while to Ultragem in your neck of the woods). My wife saw a 50g cube in his garage and she loved the look of it and was seriously asking him about the cost, as if she was ready to buy it (I was thinking, "Did an alien take over my wife's body, who is this person standing next to me?"). She didn't like the stand it was on, so she asked him about some other tanks and we eventually ended up with this 100g cube and the guy setting it up and doing service on it every 2 weeks. I eventually had a falling out with the guy and was suddenly put into the role of having to know a lot more than I did at the time (I had been doing a lot of reading and checking on things even while he was taking care of the tank, so I started to become aware of some things and that and a power strip failure while we were on a 4-day trip led to the falling out).
He had installed two ecoxotic light strips....one blue and one blue and white. Jeez were they crappy. I got two t-247 LED fixtures by Ocean Revive a few months ago.....actually from Ultragem when they were having a sale. I finally installed them a month or so back and it has made a big difference too. I'm hoping in the future to add an Aruba Sun retrofit dual t5 fixture from Hamilton Technology on each side of the LED's with a blue and actinic in each one.
I doubt it. Always check ammonia. a bio pellet reactor with the incorrect flow may also produce sulfur.(rotten eggs) from bacteria die off. disease is always in question. And it did take me some time to get acclimation down pat,
I have had the acclimation process down pretty good after learning the hard way and through some things I read on the forums. With the fish I've lost, it's been more after 2-3 weeks and the fish eating fine. And I went really slow with the biopellets process (and I lost fish well before that was introduced). It's possible that my female clown and/or the melanurus wrasse suddenly decided to be jerks. I've seen them go after a couple of fish right away in the past, but usually if they show no interest in a fish at the start of introduction, they don't appear to be doing any bullying with it. But who knows, maybe they change their minds sometimes. I do use an acclimation box for a few days before introducing new fish, to allow the new fish and the current ones to get comfortable with each other.....and I think it helps the new fish get the "smell" of the tank inundated on them, so that they are seen less as foreigners invading the space of the current residents.
I would like to set up a QT, but it's hard getting the wife to be ok with the idea of having another tank be put into service, even just periodically, not to mention trying to find a good place where there's space in our house
excellent.
very very good idea.
in some systems increased bacterial populations are used to reduce nutrients through skimming with bio pellets. a perfectly good strategy. I can get some folks who have insights into tht if youd like.
im a refugium guy. Pods will live of in just a DT. or rock in the sump.
Yeah, I like the idea of adding a refugium--particularly as I described above....where I have it outside of the stand cabinet, in plain view, with some attractive macro algae and anemones and a few interesting critters to watch. It can serve several good purposes. I tried populating the DT with copepods several times in the past, adding them numerous times at night--I even created a rubble pile in the back corner to help them have a safe place to reproduce. And for a few weeks, I even grew my own and added them regularly, because I had a ruby red dragonet that I was trying to make sure would survive (the LFS I bought him from showed me they had gotten it eating Cyclops, but I wasn't sure it would be able to survive with just that). But I think my Melanurus Wrasse was just doing too much eating of the copepods and reducing them to practically nothing during the course of each day. That's why I thought it would be good to try to keep the copepods going in a refugium, separate from the DT.
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also nothing wrong with an auto feeder in the day with QUALTY pellets and meaty food at night.
Yeah, as long as I can make sure that the nitrates and phosphates don't get too high.....again, why I want to add the refugium with macro algae....and I figure that if the macro algae does too good of a job, I can turn down the biopellet reactor's output--it's a recirculating one, so it has valves that I can use to adjust the flow in and out of the reactor chamber.
on fish. really QT is a good idea. Live rock small tank hob filter. observe. you never know where the fish has been.
Yeah, as I said above, I do like the idea of it and have wanted to do that for quite a while......to help the new fish with less initial stress as well as treatment for parasites, if nothing else, and to protect the current fish in the DT from getting a disease.
what are your no and PO right now.
I haven't checked them recently--I'll check it tonight and let you know. I think they're pretty low--I can tell by how some of my corals look--I notice that the Euphyllia and Goniopora particularly show the effects of that right away in my tank.....they start retracting and shrinking up.
most folks, you may know, instead of Y's and tubes use a manifold and valve system.
