siwelk Posted March 29, 2008 Share Posted March 29, 2008 hey stevie, have you noticed an increase in your 9002s performance yet? Link to comment
StevieT Posted March 29, 2008 Author Share Posted March 29, 2008 hey stevie, have you noticed an increase in your 9002s performance yet? yeah, it collects way more now, but it still has a wetter skimmate which is no big deal. A little thicker in the neck of the cup. It will collect 1/4 cup every 2-3 days. It kicks the stock skimmers ass. Link to comment
siwelk Posted March 29, 2008 Share Posted March 29, 2008 cool, i wasnt sure if mine was operating up to par but it seems to collect about that much over the course of a few days. Link to comment
StevieT Posted March 29, 2008 Author Share Posted March 29, 2008 great. I have about 1/8-1/4" or so collection right now. I did a water change and cleaned out the cup at 6pm yesterday. I really like this skimmer a lot. Link to comment
siwelk Posted March 29, 2008 Share Posted March 29, 2008 me too. its probably the best purchase ive made thus far. Link to comment
lemmy_01 Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 Ok Steve I took your advice and read your entire forum finally lol. It took all night at work ( I work from 7pm to 7 am) But in the end I think it was time well spent. Now I have a few more questions for ya. When you said you got the Skimmer with the magnets already attached, does that mean that there are two seperate models. Cuz i looked for em on the net and it just talks about the type with the hanger. Also about the skimmer. What made you decided it wasnt working correctly. I know you said it only collected around the throat and all but did you start seeing probs with the fish and corals or did you just want more skimmate to collect in the cup. Like Pinky said if there is nothing to take out of the water it is not gonna collect in the cup. I mean if I can save the 150 and 15% water changes every two weeks I may just do that for awhile. You seem to have your frog spawn pretty close to some zoos. From researching on the net I thought you had to give alot of room (as much as six inches) for them not to sting your other corals. I also wanna know about the carbon filter. I am currently not using anything in the third chamber. I have read alot of things that say the live rock is all that is needed for filtration. I use the sponge to get out the floaters and the protein skimmer to get out the rest of the crap. I have also been told to just throw it into the flow for a couple days if you need it but I'm not sure how to know if I need it. Do I just need to watch the ph and such to know when to toss it in somewhere? Here is a little more about my tank and setup. I bought the tank on march 2. I filled it with tap water and put in 25lbs of LR that had been at the LFS for about 6 months cycled and 20 lbs of live sand. It took 5 days to cycle. I put in the clown and CUC on the 7th. I added the xenia and the blenny on the 13th. The clown was trying to mate with the blenny so on the 26th i put in the second clown and the 3 pieces of zoos a friend gave me. Not sure when I put in the star polips but it was soon after the blenny was added. I have also added 20 more lbs of live rock and the plate coral. So far all is real well. I have only had one hermit crab die off so far and my pepperment shrimp has already shed (er what ever it is called) twice. I am just loving this tank. Thanks for the help so far i am sure there will be more questions to come. Link to comment
Bonsai Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 Steve, Are your GSP growing on an island that you created for them, or have they spread to the sand? I have a small frag of GSP, and I'm wondering if I need to attach the small frag (which is currently a tiny island) to a larger piece of LR in order to make a larger island ... Jason Link to comment
StevieT Posted March 30, 2008 Author Share Posted March 30, 2008 Steve, Are your GSP growing on an island that you created for them, or have they spread to the sand? I have a small frag of GSP, and I'm wondering if I need to attach the small frag (which is currently a tiny island) to a larger piece of LR in order to make a larger island ... Jason I have always kept this large frag of GSP on the sand. It expands outwards on its own creating a skeleton. I do not want it to touch my live rocks becuase once it's on there, it's hard to get off. To create frags for sale I have a few pieces of live rock rubble undneath the edges and am waiting for it to grow over them. Link to comment
StevieT Posted March 30, 2008 Author Share Posted March 30, 2008 Lemmy- I decided the skimmer did work, becasue it didn't work. I have run another tank before this and had a remora nano. I knew what a skimmer should be taking out of the water, and the stock skimmer wasn't cutting it at all. It is designed to fail, don't let Pinky tell you different. I haven't changed one thing and the new skimmer is pulling stuff out of the water, where the stock skimmer was not. Yes you could get by with the 10% water changes every week, i still do those, haven't missed one yet. But once you see what a skimmer pulls out, you don't want to run a reef without one. Pinky is just blowing smoke up everyone's ass if she says that is the case, this is my only bark I have with RS over this great tank. They are tyring to defend a failed piece of equipment, you are better off removing it, building a fuge, and saving your self the headaches from a massive skimmer that does absolutley nothing. Apparently my skimmer came with magent mounts instead of the brackets. Guess I got a different one, but it didn't matter, i still would have used magnets to mout it anyways, everything in my tank is attached somehow with them. My frog is getting closer to those zoas as it gets bigger. But it shrinks up at night and in the day I have never seen it extend any stingers. If it were to sting the zoas I would move it, but for now so good. The zoas are acutally a frag I made and can be moved rather easily, they are growing on an old skeleton of a coral that died, i can move them anywhere in the tank. I love chemi-pure, i preach by the stuff. It is insurance in my tank and it keeps the water crystal clear, i honesly would drink it if it wasn't fill with salt. You don't need to run carbon, but it doesn't hurt and can save your tank from chemical warefare from corals, nitrate spikes, ph flucuations. It is called a Molt when a shrimp sheads it's skin. WOW, you are moving rather fast, I hope you tank is going to be ok. You needed to cycle for much longer than 5 days on your first batch of rock and why did you use tap water? Then you added another batch of rock which will surely cause a mini cycle, adding all that bio load and corals, not the best way of doing things. Either way, watch your peram very very close, no more tap water! Link to comment
Oceanic 30g Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 Stevie... I know it is in here somewhere, but I forget where.... I messed around with the water levels a bit trying to clean up the sandstorm. How do you get it to skim again? Water 1/4 from the black plastic at the top and the screen where? Link to comment
Formatsreef Posted March 30, 2008 Share Posted March 30, 2008 Stevie the tank looks great Link to comment
StevieT Posted March 30, 2008 Author Share Posted March 30, 2008 yep, you need to lower the water level just a bit. Around 1/4" maybe a little less, but more is better is some cases. If that doesn't fix it all the way nudge up the surface skimmer grate cover about 1/4" as well. I have a nice line of coralline marking where it is supposed to be at. It will skim the surface nicely if you keep it at that level. Stevie the tank looks great thank you!! I enjoy it more every day as things are growing rather fast. Link to comment
Oceanic 30g Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 Thanks Buddy. I was not able to get my rock this weekend. I may have to wait until Friday. Link to comment
HankB Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Hi SteveT, As we proceed towards purchase of the actual tank, I have been surreptitiously buying other stuff. So far SWMBO has not complained. I've got the book (which she is enjoying), test kits, rubber gloves, Koralia 2, refractometer and last night I bid on an RO/DI system... I just can't get her to go along with the tank itself until she gets her bonus. I notided that you are using Purigen and Chemi-pure in your filter. How did you come to the decision to use this sort of filtration? (chemical adjuncts vs. live rock, skimmer etc.) Did test results or behavior of your tank inhabitants indicate they wanted cleaner water? Or was this something that you used in your previous tank and kept on using it? Once you decided to use something like this, how did you come to choose these products? And keep up with the pictures as we enjoy them too. I have the itch to post something too. thanks, hank Link to comment
StevieT Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 hank- you're getting there, but the tank is the main thing, hope for the bonus soon! I think you are doing this really smart. I went with chemi pure because of my past experience with the product in FW and my old SW tank. I love the stuff. A SW tank can be run with all natural filtration and a skimmer, but these products are deffinetly an insurance package. The chemi pure really makes your water crystal clear, I would drink it if it wasn't made of salt! I ran that from the start but was still seeing a little nitrate in the water. I did some research here, and lots run purigen. I put some in and boom, nitrates gone! Now it could have been that my tank matured, but I do beleive in the purigen. Now you don't need to run them both since they are esentially the same thing, but I feel more comfortable keeping them together. THey also help break down coral toxins and any mistakes in feeding you may have. I made so many mistakes on my old tank, I wanted to do everything correct from the start on this one. Link to comment
Oceanic 30g Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 I ordered the rock from Premium Aquatics. If it isn't good, I am blaming you. Link to comment
StevieT Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 blame away, i hope yours comes full of disease and aiptasia Link to comment
Oceanic 30g Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 Do you still have your eclipse? I am thinking about doing a nanocube 6 or something at work. Something really small. Link to comment
StevieT Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 No, I sold off every piece of equipment that I could get money for and chucked the actual tank, it was really scratched up. It was a nice thing to see that junk go out the door. I have a FW tank at home, and then the SW at work Link to comment
snake plissken Posted April 1, 2008 Share Posted April 1, 2008 StevieT - refresh my memory...do you have your chemi-pure and pruigen in a canister filter? or did you stuff everyhting into the chamber of death? (far left chamber below the return pumps) Link to comment
StevieT Posted April 1, 2008 Author Share Posted April 1, 2008 no, no canister filter! I have the chemi pure currently in the chamber of death the purigen is attached to a sponge in the first chamber via zip ties, it kind of hangs in the middle. In the future I am planning a media basket in the first chamber, since i have room now with a TUnze. It will house in order from top to bottom Floss Sponge chemi pure puigen Link to comment
Oceanic 30g Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 The liverock in the pic on page 1... That is 20 pounds? Link to comment
StevieT Posted April 2, 2008 Author Share Posted April 2, 2008 yes You can see what was in the eclipse before, added that to what is in on the cardboard, you can see what it looks like inside the tank. came from PA.com Link to comment
Oceanic 30g Posted April 2, 2008 Share Posted April 2, 2008 I am glad I took your lead and bought 40 pounds. The instructions for the max say 24 pounds. I was going to do 30 or so.... Link to comment
StevieT Posted April 2, 2008 Author Share Posted April 2, 2008 they actually say that! that is just no enough rock, even more so than filtration you will run out of room fast to attach corals to. 40 lbs seems to be just enough so that you still have some room on top to have corals grow vertically Link to comment
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