Recent content by doughpat

Update--swapped out the old ballast with a new one and everything works great. Sweet.

Hi everyone, I suspect I have either bad bulbs or a bad ballast. New setup, german endcaps, 4 x 48" new URI bulbs. Plugged it in, ran perfectly, cycled it several times, no problems. 36 hours later, the fuse blows. I put a new fuse in, it immediately blows (no flicker or anything). I...

What will they come up with next... http://www.reuters.com/news/video/video ... eoId=55646 Seriously--I'd love to see a schematic for how these things keep 300 degree oil above 70 degree water without spattering and heat transfer. It looks like they must have some kind of buffer layer, or...

Also consider the running temperature of your tank, both night and day. During the day, for example, I could get by without a heater, but at night the 500w titanium heater (Won Brothers, digital controller, very good unit for the price) kicks in. Its a 240 gallon tank. It actually makes me...

Cheapest pump (in housing) that I could find: Aqua Medic SP 3000 from Marine Depot. 90$, seems of ok quality. I've never really examined a good peristaltic pump, but this one does the job. Not the smoothest (sometimes the shaft "shudders" on startup), but hasn't ever performed poorly. It...

Hold on a second...you wait MINUTES between parts 1 and 2 of B Ionic? Uh oh. I wait, oh, maybe 10 seconds (basically as long as it takes me to rinse out the measuring vial and open the next jug). I pour them into my overflow, where theres tons of flow, and I usually see the alkalinity part...

I've got a two stage float switch from autotopoff.com, connected to a cheap peristaltic pump which pulls water from a 55 gallon drum in a room about 30 feet away. The hose (1/4" polyethylene--freezer line) goes from the sump, into the wall, up to the ceiling, across the room, then down out of...

Its amazing what a 1 point difference in pH will make. At 7, almost no dissolution occurs, but at 6.2-6.4, you've got pretty significant solubility. Ahhh...the beauty of logarithmic scales.

I've kept crushed coral in the bottom of my RO resevoir for a long time now, with the thought that the neutral(ish) pH of the purified water would dissolve a small amount of the crushed coral, due to the solubility of CaCO3 at low pH. I have no idea how much *actually* dissolves, I imagine...

The science is clear that carbon emissions are raising the average temperature of the earth. There really is no question about that--the real question is: do we spend our resources trying to curb global warming, or do we use those resources to adapt to the inevitable changes that this warming...

This is totally unsubstantiated, but I have a feeling that there are defense chemicals released during fragging that aren't good for neighboring corals. I remember cutting apart leathers, putting them back in the tank, then noticing that some of the other corals looked a little irritated...

Wow....very very nice. Details on your setup! Please!

Good point--I'm sure the pump will run dry from time to time. I seem to remember a really inexpensive peristaltic pump...

Thanks. I was thinking maybe the Mag 7 for a cheaper alternative. How do persistaltic pumps deal with head pressure?

That is an interesting point--blue pieces (which are, IMO, the real eye candy in coral colors) look pretty lame under the 20k's. But the overall tank sure looks brighter/more colorful under the 20's.