Recent content by scottnj

Originally posted by bigmac What would those troubles be? Mac, Not referring to your system, but to your comments on how a poorly put together auto top off can cause problems. Be it flooding the tank outright, not replenishing when its supposed to, etc. As I said, it sounds like you put a...

Big Mac, sounds like you have a lot of fail safes built in. I agree, they are great, but can also cause all sorts of trouble. As mentioned on my set-up I use dual float switches for a fail safe. I would love to have it all hooked to a RO/DI unit to supply water, but thats a bit too lofty at...

Jack, There are a few options and your not all that far off. I assume by the bucket your talking about one filled with fresh RO/DI water to top off the tank right? Then you have a few options: You can sit the water container above the sump and let it gravity feed down through an airline tube...

Thomas, Ya know that makes perfect sense. And I did the same thing when building my stand, why oh why can't floors be prefectly level lol. I opted not to put plywood under the tank though and set the tank direcly on the 2X4 beams. So far so good. ;-) -Scott

Turtles in a marine tank, not a good idea. Hawksbill and others all get very large. They have two Hawksbill's in the Aquarium at Epcot center in Orlando that are in the 4 ft range and who knows what they weigh. And yes they are awsome. As others said, most are also endangered and considered...

Smitty, Sounds like some great ideas, and well after reading all them books you will have lots more ideas and questions. ;-) I agree with some of the others and would say ditch the power filters and go with a sump / fuge set-up instead. The cost will probably be the same or less and you...

Bang, do you always disagree with me or what? For what its worth I have never seen a definition of Lumin that says anything about the human eye. Rather its a measure of the luminous flux in a specified area given off by a single candle. A Lumen is defined as the luminous flux emitted in a...

J-Cal Another option depending on what you want to keep in the tank would be to see if you could fit a couple of VHO bulbs to suppliment the existing PC's. The workhorse 7 or 5 ballast is a pretty economical solution. -Scott

Non technical answer, wattage is a measure of the usage of electricity the bulb uses, how much energy it takes to run the bulb. Household bulbs are measured in Watts for some reason and its what most people are used to, but also why you will see bulbs listed as 15W bulbs with the output of a...

Nas, Makes sense on the HLLE. Again, I could certainly see having a live electrical field in the tank causing HLLE. Someone mentioned once before that they had a probe and when they stuck their hand in the tank they felt a shock similar to that of a 9 volt battery. My guess there is the...

Plan it out a bit and its not all that bad. First thing I would do is get a larger rubbermaid container in the new townhouse (congrats by the way) and mix up some new salt water so that you will have it when you need it. I would also move as much of the water as you can, 60-70% at least...

I had a smiliar problem with a prizim, it may be that the air hole is blocked or clogged with salt. I would take the water intake tube off, and then try blowing through the air tube to see if air is passing. If not, you can try soaking it in warm water, maybe even with a little vinigar in it...

Distilled water is basically a process of boiling the water and collecting the steam, leaving what is not water in the boiler. Older distilling equipment commonly used copper tubes which could cause you to have some copper in the final product. From what I have been told, its pretty rare today...

Not sure why you would use it only if you had a tang. Some people use them some don't. Basically its a grounded probe that sits in the water and is attached to a grounded source. The idea is to prevent electrical current in the tank from shorts in power heads, heaters, etc. My take on it is...

Bang, Thanks for the fix. :) -Scott