Quote:
Originally Posted by
Gemmy http:///t/391731/looking-for-a-protein-skimmer#post_3475752
You can go with the deltec MCE 600 (their customer service BITES!!!) or reef octopus. However, I would wait until you add the sump.
IMO Deltec is one of the best skimmers out there. I am a proud Deltec owner, but I too remember the good ol' days when their customer service was top notch. The big drawback of Deltec is that they are very expensive and their replacement parts are ridiculous. I have an AP851 that I paid about $1200 for. A couple years later the impeller broke and I needed a new one, and I ended up having to pay almost $250 for that one part... 20% of the cost of the skimmer...
Quote:
Originally Posted by bryontn http:///t/391731/looking-for-a-protein-skimmer#post_3475747
how do you cure the live rock? been getting my live lock at local pet store out of one of there tanks.
it will be half and half reef if theres such a thing i like the reef but i want some fish movement in tank. thinking about adding
a koran angle, or a powder brown tang , pair of clowns,and a yellow watchmen goby. as for the skimmer ill probly wait like u suggest. about how long can i wait before i need one.
When live rock is pulled from the ocean, it is covered in life. Only rarely would you find rock that has stayed underwater through the shipping chain to you (and even if you find a supplier who claims it, they have no way to know for sure, so such claims cannot be trusted). When you add it to a tank, much of the life that has died off the rock rots, causing ammonia spikes and water quality issues. This is usually no problem during a new tank cycle, but it can cause serious problems to a stocked tank, particularly one that is not very well established.
Curing it means putting it in a separate system and letting the dead material rot completely away so that this doesn't happen.
You can get away without curing it with a well established aquarium with major biofiltration and very small amounts of added rock, but it's risky.
... risky in that I'd be careful about adding live rock to an existing system period. All sorts of bad things can come in on live rock. Aside from diseases, nuiscance algae like briosis can be an issue. I would always recommend fully loading a new system with live rock from the get go, rather than adding a chunk at a time, because a cycling system with no livestock offers a much better environment to deal with things like nuisance algae.
Personally, I have become a fan of the cleaned and dried live rock you can buy off the internet from various places. Such rock is usually cheaper because no special shipping requirements are needed. If you get it from the right place, it is completely cleaned with a pressure washer to remove all animal and plant remnants on the rock. As your system cycles and provided you stock carefully and slowly, the rock becomes as "live" as it was when it was in the ocean. I set up a 120g reef a few years ago entirely with dried premium fiji rock, that I paid something like $2/lb for, and today, you'd never know that the rock was ever "dead."
