Recent content by alabrew

What about the copper pipes under the house? Are you suggesting that I remove all the copper plumbing - I would have to replace it from the street!

Just got a pH meter and on mixing a new batch of saltwater (IO) I noticed that the pH is only 7.8. Shouldn't it be more like 8.2? Anyone else notice this? I don't suppose that it would change the pH of the tank too much because of the volume, just curious.

Don't assume that since you don't see anymore that they are all gone. I've found the copperband to be a good long term method. When all were gone, I took him back and traded him in only to have more pop-up over several weeks. I still find more of the little *astards in the tubing and sump and...

The "big black rectangle thing" is the float. The bulkhead mounts just above the desired water level in your sump and is connected to the make-up water container. When the level of water in the sump drops, the float moves down with it, opening the hole in the bulkhead, allowing make-up water to...

Can't beat the Kent float valve - simple and reliable gravity feed. I have a plastic container that I put a tube from the bottom of it to the float valve. If the container runs out of water, it doesn't continue to try to pump. The plastic container is 18 gal. and it will run over 1 week on my 90...

FWIW, I have had a Purple and Desjardini together in my 90 gal for over 6 months. No real bad fighting since introduction. If I remember right, the Desjardini went in first. Sometimes they swim together, sometimes they swim alone, and sometimes they swim at each other. They are just like...

I was in the asian market the other night and found "seafood soup base" in the frozen food section. I has shrimp, octopus, squid,??... in it. I was thinking that I could defrost it and add it to the blender/food processor and make my own fish food. It was only $3.00 for 1 lb. Has anyone tried...

Looks like you guys saved me $70. I was getting ready to upgrade to the turbo. Can a beckett make it skim better? I have looked for one at the LHD (local Home Depot) but they are not stocking them. On a side note, how do you clean these things? I have run mine for several years and have...

Wanted to pass along that I found 2 different RO systems on sale at my local (Birmingham, AL) Sears store for $99. Both have storage tanks, I bought the one with the 2 gallon tank. It is rated at 6 gal/day and 5 gal waste for each gal of pure water. It has both a prefilter and a postfilter of...

I'm getting good coralline growth on the glass, but have not beeen seeing much on the rocks. Is there a "trick" to contoling where the algae grows?