:lol: Thats what I thought. Kool looking overflow. But scary. There be boogins in der.

Oh Hulk up and just slam your gloveless hand into your sump; right to the bottom! Come on, prove you're tough :)

Actually I envy you; you're blessed with an abundance of various marine life that grows wild in your tank. My tank doesn't have anything I didn't deliberately put in other than a chiton and one or possibly two pistol shrimp I hear from time to time. I put some coral in yesterday that had a couple mini-stars tucked away on the bottom so maybe that will increase my bio-diversity.

this seems like a good time to resurrect this while we look back on your overflow's varied appearances.

http://fishbrains.net/images/93/drugs.jpg

I need to do the same to my overflow box, it looks much the same. If I could just vacuum up the mud on the bottom and let the featherdusters be I would but they are so delicate that it's impossible.

I've kind of given up on being nice to them in my sump, I take my floor pump and vacuum up the detritus that settles in there. The pump sounds like a blender and it's nasty but I don't know what else to do about it. That amount of mud settling on the bottom has to be harboring the baddie nutrients.

On Saturday I tried to use a turkey baster to clean out the mud from my 65g's sump but the H2S smell it released told me to stop and just empty out the whole thing and clean it at the sink. I didn't even do the skimmer but it needs a powerscrub as well but it was already hours of my life as it was.

I shudder at the thought of eventually doing the same to my big tank's sump. I'm hoping that that water change vacuum trick lets me push that particular task back for a while for the time being..

When it rains..
 

and in case anyone was curious what a leaky 2" gate valve looks like, it looks a lot like this..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...ps9ljgyazl.jpg

In other news, I'm looking for suggestions on how to possibly repair a leaky gate valve. It's leaking at the handle's shaft. I tried to screw in the handle tighter but that didn't seem to help. I did manage to turn it into a position that seemed to stop the leaking but if I move it in any direction from this point it'll start leaking again :sad:

You need to stop water going to the valve. Then unscrew the large nut under the handle. There is a gland usually there that will stop the water from coming out.
If you are lucky, its an O ring and you need to replace, otherwise, might be a proprietary rubber seal.
First try tightening that large nut under the handle. It should be snug, don't overtighten.
After replacing the hopefully, O ring, smear just a little silicone on the rubber. Always makes them last longer.

Thanks for that! I will have to see if I'm brave enough to operate on the valve..

+1 on the waterboy reference.

Coral pics.
 

For all you top-down photo haterZ (you know who you are), here are some random non-top-down photos I took this evening. All taken under 22K T5s only (my evening lights), and the water is a bit dirty from my new goby kicking up my dust bed.

Electric Orange Mushrooms.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7352/1...937f8e8c_o.jpg

Coral Master's Rainbow Stylophora.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2887/1...6360de04_o.jpg

Tyree Undata.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2870/1...59d38df8_o.jpg

No-Name Favia

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2871/1...6785e5b8_o.jpg

Sunset Monti.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7412/1...c8054c19_o.jpg

One of Two Ponape Birdnests.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3755/1...9a9c8be0_o.jpg

Second Ponape Birdsnest in another location (beside a Poker Star Monti)

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3829/1...f865398f_o.jpg

blastos.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7111/1...e8320f32_o.jpg

bubble coral.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3831/1...8728827d_o.jpg

Plane Jane Green Stylophora

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2859/1...b1241b18_o.jpg

Duncans.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3724/1...8e5f3abb_o.jpg

Purple Stylophora

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7310/1...1446a162_o.jpg

Red Goniopora.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7173/1...1b1fdd96_o.jpg

more pics.
 

a plate coral (fungia) that's closing up shop for the evening.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7244/1...69ba106b_o.jpg

Dual Colour Octospawn

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7402/1...b9b43ff7_o.jpg

Yellow Frogspawn

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7116/1...71d62503_o.jpg

Orange/Maroon-ish hammer

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7052/1...a0b199d2_o.jpg

Gold Hammer

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2864/1...ca2abdeb_o.jpg

Rainbow Montipora (but you wouldn't know it because it's only got the rainbowy colours on its growth edges and this thing is massive so it just looks like a poker star monti with an orange fringe)

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2833/1...fcb54553_o.jpg

My klepto pink urchin

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2880/1...09ef17ce_o.jpg

Blue Reef Lobster

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7322/1...b9e2a774_o.jpg

FTS

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3705/1...b8b46f2b_o.jpg

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7368/1...cf5655f9_o.jpg

Damn thats sweet

That's a nice tank,Kien!i love the aquascape...

Awesome pics dude

Looks like some cheap gate valves need replacing :rolleyes:

Note to self - don't cheap out, or am I wrong ...
I won't harrass you about them, but I think those are crap.
I have a hate-on for those valves :smile:

those mushrooms sure brighten that side of the tank. awesome!

Nice fish tank you have there

Thanks guys !

Well, my wallet didn't think that they were that cheap. I just bought whatever my LFS had and they look the same as all the other gate valves I've seen around :noidea: which non-cheap valve are you using ?

Won't the reef lobster eat fish? I love those things but have always been scared. And they get to be a foot long don't they?

Nice pics! Is that lobster edible?

Well, according to LiveAquaria they are peaceful and reef safe with caution, which is pretty much the same as everything else I've put in my tank. So far I haven't observed him trying to eat any of my fish. He scavenges and picks stuff out of crevasses, frags, corals, etc. I do realize that he does have the potential to eat my fish but I find it hard to believe that he will since his pinches are pretty small. He doesn't have large pinchers like typical red lobsters have. Heck, I have a couple of acro crabs that have much larger pinchers than he does, and they are 1/8 his size.

And yes Wayne, I'm hopping to fatten him up! He has molted once every couple of weeks for as long as I've had him now. Summer BBQ season is almost here!

REEF RAFT!!!
 

Dear Stanley,

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psclmv9qpe.jpg

EAT IT, BOI!!

Lol this is by far the best I've ever seen and it's sunny too for the kicker :mrgreen::mrgreen:

Ooooooohhh snap!!!

That's right, Stanley may have all the nice RR corals but Is he here kickin' it with my hommies down here at THE REEF RAFT?? I don't think so. Dig it.

OMG KIEN, I laughed so hard.... So did are you going to smuggle me some pieces back?? Your vacation was to LA reef raft? I hope you brought some tin foil to pass through airport security scans when you bring me back some of the goodies :)

skimming the skimmer
 

Over the last little while I've been noticing that my skimmer wasn't really pulling much out. At first I brushed it off because I had done some hefty water changes to clean up the tank after that incident with the De-Ionizer. Then I noticed that the skimmer was shooting a heck of a lot of micro bubbles into the tank. It got really bad and so I finally decided to do something about it.

here, have a look!

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...pssjo8kyfq.jpg

Yup, pretty nasty stuff..

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psmexlun2g.jpg

Well, they're just feather dusters but still.. The soft ones with the mucus tubes are pretty gross. No wonder my skimmer wasn't doing jack all.

Here's what the inside of the skimmer looked like.

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...psucyf78sr.jpg

http://i1002.photobucket.com/albums/...pscj6ovx6q.jpg

Needless to say, I was busy all afternoon. Once it was all scrubbed out I gave the pump a vinegar bath for half an hour, rinsed it and put it back on-line. It started to skim just like new!

Wow that's insane, I'm defiantly too anal for that lol I bath my pump like once a month kinda cool tho lol

And that's smart! I'd recommend that everyone do likewise. Unfortunately I'm a lazy reefer LOL.

I'm sure I'll get there lol

Yup! Looks like those little buggers would pre-maturely pop a few bubbles in there eh??

How long did something like that take to build up?

that's crazy. i thought those brown tube worms you have on the outside of the skimmer were in everyone's system but i don't have a single one growing anywhere in mine. i've always had them in previous setups i wonder why.

I think the last time I cleaned out my skimmer was a little over a year ago.

I was just thinking this. I actually got up to go check after seeing those photos. Nothing in my sump or skimmers. I do have one singular XXL feather duster in my sump, but nothing has changed with it in over a year.

i only have a few of the white ones too. all i seem to get are those annoying 1/4" ones that stick out and make all your live rock look like a pincushion. never see any signs that they're alive until i baste my rocks then they throw out their nets.

He'll if anyone wants those feather dusters I have thousands lol same as mine they attach to every darn thing lol

I also have boulder sized rocks and branch rock
covered every inch in yellow sponge good for someone who wants a quick start :)

Woah...that a lot of feather duster worms. :mrgreen:

I think what this amounts to (aside from a butt load of dusters) is the fact that my tank is probably a cesspool of dissolved and particulate organics which the dusters thrive on. Perhaps your tanks are actually clean :biggrin:

lol well you tank looks good so somthing is working

Guy. I don't want to know. If that was my skimmer I would have chucked it and fired up a new one rather than clean that....thing. Just saying.:behindsofa: