On Wednesday I notice my fairly new eshopps 120 skimmer is not working all that great. It's bubbling a little but it's not going up that far in the cone. So I take it out thinking maybe it needs a cleaning after only a month of use and notice there's a nice crack that looks like it runs in a perfectly straight line - it looks like it cracked on the seam...I call marineandreef.com where I bought it about 50 days ago and they say call the manufacturer...I guess they are in business to make a profit, but they're now off my list of Jerry approved vendors.
Since it looked like there was going to be at least a few days before I could get a new skimmer I figured I better some GFO with my carbon. I get it at my local LFS and read over the directions. Odd, it doesn't have anything I would call directions nor does it mention anything about washing the GFO...now in 15+ years in this hobby it is odd that you would never wash anything but I open it up and the particle size is tiny, so maybe it comes pre-washed...NOPE...my tank literally looks like a car rusted to death in it.
Then as if he were laughing at me, Lawrence publishes beautiful picks of his tank :-( No, it was actually nice to see someone doing awesome on their reef endeavors.
Why do I always second guess myself? Yesterday I called around looking for skimmers after reading boat loads on the web - needless to say I'm confused and I have space limitations. Hoping to upgrade my tank in a year or two, I'm thinking I should get a larger skimmer so I don't have to buy a bigger one later...I'm thinking something like one of the SRO SSS series. Tropical Fish outlet is literally the only store that has them in stock - none of the stores in LA did. So today at lunch I go to pick it up and it is large but will fit. So I get that and some pre-made salt water (I live in an apartment and I don't want to have all the mixing equipment eating up valuable real-estate).
Why do I need salt water? Well I'm hoping a small partial water change will help clean this copper colored coating all over my once beautiful tank AND I will have to partially pull my sump out to put in the new skimmer since I only had my stand built 30" high (wishing I had gone with 36"+).
I also order the nu-clear 530 from marinedepot.com hoping it can clear up the tank (several of my corals and red carpet anemone are looking rough after three days of GFO hell)
I get the new skimmer in and get out the new salter water - I open it up and I'm immediately hit by a foul smell...man I wish I had just bought my salt water from coral collection like I always do - strike two against tropical fish outlet. What was strike one? When I get there and attempt to buy the skimmer and water, my credit card is denied...odd, I just shake it off as I already spent $200+ at marinedepot.com and this is probably a fraud prevention thing. I had another credit card over and what do you know...denied...feeling a bit embarrassed especially after the condescending voice of the lady at the register, I call citibank. They say both charges went through? ***? The owner refused to talk to citibank - I understand, there was literally just a case with this exact thing where they guys would call themselves and dupe the store owners, but the citibank rep knew the tax-id number and all. After being rude to citibank, the rep agrees to just refund both charges. The guy still wouldn't believe me the issue was on his end, so he confidently attempts to charge his credit card twice - both denied ;-) So he does it through paypal and I get my skimmer and smelly water.
The new skimmer was doing great when I first plugged it in and didn't have the main return on - it looked like it was gonna skim the GfO dust right out but when I turned the main pump the skimmer went crazy (to be expected I guess but I had that glimmer of hope that it would work beautiful)
Anyways, the nu-clear 530 is working like a champ - the water actually went from a very dusty, hard to see anything to almost crystal clear in just under two hours.
It looks like some of my corals are goners and my rhomboid wrasses (from Lawrence oddly enough) pulled a kamikaze - I'm assuming they didn't like the brown water. Man, I'm glad the week is over!
Since it looked like there was going to be at least a few days before I could get a new skimmer I figured I better some GFO with my carbon. I get it at my local LFS and read over the directions. Odd, it doesn't have anything I would call directions nor does it mention anything about washing the GFO...now in 15+ years in this hobby it is odd that you would never wash anything but I open it up and the particle size is tiny, so maybe it comes pre-washed...NOPE...my tank literally looks like a car rusted to death in it.
Then as if he were laughing at me, Lawrence publishes beautiful picks of his tank :-( No, it was actually nice to see someone doing awesome on their reef endeavors.
Why do I always second guess myself? Yesterday I called around looking for skimmers after reading boat loads on the web - needless to say I'm confused and I have space limitations. Hoping to upgrade my tank in a year or two, I'm thinking I should get a larger skimmer so I don't have to buy a bigger one later...I'm thinking something like one of the SRO SSS series. Tropical Fish outlet is literally the only store that has them in stock - none of the stores in LA did. So today at lunch I go to pick it up and it is large but will fit. So I get that and some pre-made salt water (I live in an apartment and I don't want to have all the mixing equipment eating up valuable real-estate).
Why do I need salt water? Well I'm hoping a small partial water change will help clean this copper colored coating all over my once beautiful tank AND I will have to partially pull my sump out to put in the new skimmer since I only had my stand built 30" high (wishing I had gone with 36"+).
I also order the nu-clear 530 from marinedepot.com hoping it can clear up the tank (several of my corals and red carpet anemone are looking rough after three days of GFO hell)
I get the new skimmer in and get out the new salter water - I open it up and I'm immediately hit by a foul smell...man I wish I had just bought my salt water from coral collection like I always do - strike two against tropical fish outlet. What was strike one? When I get there and attempt to buy the skimmer and water, my credit card is denied...odd, I just shake it off as I already spent $200+ at marinedepot.com and this is probably a fraud prevention thing. I had another credit card over and what do you know...denied...feeling a bit embarrassed especially after the condescending voice of the lady at the register, I call citibank. They say both charges went through? ***? The owner refused to talk to citibank - I understand, there was literally just a case with this exact thing where they guys would call themselves and dupe the store owners, but the citibank rep knew the tax-id number and all. After being rude to citibank, the rep agrees to just refund both charges. The guy still wouldn't believe me the issue was on his end, so he confidently attempts to charge his credit card twice - both denied ;-) So he does it through paypal and I get my skimmer and smelly water.
The new skimmer was doing great when I first plugged it in and didn't have the main return on - it looked like it was gonna skim the GfO dust right out but when I turned the main pump the skimmer went crazy (to be expected I guess but I had that glimmer of hope that it would work beautiful)
Anyways, the nu-clear 530 is working like a champ - the water actually went from a very dusty, hard to see anything to almost crystal clear in just under two hours.
It looks like some of my corals are goners and my rhomboid wrasses (from Lawrence oddly enough) pulled a kamikaze - I'm assuming they didn't like the brown water. Man, I'm glad the week is over!
