Tips and Tricks

[H.crispa]

I have been thinking about this for a couple days and I thought it might serve us well to have a combination DIY/common problem solving/unique fragging techniques etc. Things you have come up with through insight, trial and error, experience etc that may not occur to everyone. Stuff you think others may benefit from.

Examples like:
Keep your skimmer clean! funk in the neck where the foam rises up is devastating to skimmer efficiency. Also, on some skimmer models adding a double diphragm air pump, rigid airline tubing and one of those "cigarette-looking" air diffusers can improve skimmer function by 3 times. Send me an email if you want to know more detail.

You can increase the output of a maxijet by switching out the impeller from a larger output maxi. (one of my previous posts)

You can overdrive most fluorescent tubes to twice their normal output with just a little research and careful ballast selection.

I.V. drip apparatus make fantastic drip acclimators for sensitive inverts. (know any doctors???)

I can go on and on but I really want to know what everyone else has to offer.

[LowCel]

Good topic. Here are a few that I use.

A turkey baster is the best thing to use to remove detrius from rocks and corals.

Superglue gel is a fraggers best friend.

AquaMend epoxy from Home Depot doesn't make your skimmer go nuts. Plus it's less than $3 a tube.

Oh, almost forgot buy some cheap tupperware or small buckets. Eventually the wife get's tired of you using her good tupperware to acclimate fish and corals. :rolleyes:

There is a great thread with about a 1000 replies on this same topic somewhere. I'll try to find it and link to it later.

[Lord Nemo]

I got a tip that saves u from a little clean up turn off ur skimmer when adding melafix :hammer: otherwise your skimmer goes crazy and bubbles burst out atop ur collection cup. Sorta cool to watch.. this was a watsed post wasn't it...

[Lord Nemo]

o btw lowcel i seen ur name in the posts a-lot u have to be ron right??? i just found out about this forum today.

[coralreefer]

Glad you found us :wave:

Firefish2020 = Ron

[mickey57]

...Here's a tip.I discovered,this week,while building a kick-butt skimmer that is way over powered with a mg 12.That little air slurping noise that you can just barely hear comeing from your venturis' air line,well I put a little gate valve on the line and the noise was just annoying so I just picked up an airstone and shoved it in the end of the air hose,wala,silence.
....http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/500/19346closeup-of-ventur2.jpg
...........................Mickey...................

[firefish2020]

<center><h2>Welcome Lord Nemo</h2></center>

Glad you found your way to our club :)

[LowCel]

Glad you found us!

BTW, I'm Bruce......nice to meet ya.

Ron is firefish2020.

[H.crispa]

Keep it in the fridge to delay plugging of the nozzle.

Also: If you have a dremmel-- get the flexible shaft for it! After you do that, go to Harbor Freight tools in Cross Lanes and pick up some diamond dust cutt-off wheels. Cuts right through the hardest coral skeleton (and glass, and steel and...) like a hot knife through butter and leaves a nice flat smooth surface for the glue. Absolutely indespensable when fragging those pesky blastomusa, and rock-hard Hydnophora. Also very handy for cutting off the plugs from ORA frags

[Shikaroka]

Woohoooo! Harbor Freight rock!