MachoMarlin

My question to you is, do you have sand in your tank? If you do, DON'T add in the salt directly into the tank. The salt will somehow sink into the sand and dissolve too slowly. You will get low readings in the first day or two and you would probably have continued adding until the desired amount. And just when you think you have got the desired, those that is buried in the sand that dissolve very slowly will continue dissolving. Before you know it, you will have a DEAD SEA! Even constant stirring of the sand will not be very effective way of ensuring this will not happen. We got to learn not to be lazy. What you can do is siphon a small part of your tank water into a pail, add the salt and dissolve it until the salinity is much higher than what you want. Do small dosing ito the tank with all the pumps and powerheads running to do the mixing. Slowly dose until you get close to your desired result, then stop! Wait for an hour or so until it is stable, then check (usually the salinity would have climbed to your desired value by now). If it don't, then continue with smaller adjustment unti you get what you want. Or if it overshoots, adjust with purified water.

Juz passing by.... Your statement may be true, if you look at glass tinting that is mounted on the outside, you are actually deflecting the lighting heat back into the tank, or retained the heat on the glass instead as in cars, right?

Oooooh! That's kinda huge. I tot you've got a trap, I used to cut a mineral water bottle at the top, reverse the top and reinsert the opening back into the bottle body to make it like a trap. Usually the fishes are too big to go in (unless Ghoby and wrasse), put a piece of fish/ prawn in it and half bury the opening into the sand, leaving it overnight. Quite successful for the first couple of crabs, then they got smart and learnt to avoid after awhile. Your 3"er is too big for this trick, you may have to consider a small spear?

Use prawns, any angler will be able to tell you that crabs are suckers to prawns, of course your protein skimmer will have to work like crazy.......... unless your crab have got a pHD in 'Escapology'!

Your Pek Tor (Spinefoot)looks delicious! ....Juz teasing! Nice set up, you do fishing and net casting?

Don't use those East Coast or Changi sand, I used to collect coral sand at west coast 'beach'. as now most of it had become a container port, probably can try the Mac. Donald's side, if it is still accessible. But if you do get them, soak it up for at least a week, with daily change of water and boil it at least twice. That area had become quite polluted and need extra work. The easier alternative is obviously to buy. If you are not talking about those exotic Philippines bead sand (dunno what it's called) the coral sand will only set you back by afew dollars and save alot of hussle, especially you are not driving, believe me!

Can try those for air-con pipings from DIY / Harwareshop. Cheap, good, flexible and waterproof, except it may not be very tight fitting.

Me not an expert/ experienced chap and have not been seriously in touch Marine aquarium for years, but just restarted. In addition to what you have, these are some of my past experiences 1. For artificial - Some made from composite materials for landscapping, that bleeches trace amount of toxic chemicals that when accumulated, will be hazardous to my type of tank, whereby other than siphoning small amount of sea water, I have not changed the tank water for more than 2 years. 2. Dead Rock - Dead / dried organism trapped in the rocks, will rot in the holes. Need to introduce baterials or animals to 'devour' the carcases 3. Live Rock - Quite a lot of parasites, but often good surprises as well, like a 15cm sea worms being the centre of the buffet for my inhabitants!

I am using a smaller unit of Dymax, not too bad, except I mod piping of the pump to suck close from the surface. The Venturi Pumps provided, IMO, are rather heavy power drinker @26W for 1200L

Thx for the welcome. Currently I am still playing with the placements of the tubings and stuff, not really settled down yet as I am still trying to fine tune the placements and it looks quite bare right now. Will post the pix in due time. Cheers.

Very good eating and a good sports fish. Used to have some, once it gets too big, I just released them out at sea during some of my fishing trips.

Hi guys, New to this forum and this is my virgin post. I have a 2 feet marine glass tank with a couple of clowns in them for quite a while, but still not an expert in Marine aquarium. And recently, after my 2ft Redtail Catfish had kicked the bucket, I had actually converted and overhauled my 3' x 2' fiberglass tub into a marine touch pool for Coral Stingray. Currently, I have only live rocks at a corner surrounding the skimmer inlet and outlet and filter inlet, and mostly the whole tub is free open sand bed. Will anyone be able to advise what are the things that may be sensitive in the upkeep of these gracious creature? e.g pH sensitivity, etc... (I have not got the ray yet, but still maturing the whole system) Secondly, besides shrimps (which will definitely be supper for the Stingray), what are the other alternative scavengers that will help in clearing left over crumbs at the bottom? Greatly appreciate all advice and comments. Thx in advance.