A giant step in biologically improved water quality was taken with the introduction of wet-dry (aka reef, trickle) filters. Fishes and invertebrates live longer, healthier lives and maintenance is greatly reduced with their use.

Properly constructed and operated wet-dry

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3) Unions and valves that allow you to remove your pump/s w/o draining tanks, sumps... are they important? You bet! And now is the time to draw them in, plan on their purchase and installation. Exercise caution here, as there are a few types of these fittings... you dont necessarily want/need the more expensive higher rated ones, or even types made of exotic plastics, but you DO want "true" unions and "flush" valves... Terminology varies, but Ill try to explain wh

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About Overloading Your Tank:

Many "bad things" can and do happen when a system has too much too soon in the way of wastes to process. In a nutshell, too much ammonia, nitrite or nitrate is outright poisonous to your livestock. Having just appreciable ammonia or nitrite is deleterious/harmful to growing ex

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What could you say about microbiological population dynamics? They are as vigorous and dynamic as the larger life on the reef. Even chemical self-feeders (chemo-autotrophs if youre going on Jeopardy) like the bacteria we want have to look out for competitors, predators, lack of oxygen,

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