That's a big pain with the salt issue.

I'm going to dissagree about vacuuming to the bottom. As far as I know much of the benneficial bacteria is growing on the surfaces of the gravel and when you siphon out all the gunk enough of them remain to quickly grow back to origonal levels. That gunk on the other hand can cause the bacteria to get overwealmed if not cleaned out well enough.

I say grow live plants and you'll have less hassles with water perameters.

PK, on your RENA intake, what/where are/did you using/get the for a sponge? Lol Petsmart sells crap for sponges. I rigged some freaking media bags for a couple intakes but I'd rather use something dark and small on the rena intake. -.-

I've actually never bought a sponge filter. I get them out of aquarium store garbages and from a guy who unloaded thousands of dollars worth of aquarium supplies for $240.

The ones I use are cilyndrical and dark, almost black, in color and they come with a hole so it's easy to slip over an intake. I've also rigged block shaped sponge by cutting and ripping open a hole so that I could slip it over an intake, and I've found cylinders that are open all the way through and I've just tied a string around the open end so the sponge could work.

These sponges have holes about a mm wide and are commonly found as exter biological material in hob and canister filters. They're usually black, but sometimes white in color.

I'm surprised Petsmart doesn't sell these things. If you look inside canister filters there is usually a bunch of this inside.

Whatever shape you can find it can always be cut or modified.

Hope this helped.

Yes. I go to strictly aquarium stores and look in their garbage. I've found perfectly good PC lights, large bags of unused charcoal, giant clam shells, dead coral for decor and water minerals, aquarium wood, all sorts of chemicals that maybe have been used once, and even whole tanks. Many aquarium stores service private home aquariums and end up with a bunch of used stuff they have not the room for, so they throw it away. That's where I come in.

The employees at the stores in my area all know me and know I search their dumpsters so it's cool.