MIKE! well im still waiting on the guy to ship... he says he can ship it within the month but im still waiting. if he doesnt ship by the 30th i'll be looking elsewhere with scott.. but either way... i want to replace my rays... i gave up on canister filters. i simply use them as Secondarys now and currently build the sumps like you told me. i have 55 gallon sumps on all 3 of my tanks and a fx6 on each of them as a secondary. WITH sponge filters... for my ray tanks.. i dont know how but i lost my rays 2x the same way. I do a water change and then they curl and die. i check the water, everything is fine until the nitrate... which gets to around 20.. which hasnt happened before. both times happened in the summer which pisses me off about my town's water supply. i made a post about this recently where i lost a bunch of my stock because there was something wrong with my town water and spiked my tanks. i now always use double the amount of seachem safe to make sure...
HAHA I think the entire tristate is on the prowl for nice marbles. I'm with you bro...canisters should be used in addition to sumps for monster tanks.
Have you ever thought about aging your water? 1-2 days with a powerhead or air stone should facilitate in the removal of any unwanted metals or chemicals in the water. I've heard of several mystery deaths these past few months and it kinda makes you wonder...ever water change is russian roulette. I'm blessed because my town is very transparent with water quality issues.