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Have you already purchased the apex? I have two for sale. Brand new in the box.

There are usually a few members down that way keeping softies and LPS, so hopefully someone local will chime in and have something that works for your setup. It might also help to post a little more about what kind of lighting and flow you are running, along with what you are actually looking for first, whether that is zoas, mushrooms, leathers, hammers, favias, or something else. That gives people a better idea of what is likely to do well in your tank instead of just offering whatever they happen to have available. If you are willing to drive a little, the club sale and trade section can also be worth checking regularly, and local meetups are often a good way to find beginner-friendly frags without depending entirely on an LFS. You also get the benefit of talking directly with the person who grew the coral and asking how it has been doing in their system. After spending enough time comparing coral varieties, colors, and placement options, I sometimes switch to something completely unrelated like https://asino-casino.com.de/ Asino Casino, where slots can vary by theme, visual style, reel layout, and mechanics, while live games have a very different pace and presentation. The navigation and category layout also make browsing different sections easier. Hopefully someone close to you has a few good starter pieces available.

Welcome to WAMAS, Devin! Sounds like you’ve already got a nice setup going, especially with the Acros bug starting to bite. A 24” cube can be a really fun mixed reef footprint, but I’m sure the 200g+ planning rabbit hole is already getting deep. Definitely keep an eye on the local for-sale sections and meeting threads — bigger tanks and equipment do pop up, and seeing other members’ systems in person is one of the best ways to plan what you do and don’t want. Glad to have another Remington-area reefer here!

Welcome to WAMAS, Devin! Sounds like you’ve already got a nice setup going, especially with the Acros bug starting to bite. A 24” cube can be a really fun mixed reef footprint, but I’m sure the 200g+ planning rabbit hole is already getting deep. Definitely keep an eye on the local for-sale sections and meeting threads — bigger tanks and equipment do pop up, and seeing other members’ systems in person is one of the best ways to plan what you do and don’t want. Glad to have another Remington-area reefer here!

Decamicron can donate a pair as well. Send me a message Garrett

A SCPS coworker is starting up the oceanography program at the new Hartwood HS in Stafford County. Just opened this year. He is setting up a whole slew of 37g tanks for the students (at least 12, maybe more). His plan is to pair the students up and have each of them tend to a tank. Hoping to add a pair of clowns to each tank for his students. Long term plan would include breeding. In the meantime, he's looking for 12 pairs of clowns. Are there any clownfish breeders that would be willing to donate, sell cheaply, to a school? This would be out of pocket for him as the school system won't purchase live animals with taxpayer dollars. I'm donating a pair of clowns already to the endeavor. Hoping to see what else we can put together. Thanks for your support, Garrett.

If someone local can swing by, that is definitely the easiest way to get past the first setup. In the meantime, make a short list of what you want the Apex to control first: temp, return pump, heaters, ATO, lights, dosing, leak sensors, etc. That keeps the setup from turning into a spaghetti monster on day one. Also, before anyone comes over, get the account created, Fusion app installed, and have your WiFi info handy. If you post which Apex model you’re getting and what gear you want connected, folks here can sanity check the plan before wires start flying.

Regarding salinity, I highly doubt it. The levels I was at at the ICP test posted were addressed once I got the hydrometer, and they've been pretty much exactly 35ppt since I've adjusted and last checked a couple weeks ago. I also always change 5 gallons a week and an easy 2.5 cups of salt so there shouldn't have been any real swing unless for some weird reason the scoops had something other than "salt" mix (coral pro). ATO has been working as expected also. Is it more possible that I'm just getting weird livestock specific "issues"? I was thinking of getting a couple cleaner shrimp as I want them and also that would be another "test" of sorts but also not trying to throw away $60+ for no reason......

While electricity in the tank can cause issue, yeah it's normally something that doesn't target a specific kind of thing. Your tests show pretty normal but maybe a little low calcium (not the cause of inverts dying.) If you have a multimeter it's not all that hard to check for electricity in the tank, but while disassembling pumps may be more work, checking any magnets for cracks or rust should be easier and if you find something, maybe that's the culprit. Is there any chance the salinity has swung? Like is it a small volume tank with a lot of top off added at once? I've had trouble with inverts in small tanks if the salinity changes 1 ppt per day, especially for consecutive days. While not necessarily the case, if you suspected some metal contamination, you could run Cuprisorb, Metasorb, or Polyfilter as a means to try to bind up some metals in the system. If you end up sending in an ICP and it shows that issue, especially, but also water changes will reduce levels.

I unfortunately know the feeling, it seems like even when we have the ability to do something we can sort of be helpless. I think freshwater dips are usually fairly straightforward, though I think best practice is to try to pH match the source water (usually adding a tiny bit of buffer like kalk or something, but it tends to be very small and I don't know how much it actually matters). Maybe doing like a 5% tank water and 95% fresh water would be close enough. I think the FW dips are generally not that dangerous for a lot of things, but by the time fish are showing issues swimming or orienting themselves, they are typically in dire straights. Animals generally seem to hide injury and pain pretty well, presumably because in the wild they get singled out as easy prey if they show it, so it's often tough to see there's a problem when there's actually time to address it. While no flukes in the FW dip water likely says it wasn't that, I don't know of what may have been the cause or what could have been done. While there is some stress in handling, I doubt the FW dip made things worse, at least.

Thank you. I had thought about posting to humble fish . Facebook groups felt it was probably gill flukes. I had prazipro that expired in 2018, otherwise all I could possibly do at that point was a fw dip or H2O2 dip. Maybe the FW dip was a mistake, maybe I did it wrong, I'm not sure. I felt I needed to do something. I tried to investigate the FW dip container for signs of flukes but I didn't see anything obvious. So I'm conflicted in treating the whole display tank, there is no way I can catch all the fish. Honestly this whole experience was frickin awful. Especially that her last few minutes were in distress.

These are from a few months ago and nothing seems crazy here, but I have been dosing all for reef starting about a month before these results. I did get a hydrometer and the tank water tested at pretty much 35ppt as of a couple weeks ago. I'll probably get another ICP in the next couple weeks. I'd prefer not to dismantle pumps as anything that is a problem might not even be that noticeable anyway. The only other thing that I've heard is potentially a electrical current issue, but it still seems weird that everything seems fine otherwise. I also just did my own water tests today dKh 9.5 Hanna NO3 6.2 Hanna PO4 .31 Hanna Ca 390 Red Sea Mg 1480 Red Sea 2026-09-09-370777-ati.lab.results.pdf

You could do a generic water change, and do check your salinity (and calibrate your refractometer/probe to be sure), I think otherwise the things that would give inverts trouble are often only ICP-detectable, so unless you somehow have copper in your water (would also kill corals), I don't know if there's something to check parameters wise. It's probably good to check magnets and pumps in the tank to see if there is a seam and some leeching metals, but it could be an involved process. I only got pithos once but had one or two losses shortly after shipping - I wonder if they don't ship as well as other crabs.

OK, false alarm on the halloween hermit as It appears I just saw it's molt as I did just see him hanging out next to the clam. Pithos, however, is 100% dead. And still unclear on emeralds, but the last couple I did get definitely died within a week or two. Am I imagining things or is there something to check regarding crab and shrimp deaths that doesn't seem to affect fish or corals or other inverts?

Sorry to hear, it's been my experience that often when something starts to show symptoms of a problem, you either have a very small window to react or it's already too late. In any case, if you're familiar with the forums/information on humble.fish, that is a pretty good community for addressing fish disease and treatment, and may just be a more active place than here. There's also Reef 2 Reef as there are a few people there that are pretty good with treatments and pretty quick to reply. While I don't have any kind of diagnosis for you, one thing I like to keep on hand is methylene blue, as if there are breathing issues/ammonia burn (mostly after transit) on the gills, the extra oxygenation seems to help things a bit, and it's safe to just take normal tank water in a bucket, add a few drops, and let the fish be in there for a while. I've also lost a few in that dip, it's no magic bullet, if it is an oxygenation thing rather than an infection or other stress response, it could potentially help.

It was me! Glad to see you joined the club.

Devin, Welcome to the club. Can't speak to the larger systems like @ReeferMan can as my largest tank is 90g. We've got some good vendors coming to the fall meeting in November as well as some cool fragging tutorials planned. Hope to see you there. Garrett.

So this one might be related to my high phosphate and treating with phosguard recently, but I just bought a pithos crab, a hallowen hermit and two emeralds a couple weeks ago and just now noticed the pithos and the halloween's legs dead. Haven't seen the emeralds, but have had issues with them dying quickly too. I've also had some pepermint shrimp bite it within a couple weeks. I have had a number of other hermits that are (at least I think) still alive and a number of snails in since the beginning. I've got a VERY active pincusion urchin and a clam that's doing well, so I'm not really sure what to make of the situation as it's not just wiping out all inverts.

Thanks a lot ReeferMan! I met someone out in haymarket area gave me chaeto and recommended this group to me.. just took awhile to join ! May have been you lol

Welcome to the club. I am not too far from you in Haymarket and just setup a 464 gallon. We have Reefing USA and our meeting coming up in November. You should come by.

I tried to do a freshwater dip and she passed away. Rest in peace Goldie

Getting an apex and never used one. I’m hoping I can find someone to come help me set it up in person in Ellicott City. Please message me if this is something you can assist with. Thanks Mike

Hey everyone, I’m Devin and just joined WAMAS. I’m in the Remington area and currently have a 24x24x24 mixed reef cube, plus a Waterbox 60.2. I keep a mix of Acros/SPS, LPS, zoas, mushrooms, anemones, fish, and inverts, and I’ve been getting more into Acros lately. I’m also starting to plan for a future 200g+ upgrade, so I’m hoping to learn from some of the bigger-system owners here and keep an eye out for good local tank/equipment deals when the time comes. Looking forward to meeting everyone, seeing local tanks, and hopefully doing some coral trading/buying along the way. AyersReef

My Midas blenny has been breathing heavy and not eating for 24 hours. I was able to easily catch her tonight and put her in an isolation box in the tank. She looks relatively well; body condition looks great, no obvious pellet or sand in her throat or gills, no obvious lesions. She has an old wound that she got a few months ago I believe from her rock and that doesn't look open or sore. She is still mentally there, she keeps moving around the isolation box trying to get comfortable. All other fish are doing well and breathing normally, all equipment is functioning normally. I did do a 20% water change tonight(was already planning on doing one and figured it couldn't hurt too much.) I do have a small 5g tank I could set up and move her to if needed. But I don't even know what, if any, treatments I would try to do. I'm just not sure what I can do for her. Only ever medication I've used on a fish was those safety stop instant quarantine packets (which was a long, long time ago). Other than my clownfish the other fish have come from Marcos at Quantum Reefs and ReefeScape. I have not added any fish since November 2025, and she was one of them at that time. I don't feel she is at the point of euthanizing, but I don't want her suffering. This was her Saturday night https://photos.app.goo.gl/1LnLydb6ePZRqfir6 And this is how I found her tonight https://photos.app.goo.gl/TZ8rWv5BRCHR85Rn9 And she has been in this box for about 4 hours (she looks dark because lights are fading for the night, she has had her normal happy yellow coloring through this whole ordeal.) https://photos.app.goo.gl/Ch73hTpqc1rYo9AEA Please help.

“Why would you want to”