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Today we feature our sponsor Chemi-pure.com (Boyd Enterprises). Chemi-pure offers several filtration medias to help filter your aquarium system water, and also offers other media to treat issues such as cyanobacteria. For an easier way to clean your aquarium head on over to their website to learn more and check out the comparison chart page to see which media fits your needs. https://chemi-pure.com/ Thank you Chemi-pure.com for your support!

Featuring our sponsor Two Little Fishies https://www.facebook.com/twolittlefishies Two Little Fishies’ product line includes trace element supplements, calcium supplements, underwater epoxies, phosphate adsorption filter media, and phosphate-free activated carbon. Two Little Fishies manufactures specialty foods for fish and invertebrates, and accessories for aquariums, water gardens and paludariums. Visit their website to learn more and see all they have to offer: https://twolittlefishies.com/ Thank you TLF for supporting the club!

Today we feature our longtime sponsor and VA based manufacture Avast Marine Works. The Avast staff has deep roots in the saltwater hobby and they have applied their years of experience into developing practical products that work in the harsh saltwater environment. If you are in the market to automate your tank feeding or need a device to feed when you are away, check out their industry leading Plank Autofeeder. https://www.facebook.com/avast.marine Thank you Avast for your support!

Summer started two weeks ago. I've been going into the building about 4x per week to check on everything and I've got a few 12 month co-workers feeding the fish on a daily basis. My friend messages me a 0700 and says, something doesn't look right... I've had precipitation events in the past. I knew it was either my ATO w/kalk (unlikely as the tank would be overflowed) or worse, my Part B of 2-part. I checked the Apex and the pH was 9.6. Ouch. Looks like at 0430 my dosing setup had a bit of a snafu. I grabbed the 20g of nsw I had mixed up and headed up that way. My dosing vessel had 400ml of Part A and 0ml of Part B which means 400ml of sodium hydroxide and sodium carbonate got dumped into a 30g system. Yikes! FWIW, it's programed to add 4ml 5x nightly for a total of 20ml. The orchid dottyback decided that he'd take his chances on the floor in lieu of bathing in the diluted household ammonia concoction I had going on. The clowns were alive, the cabbages appeared alive. BTA and mini carpet were definitely not happy and the crocea didn't look good. Snails appeared alive as well. No bueno. Changed out 15g and tossed the survivors into the remaining bucket of NSW to get them home. I've got 5 nano systems at home, one of them with no fish inhabitants so that's where the clowns went. Everything else was dispersed to the other tanks were I felt like they would best fit. The clowns are eating. Nems are looking a bit better. Corals aren't looking horrible, and we'll see about the clam. It's not dead, is photoreactive and isn't gaping. All positives. So, time to figure out the failure point. I started the 2 part dosing about a week ago as the kalk wasn't keeping up with the consumption, and, my ph levels were quite low, hence the sodium hydroxide (solution has a pH of 14 give or take... nasty stuff). The doser was set above the tank as I'm very limited with space on this setup. Best I can figure is that a siphon formed and drained the 400ml. So I'll definitely have to address that. And I think for starters I won't fill my vessels with 500ml for the short term, in case we have a reenactment. 100ml should suffice. I'm mixing up another 20g of nsw now. I rushed out of school to get the survivors home so I didn't change our filter media or carbon. I'll get that taken care of next.

We also give 10% off all livestock to all WAMAS members as well. So happy to be part of an amazing community!!

Hey everyone! We just got in an amazing shipment of fish and inverts in that's been long over due. Below is what we got in and feel free to call if you have any questions at 202-506-5476. Chris Fish: Blue Eye Kole Tang- $75 CB Purple Tang- $325 CB Yellow Tang- $300 Scopas Tang- $60 Powder Blue Tang- $100 Flame Angel- $140 Flametail Blend- $36 Segmented Sailfin Blenny- $30 Copperband Butterfly- $99 CB Banggai Cardinals- $30 Semi Picaso Clowns- $21 Green Banded Goby- $36 Red Head Goby- $36 Firefish- $18 Two Spot Goby- $30 Hector's Goby- $30 Inverts: Colored Commensal Crinoid Crabs- $35 Blood Red Feather Starfish- $100 Pompom Crabs- $27 Red Collar Snails- $6 Pederson Cleaner Shrimp- $36 Sexy Shrimp- $21 Sand Sifting Starfish- $15

Spotlight on our sponsor Capital Exotic Fish. If you live in the District or are in the Metro DC area you need to stop by and check out their selection of fresh & saltwater fish and corals for your display tank. Be sure to check out their website and Facebook page for latest news, sales, and weekly stock lists. https://www.facebook.com/CapitalFishDC Thank you for your support!

Spotlighting WAMAS sponsor Exotic Reef Creations. ERC offers quality saltwater fish that have been through an extensive quarantine process that is unmatched in the DC area. They also can ship fish and corals to your door. Next time you are in the market for fish, corals, or aquarium gear and supplies check out what ERC has to offer. Learn more about ERC's QT protocol here. Thanks for your continued support!

I just bought some a 6 months ago. Personally I don’t see a difference in nutrient levels. But that is just my personal experience.

Spotlighting our sponsor Puddle Aquatics - makers of the Reef Boxx II. What is the Reef Boxx you say: The Reef Boxx is a patent pending automatic backup switch that allows users to connect battery backup in many different configurations. Its what will save your fish in a power outage and is a dream come true for the DIY aquarium keeper. You simply plug in your power brick a battery source of your choosing and then the pump that you wish to back up and that's it. When the power goes out the Reef Boxx will automatically switch over to battery power and when the power comes back on it will automatically switch back. You can even charge your phone while the power is out. Learn more on the Puddle Aquatics website: The REEFBOXX (12/24 Volt) – Puddle Aquatics Thank you for your support of the club!

I'd like to welcome WAMAS' newest Platinum Sponsor: Coral Candy Aquaculture. Based in Alexandria, Brian (the founder of CCA) discovered his saltwater passion while working for an aquarium maintenance company. His passion soon developed into an obsession, leading him to start Coral Candy Aquaculture. His goal: To provide you with the beast quality coral for your reef tank at an affordable price. Visit the website at https://coralcandyaquaculture.com Thanks, Brian, for supporting WAMAS!

Today we wanted to spotlight our longtime sponsor Blue Ribbon Koi and Marine. Whether you are in the market for quality saltwater fish and corals for your aquarium, equipment, or looking for koi for your pond, BRK has it all. Make plans to visit their showroom soon and feed the koi in the holding ponds outside - great fun for the entire family. Thank you BRK for your support!

Coral Candy Aquaculture is donating more Zoas to the July raffle. Thank you Coral Candy for your generous support of the club! Note: picture is representative of CCA Zoas - exact zoas in raffle will be announced at the meeting.

I have two free 40 gallon breeders. Only used for 6 months to QT corals and cure rock. Also free seachem Tidal 55 HOB filter. Only used for coral QT, never had copper. large tank is now running so don't need them anymore and don't have space to keep them. -Rob

Heres the best test kit in my experence . Comes with a reference sample easy to read as well. You have the best situation you can have just dose nitrate until you hit 5 and test weekly with the seachem. If you feed more or add fish then you chase po dont mess up a great thing. My 150 for 10 years had 0 nitrates...had a crash....set up the same way now i dose vinager/sugar to controll nitrates. Every tank even the same tank redone over reacts differently.

Tank looks okay. Decent PE. P04 is 0.12 per Hana checker.

Having a healthy population of nitrifying bacteria is a good thing I'd say. How does the tank and corals look? What is your PO4 level. I wouldn't worry about it if everything looks happy.

U will be fine. I had the same thing happen to me and was worried about the pairing. I got a smaller 1 and they worked it out and paired within a week. But definitely get a lid. If the sleep up near top of water it will happen again.

Could this be considered a good thing?

Keep in mind NO3 is at the end of the nitrogen cycle. Zero NO3 does not necessarily mean you don't have any nitrogen available to organisms via ammonia or nitrite. If you're feeding the tank there is nitrogen being provided and consumed. It's likely bacteria consuming it. Keep in mind they need nitrogen, phosphorous and carbon. 0 nitrate could mean nitrogen is the limiting resource. I'm a proponent of controlling nutrient import and export in more natural ways before resorting to using chemicals. To increase your nitrate adding fish and increasing feeding is the way to go in my opinion. This is the approach I take first. I suppose I'm being a bit hypocritical though, as I use LaCl to keep phosphate in check. My PO4 levels will increase without it if I'm trying to maintain NO3 levels via nutrient import. Another interesting consideration I've heard is NO3 is in the water column and doesn't bind to organic surfaces like live rock, while PO4 does. So PO4 has a sink in a sense, if PO4 in the water column drops it will be buffered via PO4 bound to the live rock. If NO3 in the water column is consumed it would need replaced via import.

I am so sorry. You and yours are in my thoughts

Depends on the stuff, I think, but to get much of an evaluation one way or another, you'll need some magnification. With a flashlight and a magnifying glass, you should be able to see if there's still movement in the water unless the density is pretty low, showing you if there are active rotifers, but really the tool for the job of figuring out whether they are there and what the gunk is, is a microscope. Any other pic or description? Could range from detritus or bacterial to fungus or even a film that has broken up.

This is very hard to answer only because every tank is setup so different and has different biome/bacteria. I guess I would start with knowing if you maybe have too much bio filtration/media as that is great at producing bacteria that consume NO3. Also any type of macroalgae running? Another great consumer of NO3. The list can keep doing, feeding regiment, carbon dosing, skimmer hours, etc. NO3 is actually a bit more difficult to keep elevated with current technologies that we use on tank builds. I had to remove bio bricks from two of my tanks to help NO3 from bottoming out and even then once the corals grew out I had to dose again. That said I do run fuges on both systems so I know that doesn't help. Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

I saw this on a YouTube channel for reef aquariums and says it acts like actived carbon but better.

Cannot keep detectable N03 without dosing. There's no algae to speak of and N03 always test 0 unless I dose. Any idea as to what sucking it up? Have 6 small SPS frags in the tank.