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Are the fish quarantined?

You can pk up at any walmart a 13 lb bag of baking soda in the pool area for cheap......bake it...your done. Then use brs for your calcium.....i have used prestone driveway an other cal diy with no problems but try to use the brs stuff if i have the money.

Ah, yes, I'm still making my own nitrate mix with lab-grade sodium nitrate. When dosing 50ml per day of a solution, it adds up quickly. I still use Neo-Phos since I only use a few ml on occasion. It would take a lifetime to use a DIY solution at the equivalent cost.

BRS got its start many many years ago by sourcing similar grade chemicals and filter media, and then selling them bulk at a cheap rate. I haven't kept up with prices on their stuff over the years, but seems like it has crept up to closer to retail products like ESV, Brightwell, TLF, Red Sea. I've pretty much have stuck to using ESV products as my personal choice. I like results I get; and Joe at Long Island & his 20,000 reef uses ESV products as my reason to stick with it, haha.

We got in an amazing shipment of fish/ corals I this week. We can bring these to the Wamas meeting Saturday too if purchased in advance. Look forward to seeing everyone there! Fish: Foxface Powder Blue Tangs CB Yellow Tang CB Eructus Seahorse Scopas Tang Purple Queen Anthias Ignitus Anthias Bicolor Blenny Tailspot Blenny Starry Blenny PJ CArdinals Banggai Cardinals Super Black Percula Clownfish Pair DaVinci Clownfish Platinum Percula Clownfish Darwin Ocellaris Clownfish Spotted Mandarin Red Head Goby Trimma goby Diamondback Goby Six Line Wrasse Inverts: Lettuce Nudibranch Electric Flame Scallop Red Collar Snails Fire Shrimp Peacock Mantis Shrimp Corals Bicolor Frogspawn Glitter bomb Gonipora Several different types of Macro algae Holy Grail Torch Dendro Coral Duncans Grafted Digitata

The main difference through my research is food grade vs pharmaceutical grade. BRS is going to mix better because it is a higher grade. You really have to check labels to make sure there are no additives. But I believe if it says 100% soda ash and that it’s food grade it works the same just mixes a bit differently. If it’s 1/4 the price or greater then it’s a huge savings. BRS has built their empire on something this simple. Basically charging 4x the amount, but kudos to them. Because nobody else doing it. They do have the best two part mix in my opinion, but there are cheaper options. I’m just curious if anyone is or has done the DIY. I think there are much better options to buy as to 10-15 years ago. Another option would be to do a group buy. Buy 50 pound 100% food grade bags and divide. Would be dirt cheap.

I did for about ten years, especially in the "old days" when there wasn't much accessible, and I didn't have a nickel to my name. Baked my own baking soda, bought snow melt in pallets, bought epsom salts in bulk, etc. Nowadays, I use BRS in bulk. I value my time a lot, and the convenience was worth it for me. I haven't done a recent cost comparison, but I'm happy with the known quality versus risk in finding new suppliers and all.

I haven’t done the two part. However I reached out to Randy Holmes Farley, the guru on R2R about the nitrate and phosphate dosing using food grade. Way way way cheaper than the neo nitrate and neo phos. There is a lot of info on the R2R pages about the 2 part stuff as well. I personally use all 4 reef right now.

Has anyone done DIY two part? Such as buying and using food grade say vs using BRS powder. Seems that you could save a lot of money but worry about trying something I haven’t done before that’s not geared for aquarium. on Amazon for instance they sell Calcium Chloride and Soda Ash much cheaper than BRS.

WAMAS Platinum Sponsor Puddle Aquatics is donating a Reef Boxx II to the Spring meeting raffle (with free shipping ($135 value)! You can learn more about the Reef Boxx and puddle aquatics at their website: https://puddleaquatics.com/ Thank you Puddle Aquatics for your support of the Club! 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 thats 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.

New Platinum Sponsor Coral Candy Aquaculture is donating 7 corals to the raffle: Thank you Coral Candy Aquaculture for your support. -Glitterbomb Gonipora 10+heads -TCK Flametip Gonipora 20+ heads -5pc Zoa Pack Rainbow Yodas, Utter Chaos, purple monsters, sonic Flares and exosphere

Not sure if you ever got this sorted out. But is your calcium also trending down? If so, just increase your dosage of AFR. If only your alkalinity is dropping, increase it with any “alk” supplement. I also use AFR. I do not have issues with one compound being consumed more than another, but I have BRS 3-part that I could use to bring up either if my ratio were to go out of whack.

Meeting this Saturday! Hope to see you there.

Thanks. That makes a lot of sense

That looks like a spionid worm (has the trademark “antenna”/palpi). It’ll eventually settle in a lower flow area on the sand and build a tube around itself using the grains of sand. The wrasses I’ve kept never seemed interested in them, but YMMV. They don’t multiply quickly nor bother corals, so I wouldn’t worry too much about them.

Thanks

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Hard to tell from the pic but the sort of feathery look suggest some kind of polychaete worm, not sure if I know any with antennae like that, though. I had sort of suspected vermetid snail out of its shel, but it turns out those are really snails and not worms, so their body doesn't look like that. Wouldn't be surprised if it was a tube/hole dwelling worm and the antennae are its feeder appendages.

Thanks

you can try this site. https://chucksaddiction.thefishestate.net/hitchworms.html

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My best guess is a spaghetti worm

Thanks! I have 3 wrasses. Sixline, Melenarus and Coris so hope they do their job

20 years ago out of the blue all my acros would not grow at all.......they didnt rtn/stn just no growth. Took a flashlight at night and saw a ton of little clear what i belive to have been sea spyders. After sucking them out over a month everything went back to normal. Long of it i would look at night at any lps/sps and see if these thing are on them otherwise there are most likely hundreds of creatures rooking at night we never sea. Always seems like a good idea to have some type of wrasse that eats pest if you dont already.

Was on glass when lights came on. About 1/2 inch maybe a little more with 1+ inch antennae.