Lee Stearns

Very nice John- looks like your refuge is above the main tank - do you get to gravity feed it to the main tank?Regards, Lee

- What I can bring: One Green hammer- not sure how many heads it will have. Steve this is yours. I have a large tricolor acro- that was accidentally fragged- Phisiqs 79 I have Pink tipped frog spawn that needs some trimming- Green cap that is going to be trimmed anyway as well- Long polyped Toad stool- Few loose zoanthids- Green Hairry mushrooms- going to kalk kill back, or trim for you, Jason Lime Green Pavona- I can bring chaeto, baggy of sand innoculation-- As asked for I have one smallish but mounted rainbow monti for trade-Phisiqs 79 And for our sponsor Johnny- is there a frag of anything that you would want? Only looking for Rics Ok a Superman monti frag from- Phisiqs 79-my last one was almost a year old when it got fipped upside down into my killer torch

Good news, Bringing the alk up slowly with baking powder should also help- see the other thread on alk that I wrote in today for the formula. I am like you- when I use rowa phos or phosban I put a lttle in a filter bag and put it in the flow area of the sump- you really do not need a reactor like many larger tanks use. My only other comment is to make sure you are using distilled water or RO/DI water in your make up- And if RO/DI have someone nearby check the TDS (total disolved solids) of it to make sure all your filters are working correctly. Regards,

I am assuming that the Alk measue of 2.1 is Meq/L You want 3.5-4.0 Meq/L Add a teaspoon of baking soda to a 10-12 oz cup of RO/DI and stir vigorously. Then pour into sump. This should raise 50 gallons about .5 Meg/L. Do one cup per day till you are at the desired 3.5-4.0 Meq/L Baking soda is relatively nuetral to PH, so you will not be throwing off the PH you have. With your Calcium level as high as it is I would double check my alk readings against another kit before I proceeded as you may have an ALK reading issue. Once you are satisfied that your alk is truely 2.1 Meq/L just follow the directions. Caution: do not try to bring it up in one day as Alk spikes are notoriuos for killing clams and some other corals.

I had to go back and check. Attention to detail! For the love of God don't ask me "How much was x?" in front of my wife! What is recommended to the novice and what experienced reefers do are two different things. Yep you have it covered! Class act John!

Kalk Reactor and calcium reactor are very different. I had always said that I did not want to go down the dark path of a calcium reactor with its CO2 bubble and all the clculations to balance the aquarium. But let me tell you that as Chip (flowerseller tells everyone) the main reason for a calcium reactor is alkalinity. It should be called an alkalinity reator. When my daily alkalinity additions of baking soda reached a point that I could not keep it stable and required every day input, I broke down and bought a used GEO Calcium reactor from one of our members who built his own from scratch. This calcium reactor is the single most fire and forget peice of equipment that I have on my aquarium. Once set up my alkalinity has been perfectly stable for almost a year! The skimmer is more of a pain than a calcium reactor. It does take some room, but mine is plumbed through the wall into the closet where my sump /fuge is so no problem for me. The Kalk reactor is primarily for keeping PH stable and adding a bit more calcium to the aquarium. Two part pumps are effective and look to be pretty easy to set up - John at BRK has the set up on his main coral display I think- he would be a good person to discuss the pros and cons of two parting it or steting up a Calcium and Kalk reactor. Regards,

Great pic Johnny- My radiant wrasse eats the small ones- But once they reach a certain size they need to be manually pulled. I used to have lots and lots of bristle worms, almost overrun, now it is rare for me to find one- occasionally when moving a rock there will be a medium one. So I am happy with the level of control, with out erradication of the entire bristle worm poulation, that my radiant wrasse has established.

Very Cool John- It really was an amazing pic! At first glance it appears that no one could keep that variety in such a space- But knowing the size of the tank and the great reef keeping skills you have- It is truelly well beyond what many could accomplish. One fear would be new reefers jump onboard to try and emulate before they have your many years of experince. The pic should come with a bold type caution You keep us all striving. Regards, Lee

Absolutely beatiful coral George! I concur- do not frag that thing. VA reefman had one about that size that he accidentally fragged once and both peices survived many years, but there is no guarantee. Regards, Lee

Khanh Your back row does it for me- Blastos and trumpets/ candy canes. The Brains can grow and expand to take up huge protions of real estate. Seen Eddi's Scolymias feed heavily as well. Great pics. Regards, Lee

Scarlet hermits are a bit more cost wise, but outlive the redlegs many times over and are a bit less aggressive. The redlegs do eat more hair IMHO, but long term I would still take the Scarlets. Take as much hair out of the system as possible, because those are PHOS and Nitrate nutrients tied up in algae form. Same as thinning your macro algae growing in the sump. I also agree with using some form of Phos remover, phos guard or other if you have hair algae.

I have had Ich on and off over the years on my three tangs. The worst case has been with my Achilles, but I am certain that it is stress realted as he is low man in the pecking order. I am equally certain that Chip is correct and that a UV sterilizer would help. I am on the frugal tank side of the equasion. By feeding several times a day and trying to keep the vitamin level up in what I feed- I am hopefully preparing these guys to weather the occasional ich outbreaks. I did get one of BRKs neon gobies, which has been a far better cleaner of ich that my pair of cleaner shrimp. The gobie will search both sides of any fish that will hold still. All my Tangs get cleaned by him. The Anthias on the other hand prefer to stop in with the cleaner shrimp. I have not lost a fish to ich since I have set up reef keeping again, about 4 years.

Very nice Dan- You alway have great polyp extension. You need to put the adress of your resturant in your signature- I can't seem to remember where it is, and promised myself I would stop by- Is your tank at home or at the shop? Regards, Lee

Surface ripple-and suface skim to keep the surface clear. O2 exchange take place at the surface in these tanks, which is why having a current riplling the surface is important.

Cyno can grow very rapidly- When I used to have my Nano here at work I could cover up the cyno with sand or scoop it out and literally within two to three hours you could see any that I missed growing back out and with in four to five hours be back to about the same. It eventually forms a bit thicker mat that is easy to scoop out or suction out. But like others, I am convinced between using known good RO/DI (borrow a tds meter) and changing your bulbs in your lights- that control is within reach over a couple of weeks. Now there are other really nasty brown diatoms (not the ones all our tanks cycled through in the first 4-5 weeks that ate up any silicone) The diatoms I am talking about are rare and difficult to fight- more a brownish ooze- I have not had them but there are threads on RC and one of our members here has fought through them.

Chip (flowerseller) has been running UV for years and is a good contact for info on the best systems. A small neon gogy is aslo a good addition, at least mine cleans my tangs several times a day- neat to watch. Esp active just after lights come on. Way better than the cleaner shrimp who in my tank will clean occaionally but is hunger dependent IMHO. Interestingly the anthias will go to a cleaner shrimp but I have never seen them hold still for the Neon goby- so I guess having both in the main tank is a help.

Jake, Grav and Chip had the advice pegged- ALk will normally drop over time- but if you have an emergency alk spike "off the Charts" I would water change and add calcium to bring the alk down. An ALK spike can kill things, trust me on this one.

coraline also dies pretty quickly when Air gets to it for even a short time. Note when you have coraline growing up the back glass and you have a power outage and the water line drops to the level of the overflow teeth- Even if the outage was for 15-20 minutes the coraline with die in that inch or so at the top of the glass- So if you transported the live rock and it was not kept damp the whole time, you may loose a lot of the coraline. What you really need is just the seed of it on the orcks- I will grow back and spread according to the light conditions. It is a fairly low user of calcium compared to many of our SPS corals, so good water changes should be more than enough to keep it healthy and growing. I know many people want to add purple up and other chemicals to give it a boost- but if you drip kalk as needed to maintain PH you will have more than enough calcium. There are several types of coraline, dark reds, pinks, green, platting. The one that is best matched to your lighting conditions is the one that will prevail and out-compete the others in your system.

Grav, I won't ask how you ended up with a green wolf eel. Hope he is not wreaking havoc in your tanks- If Push comes to shove you might ask Eddi Regards

Dave thanks for the great background material on this. Pam, I know your set up is well run. My own experience is that it is most likely related to aging Bulbs. Of Course getting the excess nutrients out of the tank is always a good thing- you might turn up your skimmer to do a bit wetter skimming. Running carbon is a generic trap for extra nutrients and is not a bad thing at this point- but go slow as too much carbon too fast can affect your corals. A little Phosphate remover (Rowa phos or phos guard) also could help, as between the Phos, nitrogen, and light frequency are what has sparked this stuff into growing. Your tank wil get over this, and as many have said a bit more flow seems to fight it as well- Your tank has good flow so I would not get too excited about increasing that. Siphoning just before the lights go out is generally the easiest and gets the most cyno out at the end of a fast growing day. I have played with Anti-bacteria tablets in a nano reef to get rid of the stuff- Actually placed the tablet on the cyno and then moved the tablet around over new patches as it disolved- Relly whacked the Cyno back in a fish and softy only Nano. Worked good for short periods of a few weeks but, changing the bulbs in the Nano got rid of the stuff- I have also had the stuff in my main tank- and changing out the MH bulbs after working to get excess nutrients out is what ultimately made the stuff go away, only to return about 12 months later- guess what time to change the MH bulbs in my main tank. I would love to see how your tank has improved over the last year at some point. Regards, Lee

These are cool and good to have- Unfortunately bored Wrasses will often pick at them till they are no more. Not sure if they really eat them.

Very Very Nice Dan- Proofs in the skimmate! The skimmer is what would be well worth knocking off- when are you seriously thinking of making some, or leading a build party? I am open to either course.

Not sure what the RTN is from- usually you see rtn from tip down not base up- Sometimes from the source of a sting it can travel outward in both directions. Not sure the culprit in your situation, but if it were mine I would cut one of the branches at the flesh point and glue it to another rock to try and salvage one peice- this can sometimes work.

Yep- If I am not out of town this will be one of the must see tours!

Grav I can cut you a large multi head pink frog spawn if you want. I aslo have some red zoas with your name on it. If you want to drop by anytime I can get yours first. I have tons of chaeto but not much grape calurpa- looks like several folks are bringing- my tangs are pigs for the stuff.