rdavidw

I have a 150 gallon softy tank that been running since 1993. My lighting ballast went out and I couldn

I am moving to T5 and have 7 36

I am an Germantown MD. Fri pm works well for me.

I just cut out a bunch of Money Plan / Halimeda, Pulsing Xenia and some Kenya Tree out of my tank, it was getting overcrowded. I have it in trash can with a reticulating pump. I also have a bunch of Cheato in there that is crawling with pods and mini brittle stars. In all, it fills a five gallon bucket a little more than half way up. If anyone wants it they can send me a pm to set up a time to come by and pick it up. If you want to bring me a little frag or two that would be cool but it

Hi Alex, Another member has already come by and got it. If you can wait a few weeks I will have plenty more. David

I got those around 1999 from Steve at Tropical Lagoon in Silver Spring. They started off a bit more blood red then went a bit more brown. (I got my 1st fish tank from Steve around 1985.) Here are some closer photos. I am going to pull out about half of the money plant and a bunch of the colt coral if anyone wants some. I also have a bunch of cheato I am about to chuck. Just let me know and you can come by and get it. A few years back, Steve (from Tropical) gave me 3 or 4 tiny brittle stars about the span of a quarter for my refugium. I now have thousands. They are everywhere. I assume they are beneficial, does anyone else have so many of these? I had hair algae in my refugium so I got a sm/md sea hair. It took it all out in about 3 days so I moved it up to the main tank. It

My 150 is starting to get a bit crowded. The three that are going the craziest are the colt coral (Mostly on the right side), the pulsing xenia (Mostly on the left and across the top) and the green star polyps (Middle left and right). I don

What is the best way to do water changes? I used to have fish only and would simply mix up the new salt water in trash cans and then drain my tank down while vacuuming the crushed coral. I would mark how far to go down to match the new gallons then pump the new water in with a power head. I now have some softies and one of them is growing up to the edge of the water. I am hesitant to drain a portion of the water and risk killing it. Should I devise a way to pump the new water into the full tank and figure out a way to take the overflow out of the sump? What about a T in my return line after the pump with valves on both sides? Would it harm the mag 9 pump to run semi-dry? There has got to be a simpler way to do this. Am I missing something obvious? Thanks for your help. Dave

Part of my Pulsating Xenia has turned yellowish and looks to be dying. Anyone seen this before? I just noticed it today. About a week ago my tank temp dropped down to 73 for a few hours. It typically goes down to 77 at night and up to 79 during the day. I have had the big Xenia for about two months and my other stuff looks ok, except some of my pink coralline has bleached a bit in the last few days. Nitrates = 0 Phosphates = 0 Calcium = 430 Alkalinity = 10 dKH Temp = typically 77-80 PH = 8.2-8.3 Salinity = 1.026 ish 150 gallon glass tank (6) 96Watt Compact Fluorescents 30 gal sump with refugium (5