cabrego

I see, did you do water changes along with that regiment ?

Can you describe what you have done so far to reduce the cyano "naturally"? I am considering not using any kind of medication and I am wondering what didn't work for you...

Hey Doug, thanks for the offer, but I am not going to make it to the social :( I still am not sure exactly how I am going to handle it yet either...

any luck on this?

Contains no phosphates, algacides or Erythromycin succinate. Avoid prolonged skin contact. Keep away from children. Do not ingest. ChemiClean Net Weight: 2 grams. This was taken from this ad about chemiclean http://www.marvelousproducts.com/Chemiclean-Red-Slime-Algae-Remover-p/chemiclean.htm is that the same stuff your talking about?

Another quick note- I have some filmy cob webby looking stuff on some of my rocks too. I am not sure wwhat it is but it is white and looks like a spider web of sorts, any ideas if this is related?

Thanks for the great responses! I will try to hit on all the questions asked. Light bulbs- I just replaced the MH a couple of months ago (albeit with the ebay bulbs but I did have the issue before I replaced them). Last week I also replaced the 65 watt actinic, I will tell you that was one of the best things I have done in a while for my tank. Those old pc actinics were ancient! Night and day difference! With respect to DOCs, at one point I was feeding my breeding clowns (and the rest of my tank) frozen food every day and pellets twice a day on top of that. I figured I was Ok since my nitrates are always at zero and everything appears to be growing pretty fine. My skimmer has been slacking over the last couple of months, I have now readjusted it and it is actually doing a decent job now, it appears I will be getting a cup every couple of days. I hope to see some improvement because of this, I will also do around a 10% this weekend. I also have an army of sand sifting detrivores coming so I hope that will help some too. With respect to dosing trace elements, since I was not doing water changesI was only dosing to replenish trace elements . I really despise water changes and my logic was.."if the only purpose of water changes is to replenish trace elements and reduce nitrates" then because I do not have nitrates i will just repelenish manually. I do realize that any quick fix, such as using chemiclean, is exactly that-a "band aid". But boys and girls my tank is bleeding right now! I am trying to resist temptation! I think I will try to hold out longer if i can!

So is your logic, do regular water changes>replenish various trace elements>cheato will stop dying>cyano stops living? You don't think the cyano is out competing the cheato for nutrients? I think you are right that more frequent water changes is probably the long term solution, but I think it is more likely due to removal of DOCs.

i have a k4, k3, and 2 modded maxi. I usually just run one because the second one is too much.

Yeah, I think you are right and I guess I am now convinced that I do need to do water changes at least once every 2 months To top it off my skimmer wasn't pulling much gunk out. So, I suppose it was just a matter of time before the docs caught up to me. did chemiclean bother your corals? or inverts?

Hi all, My tank is has been doing pretty well over the last year or so. It is a mixed reef with a medium load, 90g 30g active sump, pair of clowns, pb tang, yellow tang, 6line, blenny, with some corals. The system seems well balanced when I measure the parameters: nitrate is 0 ammonia is 0 nitrite is 0 phosphate looks close to 0 hard to tell I was out of town quite a bit and the calcium and alk dropped to 360 and 6 but over the last month I have raised the levels to cal 400 dkh 9 usually run carbon and been running gfo for the last 4 weeks. Over the last 3 or 4 months I have watched cyano creep into my system and now it has gotten a bit out of control and covers most of my rock and some of my sand-it seems to stay mostly off of my corals for the most part. I also noticed that over the last 4 to 6 weeks my cheato has not grown much. Before, in two weeks my sump was over flowing in cheato, now it is living but has not really grown in the last few weeks. I feed very heavily and hardly ever do water changes, I have probably done one water change in the last 3 months. I replenished trace elements with brightwell products, purple up, etc. I guess i broke every rule in the book this time..but everything was thriving, especially the cyano (unfortunately). Syphoning out the red stuff is just going to take to much time to do daily- it is that bad. I think I am at the point of needing some sort of product. What is the best to use? I need it to be reef safe, coral safe, invert safe, etc.

aquahub.com is a great resource for DIY ATOs and instruction/articles about ato devices. In theory you could make one with a float switch, pump and cord but that is a little to risky for my taste. Power surges and switch burn out is a risk, read the documents on the website aquahub's website. http://www.aquahub.com/store/doityourself.html IMO,here is about as cheap as you can go while still being comfortably reliable. http://www.aquahub.com/store/product26.html The parts alone are going to cost you at least 30 dollars, and that is not including some of the little odds and ends you will need. I know this because I have done it both ways 1. ordered the kit and 2. bought parts separately to save a buck since most of the parts can be found at radio shack. Not worth the trouble. Plus, aquahub ships fast in my experience...

thanks for the pics the larger files seem to have the data- here is some of the info I extracted this is from the picture with the nuclear greens... Make - Canon Model - Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT Orientation - Top left XResolution - 72 YResolution - 72 ResolutionUnit - Inch DateTime - 2010:04:10 19:52:06 YCbCrPositioning - Co-Sited ExifOffset - 196 ExposureTime - 1/5 seconds FNumber - 20 ExposureProgram - Manual control ISOSpeedRatings - 200 ExifVersion - 0221 DateTimeOriginal - 2010:04:10 19:52:06 DateTimeDigitized - 2010:04:10 19:52:06 ComponentsConfiguration - YCbCr ShutterSpeedValue - 1/5 seconds ApertureValue - F 20.00 ExposureBiasValue - 0.00 MeteringMode - Multi-segment Flash - Flash not fired, compulsory flash mode FocalLength - 100 mm UserComment - FlashPixVersion - 0100 ColorSpace - sRGB ExifImageWidth - 3456 ExifImageHeight - 2304 InteroperabilityOffset - 9230 FocalPlaneXResolution - 3954.23 FocalPlaneYResolution - 3958.76 FocalPlaneResolutionUnit - Inch CustomRendered - Normal process ExposureMode - Manual White Balance - Manual SceneCaptureType - Standard Maker Note (Vendor): - Macro mode - Normal Self timer - 100/10 sec Quality - Normal Flash mode - Not fired Sequence mode - Single or Timer Focus mode - MF Image size - Large Easy shooting mode - Manual Digital zoom - None Contrast - High , +1 Saturation - High , +1 Sharpness - High , +1 ISO Value - 32767 Metering mode - Evaluative Focus type - Auto AF point selected - Exposure mode - Manual Focal length - 100 - 100 mm (1 mm) Flash activity - Not fired Flash details - Focus mode 2 - 8 White Balance - Custom Sequence number - 0 Flash bias - 0 EV Subject Distance - 0 Image Type - Canon EOS DIGITAL REBEL XT Firmware Version - Firmware 1.0.3 Owner Name - unknown<Pd Camera Serial Number - 2420716093 (904912861) Sharpness (0D) - 0 File number - 183 - 8371 Sharpness (A0) - 0 Thumbnail: - Compression - 6 (JPG) XResolution - 72 YResolution - 72 ResolutionUnit - Inch JpegIFOffset - 9716 JpegIFByteCount - 8847

It sounds like you have the right idea, I would now slowly begin to raise the water level in the skimmer. You say you think it is set for 4 inches until overflow, you should raise it by aninch, and let it run for a day and see what you get. What you are doing is increaseing the contact time since the flow through the skimmer is now slower. Continue to do this until you find a happy medium. I should also note that, my current setting, which is what is working pretty good, overflows when I first start it up. But after the first few seconds, it settles down and I just pull the skimmer cup off (while the skimmer is running) empty the water into the tank and put the cup back on. Alternatively, I could probably just turn the skimmer on without the cup and let it run for a few seconds and then connect the cup. Are you getting any gunky stinky nasty stuff around the neck ?

You should be producing something, if the water level is correct then, what about the following: Air Valve setting? Water level setting with valve? Salinity? In my experience skimmers can be very finicky, I was having issues tuning my euro reef rs135. But I think I have found a reasonable balance...

That is too bad. Are the clowns laying the eggs near an anemone? My clowns lay near an anemone and it is a great refuge for the eggs. Hopefully you will have better success next time...

What do you mean when you say your Kalk reactor is cycled aroudn 35 min of every hour? Is it hooked up to a float switch? I just run my kalk reactor via my top off switch. I have to tee off fresh ro di from the rodi kalk feed line into the tank to dilute the kalk or my PH will get really high. So basically, when my float switch turns the pump on I am simultaneously pump saturated lime water and pure rodi in to my sump, generally it is about 50/50.

any new progress?

Thanks for the tip, that will be the next knob I will start turning...

I do need to buy a remote release fo my shots, so I have been somewhat limited wit respect to how long my shutter speed can be. I have an older manual lens (Nikon Micro Nikkor 55mm f/3.5 AI'd & M2 Extension Ring ) I am using to have some fun with. The lens must be 40+ years old, but it is in great shape and I picked it up for 100 dollar. For my purposes, it has been a great learning tool. I am sure I can get some better shots, right now I have only been adjusting the 3 basic paramters (shutter, aperature, and iso) with mixed results. To be honest I am not sure if messing with the other parameter will buy me anything.. look forward to the pics...

pm sent...

What settings did you use on these? would send me a couple of original jpegs so i can look at the data? also, what kind of lighting do you have on for these pics?

I considered getting someting like this for actnic supplementation, but I didn't pull the trigger because I thought my main lights would drown them out. It turns out my actinics were older than I thought. After I replaced them this weekend, it's like I have a brand new tank!

I have a freshly cut frag if you are interested, pm me.

nice, I was thinking about buying these, or some of the other sytles I have seen on ebay. Are these visible when the mainlights are on?