wade

I have a good bit of the clear 1/4" screen (from BRS) left. I'm maybe 20-30 mins away depending on where in Pville you live.

The only thing I could say is that putting hand/arm in the tank introduces oils (just like feeding meaty foods, esp copepods or mysis). Those oils repress skimming severely. Once they are gone, the skimmer leaps back into action. But the epoxy (obviously) makes it go nuts. So maybe you had a good amount of oils in there that slowed things down for a while. Nothing was interfering with water flow into the skimmer I assume?

Ca reactor supported by dosing of 2 part, only when necessary. Generally not necessary with water changes (30g out of ~200g) every 2-4 weeks.

Isolating the question only to reef tanks, not freshwater... I started in 1998 with a 55g (and 10g). I upgraded to a 125g in 2000. I upgraded to a 150g in 2002. I upgraded to a 240g in 2004ish. Then I took a break from the hobby for a while. And now I have a 180g. Somewhere in the middle I had a 35g hex seahorse tank and a 25g angler tank. Added to that I used to breed seahorses and clownfish and at one point in time, I had a rack of 6x20g tanks, 10x10g, 4x5g in the basement.

Advice: Make sure you only have one fully developed male or you will have a fight. I have a trio coming in this week! Woot. 1 terminal phase male and 2 females.

There's nothing to fear! Just do it. Then, when their cloud app appears... you are set. Instead of scrambling to get it done it'll be smooth as butter.

I just did this firmware update. I did it without connecting it to my router by following the instructions and using my laptop locally connected. Worked just fine. I also discovered that my netgear bridge device was flatlined. Turns out a power outtage caused the firmware to be corrupted (What?) so I had to tftp the image file over and let it do its thing. Long story short tho... it works again! Unfortunately, it gives me no confidence in its ability to keep working while I'm out of town.

I'm guessing skimmer does far far far more gas exchange than the surface unless you have heavy current and massive fans. My skimmer draws 1000lph of air. I used to use a skimmer to do experiments in the lab that required scrubbing the gases out of solution. It works very quickly. Any return lines that suck air and combine it will do a great deal as well. So in the end, its probably a mixture of ambient and force air on the skimmer.

That is rather frightening as stoves put out a great deal of carbon monoxide (which people do not)!

LOL. Surprisingly no one (other than my 1 year old) was tapping on the glass - and he can't do that unless being held up to it. Lots of people spent lots of time staring at the tank though. The Apex output is actually facing the main part of the room and I made the #s large, so I could watch all evening as it plummeted. I actually thought nothing of it until I noticed it was below 8 so early. These results are from the log. Pretty amazing.

So we hosted about 20 people at our house on Turkey day last week. The display tank is on the main floor with the kitchen, tables, etc... so basically all the people. Our house is fairly new and well sealed. People arrived by around 1:30. Here is a breakdown of what happened: time pH 2p 8.27 3p 8.25 4p 8.21 5p 8.09 6p 8.06 7p 7.95 8p 7.80 9p 7.76 10p 7.68 <opened windows here as I started gettting concerned!> 11p 7.85 .. It took the tank until 11am the next day, with the cabinet open and skimmer running full blast to get the pH back to a normal range!!! And that is just from having a bunch of friends over. Pretty amazing... .now imagine in well sealed houses how much CO2 builds up over a long winter. Maybe nothing compared to this example, but still worth thinking about. Vent your house every so often. Cheers!

The omega 3 fatty acids (dha and epa) are in all seafood in quantities not found in terrestrial critters. They are lipid soluble, which means they are in the fatty parts of the animals... livers, brain, oil/fat deposits and so on. The eye is no higher than anything else, and in total weight per unit, probably even less than many other fish parts. Vitamin A (also lipid soluble) is typically highest in the liver (there are prime examples of Vit A (hypervitaminosis) poisoning in people who have eaten elostobranch livers - sharks and rays, and in polar bear liver apparently). All in all, seafood, of just about any kind, is good for you. Some parts will certainly have more vitamin content than others. This is an old table published by USDA that lists the omega3 content of various seafoods: http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/report/html/table_g2_adda2.htm And while we are on the topic of fat soluble vitamins, most fish do in fact store energy as oils, but that is no different than fats in a technical sense. They just contain far less saturation (more H bonded to the strings) than lipids that are solid at room temp. And that makes sense... because fish are cold, they'd turn into sludgy blocks trying to swim with more saturated lipids. I do agree with whole animal feeding by and large, but I don't believe there is a ton of missing anything in feeding just muscle either. And as to earlier, having animals that are healthy is key to longevity and reproduction. They are very well correlated. So feeding well is certainly the best approach. The type of food matters insomuch as the critters are receiving enough of any materials their own bodies cannot synthesize. But, having a diverse gut flora (a recent and exploding field of research), is a major contributing factor there too. So constant exposure to challenge (in a low grade) certainly helps. In regards to disease and resistance I'd pass on a highly significant warning about disease: Very healthy fish can resist a great deal - just as healthy people can. Just as they do in the ocean on a regular basis. BUT. A low grade infection is likely to result if exposure to a pathogen occurs. All it takes is some form of stress to bring it raging to prominence. Many of the cleaning mechanisms, as well as the normal turnover of fish eating weaker/diseased fish (hence the average damsel lives to a very short age in the wild) do not exist in our aquaria. A sudden burst of parasite or pathogen load will kill the healthiest of fish. Don't mistake health for imperviousness to disease. When we were harvesting atlantic menhaden for research, a full 50% or more had visible external parasites. I would guess that if you considered internal parasites as well as bacterial/viral pathogens, almost 100% of fish had something when harvested from the wild. They are tough, but it will certainly shorten their lifespan. (Sorry for the long winded response, I'm one of those PhD types.)

Yes, although that crap comes from somewhere, so once you are cleaned up, be sure to watch feeding volumes and keep removal high. As for your plan, I wouldn't bother adding a xenia tank unless you really want to. If you really want to try that route, just place them on the glass away from any rocks and let them spread up the glass. It is very easy to scrape them free from glass or acrylic. Just don't let them run into your rock pile. I'd also remind you that adding bioload (any kind, xenia or macroalgae) will increase bioligical production - which means various things get added to and taken away from water, including more organic materials. Personally, I'd crank up the skimming, make sure to feed well and keep up with any detritus removal, and let the tank stabilize that way first. Glad to hear you are seeing a difference though.

Fish do accumulate fat in amongst their gut tissues and under the skin. We used to do pathology reports on fish all the time and it is especially common in aquariums where they are fed too much or too heavily. Eyes are not nutritious either. The vitreous humor (same in fish as people basically) which is the majority of the eyeball is very clear of anything resembling vitamins, minerals, and other "nutrients" - which almost all glow/refract light. They are just the softest bits and lend easy access to the nervous tissue beneath. I won't get into some other issues posted here, but overall appreciate the sharing and the thoughts. And cute kid makes it all ok.

I bet that thumb tasted better than the hot dog. Extra juicy!

I got the Caribsea stuff - also mined in FL. And it was definitely high in PO4 (though they claim otherwise) after setting in a water tub outside for a week. I wound up flushing it for 4 weeks and using some lanthanum in the early stages.

Don't be surprised to get some surface algae growing when it first goes into the tank. I tried to do the same with my rock and I still got a burst of growth on the surface of the rocks... that stuff is available on contact, but not freely dissolved into the tank. However, I think it makes a big difference to have the bacterial populations already in place doing a method like this.

I actually looked into this stuff a while back - apparently they can use mono, di, or tri-PO4. I found no reference to it being absorbed, only to retaining water on the surface and lending shine. It would be a hard sell to convince me that it gets absorbed into dead tissue. Its rather large and active transport is already shut down by that time. Unless you have ruptured cells, but then your shrimp would be very gritty on the outside. At any rate, consumption would mean much of it would be bound up in protein (hopefully) inside the fish itself. I'm mostly concerned about the volume put on it that may be added directly to the tank. It would dissociate very rapidly. And I know they often use some form of lipid/detergent in the mix, which is probably why the frothing occurs that Coral Hind mentioned.

Also - for almost all store bought shrimp, rinse them very well with freshwater before placing them into the tank. Almost all of the sellers use phosphate based soap-like compounds to preserve freshness. It won't hurt the eel (that I'm aware of), but can make a mess in the tank if you feed a lot.

Just be warned... xenia are tank abusers. Keep them contained to an area where you can exract and toss them later. If you have a glass tank, scraping them off is pretty easy. Once they are in your rocks... good luck.

Well, barebottom can certainly explain some of the lack of nitrate reduction, though certainly not all of it. The rock should be doing a share. But, in reference to the "buildup" of N and P - It won't be around long if the source is taken care of quickly.

Once freely dissolved, the only way to trap N and P is to integrate it into proteins. Generally, the algae will use up what it can very rapidly. The problem is that then the excess protein (be it plant parts, bacteria, or otherwise) can stay settled in the tank. Keeping it clean, pruning out algae, and controlling inputs should allow it to leave the system. I'd even recommend using some lanthanum chloride early (for excess P) then going to a media based removal. For nitrates, the only real source is sandbed, internal rock pore spaces, or export of proteins before they convert back into ammonia and start over. 25-30% water changes, heavy skimming (eg, wet), use of phosphate remover should do the trick in time... but it will take a while.

They are upgrading servers. It should be back and faster soon.

I am planning on doing this today. While I was out of town last week my Apex stopped communicating with reeftronics and I couldn't log in remotely. My IP is correct - it pings and traces just fine. It is either my Apex or my wifi connector. Will patch today and see how it goes and hope to get my internet connectivity back! Related topic: My Reeflink has been working pretty well. Just waiting for Ecotech to get the vortechs programmable by it and put out the android app.

One thing I didn't really see was to test your source water. Make sure it is very high quality - and make sure the salts you are using are good quality as well. After that, check other inputs - are you feeding too heavily (can make low flow areas that capture detritus worse). Directly feed your fish and leave the rest alone. As an aside, many years ago, I used to charge $50/hr to help people do maintenance or set up reef tanks. One guy kept insisting his water was fine, but his tank was PLUGGED with hair algae. After 3 visits, I finally stripped the rocks, hand scubbed them, put them back and checked his freshly made water... his water had over 50ppm nitrates in it! He hadn't changed or checked his RO unit, even though he kept insisting he had. I made over $500 on that venture... which could have been solved with new RO membrane and DI columns. Other than checking inputs (the real problem) I'd look at your skimmer as others have recommended. Skimming hard is key alongside feeding sparingly, especially to corals found on open reef (many lagoonal species are fine with high nutrients). Good luck!