gws3

Thanks so much for sharing this useful info. I purchased 14 bottles of reagent from lot 5441 which is in the recall. Fortunately the unused ones I have left are sealed, so I suppose I can just remove the cap liner and store upright. I typically store them upright anyway since they seem to leak if they are on their side, but I think I will definitely compare against my Lamotte kit today... I test my alk a lot anyway if that wasn't obvious already.

That's right! And hopefully some updated pics on other pieces I can frag. I bought a new DSLR last year, a 70D, and have barely had a chance to use it. I've been buried in a kitchen renovation, but that is finally wrapping up. Being snowed in this weekend will be a great opportunity to play with the camera and fish tanks. I'll try to take pics of the 300DD as well. It is finally starting to take shape, and transitioning from the embarrasing phase to frag city.

Great job by the WAMAS staff keeping an eye on the weather and making the call a few days out to postpone the meeting. This makes it so much easier to plan ahead and not have to wait until last minute to deal with everything. Thanks for all your hard work!

Just make sure to wear some safety glasses when fragging up z/p's. They spit back and that stuff will really irritate your eyes.

I've never had one picking at corals. The only ones exhibiting aggression right now are between a large male multicolor velvet and some existing female solorensis and a ruby head fairy wrasse. But I only added the velvet last night in the acclimation box. Usually this agression calms down after a day or two and then I release them from the box. They are all similar body types and colors... three female solorensis and a ruby head, the velvet is the fifith that looks similar... so I figure if the four get along the fifth will be ok once they get used to him in a few days. I think a SMALL amount of healthy aggression is good... probably helps keep the males colored up. Not to the point theres any physical injuries though... just the occasional chasing. The only one I would have reservations about is the scott's fairy wrasse. I don't have any females for him and his once vivid colors have faded quite a bit, but they are notorious for this.

So many great cirrhilabrus species to choose from. I think I am up to about 15 specimens in the 300 now.

Algae on frag plugs is the bane of my existence! It just means you don't have enough herbivores, or the herbivores you do have can't get to the plugs. I think egg crate makes it tough for snails and hermits to get to the plugs. I plumbed in some new frag tanks to my 300 recently and am going to try not using any eggcrate. Frags will go directly on the glass bottom or on a central rock structure. I hope this allows the herbivores to clean the frag plugs which means less time for me to spend scrubbing plugs with a toothbrush.

It was very impressive. Really an incredible amount of work must go into all of it. The WAMAS volunteers did a great job.

Light green with reddish tips would definitely be the Raspberry Nasuta then.

Bruce I think the first one is my Deep Blue Tort. It could be the ORA Ice but usually that has some green on the base. The second one looks like one of the Nasutas... raspberry or rainbow.

Yes, under same screen name. Not very active on RC though.

Just saw you made TOTM on Reefkeeping Magazine. Congrats Bruce! Tank looks beautiful.

For a 6' tank the 300DD is tough to beat. Good build quality and the tank along can be purchased for ~$1600. Don't go with less depth front to back if you can get more for the same price.

Were the MOSFETs in the power strip? I would think everything on the 5 VDC bus would be protected just by stepping down from AC to DC.

I measure with the salifert test kit occasionally and dose KCl to maintain 400 ppm as well. I haven't noticed any improvement from the dosing, but it's cheap so I figure why not maintain levels similar to NSW. Once I get around to figuring out my consumption I plan to dose it with MgCl.

Congrats on your dream job. I think you are wise to decouple moving and the reef tank. Moving reef tanks while moving yourself is a struggle, and often times colonies don't react well. Moving a reef tank that far away is a big challenge. Sell your colonies to someone local and work out a deal to have them ship you frags when you get set back up and the tank is stable. I'll shoot you a pm... I may be interested in certain SPS and have no problem shipping you frags down the road.

It's definitely not the most fun I've had. Fortunately the new batch is a very fine powder and dissolves readily. The older batch is what I'm used to, with the white granules that are very hard to dissolve. Perhaps they have changed something slightly with how they make the powder and this is impacting the results. This is what I do to try to get consistent results: First I add 10ml of water to the cuvette. Then I wipe the sides of the cuvette with a towel. Next I turn it on it's side so an air bubble is against the side of the cuvette. I rotate the cuvette so the air bubble removes any smaller air bubbles from the cuvette wall. Now it is perfectly clear and I zero the meter. I add powder by cutting open the packet, folding a crease in the side, and tapping to get as much out as possible. Then I carefully tear the package around the edges to get the rest into the cuvette. I cap it with the clear plastic piece that comes with the cuvette. Then I shake it vigorously until the powder is not settling at the bottom of the cuvette. I press the button for the timed read, 3:00 counts down. I do a little more shaking, and then turn the cuvette on the side and use the air bubble to remove any remaining particles or air bubbles from the side of the cuvette. I wipe it clean again and place it in the meter. Once I get a reading I typically remove the cuvette, use the bubble trick to get anything off the side wall of the cuvette, wipe the outside, and take another reading. Especially if the reading it different than what I expect. Typically it is the same or drops by 0.01. I'm not convinced the importance of low phosphate values and using GFO isn't partially the result of marketing and product sales. I read a pretty good thread on RC the other day. Some more experienced reefers were recollecting when no one even measure for phosphates and they still managed thriving sps tanks. Personally I recall better growth and deeper colors when I had a downdraft skimmer that I never cleaned often enough and patches of nuisance algae. I notice paler colors in my SPS and less growth than I used to achieve. Sometimes I think this is due to stronger lighting (better reflectors) coupled with lower nutrients (better skimmers, better gfo/gac reactors, etc). This thread has me considering trying some very simple husbandry on my newer 300DD... no GFO, no GAC... just 5% weekly water changes, reduced skimming (8 hours a day). I may try this for several months and see if it causes issues. I can always run GFO if my phosphate numbers creep too high. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2289842

Is the water level raising? Typically RO/DI would do the opposite and reduce the bubble formation.

It’s certainly taken me long enough but I finally got around to doing some more testing with the Phosphate Meter. With the 1.30 solution the older batch was pretty close ranging from 1.24-1.25, and the newer batch was a bit low at 1.16-1.18. There were a few outliers, which could be due to error on my part. I chose to negate them (strikethrough). When I diluted the 1.30 solution to make a 0.03 solution the results got confusing. The old batch ranged from 0.04-0.07 and the new batch consistently hit 0.01. Next I tested water from my existing reef system. The old batch ranged 0.03-0.05 and the new batch 0.00-0.02. Testing water from my 300DD which is its own system the old batch ranged from 0.04-0.07 and the new batch 0.02-0.03. Surprisingly I am now not getting a wide range of results with the old batch. I haven’t change my method, so I don’t have an explanation for that. I haven’t really reached any conclusions, other than my systems appear to be reasonably low in phosphate and I think I am going to spend less time measuring and controlling phosphate as I believe my systems to be too low in nutrients if anything.

I'll add a 60" XHO blue eventually. No need for the extra 6" at each end in my opinion... too much light spill. I typically mount them to the front of the reflectors point down and towards the center of the tank. The only thing about the samller reefbrites is that two cost much more then one that is twice as large. Look at the number of LEDs in each strip and decide which is best for you. Of course I have 2x 15" XHO above my 70 and 2x 30" XHO above the 150 stock tank... so I am not adhering to my own adive here... of course I have an OCD thing with symmetry... so that may have influenced by decision. Those prices sure are appealing compared to RBs. Wish they had a 5' for my 300, I'd strongly consider it over a RB. I've always though RBs seemed expensive for what they are, considering they aren't Cree LEDs. But at the time they were the best option.

I used to run 250w radiums or phoenix 14k with super actinic VHOs. Actinic VHOs consume a lot of power, don't last very long, don't output a lot of light, but do look great. At one point, about 4-5 years ago, I tried upgrading the actinic supplementation to T5s. I tried one or two bulbs, but wasn't happy with how they looked, so I went back to the VHOs. About 3 years ago I went to the reefbrites. As far as output and making things pop they blow away the VHOs and T5s. It's certainly not the most natural looking color, and I actualy think the VHOs are slightly more appealing, but for the much higher efficiency, output and never having to replace bulbs the LEDs are a clear winner. I'm sure there are some nice T5 bulbs out there, and I don't have much experience with them, so I'm not saying that's not an option, but I'll stick with LEDs for actinic supplementation. Never replacing bulbs is very appealing. VHOs don't add much on top of the radiums, which already have good actinic output. It's much easier to tell the reefbrites are on when the MHs are vs with the VHOs it was a very small change. The LEDs make certain colors pop more than others. I'd have be looking at the tanks to tell you which. The purple tail on a flame angel will look amazing for instance. SPS get some pop from them, and Z/Ps look absolutely crazy under just the reefbrites. Hopefully that helps.

All my tanks except the 300 have 250w radiums with reefbrite blue strips. I'll add one to the 300 eventually, have just been trying to moderate my reef spending. They add a nice pop of color on top of the radiums. Also, I run the radiums for about 7 hours, so I have a few hours of just actinic led on either end which is nice to have an extended viewing period despite being the pure acitinic look.

Sorry for the slow response... thought I was following this thread. I don't have any M80 PFOs, and I have never tried them. I've always used the bluewaves. Almost all the ones I have ever owned were made in 2007 according to the sticker. In that time I have only had one stop working... it had a bad igniter. Any other issue with firing the bulb usually relates to the cord between the ballast and bulb being too long. I'll keep that in mind if one shows up for cheap I'll pick it up and do a side by side comparison. I'll try to get a pic of the 300 up soon as well. It's mostly stocked with fish now, rocks are starting to grow coralline, and I have been gradually moving SPS over. I have quite a few days off during Christmas so I plan to get caught up with the reef tanks now that I will finally have some free time.

beautiful. not your cookie cutter tank for sure.

Got it, that makes sense, thanks. I'll post my results once I get the additive and find some time. For my purposes I anticipate it will be plenty accurate. I'll test it at the 1.35 ppm concentration and then dilute down to something in the range of reef aquarium... perhaps 0.03 ppm. Any deviation from that value at the meter resolution would require the solution to be off by 33% percent, which is highly unlikely if seachem has any QC with their additives. At that point it would likely be accuracy/percision of the meter. Right now I'm getting 0.01 ppm with new reagent and ~0.05 ppm with the old reagent. It should at least tell me if either is close to accurate.