Marc Weaver

I have personally had STN/RTN occur from water that was too clean and have seen it stop within a day when carbon dosing was temporarily stopped and nutrient levels were allowed to rise again. This happens to me from time to time and I learned to see the signs of it happening early. I load the water with amino acids and oyster eggs and stop dosing for a few days and everything goes back to normal. I'm not sure if this is relevant to your situation or not, just throwing out another possibility besides alk swings.

As for switching tanks, I've had about a 50/50 success rate with that. Sometimes the STN stops, sometimes it turns to RTN and the frag is gone within an hour. I've never been able to save a stressed acro by dipping, they always die quicker. I've tried melafix and iodine before. The only thing that ever worked was fragging off or gluing over the dead tissue like Der ABT said. Sorry to hear about this, and good luck!!

You need to get her under control

I like the 80's knee-high with the double-stripe myself HAHA. Wait a minute Steve, we are talking about the same type I think!! But seriously, IME water clarity is better with filter socks and you don't have to clean out your sump as much.

I use 100 micron felt and they have to be changed every day or they overflow. It's a pain. I wash them in the washer with bleach and let them air dry. I have had mine for 6 months so far and they are still holding up fine. They last longer when they are new, but once they get loaded for the first time it cuts the usable time in half because you can never get everything out of them.

You can get it on Blu-Ray, too. It's worth the $20, especially in 1080p

HAHA I also have a water general and have "modded" it. First thing to go was the small horizontal DI I replaced with 2 vertical cartridges once I knew more about RO/DI systems. I am also a well-water redneck with a booster pump. Oh well, no chlorine worries for us, but Iron is a killer problem!! I can't complain, though, 220 TDS in and 0 out. DI lasts around 8 months and I am still on the first RO membrane and it's been well over a year.

All I can offer you is my experience with adding clowns at different times was that it took around 3 days for the pair-up to happen. The smaller clown was very persistent and despite being chased off every time it got near, they are now inseparable. A couple months of harassment could be an indicator that it may never happen.

The same thing happens to me when no4 / po3 is ultra low and it happens quickly, within 2-3 days. I start feeding frozen rotifers and double the frozen food for the fish every day and up the amino acid dosage to get a nitrate reading and the color darkens over a few days to a week. I also have growth on most SPS and even LPS at low nutrient levels. One stubborn deepwater coral starts to STN immediately at the base when the water is too clean, which is my indicator coral.

Just be careful, I read somewhere it can cause almost instantaneous permanent blindness if it is shined into your eye, so you have to use the correct wavelength-filtering glasses and make sure no one else is in the room. Fish seem to be unaffected, though. Some people say that's not true, but I use a laser-cutter at work and it has a special beam-filtering acrylic cover which shuts the beam off if it is opened and the warning sticker says "Direct or scattered rays can cause permanent eye injury."

Pretty Cool

Hopefully this one will be more interesting.

I think they put that warning there to keep the light from falling into the water if it becomes loose somehow. That's one of the risks we all take when mixing electricity with water, though. If you are worried about that you can use eggcrate on the top of your tank, but it may warp from the heat.

The only glass you should need would be the glass shields that cover the bulbs to keep UV rays out. They probably just put that for liability reasons. An unvented glass cover over your tank will inhibit gas exchange and make your tank run warmer and is not recommended.

Great!! I also have the Hanna Checker (and lamotte, and API, and Salifert) from back when I was going crazy about alk. The red sea pro and API measured a little lower than the Hanna, Lamotte, and Salifert, which were almost on the money with each other. If I remember right, red sea was about .5dKH lower consistently.

If it is the pro kit and you can't find the chart, I will scan mine and email it to you. PM me. I don't think the chart is on their site.

Did you get a conversion chart? Did you use .56 mL of the titrant? That equals 2.8meq/l, or 7.8dKH, which is the number right beside it in the dKH chart. EDIT: That's if you have the red sea pro kit

I left one of my power heads in a container of vinegar water for a few weeks while I was not using it and the hair algae lived through it. It didn't grow, but it did not die either and was still attached!!

Naah - They're "cold sores"

Well that didn't take very long!!! I was loving those anthias too.

I used 15 white and 14 blue. After these pictures were taken, I also added in 3 Cree violet UV to see what they do. The coral coloration I am getting is similar to my 20k reeflux halides on my main tank, but there are tons of ratios available because the whites and blues are independently dimmable. I'm not sure about SPS growth yet, I filled it with frags last weekend but the colonies were only in there temporarily and I already transferred them to the display tank. The pink paly's in the right corner are growing like mad though. I have seen some growth on the largest brown stag(I guess that's what it is) on the top shelf already, but it did not go through shipping as it was a transplant from the main tank. I'll keep this thread updated when I see some growth as I am tracking it for myself. Marc

The kit I bought included everything but the heat sinks, but I had one already. I think their 24 LED kit for the same price includes heat sinks. The drivers that come with the dimmable kit are not controllable, only dimmable with a potentiometer, which is included as well, but you can opt for the Mean Well drivers at an added cost. By the way, the kit comes with "heatsink plaster" which is a thermal glue. If you want to screw the LED's to the heat sink, you will have to get thermal compound from radio shack to make the LED's removable.

I bought the $99 36-LED kit for my frag tank and am very satisfied so far, but it's only been 2 weeks...

It was definitely not ick, it was either brook or velvet. Not sure how long he should go fishless, though. On a side note, he had 108 volts in the water from a bad skimmer pump. Do you think that could have stressed the fish? I know it won't kill them unless they are grounded, but it may have made them less immune to disease. His peppermint shrimp seem to be fine and there are no other fish in there.

Sodium carbonate is baked baking soda. Unbaked baking soda will not raise pH very much if at all. The pH increase from baked baking soda is quite high in the localized area it is dosed into. This is what causes the precipitation, but it will balance out and dissolve properly within a few minutes. Try not to focus on pH too much just yet. I would do the following: 1. Test and adjust magnesium into the 1350-1400 range. Magnesium is very important to keeping alk and calcium in check. If it's too low, you will have a very difficult time maintaining proper alk and calcium levels, no matter what you do. 2. Test and adjust alkalinity and calcium. If there is a severe imbalance (such as 7dKH and 500ppm calcium,) which is at the extreme low and high ranges, stop there and post your results in this thread and I can help you get in back into balance. 3. If you numbers are closer to balanced, such as an alk level of 7 and 350PPM calcium for example, raise alkalinity first. I would shoot for 9 to start with since it's in the middle of the recommended range. 4. Then, finally raise calcium into the 400-430ppm range if it's lower than that. All changes must be made slowly over the course of several days time. Don't raise alkalinity more than 1 dKH per day, less if possible. Don't raise magnesium more than 100ppm per day, and don't raise calcium more than 50ppm per day. I use bulk reef supply additives, so I can't tell you how much B-ionic to add. Maybe the directions will tell you. All these changes, assuming they are out of balance to begin with, will naturally help your pH stay up. B-ionic should be dosed daily if you can keep up with it. You just have to trial end error until you find your tank's daily demand.