salzik

This first pic is the side of the rock facing the window (golden brown in color) and the second pic is the face of the rock not facing the window (off-white color).

I have had a bunch of dry live rock in my tank for about 8 weeks now. It's all cycled and I have a few fish that have survived for about 3 weeks now. The tank is near a window which gives the tank some indirect sunlight and I've been able to avoid an algae bloom so far. However, I have noticed within the past few weeks that the side of my live rock that faces the window have changed color to a golden brown color. The side of the live rock that does not face the window has not changed color at all. I don't mind the actual color, I'm curious what this change of color is. Is it something I should be concerned about, or is it something normal. Check out the attached pics.

Thanks for the replies! I've started to stop the return pump and I crush the flakes and pinch them into the tank and they start to sink, so that's good. Although the flakes are in small pieces, the little damselfish seems to only prefer the flakes that are small specks. It looks like he attempts to eat the other small flakes, but spits them out as soon as he starts to bite it. The flakes are pretty small, but I guess he can't eat it until it's a tiny morsel.

OK thanks. That's kind of what I thought but I wasn't sure if it was OK to stop all water movement three times a day. How long should I wait before turning ON the return pump and powerheads? I'm thinking it will take 5 minutes for the flakes to sink and another 5 minutes for feeding.

I wanted to get some comments about my powerhead and loc line setup. In particular, I wanted some feedback about what's the best place to put the powerheads and loc line and what direction should they be pointed. I have a 72 gal bow front tank. As you can see from the attached picture, I have a powerhead on each side of the aquarium near the rear corner and they are at an angle aimed towards the front center of the tank. Is this a good location for them? Should they be placed higher or lower? I'm not sure if the water movement should be more focused on the top or middle portion of the tank. My return loc line is also in the picture. It's a Y configuration, so it has two tentacles connected to the return. One is aimed towards the right side of the tank, about one inch below the water line and the other is aimed towards the center of the tank about four inches below the water line. This one seems to have blown some of the substrate to the side a littele. I'm not sure if it's better to channel the "clean" water toward the bottom of the tank or the top. Any comments will be appreciated.

My tank just finished cycling and was ready for some inhabitants, so I added some snails and hermit crabs and a blue damselfish. Since I have the one fish in there, I thought flakes should be sufficient for now. I turned OFF the powerheads but kept the main pump and protein skimmer running. The problem is that when I add the flakes, most of it stays on the surface of the water and make their way to the overflow. I even pre-soaked the flakes on a spoon with aquarium water, but most of the flakes still work their way to the overflow and end up in my sump. I was thinking of turning OFF the main pump as well, but that seems like overkill and even then, most of the flakes will stay on the surface and the damselfish doesn't like to venture up that high in the tank. What I've read so far didn't touch on this. Are there any feeding tricks I need to know about, or is that just how it works? Thanks in advance.

I recently started to setup my first aquarium and am waiting for the tank to cycle. My sump has a filter sock which after a couple weeks of cycling, is pretty clogged up. I was going to replace the filter sock with a clean one while I wash the old one when I realized how difficult it was to replace. I have to almost remove my skimmer from the sump before I can fully access the filter sock. I know some folks don't use filter socks and I wanted some opinions about using a filter sock or not. If it's not highly recommended, I'd rather not use one because of the hassle of replacing it. Thanks in advance.

Hello, I'm a newbie and will be setting up a 72 gal salt water aquarium with coral and fish. I'm still in the early stages of setting it up and wanted some recommendations for the filtration. Right now I'm looking at getting a protein skimmer and also a canister filter for extra filtration in addition to live rock. What are the pros \ cons with such a setup.