Decadence

Has anybody ever thought of meeting up with everybody, bringing a gallon of water from their healthy tanks and mixing it all together, then leave with some of the mix? After reading recently about a medical procedure where the stool of a healthy donor is placed inside of your colon to promote bacterial diversity and therefore, digestive system health, I thought "yuck"… Then I thought "Hey, maybe that concept could be applied to reefing". The idea would be simple - everybody with thriving tanks bring a gallon of water from their tanks to the next meeting. All of the jugs are poured into a large container and everybody who wants to diversify the bacteria in their tanks could leave with a bottle filled with the mix. This could be especially good for people with new tanks or people who have gone years or decades without adding anything new to their tanks and are experiencing poor bio-diversity. Thoughts?

You'll spend around $3-400 on the glass most likely and will need to buy aquarium-rated silicone as well. I've used the stuff from BRS before with good results. Your glass is going to be a minimum of 1/2" thick. I'd recommend cutting the height down to 20" for safety factor. I can help you in a couple weekends. We can make a DIY tutorial.

You'll get the glass cut at a glass shop. It will take two visits to build the tank. The first visit would be when the tank is constructed, then the silicone would cure before the excess is trimmed and the interior seal is put down.

Are you willing to drive out to Gaithersburg, MD to build the tank?

I hear he is also dead sexy.

Wow, maybe they won't already know to eat all of my acros!

This. I have also used prazipro in my display with great success. I think that the absolute best thing that you can do for a quarantine system is to set up a sump full of chaeto or an ATS. It is very good at coping with the nutrients even without the biological filter.

We got pulled over once with a blown out taillight in my pickup truck. Before he left, the cop asked what was in the cooler in the back. I told him that it was live corals and asked him not to open it because it was very cold outside. He looked at me with that "enjoy your marijuana" face and walked away.

Awesome AlanM. Mine is run by my overflow. It is adding heat to the water of course but nothing appreciable in my case. My heaters don't come on nearly as much during the day to regulate the temperature to 77.

First, get to the point where your levels are where you want them. You need to figure out the rough water volume in the tank minus live rock and such. Use this to calculate how much two part solution you need to raise the alkalinity by 0.1dkh in order to make your adjustments. You only need to measure alkalinity; measure it every day. See how much it drops in one day and correct it. Add the same amount of calcium as you do alk every day until you get to the long-term adjustment stages. The next day, automatically add that amount and continue adding that amount every day. Keep monitoring it and make slight adjustments until you have it down. The added stability will make the corals start to grow faster so keep monitoring it regularly. My tank consumes a little less than 10x more all and cal than it does mag. If your consumption of alk and cal are low, regular water changes are more than enough because most salt mixes have elevated mag levels.

^ wish for more wishes

I certainly don't have the clams for it.

I suppose you are correct. We are never going to know what is really in our tanks without analysis.

That is awesome TracyG. Are there any improvements that you would make if you were to do it over again?

Thanks for the suggestion. The turtle wasn't caught in the wild. My brother is an oddities dealer and sought out a two-headed turtle having had done a lot of research first. The turtle actually came with a specialist's evaluation and special instructions.

This one was from Laurel Glass and Mirror. I normally use Hutchinson Glass and they always match the heights for me to within 1/32".

I believe that both of these corals are referred to as a green slimer. The growth pattern is slightly different and the bigger ones that we see in people's tanks are most likely acropora cervicornis. It is very frequently sold and labeled in the hobby by that name. I have a slimer in my tank right now and I believe it to be acropora yongeei. In two years, it has gone from a 2" frag to a 6" colony, around the same pace as a lot of my more sensitive corals. For reference, in the same amount of time, my vivid aquariums ultimate rainbow acro has grown from the same size to a much thicker 6" colony, probably triple the density of my slimer.

I have built other tanks before. I went with a cheaper glass supplier this time and they didn't polish the edges after machining them and the height of the glass panes on the sides weren't perfectly even. I will probably stick with my normal supplier from now on because the glass was always flawless, even though they are more expensive. I am over-all happy with the results. I'll be giving it to my brother in about an hour. It's a birthday present and he doesn't know about it.

Looks familiar! Do it, for sure. We filled a five gallon bucket completely with chaeto from the size of a baseball in two weeks, that's even with giving some away to a few different people. Have any pictures?

I don't think that it would be the best idea to build out the tank to please somebody else because ultimately, you are going to be the one investing the time and money into building and maintaining it. I can tell you that our son is absolutely captivated by our SPS tank. The colors really draw him in. Even though the tank is all SPS, it is not motionless by any means. We have awesome polyp extension and a ton of flow. The fish also definitely add to the mix. He may only be eight months old, but he already has a favorite fish, our powder blue tang. His eyes follow the tang around the tank. Whatever you build, your kid is going to love it.

This one is 36x17x12 and will be the new home of my brother's two-headed turtle, Ghidora.

Right at the top of the list - acropora cervicornis…… the bali green slimer. This is infuriating. One day, underground hobbyists will aquaculture the only corals left on the planet and the idiot politicians will still be trying to shut them down. What is worse is that they will seize the corals and kill them because they won't be able to care for them.

Calcium chloride mixed according to Randy's 2 part recipe actually began to melt my mixing container.. I now shake it with the container submerged in a sink full of cold water.

The stepper motors alone are worth their weight in gold for this application. Unfortunately,I think that they are going to sell these for too much money. The price difference wholesale for a small stepper motor vs a small DC motor is only a few dollars. The head was not something that needed to be redesigned as masterflex heads are not expensive enough to warrant the tooling. I guess I will have to wait and see the price.

A better way to spend $700: 6-7" tabling acro - $130 G4 Glock 19 - $570