howaboutme

You still have your pico? How about sump in the basement? Just like old times... Congrats and good luck! ?

Love it! Instant coralline! ?

Probably but if your wife is like mine she'll probably think that's uglier than getting a nice set of shades or curtains....

Can you put some window treatments at the top to help control the lights? I put that easier than moving the tank but I guess it has to pass the wife test. I get it. By the way, I have corals and I don't even keep my lights on that long. I think I'm at about 10 hrs. It's all about a balance. It sounds like you have a plan. Try it out bit it's not days or even 1 or 2 weeks. Give it some time and see what happens. Just looking at a few pics, I don't see snails on glass, etc. I'm thinking maybe add 10 to 20 or more CUC members to help. Again, that "balance" also includes things that can eat the nuisance algae.

There's probably a plethora of things you can do to see what the results may be but I usually start w/ the easiest, give it a few weeks, then tweak if necessary. If this was my tank, I'd do three things before I do something more drastic. 1) Take 1 of your feedings away but don't add more food in those other 2 feedings, 2) lower your light cycle. Not sure what they are now but reducing likely won't hurt what you have. 3) add more CUC, blue-legged hermits, snails, etc. A tank your size should be crawling w/ these guys. Also, I noticed that your picture shows the tank w/ sun coming from a nearby window. How long is your tank exposed to that sunlight? Can you shade the window a bit as another test? Slow and steady.

You mentioned you dose 40mL daily. What NO3 does that get you? What's your sweet spot?

It sounds like you're talking about the redfield ratio? Many years ago we talked about it as a thing but I've seen more recent posts where it's not. I'm NO3 limited too but haven't played with it since I don't check PO4.

Isaac...I personally think that the dreaded dinos people get are somehow tied to dosing bacteria. I have zero proof and it's likely not that easy and other things most certainly are involved but if you read a lot of the threads here and elsewhere you will find a loose correlation between the two. Again, zero proof but don't really care. I'll never use it. I think your 3 month algae bloom is normal. When I transferred, I had one. Didn't change a thing and it all went away. Not overnight but it went away.

I don't think I can add much more than what has already been said but I will say that one of things that I think is not done well in this hobby, especially for newer hobbyists is setting expectations. What we see (or want to see) are the pictures of nice tanks floating around online with no traces of algae in sight. What is not obvious at the beginning is how much work went into getting that tank in that state. By work, I mean both effort and time. The latter being the key that has been talked about. Before every awesome looking tank picture that same tank has had algae or some other nuisance issue. It's just that no one takes pictures of it unless they are having true problems. The long time hobbyist know there really isn't a problem so you will only see the newer people post those. The long time reefer knows to stay the course and let time solve the problems (not always true of course). I think my point is, it is okay to post those pictures and get suggestions. No one will judge you. WAMAS is a unique club in that it is filled with experience reefers and those people naturally don't post often. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't. I second Tom and hope that we can move beyond just a buy/sell/trade forum. I'm happy to contribute of course!

Ah! I see. I was caught up in your NOVA comments.

Welcome back! Good see a familiar avatar from back in the day. Lot's of MD'ers from the northern 'burbs of DC so they will chime in soon enough. By the way, I remember going to Marine Scene (assume you meant "scene) too! Definitely a few new LFS but some old ones still exist.

Can you flip the pictures? It's hard to see but that looks like hair algae. You can scrape it off or get snails/hermits that will clean it out in no time. edit: just noticed you tried to flip picts.

Thanks for the update! Good luck with the move, it's never easy. My suggestion is to start over. Transferring is always a risk. At least you have all or most of the equipment depending on if you want a new tank or not. I applaud your efforts to work w/ the lilly pipes but I did think that it was going to be a difficult task.

Looks great, Colin. Question. Does Dr. Mac ship their clams with them attached to a rock (or something)?

Welcome! I've done that coast to coast drive, albeit when I was a kid but I still remember that journey crystal clear. Your old setups look great!

That little thing is pretty cute. Keep up the good work!

Any updates on your lights? How are the luxdiums fairing?

Air, water and ice is a WAMAS sponsor. Check their section, you may get a discount. There are the other usuals from the online retailers. Truth be told, most of it are the same 10" canister filters. The differences come in the quality of the pre-filters (how many microns) and the RO (but even that is universal as Dow Filtec pretty much is the standard. Then there is the DI, color changing or not, etc. You need to determine how much water you want to produce. The most basic and good for smaller tanks is 75 gpd and go up from there. Then you need to determine how many stages. The most basic and good for most is the 4 stage (carbon, sediment, RO and DI). You can add more stages if you want and a lot do. The biggest thing is to determine how you're going to connect and how you're going to store the contraption (it is not small) and your reservoir. A few quick searches here and elsewhere will provide some ideas to start with.

You just connect the supply to the RODI (make sure it's RODI not just RO) unit and voila! You have clean water. There's a lot that goes into which unit to buy so take care in doing the research. We can help with that of course if you provide a bit more on what your setup (including what your water source connection looks like) is.

Looks great! All of that encrustation must be exciting. Sounds like you're ready for more battleboxes!

I think either a derasa or squamosa. I agree that those tend to be easier. Nothing is worse than spending $200 for a maxima and having it wither away. BF almost here!

Thanks and thanks for the heads up about Dr. Mac! Funny because yesterday I went to their website and boy was I shocked at the current prices of their clams. I know they culture the best but that was a bit of sticker shock. I then went to AlgaeBarn and their prices looked way better and had some different options. I prefer an easier clam than Maxima's too. It is close to BF so I will keep eyes peeled.

My inkbird has a 1 degree difference which makes the change +/- 1.2 degrees or so. That doesn't change day or night as we always keep our home cooler than the tank. My controller is the failsafe in case the inkbird malfunctions.

Wow, it's been a few months! Not much is going on, really. Some growth, some no growth. Some colorful, some not colorful. No deaths though. Alk has been a PITA to control. At one point, I realized I didn't need to dose. Now I'm back to dosing. Tomorrow? Who knows! I finally have some detectable NO3 (2ppm). But then again, besides testing it 2 days ago, I can't remember the last time I even tested that. But seriously, I tested it thinking my tank is a bit too clean. Either way, I still don't have a concrete pathway other than sit and wait since nothing bad is going on. Coraline is going crazy in the spots I allow, which is not the glass. Oh! My rainbow 'nem did split about a week ago. I was planning to try and get it and sell it but it is now in a good spot (lower left) that I'm willing to see if the clowns will host it. (Remember that the sexy shrimp has taken over the initial (now other) one.) I do need a clam in that center spot... I only remembered to take a picture when the tank was already very blue so harder to depict.

Pretty shocking news for the hobby for sure!