Newms118

I just rinsed my 20g brutes with water before use. Never had an issue from what I can tell.

I just used a vinegar bath to help remove some of the leftover gunk from my Pukani rock from BRS. I think my dilution was 50:50 vinegar to RO/DI water.

I have the 14000K, 20000K and Super Actinic fixtures from Build My LED. So far they have been great (Ive stressed the corals out by increasing the intensity too fast, so they're pretty powerful). http://www.buildmyled.com/aquarium/

So was checking on the hammerhead today and noticed that there was some blackened/burn tissue on one of the polyps: Any ideas as to what this is, if its something negative or just something that happens with these guys?

Ok I dimmed the lights a bit and the birds nest coral seem to be doing better. However, the little frag that seemed to be doing great today (lots of polyp extension) has been mauled to death by a limpet. In a matter of about 8 hours. I leave at noon after looking at the tank to make sure everyone is happy, to come home and see the limpet with its mouth now on the birds nest. Here is the guy pre-limpet mauling: Now the poor frag looks like this: Needless to say I just got rid of any limpets I could find, but I know there others. Anyone have this happen to them?

What I mean is that the fish appears to rub his mouth/gills on the PVC elbows I have in the tank. He seems to be breathing normally but when he was scratching I saw him swim to the top and take a gulp of air. I say 4 ppm bc the API test is so bad in determining color that its hard to really say. I put the recommended amount in the tank based off the instructions (5 mL / 4 gallons) and it really depends on the lighting as to what color it looks like (and I am reading the color by looking down through the top of the tube). I worry that since the fish have been in the copper for 3+ weeks that it could be bc they've had enough. Today I will be doing another complete water change, where I take the fish out and put them in a bucket of the water their currently in, and then drain the tank, wipe it dry and replace with new water that has been dosed. I then use a net to transfer the fish to the new water in the tank. So after I do this, how much longer should I keep the copper in since I see the scratching continuing?

Ive had the following fish in Coppersafe for 3 weeks and 4 days: Clownfish Royal Gramma 2 blue yellow-tail damsels I use the API copper test and its been reading between 2 and 4 ppm the whole time. I haven't seen any signs of Ick (white spots) on the Royal gramma and the damsels. The only issue is that the clown keeps flashing, swimming back and forth across the tank and has been a little bit aggressive. My ammonia and nitrite are zero in the QT, but my nitrates are currently above 50 ppm. I did a massive water change on June 18th to reduce ammonia, nitrite and nitrate, and re-dosed the tank to bring back the copper to the correct level. So my question is why is the clown still showing signs of Ick (flashing) even though the tank has been treated for so long and the levels have never been below 2 ppm?

Actually, my pH does fluctuation from 8.1 to 8.3 for night and day cycles, would this cause issues?

thanks for the heads up, didn't think about checking the tank I was getting the frags from. Question is, if there is a big difference between the tanks, how can you slowly acclimate to the new settings? Would drip acclimation be enough?

No major swings that I'm aware of. If the tank I got it from had say an Alk reading of 10 or 11, and since mine is 9, would that count as a swing, given that they are all good readings?

What tool is good for this? Wire cutters, needle nose pliers?

From what I've read, it could be just bleaching, or slow/fast tissue necrosis. Such a shame bc I love the look of these little guys.

So I've had these frags of green birds nest coral in my tank for about 4 days. Before I put them in, i did a Coral Rx dip for 10 minutes. I placed them mid level in the tank that receives medium flow. When I came home I noticed they didn't look too good. The smallest frag looks the most healthy: The two larger frags look worse. One is doing slightly better (on the left) but its skin is becoming lighter: For my lights, I run the 14000K (original series) and 20000K (XB series) for the day, and the Super Actinic Spectrum (original series) for my night light; all from Build My LED. Here is my lighting sequence: For 14000K 3 hour ramp from 15% to 50% - runs from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM 3 hour ramp from 50% to 15% - runs from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM For 20000K 1 hour ramp from 15% to 65% - runs from 8:30 AM to 6:00 PM 1 hour ramp from 65% to 15% - runs from 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM Actinic Cycle 2 hour ramp from 15% to 45% - runs from 7:00 AM to 8:00 AM 1 hour ramp from 45% to 15% - runs from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM 1.5 hour ramp from 15% to 60% - runs from 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM 1 hour ramp from 60% to 15% - runs from 10:00 PM to 11:00 PM Some parameters Alkalinity - 9 Calcium - 500 Magnesium - 1340 Nitrate - 0.2 Ammonia - <0.25 Phosphate - <0.03 Any ideas on what I can do? For tonight I plan on just adjusting my lights so that they don't run as long.

If the crabs are brown or black they tend to be bad ones, I still find them in my tank now and haven't been able to catch them with a trap. I also had some red Mithrax crabs that have hairy legs but just tend to eat algae for the most part. Haha I'm glad the clownfish is big and able to handle him. If he's brave enough to antagonize the clownfish, definitely a good idea to keep him out of the DT.

Ha what a fitting name for the sponge. I just started using sponge power bc one of my sponges from my TBS shipment wasn't looking too good. So far my sponges have been looking denser if that makes any sense, hope thats for the better. For the white dots, are you saying they are eggs that the worms come from, or the worms sit in these dots? Also, do flatworms lay eggs?

I have two items that I wanted to see if anyone could help me identify. The first looks like some type of bug thats on the glass in my overflow: The second are these white spots that appear on my aquarium glass. Some of them are small dots, others little swirls. When I run my algae scrapper over them, its pretty hard to brush them off. Are these some type of eggs?