jwalsh

What was your beef with the LEDs? Was it the old fixture specifically, or LEDs generally?

Thanks! Stability is the major concern since I'm going sumpless. Even with once a day feedings for the fish and once every ten days for the corals, nutrients are still higher than I would like. NO3 is usually between 5 and 15 ppm, which might account for some of the general browning of most of my SPS. PO4 low, but I test infrequently. I do 1.5 gallon water changes once a week, which amounts to 1/3 of the volume after sand, rock, equipment, and livestock eat up about 1 gallon of volume. I keep Ca around 450-480, which is high, but since I started dosing Ca and Alk (.5 ml/day), growth has taken off and the SPS are doing a good job of encrusting. Salinity is my big weakness right now. My target is 36, but even with the lid (which has a big opening down the middle), I still lose around 1/4 cup or so of water per day. For long weekends when I'm out of town, I have to make sure salinity is 34-35 so it's at 36-37 by the time I get home. I'm thinking about doing an ATO, but the risks/rewards with something this small have me on the fence. This is my first re-entry to the hobby in seven years, so it took a while to figure things out and I lost two good acros along the way. The trick now is to get things to thrive with good PE and much better color. I'm dosing a few Zeovit addities (amino acids, Phol's, etc.) that don't require the full Zeovit system to be effective. That's produced maybe 20% boost in color and a noticeable improvement in PE the last two months. I just started dosing Red Sea Coral Colars A-D and am proceeding very cautiously as overdosing these guys could get real bad real fast. However, I want my red dragon to be red, and my blue acro to be blue, darnit. I realize that a skimerless, sumpless, ATO-less, bell and whistle-less pico will have a ceiling when it comes to thriving acros. Still, let's see what we can do with what we have, right?

Almost five months in the books for this tank. There have been a lot of additions since the last post thanks to this summer's FFE, generous WAMAS members, and last weekend's ERC live sale. Some final arrangements to do and frags to glue, but it's finally in a place where I'm not embarassed to show it off. Looking forward to watching things grow out and hopefully color up based on some new dosing. 11/5/14 FTS New ERC orange fungia + $8(!) lobo New ERC teal hammer making friends with frogspawn from the FFE (which has already split heads 1 1/2 times)

Thanks for the fun and great deals. What are the local pick up options? I am in DC, so if an in town option is available, that'd be phenomenal.

Been waiting months for this guy. Success.

Glad it's staying in the area. Going to be a long line for those splits....

Orange fungia, let's go...

Good call.

That torch...

Pretty nifty. Got the baby blue acans, and they show up as sold out on the ERC site. Def had to go though a few levels of approval to complete the purchase, but think I like this system, especially with multiple audiences. Oh, and first person to buy on todays live sale gets a Gyre, right? :P

I do have an account already. So at what point in the process is the item secured as mine? Post-payment at PayPal? And will other people be able to put the same item in their cart and attempt checkout at the same time? Sorry for all the questions, but this is very new process. I have a few items I'm looking for and don't want a logistics hiccup to keep me from coral heaven.

I've registered, but only filled in my billing and shipping addresses. If we don't get the item until checkout is complete, does this mean I have to put in credit card info each time? Or will I be routed to PayPal each time?

That's what I'm thinking. I know they can take down massive meals, but they're not really equipped with the stingers to stun, not the way an open brain might. Plus, angels don't hang out like that. The problem is, I can't diagnose what the heck happened. It's a 5 gallon* and the list of predators is down to two shrimp gobies, a porcelain crab, and a small pistol shrimp. Since I got him from LiveAquaria a month ago, he's been eating and gaining weight. Temp was at 76.8 when I got back, so I had to tweak the heater, but that's not about to kill a fish with everything else being just fine. Pretty confused right now. *Not a forever home for the pygmy, but he was under 1.5" and the tank was ample for him right now. No signs of glass pacing or anything.

Just got back after two days away and my very juvenile Pygmy Angelfish is nowhere to be found. After feeding, checking the floor, overflow, under rocks, and being completely baffled I notice my 3" fungia is sporting a bump that was about the size of the fish. The fish was in good health and eating fine Thursday afternoon when I left. No way it starves by Saturday evening, right? So did my fungia just prey on it? I've never heard of this but am I'm thinking something else had to have done it in, then the fungia just got a meal of opportunity. Thoughts?

Love the highlights. What salon?

The YCG still being a prima donna with food? And FTS, FTW.

I should have know she was a Blennifer.

They look like they've grown three sizes

Registration complete! Now to list my couch on Airbnb...

DC - Shaw neighborhood.

Just finding out about this, but good work to everyone at WAMAS who helped make this happen. Crazy excited already. http://reefbuilders.com/2014/08/27/macna-2015-held-washington-dc/

Where do you have your ATO mounted? I see it's optical, so curious if the back is brushed glass and it works there. And are you liking it so far?

Here's another reminder

Love the set up. Any recent FTS to share? And how are your early returns on the ZeoVit? How did you change your setup to accommodate it?

Real estate is tight, but I'm also looking for: -2 heads of frogspawn and/or blue hammer -plating monti with polyps and base different colors -unique clove polyps -maaaaybe want some short-stalk white pom-pom xenia I have one or two 4-5 head acans for trade as well as. Will definitely be at the FF this weekend.