KingOfAll_Tyrants

i think i have most of a bottle you can have in Arlington. I'll check when i get home in a few hours.

I believe I remember @Capital Aquarium mentioned that they get captive bred/captive raised fairy or flasher wrasses. Rather than ask just them specifically in the forum, I'd like to ask them (and any other vendors) what species are available? I will be looking for one in the next 3-6 months. Thanks!

if anything, wtb and fs should be split, so it's easier to find the former..........

Small addition.....as part of my ICP test with ATI, they will do a free extra test of a RODI sample you give them. So after getting plenty of results with "everything is 0, your RODI is fine", I decided to send them Arlington county tap water (at least as it comes out in my building!). Most parameters were zero (even, oddly, nitrates), except for the following: Silicon 3100 µg/l (supposedly from a quick google search "The silica content in natural waters is commonly in the 5 to 25 mg/L range, although concentrations over 100mg/L occur in some areas") Barium 23.49 µg/l Copper 3.37 µg/l. (far below ostensibly dangerous levels, it seems to me from a google search. Arlington county's 2018 water quality report says that their range of detected levels were 0.01 – 0.19......hmm.......) Zinc 6.45 µg/l Phosphorus 710.3 µg/l Phosphate 2.17 mg/l Aluminium 21.97 µg/l. (note: according to the WI department of Health, "the World Health Organization has recommended that aluminum levels in community water supplies should not exceed 0.2 mg/L.". So this theoretically should be fine for drinking water, it seems) This is obviously not what we want for reefing. I don't even know if I'd want any of this in a simple freshwater tank, though only phosphate an Al look like they're problematically high levels......

Indeed this is my big worry. Seriously, thanks! I think I may start this next week. Though rather than my initial 24x12.5x16 tank I might try a 30x12.5x19 (since I have the latter available)

Interesting. KP aquatics' writeup suggest they are actually peaceful. https://www.kpaquatics.com/product/blue-chromis/ I think the second point of their first paragraph is a key point: it seems a lot of fish (at least in the marine ornamental fish market) shoal/school when they're small, but then when they get older they pair off and drive others away (well beyond the confines of our average tank). ETA: forgot about this, if you want to be bold in your big tank with Royal Grammas or orchid, indigo, or sankey dottybacks: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2564212 Or: I also remember a scientific survey of Royal Grammas which said the same thing: they live in caves and under rocks in groups with a Big Man in charge, and the lower you are in the group the worse spot in the cave you get.

This. If Supereme Reef is to far for folks, ask a closer SA or ORA stocking LFS to get a group. Again, supposedly banggai cardinals will shoal with them peacefully throughout the banggai's lives, so one could theoretically get a small pair and place them among the bluestreaks.

this? http://sustainableaquatics.com/sustainable-islands-fish/cardinals/blue-eyed-cardinal/ very cool. I’ve heard good things about them, as mentioned in the previous post. I think it’s funny that ORA gives them a different name than SA, though. i’d be interested in Hearing more about your experience with them. Maybe I will get some someday. https://www.orafarm.com/product/blue-streak-cardinal/

Excellent, thanks again Mogurnda! I really appreciate you sharing your experience. A few things that I found particularly interesting. Also, for the curious (to include myself when I forget what I wrote and look back into this thread for reference), Randy Holmes Farley states 1 tsp (5ml) of vodka has 1g of carbon (10x the amount white vinegar has). So it seems for the hypothetical 1g phosphorus and 30g nitrogen, I would need 150g carbon (750ml!!!) of vodka, though obviously in a 20 gallon tank that's an insane amount on all sides. (the planted tank calculator says that to raise phosphate in 20 gallons water by 0.1ppm, I'd need 0.1g potassium phosphate in 10ml of RODI. Ergo, 3g. nitrogen and 15g/75ml vodka. (sounds like a lot!) Though again, it seems you don't dose vodka with phosphate or nitrate. Anyway, a few more little questions. It seems that Trochus will eat seagrasses? The predicted bacterial bloom, then, is a matter of the new tank becoming stable, and I should probably not filter or do drastic water changes to remove bacteria? (much less dose bacteria killing stuff!!!!!)

Aha, now I get what you were saying about slug blog. I looked over it, that's really awesome. (USG is that facility near Darnestown which houses branches of multiple universities? If so, I've hung out in the library there before). If you have a moment for the 150:30:1 ratio reference, that's cool. But I've seen it referenced elsewhere in different aquarium fora. As far as dosing them, can I then say that i should add something like this: Using Brightwell Neophos (not that I will, just that I have their formula handy), 1 ml NEOPHOS will increase the phosphate concentration in 1 US-gallon (~3.8 L) by ~1.2 ppm, therefore about 1.7ml is necessary to bring my 20 gallon up to 0.1ppm (pretty high by reef tank standards!) Using Brightwel NeoNitro, 1 ml NEONITRO will increase the nitrate concentration in 1 US-gallon (~3.8 L) by ~5 ppm -> therefore 12ml is necessary to bring my 20 gallon up to 3ppm. Using Vinegar, I'd have to use a relatively large amount it seems. (my guess is over 20ml, but again I'm spitballing. If it becomes large enough, I may swap vinegar for vodka just to keep down the needed daily amount. Will ask Randy Holmes Farley......) (as an aside, do you recommend those targets, 3ppm NO3 and 0.1 ppm PO4, or is that too low/high for this kind of tank? And another random aside, looking at this subject, my previous tank always had PO4 in the 0.1-0.2ppm range but NO3 in the 3 range, at its highest. It seems I was very carbon limited, and should have dosed vinegar again after stopping it like a year ago.......) And yeah, I think it would be a bit of time to get the plants situated and growing. The freshwater planted tank folks (e.g. Walstad) recommend getting quick-growing plants in ASAP to outcompete the algae. I was going to use some caulerpa and other quick growing macroalge to do so, though I'm not sure how applicable that would be for a marine tank. Just for reference, if a macroalgage or seagrass starts turning red/purple, that's a sign that it's nutrient limited? Anyhow, moving this forward is then my tenative tank plan: Stuff: - 20 gallon high - No sump or overflow. (thermometer, etc. in the main tank) - Tunze 9004 DC skimmer (I have one sitting around) + small oxydator, mainly for gas exchange - Maybe about 10lbs of live rock - Two MP40s (just because have them sitting around. Will keep them on lagoon mode in very low settings) - Light: 24"Finnex planted+; 1x will be sufficient? - Tunze nano ATO. - Seneye reef to keep constant watch on ammonia, co2/oxygen and ph, at least initially. (debating this vs. apex. I have an apex brain lying around) Setup: (note that I've taken several pages from the Walstad freshwater planted tank method - nutrient laden substrate, quick growing plants, then slow-growning plants, CUC and gradual addition of fish, especially noteworthy here because nitrites are not as big a problem in saltwater as in freshwater?) Sandbed will be 4 inches deep. I'll place a good amount of miracle mud ( it seems there are several products out there that do this - miracle mud, koralagoon substrat, mineral mud.... they probably would be better than something like ecocomplete, because they're made for marine fuges and are therefore more expensive...lol) That being said, if I can get appropriate wild substrate for seagrasses from a vendor, that would be even better. Initial plants will be various forms of in-sand caulerpa species. C. prolifera (fast grower), paspaloides (fast), cupressoides (slow grower). I may also try gracilaria and ulva as fast growers, maybe on a piece of rock or somesuch. (heck, maybe I'll throw in a ball of chaeto). My worry, based on previous experience, is that these will disintegrate in a new tank, presumably because there's not enough nutrients, which is what the miracle mud stuff is supposd to counteract. I was going to try Halophila, but may also try Thalassia and Syringodium based on availability. I may also try one of the in-sand halimeda species. (Supreme Reefs has big strands) I'll add a CUC fairly soon (if not "start" day, then a within a few days) - astrea snails, a few trochus, small cerinths and nassarius. In total aobut 12 inches of snails for the 20G. I might add a few shrimps. I loved having a tuxedo urchin but it previously ate all my coraline, leaving my rocks prey for derbasia, etc. I may pour in phytoplantkon (or not - maybe it will be a competitor for my plants???) and/or a large group of copepods. My first fish (don't know how long I'd wait to add it - Walstad says wait several weeks, but I've been told that's because of freshwater fish sensitivity to nitrite and not applicable in marine tanks and so I should add one hardy one early to be another ammonia source. My first one will either be a tailspot blenny or a dwarf filefish. After a few months, I'll add whichever of those I don't get, then add a yellow headed jawfish (love this fish). And maybe a small school of small cardinalfish. If all goes well, I'll add a gorgonian in a few weeks(Antillogorgia anceps - I've had good luck with them), maybe a favites/favia of some sort (good luck with them). Maybe even an acro and pocillopora (love the latter genus). And that will be plenty, maybe even too much, for a 20gallon with a 4 inch sandbed!

Long time ago I was curious about schooling/shoaling fish. Here are some options I remember: 1. PJ cardinals can sort of shoal in a large enough tank 2. blue streak cardinals do so much more reliably than Banggai, PJs, etc. In fact, they are found with Banggais in the wild, so you could have a shoal of Blue streaks and add a pair of Banggai long term 3. Margarita cardinals "prefer to assemble in schools that dart around the open areas of reef tanks, similar to how freshwater tetras behave in planted aquaria" (ORA) and is "Often seen in small groups, in pools among seagrasses and coral rubble" (wild singapre) 4. Yellow Cardinalfish (Ostorinchus luteus) "Aggregates under ledges, in holes, or even among spines of sea urchins" (fishbase) 5. Masked Govies "school near large coral columns and heads". ORA says they breed all of the above, though you may have to ask your dealer as to availability (ORA-liveaquaria only lists the PJs and Bangais). KP aquatics, a good collector in FL, often has the masked goby. And honestly, on a tank that large with the larger fish you have, I'd guess many of these fish would definitely shoal, and I might even try like 11 of the most peaceful chromis species you could find. I'd be very interested to see your experience with whatever you decide to go with.

Thanks! How deep is your sandbed? What is your sandbed made of? I was only thinking about a partial sandbed because 1) I'm just getting into this and want to start off slow 2) I did OK with my last DSB (made for yellow headed jawfish) but in my last tank crash I saw lots of crap/unprocessed detritus, and I thought I stirred up the sandbed decently (not too much but not too little), didn't feed that much, and had enough detrivores running around. But then if the rhizomes grow to fit the space, then that's a bit comforting from that perspective. So yeah I've heard about these ratios, so then NO3/PO4 should be like 1.5/0.05, or do you keep them substantially higher (3/0.1? higher?). Also, how do you measure C? (I heard about calculating it from your KH and pH, but are there better ways for the hobbyist?) Initially I won't have many fish, and my endstate is not to have too many fish (granted this will be a 20 high and so I can't have that many in hte first place.........), which is why I'm a bit concerned about nutrient dosing. Yeah when it comes to dosing I would intend to dose modest amounts of NaNO3 and KH2PO4. Is there any advantages of using CO2 versus dosing vinegar? Honestly modest dosing of all of those to my mind sounds like the easiest way to do keep up nutrients. Anyway, eventually linking a seagrass tank to a big reef (i.e. having it be a big display refugium ) was an idea I was pursuing. But that will be a while now..... Thanks for the input!

There are lots of opinions out there about lighting. My only direct experience is Kessils vs. ATI T5s, and it wasn't a contest: ATI T5s grew acros, etc. in ways that Kessils couldn't. However, there is still shading with T5s (heck, there's shading with the sun!), especially if the coral is at the edge of the T5s' coverage area. If you want the actinic pop, there reef bars from 21LED USA or Reef Brite Lumi strips, etc. (I ran the T5s 8-10 hours and then the LEDs the remaining 6-8 hours folks were running around the house before bedtime. Do watch nutrients and alk levels - when I get back into acros I'm going to get one of the growing number of automatic alk monitor machines and link them to a doser/Calcium reactor. I'd recommend getting this under control at the same time, and even before, you get new lights. Random first and second hand opinions: (I'm sure, even hope, that one of them will be controversial and elicit some further thoughts ) - My recommendation would be to put most acros between at least 2, and IMO preferably 4, T5s, and to put most acros and branching corals as high as you can, especially millies, tenuis, etc. Those kind of acros get like 500 PAR for most of the day, and even higher, on a real coral reef, so you can't really burn them. (some people say however that because LEDs are focused you can actually burn a coral with an LED when you get past 300 PAR, in a way the sun, a MH, or T5 can't, even if you go up to really high PAR levels. I don't know, I've never done an experiment to prove/disprove that claim) - I'm not convinced that LEDs objectively saves more energy than T5s or MH - they just provide different kinds of light - a 215 watt Radion XR30 G5 consumes the same range of power IMO 4x 54W T5s as a 250w MH. But they definitely give you different kind of light, it - assuming your dimensions are 72x25x25 (typical 180 gallon dimensions), I'd go with an 8 T5 fixture. You can go for an ATI fixture, and i'm sure it has bells and whistles that will be good, but at the same time I can see the value proposition of a cheaper T5 housing from Amazon. (ATI's bulbs are good, IMO. I'd choose the bulbs based on your corals, with the caveat that I never found their actinic T5 very useful). - note that with that depth you probably will be struggling to grow the generally more demanding acros at the bottom 1/3 of the tank. (though some of the "deeper" ones- enchinata, speciosa, granulosa, etc. - will work well there, as will encrusting montis, porites, etc.) - some people swear by halides for acros - and supposedly the current production halides by Hamilton Tech are way more energy efficient than the older ones. Enough so that I decided to buy new halides tp try for my hoped for next tank acro tank, though that next tank wont be around for at least another year. (if you were interested in borrowing one of the fixtures for a month or two, PM me) - That being said, I know at least two members - epleeds and skysoblue - use (or at least used) radions and get excellent results with acros. I don't remember off the top of their head how many, but when I did the math years ago for getting my desired coverage I got huge sticker shock. (though mind you they have success, while all I have now is a hangover from a massive tank crash :(. ) - Dr. Mac I believe highly recommends the Ocean Revive T247 lights; that being said his SPS grow out is in his greenhouse rather than under the ORs, but I think in his experience they work fine. I might just get more if I wanted to get better coverage, though OTOMH (without doing any research beyond looking at the dimensions) I'd think about doubling the number you have (two rows of 3x lights)

So I had a tank disaster a few weeks ago, and am plotting getting back in, maybe as soon as in the next two weeks. I want to go low-ambition this time, because a) I want something a bit easier than the sort of ad hoc, no plan SPS system I had b) this summer, once the virus stuff dies down, we want to do a lot of remodeling in the area and a smaller initial tank would make that easier. (though I'm aware that what is temporarily expedient becomes much more permanent than anyone desires). Anyway, given all that, I want to restart with a 20 gallon tank vice the 40B I initially was going to start with (my ambition is 2-3 40Bs reflecting a seagrass lagoon, an acro-heavy upper reef, and then a lower/mesophotic reef, but that's for later - who knows when?). So, I have two ideas: 1. seagrass lagoon. Part shallow sandbed with in-sand macroalgae to quickly outcompete algae, part deep sandbed with lots of nutrients in the sandbed for the cultivation of easy seagrasses like halophila, as well as deep-sandbed loving macros like Halimeda incrassata. This would be to some degree a saltwater planted tank. I will slowly add a modest number of fish. I would have to regularly dose carbon (via a planted tank CO2 system), NO3, and even phosphates, maybe even iron or somesuch. I would need to have a constant pH and carbon/oxygen monitor (either seneye or apex. Leaning toward the former because even though I have an apex brain the pH and ORP probes are almost as expensive, though wifi support seems to be better with the apex) My worries about this are a) the sandbed b) the lack of abundant turn-key type instructions for seagrass tanks c) the fact that to keep this in check, at least 1-2 of the threads I'm reading through about some people's experiences suggest that watching/monitoring NO3, PO4, etc. is highly desirable and I'm not sure how often/how religiously I should do that to get success at this point. (if anyone has halophila or other seagrasses I'd be much obliged........) 2. "lower reef/mesophotic reef". This would be a normal reef tank (I have 3-4 methods of "turn key" instructions that I can go with for setting up a reef, as well as my previous experience, so I think this would be easy) but I would choose stuff from around thre 25-40m range, so I could get by with much less than normal levels of light (maybe just two T5s for 8 hours a day and then actinics the rest of the time). I'd keep this bare bottom. Life would be a BTA, maybe a pink skunk clown, and then a few firefish, and some amount of live rock. Maybe after several months I'll start dabbling in the "deep acros" again. Anyway, looking forward to folks' thoughts. Which would you vote for? (heck, since some macroalgae and seagrass live this deep, maybe I could have both!)

you folks are lucky. 48h ago the clowns, royal gramma and lawnmower blenny were eating. And heck, even if beaten up a bit, most of my acros were still in viable shape. that being said, I will be back in a few months. And lots of thinking........

Thanks, Isaac. Yeah, the lotion is an exotic hypothesis, but one that's heard on the net. Anyway, it's gotten worse while I was out at work and getting water. What's left will be on the for sale forum. :( :(

Odd, didn't mean to post those acro pics here. Oh well. Anyway, I got PO4 nominally under control with Phosphate rx. I heard about it and decided to give it a try vice constantly running GFO. But moving to the bigger picture, I've screwed up. I did a big cleanout of algae Wednesday (5 days ago)- I let a lot of film algae accumulate for way too long, and I've done similar before 2-3 times before without issue. I cleared it out, ran an external filter to clear out the resulting detritus until the water was pretty clear. (and there was lots of gunk in the filters. :D ) This time it led to massive bleaching in about half my corals, for reasons I don't quite understand to this point. At first I thought they were just unhappy, let it ride out. I also turned my MP40s way down compared to normal, hypothesizing that too much flow might be aggravating. But then i saw it was got worse and supposed it was either something released by the cleanout, something I may have inadvertently introduced (something silly like lotion residue I might have used 12 hours before that I didn't sufficiently wash out or something like that) and not only continued with my planned dose of Dr Tim's Waste Away bacteria (get rid of any accumulated detritus or rotting alage caused/stirred up by the cleanout) but also ran a good amount of carbon. Anyway, by last night my clowns were acting a bit funny (hiding in their favorite corner, not eating), a brittle star out half-eaten but still alive, and my royal gramma and lawnmower blenny were not to be seen. I noted this but was not terribly concerned (save for the brittle star), while of course looking at it now these should have been alarm bells. (well, tehy were but I had no idea what they were saying) The answer is out this am: the tank is cloudy and the clowns are dead on the MP40s, and a brief moving of the rockwork have shown the RG and LMB nowhere to be seen. clearly, oxygen levels have gone way down, and I have an ammonia spike exacerbated by I assume the animal deaths yesterday. All i can do now is a big water change (planning near 100% today) and to let things stabilize. I may put my remaining corals on buy and sell once things stabilize after a week or two; that will probably going to put me out of the hobby for the foreseeable future. :( To be continued.......

this is pretty cool. Thanks!

IIRC people are selling tanks all the time. Check out craigslist too; often great deals can be had there and you can drill an overflow. What happened with the overflow? I ask because I'm contemplating a HOB as well. Not knowing what happened, it seems to me that once you get down past the teeth (for argument's sake the top 2 inches, or about 5 gallons on a 40B) it should stop flowing? How is a drilled in overflow safer? Thanks!

unfortunately, I have heard problems with the reef bot. I have to commend them for the ingenuity, but it seems like a complicated and not mature product. :( but probably fine for diyers who like beta testing. https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/automated-testing-need-some-opinions-please.687811/?utm_source=sendy&utm_medium=email&utm_content=email+newsletter&utm_campaign=2020-02-21

this might work too:

In a bit of an interesting scenario. For the whole life of the tank phosphates have been in the 0.15-0.20 range (generally), while nitrate has generally been either high or low. I did not measure nitrate for several months because it was always between 1 and 5. Then, this last summer, it went up to 20 and stayed there until my leak mentioned above, after an unintentional water change it went down persistently to around 5. I last got that measurement on 1/20 Two days ago (not long after I took a lot of rocks out and scrubbed off GHA that had been accumulating since the tank leak), I looked at the parameters, and found my nitrate went down to almost 1ppm, and PO4 ostensibly went to 0!!! (Hanna 713) [also, alk consumption was a bit more than anticipated, but this would be easily fixed by slightly increasing my dosing. I hope!] The only thing I'd done in the past few weeks is take off the skimmer (tiny glass+airstone skimmer inadequate for the tank) and dose a bit of phyto each day. I was concerned that something odd happened, so I started feeding the corals again, maybe a bit too much yesterday, but a modest amount today. Anyway, redid my numbers, and indeed nitrate is ostensibly up (darker than I recall, but in the 1-2.5 range on the salifert), AND PO4 is 0.25. (thus I think the 0 is a fluke). One of my acros is also possibly showing burnt tips (sorry thsee photos are the best I can do) This does raise a few issues I'm thinking of: 1. how to reduce PO4; I may swap out my GFO since it's like a month old now (if PO4 is shown to continually be at the 0.2+ level) 2. since nitrate consumption is out of whack with PO4 consumption, some people online recommend dosing nitrate, ostensibly to get nitrate+PO4 consumption back on an equal basis. I am pondering this, but even if the theory is true that does not mean that this will work because again PO4 has always been in the 0.15-20 range no matter what, with nitrate being low. Hmmmm..................

Aaah. That really sucks. But again, glad the animals and people are OK.

Cool. Yeah, IMO I'd recommend sand sifting inverts. for a tank of that size, a Conch of some sort and a good number of nassarius snails from reef builders or salty bottom. Also, IMO, a rock wall on the back would be best for your setup. (a floating rock wall would be even better, but it would be harder to set up)

yeah I'd be nervous about drilling glass in an active tank as well! Honestly, IMO, if you want to drill the tank, get a new one. I'd recommend at last a 40B at Petco, which if their $1/gal sale is going will get you a new 40 breeder for a bit more than a $100, including stand.