ranger

The large single point light from a mh is what is hard to copy not the spectrum. For its price the g5 is special to me because of its dual dual pods close together. Seems to give a mh effect to my eyes. Look all the leds and t5s grow sps well they look like crap compared to a good mh setup. A couple of g5s are the way to go to me.....my 2 cents

When you used mh like i did for 20 years all leds look like crap to me..... The new kessil and smatfarm g5 are ok....everything else looks like crap.

I think the g5 is the best leds for the mh look...... HONESTLY they should be way more popular then they are they really do look like mh.

3 g5 from amazon and a blue light bar.....700.00 3g6 and a blue light bar......850.00 Having a canopy i would put 3 plus a bar. Smatfarm g5/g6 are my fav when it comes to price and color and shimmer. I have tried most leds think kessils for shimmer and radions color...my 2 cents.

I set up a number of tanks in the 80s with 80 percent of live rock and even this amount of rock never handled my nitrate. Have since then always had a upside down sandbed in every tank. Works no water changes some tanks add a little vinager your set.

Your tank is cycled Rock alone can after the cycle leave alot of nitrate in your system A skimmer helps alot I would add at least a hob 100 is nothing in a fish only but it may climb out of control once you add fish I added a full forty breeder of dirty rock into a 80 gallon fish only with a hob skimmer on it the tank got nasty but cleared up and cycled with a 40 nitrate level only fish in it is a molly

Heres the best test kit in my experence . Comes with a reference sample easy to read as well. You have the best situation you can have just dose nitrate until you hit 5 and test weekly with the seachem. If you feed more or add fish then you chase po dont mess up a great thing. My 150 for 10 years had 0 nitrates...had a crash....set up the same way now i dose vinager/sugar to controll nitrates. Every tank even the same tank redone over reacts differently.

The ideal is to slowly filter a small amount of water through a chemical filter first carbon then a layer of poly filter so any household chems/metals/organics...etc might be removed before any tank crash. As you can see large water changes are and should be a last resort. There is a huge difference for your tank size and what a coral farm should do... Icp test are not reliable its been shown over and over. They have a place but you should be wary of them. I run a very slow flow through a brs dual reactor never do water changes on my 150 plus 2 40 system.....i use a small amount of poly in my reactors.

Add a poly filter an call it a day......the large 60 dollar one has a higher affinity for some compounds i beileve. One bad batch of salt and there she goes. Amazon has 5packs for 45 or 3packs of the large for 105 next day...simple insurance.

That skimmers design with its placement of its foam bublle trap is problematic. My faverite hang on back has always been the old remora with its bubble trap... always search for one on the forums. I use fine mesh nets in my system for bubbles were needed... they need to be rinsed every 2 weeks. You can most likely get one some were in your system every fish store has different sizes.

My etss downdraft has that color as long as i dose vinager/sugar Dark brown if i dont.

You can pk up at any walmart a 13 lb bag of baking soda in the pool area for cheap......bake it...your done. Then use brs for your calcium.....i have used prestone driveway an other cal diy with no problems but try to use the brs stuff if i have the money.

20 years ago out of the blue all my acros would not grow at all.......they didnt rtn/stn just no growth. Took a flashlight at night and saw a ton of little clear what i belive to have been sea spyders. After sucking them out over a month everything went back to normal. Long of it i would look at night at any lps/sps and see if these thing are on them otherwise there are most likely hundreds of creatures rooking at night we never sea. Always seems like a good idea to have some type of wrasse that eats pest if you dont already.

Check out richard ross on reef beef has in my view the only normal view on nutrients and algea and reef cleaners. Been in the hobby since late 80s all this junk out from these companys are a scam or newbies looking for a quicker way falling prey when all you need is light /flow/rocks and inverts ........nothing else but some time. You look at things a little different with time and experience. You have to be messing with all these quick fixes to some how get a tank to produce ammonia after the cycle is done.... I always feel for people getting in recently because of all the crap they think they need.....the reefcentral days were great as we all tried to understand phos and nitrates....carbon dosing...etc. But really the forums are a nightmare of coral sellers and media reefers pushing junk. I love following ross because he is the 1 outlier.

Put a ammonia alert if you think there is problem it is just about impossible to get a spike in ammionia in a non new reef tank unless you are messing with it..... These bacteria in a bottle are a cure looking for a problem that isnt real.....prime is what may be needed i add this a couple times a year just incase. Prime works on a real problem which is chloramine.......ammonia plus chlorine is nasty so you should always in my thinking proactivly address this with a little prime. I have never seen any corals or reef inverts or fish respond in any way to it.

You are suppose to have algea as long as it is green you are fine......think of it as food for your inverts. You dont need anything in a bottle its all a scam except for red slime remover...they are alot of sand inverts like conches,hermits etc For rock and glass i like small tuxedo urchins,small turbos money cowries and red banded trochus snails. If you have a fair numbers of these cleaners your green algea no matter your nutrient levels will be fine. When you drive down n or p you risk dinos or slime then you have a real issue.

You hit the nail on the head........lots of cleaners then add some nori or i like the algae tablits they sell for pleckos when needed,Reefcleaner in florida have money cowres in stock add a couple of them also .

Home depo has 30% cleaning vinegar will take off anything.........just use it outside

I always run a poly filter after carbon just to be safe.....cheap insurance considering what we have spent on our tanks.

All magnets pretty much do this at some point ..........should replace most after a few years.......

Think kessil but with the right color.....for a 150 price tag

Look them up it will be quite obvious...the nicrew is nice but for a 100 bucks less the smatfarm is just better.

Look at smatfarm on amazon its far and away the best cheap led fixture way better then nicrews.

Black worms have always worked for me.......just need to pick a heathy fish to begin with

In 1988 set up a tank with fresh live rock sunlit from a window [DUTCH REEF].......then moved on to a 110 with a deep reverse sandbed/ozone and heavy chemical filtration with no water changes this has been an easy successful way to keep reef tanks for over 30 years......I have seen so many people leave its unreal i believe its the belief that you need to do water changes that drives people away......you become a slave to your tanks.