DaJMasta

+1 it's usually a really loose brown sludge that accumulates in places with very low flow (I had it at the bottom of the rear chambers in my AIO.) Haven't noticed particular creatures that seem to thrive in it, so I think it's pretty safe to just siphon out - I have on several occasions to no ill effects - but it does stir up easily so turn off the flow or prepare for some cloudiness.

I got an order from their live sale this past week and while they said they had fewer fire shrimp than expected from some losses from their supplier, they sent an email to notify me and the rest arrived healthy and well packed (big box, lots of water, 5 small heat packs in my case.) I did get confused because I am used to picking a delivery day whereas with their checkout you pick a shipping day, but I could be home for the following day so it was no big loss. All in all, my experience was positive. I've had worse cancellations (not telling you it isn't shipping until you open the box) and much shoddier shipping.

In the top bar there should be a Store button and under that should be orders when you are logged in, that should show any outstanding and previous invoices for membership. They also generally send an email, but this may not be long before it expires (mine's coming up in early April and I haven't gotten an email yet, so maybe a month out?) and to whatever email was on file.

I can make myself free on Friday to help lift. No suction cups but could bring a furniture dolly.

It varies a lot, as said traps are a pretty reliable option, but honestly, if your fish recognize you and you don't go chasing them around when working in the tank, a lot of fish can be herded into an area where you can net them against the glass with a couple of smaller nets to block holes and something to slowly move them along. Of course there are fish that dart under a rock and don't particularly care about most foods, so that won't work with everything.

I honestly don't know how much zinc is required or what for, though I know iodine has some known uses in tanks (though the form of which is important for its bioavailability). I also know my tank has tested low for iodine at every ICP even despite dosing and it's generally been pretty healthy. I think generally covering as many bases is possible is good, but aside from widely-known-to-be-important elements, "critically low" should be taken with a grain of salt. For example, I don't know if dosing silica would be all that beneficial unless you want diatoms or sponges to grow. I would pick something that covers as many as possible, then dose something otherwise if you feel like it - iodine specific supplements are easy to find and just a few drops a week is probably plenty, so it's likely not something that needs to be on a doser.

Unfortunately, chasing individual numbers often involves individual additive bottles and regular testing. That said, you can sort of cover a lot of your bases by some baseline dosing of a mix of elements. B-Ionic may help with the levels, but it's designed as a replacement for regular old 2 part, so you'd have to replace at least some of your normal dosing regimen with it. The combination trace element bottles are often blended with what can keep separate from what, but if there's a particular mix that covers a lot of your bases - in their recommendation "Daily Traces A" - then just dosing that alone should help. Dosing quantity should scale linearly, so just slide the decimal place over 4 and you should be good. Iodine/Manganese/Iron has been low in my tank so I dosed some Chaetogro and some lugols iodine on sort of an irregular schedule. I didn't notice a huge difference, but the numbers on subsequent tests went up a bit. Worth mentioning that the 32.5ppt really will skew your numbers, though. I don't expect a lot of the "critically low" marked ones in regular salt mix to correct those, but having lower overall salinity will lower all of your primary numbers too (magnesium, calcium, potassium, strontium, etc.)

Not super difficult, you'll want to isolate the male before he releases the babies so you can grab them before other tankmates/the current does, then you'll want an isolated, low flow place to raise them early on, and ideally, you have a live food available when he spits them out. Artemia nauplii are easy to hatch, cheap, and are readily accepted, so I'd go with those. Then after a week or two, small prepared foods will be fine (maybe feed that first because they will prefer the live if you still offer it), though unless the tankmates are gentle and small, I'd keep them in their own space for a couple of months. Also worth keeping a top on where they're kept while growing up is good - there will be some casual sibling aggression and you don't want jumpers (it seems to be easier for the small ones.)

I'm looking to convert a tank into a sump and I need a small amount of untempered plate glass for it (probably 4x2 feet, 1/4" thick.) I've contacted a couple places near Columbia, MD (where I'm at) and they haven't given me the time of day - seems to not be worth the effort. So I'm sure we have some who have built or modified tanks - who would supply you glass? I know I can go with polycarbonate, but the silicone won't bond as strong and I'd like to be sure that the baffles can hold back a good bit of water without any pressure from the opposite side.

Weird! While I've had my calcium run away before, I wouldn't have expected the kit to read zero. At least high calcium isn't so detrimental and regular old water changes or waiting should do alright to fix it.

Could it be that it's overrange? Could it be that there's some asterisk that different parameters can throw it off (I think Mg test kits usually only work well in a specific calcium range, for example.) Definitely seems like an odd one. A way to check would be to dilute your water with new saltwater and see what direction it changes.

I've been sort of eyeing big tanks I can't yet afford and aside from black friday deals, SCA has got some of the best prices I've seen. They even do by-default eurobracing which I'm a fan of.

And my experience has been just throw in 200-300 mL every couple of months when I check, while Randy Holmes Farley seems to prefer 'don't bother even measuring' in many cases. At any rate, slow adjustment is probably always somewhat better, but may be a more conservative method of doing it. If your magnesium was 700 ppm, for example, raising it to 800, 900, 1000, 1100, 1200 over the course of a week or two would be far worse than raising to >1000 and then raising to 1300-1400 in two steps, imo.

It's not good form to dose a ton, but there comes a point where it's better to shock things and get parameters in line vs. trying to be slow. That said, 1200 or so is low but not unreasonably so, so I would probably do it in at least a couple steps over a few days.

Sorry I saw this late after being in DC during the day, but I've moved to be just a bit south, good to hear things made it alright.