cdw79

Looking to move on a few colonies to make some room, but not kept up wit prices recently / locally. Could anyone help me out with what reasonable pricing would be locally for some of these? Got a Duncan and a rainbow acan colony, a few Acro and torch colonies, plus a trachy that I've decided I'll move on. Can send pics and more specifics in pm's if that helps. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I've gone ahead and done a WC as a precaution, but even if 11.7 is within range, as I understood the rapid increase could nonetheless be an issue?

It's definitely fully on me, I'm working on how I'll mitigate a similar cocktail of issues in the future. Growing pains from a fish keeper to a proper reefer. Ultimately I know 11.7 is within an acceptable range, I'm more so concerned at the speed at which it got there. The 4 dkh spike in a matter of hours makes me anxious, but so far the corals look unaffected. Probably too early to tell but we'll see...

I refilled my Alk reservoir last night after running out on Saturday. What I believed happened was that a few weeks ago before I realized it was low, my Alk kept dropping from the 7.5 range I normally keep it to about 6.8, presumably because it was sucking out the very last drops of fluid. Like an idiot, I then increased the default output to try and mitigate that issue. Well sure enough, once primed with new fluid, the Alk exploded- 6.9 to 11.7 in a matter of hours. Just ran a second Alk test and got 11.0 this morning, so at least I know it's hit its peak (was worried it would come back even worse since the last test was at 1 am). The tank has been set up for a year and a half and I have SPS, LPS, Clams, etc. I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do, if anything. I cut off the default Alk to 1 ml per day (lowest it would go on the apex) to try and not double down on the issue, at the very least. But is this even a good idea, then? I know the Alk levels won't lurch down as quickly as they went up but idk if I should still have some calc coming in Looking over the tank today I don't see any signs of any kind of necrosis, which I guess is good, but we're still only 8 or so hours into the alk overdose so I assume the worst is yet to come. Both clams are open and seemingly doing ok for now. No shrimp or anything and only crabs are a few hermits. Is there anything I should do? I'd fear a huge WC might get the DKH down to some degree, but would a potential lurch back be a good outcome as opposed to just trying to stabilize things? I dealt with these a bit a year ago or so, but I didn't have such a packed tank at the time, much less one with a decent amount of higher end stuff either. Just baffled at how I've managed to do this, any and all thoughts are greatly appreciated.

I can personally vouch for Dr. Reef- bought a blue spotted jawfish from them after struggling to source one QTed locally. Great communication throughout and pretty reasonable price-wise in my opinion. The fish has eaten everything presented to it and has been healthy and disease-free for a good 6 months or so now since I received it. I ended up ordering several other fish from them recently with another WAMAS friend after we saw they had a holiday discount and also has increased the number of species they offered. They're set to arrive the second week of January so TBD on that order but otherwise my experience was great. The only thing I'd point out is that sometimes there is a waiting time between your order and when they can ship, because if they don't have a fish you have ordered pre-QTed, sometimes you have to wait for QT to finish and/or for sourcing. But all in all, great experience and am excited to work with them again

Has no one had negative experience w Emerald crabs? I haven't experienced this myself but have heard stories / seen pictures of them chowing down on some (sometimes very expense) LPS, which has made me swear them off purely out of an abundance of caution

Trying to understand the pros and cons of Rowa Phos vs GFO (only learned today that there is a difference). Also looking to try and choose a compact reactor for whichever I go with- space is at a huge premium in my sump but my .27 phosphate is simple too high to deal with any longer as is. Any guidance of how to approach this would be incredibly helpful, thanks so much!

I took a look, found him on YouTube but the only related video I saw was one where he compared lead acid batteries to lithium iron phosphate batteries. Any idea where you may have seen other discussions of the topic?

Luckily for me, I hope, I'm just inside Glebe in Ballston, in an apartment building at that. So hopefully that might lean in my favor. But regardless, that does not negate the necessity of having a proper plan in place for a significant power outage. While it would be nice to have the backup come on automatically, I suppose I'm not completely married to that idea. Ultimately I just want something I can depend on to get me through a ;power outage- whether a few hours or a few days. How exactly do you go about choosing what kind of backup to get? I looked at UPS united and "power banks" that I saw mentioned in some other threads but I don't really know how to size one or how long I could expect a Nero 5 to run on one. I've attached my Apex's readout for power consumption, for what it's worth

I've lived in the area for about a year and a half now, and I can't say I have a great plan for what happens if the power goes out. So far this thankfully hasn't happened in Arlington, and I do have a bubbler that comes on whenever power is cut, but that feels like tempting fate. One thing I'm trying to get a sense of is how often power cuts tend to happen in the area, and generally for how long. I'm from down near the Gulf where hurricanes can knock out power for days or weeks, but I'm trying to get a sense of what my backup is realistically going to need to handle. What should I expect for outage frequency / length? As a balcony-less apartment dweller, any kind of gas dweller generators are out of the question, and because I use NERO 5's and not MP40s, from what I can tell all the reef-specific battery backups aren't an option either. Would also really appreciate any recommendations for UPS systems or something equivalent, especially if anyone has experience hooking them up to an Apex. Thanks so much!

Might be worth making a separate post in the for sale section, I'm sure more people would see them there!

I have two Nero's on my tank (same model, XL300) on either side and they do a good job. Plenty powerful for SPS, in my limited experience at least. I've had them for a year and they've held up fine, though the con is they don't work with the battery backup like (I think) the MP40's do? So that's less than ideal. But I really like the low profile look, they're easy to clean, and they suit my needs. If you have AI lights the integration in the same app is nice too.

Would be interested in individual coral if you piece it out

I can't figure it out, and I can't find a video either. I have a pink diamond zoa colony multiplying faster than I can handle, to a point where they're choking out the other zoas, but I'd prefer fragging them rather than selling. Problem is I can't get the rock out of the tank and it's Caribsea aritificial rock, so the technique of cutting through the rock to cut off the sliver of rock the zoas are attached to hasn't worked. That's been the only technique I've seen. Any advice from you experiences fraggers out there?

I've got a pair of clowns that are laying eggs at least once a month now, but they only ever lay their eggs on the piece of rocks that's part of the glued scape. I've tried buying some smaller clay pots and adding a half into the tank near their usual nesting site, but no luck. I even tried using it to cover their favored spot, but they both literally bit the pot and slowly pushed it off. Ultimately it doesn't matter a bunch to me- I suppose the occasional live food for the tank isn't bad. But I'd ideally like to be able to remove the eggs to give to some local breeders with more space than me to hopefully make the hobby just that little more accessible for locals. Does anyone have any ideas about how to convince them to lay their eggs on something removable? Would anyone want the eggs if I could successfully remove them from the tank?