guppychao

from reef central: Carrying a Slightly Lower Salinity in the Tank Lessens Disease This bogus information seems to be perpetuated by the pet shop trade. The exact source of the myth is unknown, but it seems to have started in the early 1980s. I have been told it may have originated in an article by Herbert Axelrod, but cannot confirm. No matter, the concept that keeping a marine aquarium at lowered salinity, with specific gravity of ~1.019, is commonly cited as helping to prevent disease outbreaks in saltwater fish. This idea has never been proven to help fish in any way. A specific gravity of 1.019 is far short of the level of 1.009 needed to combat ich during hyposalinity treatment. The practice may save some money for the fish supplier in it requires less salt, but it does not prevent disease. Although it doesn

they would spread to the display tank, however imo i would leave it as they are also good filter feeders and could be potentially beneficial for your tank i think it would nearly impossible to rid them completely in the sump, but in the display tank i would aggressively battle them.

Coral Hind and BLK911 could you post some pics of your mod instead of the gate valve? thanks in advance!

1inch diameter is awefully small, hope you didnt pay to much for it. i believe flowerseller has a bunch that he sells.

thanks, and good news is that he is coming to the meeting! no need to drive 1 hr to see him!!

any store sell uniseals locally? or only online?

brian, nice job, where did you get your supplies, specifically the uniseals?

have a maxijet 900 feed my fuge from the tank. had some cyno grow on some of the Chaeto, and recently siphoned out half the detritus in the fug. the Cheato is still mostly green, however some a parts have cyno. 2 water parameters out of wack, DKH is high 14, and nitrates 1-5 ppm only test those 2 plus calcium and mag. use GFO, and carbon, been changing that once a week to once every other week. trying to figure why my nitrates are still so high with the macro algae in place thanks

can chaeto go bad?

Nitrates at 1 ppm? That's still low. What test kit are you using and is the reading in ppm? You should not have problems at 1 ppm - not problems due to nitrates, at least. using salifert test kit, unless i am reading the test kit wrong, i usually notice problems with my nitrates at that level. But, to answer your question, yes. You can get a mini-cycle with any sort of die-off. For example, if there were sponges on the rock, then their death could cause a rise, first in ammonia, then nitrites, then nitrates. The same goes for detritus. about how long does this mini cycle approx last? Is your skimmer performing well? Could you have a salt or calcium carbonate build up in the venturi that might be leading to reduced air intake, and therefore a build-up of organic compounds in the water (that might be stressing your corals)? i think my skimmer is a bit small (asm g3) may mod it since dont have the funds for a new skimmer i would test your alkalinity again with a couple different tests. My guess is that test isnt right. Low alkalinity is usually caused by a build up of acids....namely carbonic acid(CO2). Carbonic acid usually build up if you have a lack of O2. this coul;d explain the acro death and cyano. ill test alk again could i put anything in the refugium such as a black sea cucumber? thanks for everyone's input

a couple of questions: recently had a huge nitrogen spike and i believe it was caused by obtaining "cured" live rock from fellow reefer. however was also wondering if the detritus could also cause this. 180 gal barebottom, with 50-75 gal sump, 20 gal refugium 2 X 6100 1 vortech 2 iwaki 30's, one on a sea swirl asm g3 skimmer calcium reactor 2 x 250 de metal halides 1 400 hqi metal halide 4 X 55watt pc actinics calcium, alk, mag, ph, salinity, all within parameters, only check for those and Nitrates which is at 1-2 first the "cured" live rock; wanted to add more rock for aquascaping, the rock was in a trash can with pwerheads and had coralline algae growth. no more that 1 hour out of the water and I placed into my tank. the weather was cold, so some stuff may have died. within one month I started noticing that some of my SPS started to bleach,(eventually die) I tested for nitrates and they were at 1. while normally they are undetectable. also started to notice cynoalgae on my glass and in my refugium. so I didan additional water changes, ( I usually have a automatic wc system where it changes 1-2 gals per day) changed my carbon, and gfo every week. took out the chaeto covered in cyno. increased my lighting in the ref to 24 hrs. I also noticed that there seemed to be a good amount of detritus in the fug, so I siphoned out half. questions: 1. since I do a daily wc, do I still need to siphon out the detritus? 2. what can I add to my fug? would a sea cucumber be okay? 3. if the "cured" live rock is being cycled, how long of a process will this take? 4. also what else would you do? my nitrates are still pretty high but slowing coming down, any help would be appreciated, thanking you in advance.

shipping was $12 on 4 bulbs

the ab 20K has a bluish hue to it, but pricey, about $100

agree with what everyone has stated, just wanted to add one more thing, since it will be in a day care, i would think about acrylic instead of glass due to kids throwing things at it.

contact the manufacturer, they should replace it. i had a seio that did the same thing and they sent me a new one

some pet stores sell ro water, i know Aquarium one in rockville, and Aquarium company have it, but you need to supply your own container. you should try Pristine Aquarium in Alexandria good luck

ditto, however anyone in the rockville area?

dont clams filter out some nitrates?

brian, i got some used 400w radiums you can have too let me know

have you always had your SG at 1.0126? seems kind of low to me or is this a typo? i usually keep mine at 1.025

maybe an adult Chevron. hard to tell

how long have you had the powder brown? it may have just gotten comfortable with his surroundings, but i do believe watching the other fish eat helped a bit

lettuce nudibranch, (Bryopsis Eating Nudibranch) good luck on finding the source of the hair algae

growth on the 20k radiums are going to be slow, i believe 6500k bulbs give you the fastest growth, however everything turns brown