davjbeas

Hello, Here is the system information. 75 gallon w/megaflow Reef Ready Tank AGA 10 gallon sattelite Refugium Tank(acrylic) runs off the same sump. 20 Gallon AGA sump Total system water is probably 85 gallons 2x250watt 10K Metalhalide w/2 48" T5 actinics(on 8-9 hrs/day) ETS downdraft style skimmer(in sump) Magnum 350 canister filter w/Kent "REEF CARBON" Changed every month. Salt Is "REEF CRYSTALS" from instant ocean. Salinity is 1.026-1.027 Water changes are minimum of 22gallons every other week, sometimes every week Food is "Prime reef" 2 cubes every night and frozen cyclopeeze 2x per week. Skimmer is cleaned 1x per week. Additives are: ESV B-Ionic 2 part - 30ml of each part per day Kent Tech 1 Iodine - 30ml once a week Kent Iron - 30 ml once a week Kent Strontium & molybdenum 30 ml twice a week Kent Magnesium - 30ml once a week Kent Essential elements - 15ML once a week Water movement is accomplished by Mag 7 return pump from sump, 2 Maxi jets 1200, and the return from the magnum canister filter. Chiller is a aqualogic 1/3 Hp inline Chiller(trimline model) controlled by a dual stage "Medusa" controller which also controls a Heater in the sump. I am installing a "REEFKEEPER 2" this week to control all the lights/powerheads, continuos monitoring of PH and temperature. Concerning the continuos use of carbon, Kent reccomends only 3-4 days of use. And it is true that after the carbon has absorbed all the organics that it can it continues to remove certain trace elements from the water. I also feel that foam fractionating removes trace elements as well. Future upgrades may include tunze streams or more powerheads. David B.

Camera is a sony Mavica. I checked, it is no longer sold. I am really not even an amatuer photographer, i am just getting good at using this cameras features. If anyone is interested in my system info, additives and filtration i will post it here. David B.

Hello, my tank has been up for over 9 months and is doing well. Here are some pictures of the inhabitants that i hope you will enjoy. Purple smooth mushrooms Leather coral Lawnmower blenny Pink and green branching hammer coral - Thanks JCpollman Galaxia coral Full tank shot Another full tank shot Flame Angel Same Flame Angel Flame angel again Yellow Tang SPS coral Clarkii Clownfish Same Clownfish Bubble algae David B.

The builup on the riser walls on the skimmer is dissoved organics being removed from your water. You really should clean the collection cup and the scum on the riser column at least once a week for the best preformance. when i remove my collection cup for cleaning i wipe away the crud on the top of the riser with a paper towel and just throw it in the trash. Good luck, David B.

I have had trouble with snowflake moray eels, flame hawkfish, and spotted blue jawfish jumping out. My main tank(75gallon) has a bicolor blenny and lawnmower blenny which have never jumped. There is probably no way to know for sure if a fish will jump. but probably if the fish can have its own safe territory it might be less likely to jump. you can put a glass top over the tank, but i think that you will have less oxygen exchange with a cover on the top. the surface water on my tank is constantly in motion from the return line and powerheads. which i believe keeps my tank well oxygenated. With the midas blenny that jumped, was it getting along with the other tankmates? also what size tank do you have and how many other fish? David B.

I was in a house in reston doing job related services and i saw a tank setup in progress. I think the lady must have won the lottary, there was a steel frame for tank that was maybe 15' in length, totaly custom work. She said The owner of the marine screne in herndon was building the setup. I can't remember the owners name, but he would probably still have the resources to help you with your needs. http://www.marinescene.com I hope this helps, David B.

Ick is a parisite called oodinium i believe, the only tratment i know of is copper or maybe formulin(which is formaldehyde). neither of these are safe for a reef though. to save the fish, the parasites have to be killed. Oh yeah, you could do a freshwater dip for the fish as the osmatic shock will break the shell of the parasite. causing the parasite to explode or implode sort of. if you can get the parasites off the fish, it is reccomended to treat with anibiotics because these parasites can cause serious infections. One other important thing is that you probably have eggs from this parasite in your tank. one way to kill them is with the copper treatment. the other method is to remove all possible hosts for this parasite and then wait. you have to wait for the period of time that an egg takes to be hatched, and then also wait the period of time it takes for the free swimming parasite to die, which it will with no available host. I beleive that the best prevention for these problems are to have excellent water quality. As in using R/O + de-ionized water. weekly water changes, chemical filtration. I say this because the better quality of the water the healthier the fish. a very healthy fish can beat most infections and parasite attacks. In my experience this has been true although i might not be 100% coorect someone else might have had a different experience. Hope this helps. You might want to research further on possible treratments for salt water ich. David B. Here is a link i found, check it out, http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/sp/feature/index.php

I was wondering about an in tank refugium for cheato and growing pods. I have a 75 gallon reef with no room for an external refugium. I saw this product. I think it might work. it looks like none of the macro algae could get out and start growing on the rocks. http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem.asp?idproduct=CR1711 I'll have to check and see if i have the space to fit it in my tank and also consider if it will detract from the tanks beautey. David B.

I beleive the tap water purifier will work for making fresh saltwater and for evaporation top off. I have been unsing the tap water purifier for at least 5 years. However, the refill cartiridge costs 17-18$ i believe. I always order 6 or more at a time and pay 13-14$ each. I live in a small condo with a very small kitchen, so no room for an r/o unit. the main benefits of the TWP are that it makes water very fast. like 25 gallons in under 2 hours. it snaps off and on the faucet on your sink easily, you just have to watch the color of the resin. if all the resin beads turn from green to purple then your cartidge is exhasted and must be changed. I usually change cartidges when there is only a half inch of green resin beads at the top of the column. if you are only operating a 20 gallon tank, I think the TWP will work great. Good luck, and welcome to wamas. David B.

I have a 75 gallon reef with 20 gallon sump and a 10 gallon satellite tank. i change 15-23 gallons a week. David B.

The corals i am keeping are: purple mushrooms red mushrooms green star polyps xenia 2 heads on the green torch coral bubble coral galaxia leather coral(sarcophyton) candy cane maze brain scrolling coral green hairy mushrrom bali slimer green millepora( branching) 2 big colonies of sps corals 2 small frags of sps type corals 1 green bubble tip anenome The 2 6000 tunze stream with controller run about 7-800$ I believe this package would be the best also. mostly because the 6000 can be adjusted to have the lowest flow of any of the tunze streams. after looking at the coral list should i go ahead and get the package? Thanks, David B.

Hey Chris, I have a 75 gallon reef ready tank with a mag 7 for the sump return also. Currently i have 2 maxi jets 1200 (rated at 280 gph flow) for tank circulation. I also have a 1-2 inch crushed coral gravel bed. I have been looking at the tunze stream setup. before seeing your post, most people i saw with the tunze streams have much larger tanks. would you recommend i upgrade to a pair of 6000 with controller. im not sure if it would be too much flow. Here is a picture of my tank - thanks, David B.

I was getting my car washed at a place here in Vienna, VA next to the Macdonalds Near Nutly St. and Rt 123 I went in the shop area to pay. ant they had a huge tank. probably 8 feet long filled with rock. there was only aptasia. covering every inch of the rock. most were probably 4" and bigger! there were also a good number of fish. This tank probably was designed as a reef tank(Lots of live rock) but was overtaken with aptasia. probably from neglect. David B.

I have an aqualogic trimline model from marine depot. ithink it is 1/4 or 1/3 i dont recall. i added the dual stage medusa controller upgrade. it is a bit loud when it runs. the temperature on my 75 gallon reef was as high as 85 degrees. (because of 500 watts of MH lighting.) now it is stable at 80.4 degrees. i would say i am satisfied with the chiller. the frame/casing of the chiller is a little loose though. these chillers need to be somewhere they can export the heat. they cannot go inside the stand. also, i am using a mag 7 pump for the return. the pump in the sump sends water through the chiller and then to the reurn to the tank. there is a recommended flow through when running the chiller(GPH). the mag 7 is a good choice. PM me if you need any other info. David B.

I battled red slime algae for a while, and i was using de-ionized water. in the end after doing all the research here and on reef central, i decided to use a product called red slime remover by ultralife i think. it is really some type of anti biotic that destroys bacteria. some people will say it worked, i do. some say that anything added to an ecosystem that destroys bacteria is just to risky. i found that the red slime was gone in under 2 days. if yuo choose to use a product like this, i would give the system a full dose, and 2 days later do a large water change, and 2 days after that another large water change at least 25 % . also a "tap water purifier" from aquarium pharmacueticals for de-ionizing that tap water is simple quick and easy. good luck. david b.

I have a 10gal acrylic tank and pink coraline gradually covers the sides. you cant really use a razor blade like you can with glass because it will scratch the acrylic. i use a kent scraper, it has a plastic blade that hasn't caused any scratches yet. it is still difficult to scrape the coraline off, i have to put a lot of pressure on the scraping tool and go over the same spot until it all the coraline is removed. David B.

www.reefermadness.us/ I ordered some awesome corals from this site. there is a 150$min order. shipping is included in all their pricing althought there is a $10.00 box charge. you can actually view the corals you want to order. They use fedex overnight shipping. i told them i wanted delivery for tues morning. they were delivered at 8:30am tues. all the corals were in perfect condition. after acclimation and adding them to my tank the coloration was perfect. there were no partially dead spots on an of the coral. i live close to the marine scene in herndon. i like to shop there, but the selection of sps and other hard corals just can't compare with reefer madness in california. just wanted to let wamas Know. David B. :D

the last two 6 line wrasses i had were both jumpers, i found the bodies dried up behind the aquarium. i won't puchase any more of them for this reason. David

Hello, I have a 33 gallon reeftank and a 10 gallon tank running off the same sump. My current orp meter can control an ozone generator(switching on if orp level is below a certain value). I am planing on using the rio 600 pump that accepts an airline intake to mix the ozone with the sump water. the rio 600 will pump water into a ozone reactor, and then through the phosban reactor filled with carbon, then returning the water to the sump. i have read that carbon will break down the ozone in the water , which will protect the livestock from effects of exposure to ozone. I will also be using an air drier before the red sea ozone generator(50mg/hr) my current values or orp are between 290-340. the live stock in the tank are fine now, I had problems with cyano bacteria that was corrected with ultralife red slime remover. Will higher orp levels stop the red slime from coming back? does any one have experience/tips/cautions for this type of setup? Thanks, David

I'm in Reston, VA. I work in Vienna.