Folta

Definitely hard to say without some pics. You say water tests are 'not off at all'.. what exactly are your parameters? Are you keeping them stable? How often do you check? We definitely need some more information about your tank. As a side note, the funny thing about testing for phosphates and nitrates is that the result can be misleading. When somethings growing in your tank (hair algae, cyano, etc), it uses up the nitrates and/or phosphates. My first guess is that since you treated the symptom of the hair algae and not the problem (the nutrients in the water that let the algae grow), that these nutrients are now fueling the new stuff you have that is not being eaten. Are you using RO/DI water? Do you skim?

It should be fine. I see that you have a 3g tank, so they'd be pretty close to the light, and they don't need intense light to thrive. They are also a pretty hardy coral.

It's not the light itself that is making it grow, at least not directly. T5's make algae grow because they are intense lights. (As are MH's). Think of light and nutrients as both bottlenecks. The algae will only grow as fast as either one of these things allow. If you had a vat full of nutrients but no light, then no algae would grow. Vice versa, if you have tons of light and no nutrients, no algae will grow. The issue with coraline algae and T5's is simply that coraline algae doesn't infact like really intense light. You'll probably end up finding coraline growth under the hair algae even. As long as more nutrients are being introduced into the water (using tap water, from feeding, stuff leaching from sand/rocks, things dying, etc), you're going to have nuisance algae issues.. the key is finding a way to control your nutrient levels. Buying the RO/DI is a great step.

The short and sweet of it is: Light + Nutrients = Algae Both sides of this can be limiting factors for growth. I wouldn't place the blame on the lights, per se - they are just now providing the intense light that you intended for the corals. What does that mean, then? Well you will have to find the source of your nutrients. You mentioned that you used tap water, but now are using distilled.. how long did you use tap water for, how long ago did you switch to distilled, and what type of skimmer (if any?) do you have? How big is your tank? I'm betting that using the tap water has flooded your tank with nutrients that are now being used up by the algae with the intense light. First and foremost, you don't want to make any sudden changes... big changes = bad, always.. even if you're making changes in the 'right' direction. I would suggest a sequence of moderately sized water changes making sure to use Ro/Di or Distilled water for the new saltwater. You can also try to pull the hair algae out by hand. Keep us updated on the situation!

Very cool, I would love to have one of those for my kalk reactor.. threading/unthreading 8 screws is annoying.

As far as kalkwasser goes, that is exactly the reason most people who dose it do so as top off water; they are replacing evaporation. Thus, your overall salinity won't change. However if you were to just take a few gallon jugs, fill them with water and kalkwasser powder, mix and put that in, then it would have an effect on your salinity levels. Another thing to think about.. having someone stop over and check things out is a good thing even if you set up an automated system. Trust me, things will go wrong the moment you leave your house (top off gets stuck on, circuit breaker trips, skimmer overflows, pvc mysteriously unglues itself, etc).

From my understanding actually a calcium reactor isn't used so much as to dose calcium, but rather to maintain a stable alkalinity. A kalkwasser reactor will add calcium and alkalinity, as well as bring up your pH (kalkwasser has a naturally high pH value, around 12). My question about calcium reactors, is 'do they make it hard to keep your alkalinity low?' I am going to try something over the next few months, if I can manage a way to keep this stable: Calcium 420, Alkalinity 7.0 dKH, pH 8.2, temp 79.0, Magnesium 1350. My intent is to try and keep these parameters at those points and as stable as possible.

Bringing up an old topic.... I bought 4 lbs. of epsom salt today, to help raise my magnesium. I was trying to find a thread about how much to dose... I found http://reef.diesyst.com/ It makes no mention about the salinity raising, and I'm trying to figure out just how it would, seeing as how its magnesium sulfate... no sodium or chloride... I just want to be safe with dosing this. My intention is to bring my magnesium from 1120 up to at least 1200, and closer to 1300 if I can do it safely.

Dave, are these 250 w SE bulbs?

what was your gripe about the place? I haven't been there since they moved over to the corner, but I've always felt like their prices were extremely high.

I was thinking, any way we can set up a water testing station there? I would love to get some readings by others on my water parameters, and I think as part of an 'intro to reefkeeping' it would be nice to let people see how we use the test kits in case some people are using them improperly. Just a thought.

Wooo! Where's the party??

Neat! How long has it been running? What do you plan to add?

First off, I want to say the best thing you can do you've already done; researched the topic prior to buying fish. That being said, I'll tell you how I acclimate fish (I have yet to lose a fish from acclimation). I have a specimen container - like the one they use when they get the fish out of their tanks at the store - and hang it on the inside of the tank. I then open the bag the fish is in, and pour it and the water into this specimen container. I wait about 20 minutes, letting that water acclimate to the tanks temperature. I then take a little plastic cup (the size you normally see in bathrooms sometimes), and use it to get some tank water. I usually get about half a cups worth. I add that every 20 minutes for the next hour (3 doses). I then wait 15 more minutes after that, then I net the fish out and release him into the tank. Netting the fish out instead of just pouring the container helps prevent anything that was in the water from the store getting into your tank, whether its copper or something else. One more important thing to keep in mind... select a good fish! What I mean by this is to make sure the store you buy it from has had it for a while, it looks healthy, swims well, and is eating. The healthier the fish is, the less likely you are to lose it no matter what acclimation method you use.

Yep, I will be at Scales this Sunday for the social. I'll send you a PM.

Hi all. I am currently running 3 x 250 w XM 10k bulbs over my 180 gallon. I've been trying to decide how I want to handle the actinic supplementation. My two thoughts have been by either adding VHO Actinics, or by switching from 10k to 14k bulbs (20k is too blue for my taste, I've seen those in person already). Anyway, I was wondering if anyone in the club is possibly running 14k bulbs, has recently replaced their bulbs, and thus have one or more 14k bulbs that they are planning on throwing away. I'm looking for bulbs that are like http://www.hellolights.com/hameha2514kb.html ~ Tim

Ok yeah, sounds good to me. I'll meet up with you guys at Rockville Metro station at 2:30 pm ~ Tim

I was thinking of taking the metro as well. I'd be coming down on the redline. What time were you guys planning on meeting up at rockville metro station?

I'm in... pending that snow thing too

Pics! Does the ebay site have pics to it?

That seems pretty quick. From what I've read, they can take as long as a normal tank to cycle. (http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/nitratecontrol/a/aa092702.htm) To any who are wondering what a Coil Denitrator is, simply put you run the water through a tube long enough that as it coils around and around the aerobic bacteria use up all the O2 and you get an anerobic bacteria section that works quite in the same was as a deep sand bed. Keep us updated John!

For me, the RO/DI unit is not connected directly to the tank, just a bucket. That being said, there is no electronic part to the loop. I manually turn the nob to the water flow and the bucket starts to fill. Since it takes a few hours for the bucket to fill, I often times forget about it until I hear the 'drip drip drip' of the bucket overflowing. If I had an auto-top off switch, what good would it do as there's nothing plugged in to turn off. This device is something I'll definitely need to grab. Then I can set it and forget it!

I am running three 250W MH ARO ballasts that I purchased from Hellolights.com. Two magnetic, one electronic. They look very nice IMHO (I'm running 10k XM bulbs with them). There doesn't seem to be any color difference between the electronic and the magnetic, at least not to my eye. If you look back on some of my posts, you'll see that I had an issue with a capacitor a bit ago, where it cracked and oozed stuff out. It was under warranty and they sent me a replacement free of charge, and they sent it fast. All in all, I'm happy with them...

My Birdsnests do that sometimes too.. I also assumed it was normal. Your birds nests tips look a lot more rounded than mine do... I just snapped a pic of my frags for comparison: Here's a shot of its growth over the past few months: AH! here we go... this is the same frag as that first pic when I first got the frag (from dhoch)

I'm sorry to hear about your losses. I know we'd like to tell ourselves that they 'are only fish', but they do all seem to have personalities that really make the hit harder when they go. I hope the rest of your fish live through this!