DaJMasta

I doubt you'd be able to get rid of them all, but there's a chance - a natural starfish predator the harlequin shrimp. If you have other starfish or critters with tube feet I doubt they'd be a good idea (they eat the tube feet), and I'm not exactly sure whether they eat brittle stars.... but with a little research you should be able to tell. A lot of people don't keep them because their diet is only starfish, but it could help solve your problem. That said, I don't know for sure whether it would work. There are chemical options like a copper based ich treatment, but that will essentially kill any mobile invertebrate and could be bad for corals, so it is by no means a reasonable option. If you can't keep the numbers down I'd gladly take a few - I have some regular sized brittle stars but none of the mini ones.

It will keep them alive but they probably won't be fully colored. If they're in the top half or so of the tank they should do just fine, the bottom half may be a little low for some types of zoas, especially if the bulbs are old.

I've always liked acan lords. The two smaller frags have the best color IMO, but I think that's just cause the red and white ones you see around more. That said, I've got some red and white ones which really look awesome,.

I think mine was around 165 when tested a couple months ago. If you're on city water it's pretty good, but the quality of the pipes in your building and the newness of the feeders that get it to you play into things quite a bit.

That pico should come with a basic filter, as do most of its competitors. For a fuge I would consider looking into getting an AC50/AC70 filter and modding it into a fuge - saves you the work for the overflow and all that but keeps the desktop only footprint. Don't know if you have a tank already, but a BC12 would probably be a good option on the large end, I've got a 7.5G built with a Mr. Aqua tank from fosters and smith (or was it marine depot...) and they have small sized bow front, rectangle, and cube aquariums that are rimless and the shipping seems fairly reasonable. Those are all spending money options though, which isn't always the best.

There's a number of good online guides out there, but basically you have choices of: Power Compact T5 Metal Halide LED Or some mixture of those. That list is in order of efficiency, least to greatest, in terms of PAR per watt. If you want the shimmer effect, you need to go with lights closer to a point light source, so it needs to be MH or LED. If your tank is fairly shallow, a lot of PC or T5 will be plenty, but the deeper the tank, the more powerful and directional the light needs to be to reach the depths with reasonable PAR. If you have a mostly deep tank, LEDs with tight optics would give you the best PAR deep in the tank, most tanks will get pretty well covered by a MH lamp or two, and T5 will give you a fair amount of power with the same blanket lighting style and no shimmer effect. PC is uncommon in very large fixtures simply because T5 is more efficient, produces less heat, and is more powerful. Going from 65W PC to 54W T5 is probably approximately the same, with a little extra power in the T5 bulbs. The real advantage with T5 in this case would be if each bulb had an individual reflector (and a good one), in which case 54W T5 bulbs would be tangibly brighter than 65W PC bulbs. As said, T5 bulbs in standard lengths also come in a lot of varieties so you can fine tune the color and look of your tank fairly easily.

Yeah, more filtration is probably the answer. Getting a whole-house filtration system is probably the best bet, but if that isn't an option for whatever reason, I would double the number of sediment filters (run a coarse and a fine size in that order), get a second membrane with a high rejection rate (the higher flow 96% versions are no good in this case), and get a second DI. Not cheap, but more prefiltering (sediment filters) means longer membrane life and 2 membranes means longer DI life. I'm certain that there is a whole house filtration option which would probably lessen the need to clean out your plumbing (sediment in the hot water heater probably will be a problem with that kind of TDS), but it is possible to do in just part of the RO/DI system. Good luck!

Looking good, the water is a bit yellowed, but I would say your problem is on it's way out if you're only getting that much yellow through feet of water. Think of how much easier it is to see any issues with water clarity when you're looking through 3+ feet of it vs. 2 or less in a smaller tank... it's probably better than you think. Also sounds like you've saved quite a bit from the DIY option.

PM also sent

If my tank was big enough for a tang I would have posted a pic

Some zoas just have brown skirts. Unless you have reason to believe they shouldn't and they're just discolored, let them be. More actinic light (higher kelvin rating light colors, lower wavelength actinics, or UV really) could bring out the color they have more perhaps.

Yep sounds like diatoms. As far as I know they're pretty typical in a cycle and should subside on their own. CUC members and pods both eat them, so one way or another they'll go away. I've actually heard that small diatom blooms during the life of the tank are good because they replenish the pod population.

It looks almost like it's growing outwards, almost with rings... is that about the color of it when it's under full light? I know coralline comes in a lot of colors and there's a chance it's that. Also have you poked it? Whether it's slimy/spongy/rough/etc could go a long way to IDing it.