Timfish

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Hey, sorry to take so long to get back with you. A simple multimeter will work. With the power off you can use the diode setting to check each diode and the solder connections. With power on you can use the dc voltage setting to check the voltage drop across each diode. ANd you can check the voltage out of the buck puck drivers, it should be about 20 volts.

It's just 12 volts, you won't feel it. 😁

Sorry, no idea. They probably came in on some wild live rock and started to reproduce for Hydro. Now that wild live rock is next to impossible to get I suspect you'll have to do a lot of searching on the forums to find someone who has them. The limpets that come in on the Florida maricultured live rock has a couple species of limpets but they don't have mantle like the black ones Hydro had and are pretty cryptic looking. They are great algae eaters though.

Most of the LEDs are in strings of 6 connected in series to one buckpuck so just a sinlge corroded connection can take out a string. Have you tried just rinsing it off with a spray bottle and distilled water? sometimes it just some salt build up causing a short. Using the continuity or dc voltage settings on a digital multimeter can identify the problems pretty quickly. Sometimes a single led will fail by shorting so the others on the string still light up. New LEDs will be brighter but I think I have some old ones laying around. so there's no spotlight effect. I'm busy the next couple weeks but I can repair it for you if you don't want to tackle them yourself.

Well, cool your still using the lights! But I want that tank about as much as I want a worn out pair of shoes. Do whatever you want with it. Sometime I'd like to see the how well the LEDs held up. I imagine some of the lenses don't stay in place. Are all the LED strings working?

Loaner tank? That old scratched up one that sat empty for years before you borrowed it? And you're still using those light strips I built for you or did you get new ones?

Who are you!? Welcome back! Have you kept your tank going? What are your plans?

Welcome! Looks like a good location for your reef!

I wouldn't use a canister filter to be honest. The problem I've had repeatedly with them is sooner or later the o-rings don't seat right and you get a drip. There is also the problem of lack of oxygen during a power failure killing off everything inside. I haven't actually known this to kill off tank inhabitants (although it is a risk) but cleaning out the filter after this happens is very unpleasant the hydrogen sulfide produced can stink up a room pretty bad for a while.

Hand an eel in one of my systems. Fortunately it's a dwarf moray. https://youtu.be/PwUiVBU_a0I

I know some of you have heard or read about cleaner wrasses passing the mirror test for cognition abd here's an interesting article discussing it. https://www.quantamagazine.org/a-self-aware-fish-raises-doubts-about-a-cognitive-test-20181212/

I agree, that doesn't look bad at all. for the sand you can siphon off the top layer that has algae growing on if and soak in H2O2 for a day or so, rinse then return to the tank. More corals will compete with the algae for nutrients also. To get a better understanding of the role of Dissolved Organic Carbon, DOC (aka carbon dosing) in reef systems read Forest ROhwer's "COrals Reefs in the Microbial Seas" Kindle version is !$10, papaerback is ~$20. I see you have a pink short spine urchin. Being only a ~60-70 gallon system if you get more urchins look for small ones and be ready to rehome them, your system may not be able to support more than one long term.

So sorry to hear your loss! :( It's hard to say what happened with the information you've provided but my guess is something dropped the oxygen levels short term. Do you have any corals or other invertabrates? If so how are they doing? Is it possible any type of cleaning solution got into your tank? As far as dealing with the various nuisance algae type/species I only use manual removal and have hardly any fish related deaths. It seems unlikely to me what you've done to deal with the algae has caused your fish dieoff. FWIW, chemiclean only works on cyanobacteria. If you have some other type of nuisance algae it has little effect. I would caution against using it repeatedly as there is risk of creating a resitant superstrain of cyano.

You're welcome! Glad to help!

It's probably a Gelidium sp. algae. I would use H2O2 to kill it off. It is a bit tedious but use a syringe filled with 3%, press the end to the base of the algae and squirt out about 1 ml, move the tip about 1/4" and repeat. WHenever I use H2O2 the max amount I'll use in a single day is 1mm per gallon, I haven't had any problems with corals using that amount in tank. I wouldn't try or expect to get it all in one day.

Interesting and informative video discussing nitrogen cycling in the coral holobiont. https://youtu.be/DWItFGRQJL4

Took me a little bit to find it but here's a video of heniochus eating a frogspawn polyp. This is the only polyp they've eaten. It apparently was damaged. I first caught them going at it shortly after it was removed from the colony. A majority of the polyp was gone by the time I got a step stool and my camera out to film it.

Are they still leaving most of the other corals alone? One possibility is it's tastes changed as it matured. I've seen several times over the years fish that don't bother corals suddenly go after one but still leave others alone. My suspicion is there was something wrong with it that made it more pallatable to the fish in question. It may be something visually undectable to us. I know from research papers I've read that a coral can have shifts in the surface mucus layer indicating a serious bacterial infection without have any external visual signs so maybe there's a shift in palatability also.

Great idea! It's exciting to see DNA testing finally available to reef aquarists. After years of not having my own system I'm building my own and will be getting their subscription service. It will be interesting to see how the bacteria develop and change as it matures.

Have you looked online? An alternate name I've seen them called you might check for is Zebra Turbo Snail.

Keep in mind your slow macro algae growth in your refugium may have nothing to do with PO4 levels. The client I set up this system for insisted on a lit refugium for macro algae. Over the 5 years they had the system PO4 levels climbed from undetectable to ~0.4 mg/l but the Calurpa taxifolia growth slowed and no macro algae was harvested after the second year. Palletta's review of Leng Sy's "Ecosystem" methodology noted the same response over two decades ago. One of the puzzles that led to Forest Rohwer's DDam model of reef degradation was the observation of nitrate and PO4 levels on pristine reefs higher of than the hypothesized levels needed for macro algae outbreaks (His book "Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" is available on kindle, ~$10, or paperback, ~$20.)

In contrast to Victoly I don't dose and don't see any correlation between nuisance algae like "dinos" and GHA and PO4 levels in my systems. You haven't mentioned what your are feeding and how often. One difference I've noted but have not taken the time to try comparing in my systems is I feed only Spectrum pellets, I don't feed frozen. It's been at least a decade since I last tested the water from frozen but PO4 was way off the scale. I've wondered if one difference is with frozen there's phosphorus that's injected into the water that is immediately available to nuisance algae where pellets need to be digested by fish and inverts like hermits crabs and then released at a much slower rate. Passing through an animals digestive system phosphorus will be mixed with urea as well as with calcium and magnesium carbonates that form in the digestive tract. How nutrients are mixed or not mixed and the speed nutrients are made available in a system may be a major factor in uptake by different species utilizing them.

Biological control is the best way IMO to deal with algae long term. Short term I may also use manual removal and localized use of H2O2. One question, how long has it been since you started dosing? With just about any change to an ecosystem nuisance algae is going to respond faster than corals. Depending on how severe the problem is it may correct itself with just simple siphoning out nuisance algae with small water changes. Also keep in mind we can only test for PO4 but reef ecosystems also have organic forms of phosphorus we can't test for. So along with organic forms of nitrogen what the corals are seeing with respect to the Redfield ratio may be very different from what our tests for nitrates and PO4 show.

If you move it yourself 5 gallon buckets is what works best IMO. Keep the fish, corals and rocks separate. You might check with Aquadome or River City Aquatics to see who they recommend for moving.