DerrickH

If I can get him loose tonight, can you swing by and pick it up?

Thinking your dkh and ph are low combined with new substrate full of silicates....wouldnt be surprised if a GHA outbreak is in the very near future. What kind of skimmer?

It's not behind a pet shop but I get my stuff from Austin Plastics on Koneig Ln. They're between Burnet and Braker.

do they stock clear acrylic pipe? 3-5" diameter or so? Would rather make my own reactors instead of buying these tiny little ones or paying out the nose for premade one with extra bells and whistles I dont really need.

Was great meeting both of you guys.

Dave, I should be able to get that GBTA loose some time during the week. Hes almost healed up. Ive also got one hiding on a rock in the back that If I can get him loose he's all yours(bit bigger) I'll txt you when Ive got him free. The leather seems pretty happy in my DT as well, thanks!

Ive seen this tank, very nice. Also, not your average setup with sump, ect... Lot of time put into this and its very efficient.

Fishy Business?

Yeah I threw away the parent colony. After it shed the bulk of the really nice branches it looked really rough so it had to go. Now just a bunch of frags everywhere.

This Dr Tims stuff, is the the "bacteria in a bottle" stuff?

Ive got one hermit in there. Thinking about getting some more. Everyone I know has a bunch of these guys running around and at one time I did as well and didnt have this stuff. Since then I ruled them out as almost useless but wondering if I missed the notch on this junk, maybe it would be gobbled up by some blue/red legs..got snails and they have done a good job but wont touch this brown stuff.

It comes off easy, but not by wiping it, have to use my fingernail to scrape it off but does seem to come off with very little effort, not hard to remove like coraline.

I will be home all night tonight, come pick them up, think theres about 5 or 6 frags. Some are 1-2" some are 2-3" with multiple branches. txt me if you can make it tonight.

I had the same problem more or less. The size of the hole is critical. The simplest solution is to find a small pvc/plastic valve like used on freshwater air lines. Do not use brass though...zink + COPPER=DEATH. I have a 72g bowfront with an OEM durso pipe from Oceanic. There are some features to it that Ive seen on multiple OEM style durso stand pipes that are not mentioned online for DIY stand pipes. There are 3 holes drilled at different levels below the upside down "U" I recommend hooking up with some here on the ARC and duplicating theirs instead of messing with the hole size. If I had mine at my apt I would show you what I mean but its an hour North...

Or you could purchase one of these

Stand pipe kit

Finally got a pic

Gonna discard some Kenya tree(1-2" frags) by 10pm. Too many in my tank so they gotta go. Txt me 254-679-15 fourty six.

I have 1" ID bulkhead and a 1,500gph pump and no problems. GPH slows a bit after pump has been on for a couple hours but still around 950 with head and fittings combined. I think slower flow through the sump is better anyways though. For high flow (no dead spots) an additional closed loop system would be ideal.

As for noise, Ive seen a couple ways to shut it up but the durso pipe seems to be the most common. Or shoving a sponge in the OF box but then you end up with food particles and such getting clogged in it.

Its not cyano. Not sure wth it is. Basically melt a brown crayon on some live rock and let it harden...thats about the texture of it. Ive had cyano before, this isnt similar. I took pics but forgot my camera at home so will have to wait till monday...

You have listed the most important ingredient to this hobby already........Patience. Nothing good in saltwater happens quickly.

It seems to me that GHA is nothing more than a tank going through puberty.....

You got a good skimmer?

So my tanks been back up since May and there were some brown deposits forming on my rock slowly. Not diatoms or cyno, just some brown fuzzy(can only see the "fuz" when profiled) looking sludge and now its almost completely covered one rock. It started around the time my coraline starting to show up in good size patches. Not sure what it is and will get some pics of it later this evening but wondering if anyone has had this kinda thing happen. I started with completely bleached rock. My di resin was crapped out and showing some tds so I changed it but in the short time that it was spitting out some tds some slight green showed up on the rocks. Im wondering if there is something in the water causing this. All params are good, zero'd out on the bad stuff. I dont have a mag checker and my phosphates are really low, running hi-cap GFO media. My calcium was very high for a long time, like 550ppm or so. I can scrape this stuff off with my finger nail and its does not appear to be any kinda algea or something. More like a really hard version of cynao and coraline mixed together...weird but either way I dont like the looks of it. Any ideas? Sorry for the lack of pics, Im at work atm.

SG 1.026

TEMP: 77-78 STABLE

T5HO lights x 4 (ATI new)

Reef octo 200 xtreme skimmer

40g tank

20g sump

YGPM

Odd, never had chemi clean -not- work. Are you stopping your filter/skimmer and adding an air source for 48 hours? What's your nitrate at?

yeah same here. I had it bad too.....every rock had patches on it. Chemiclean as directed and huge water change. Then set level up on skimmer and wet skimmed for a while to get nutrient count down.

Did you move the tank? Stir up the sand bed?

Im going to put a fan in my sump area, its like the amazon under there...

That frogspawn sure looks like hammer coral to me.

I have a filter sock that I fill with el cheapo carbon and I just sit it in my sump. Slow flow in my sump gives long surface time and with the carbon not churning in a reactor, i dont get the dust from fragmenting carbon particles bouncing off one another. Works fine and keeps any sort of haze off the DT surface. In a reactor I could see the black dust in my skimmate...Ive never been fond of running a canister filter on a reef tank though. I know a couple others have had good luck with it but since there is no vapor exchange it seems like it would cause more harm than good unless theres a *% ton of surface agitation in the DT...

This little guy is maxing bio load? No skimmer I take it? Just wondering. If I didnt have a tank full of aggressors I'd nab him from ya but will end up as food in with my bunch of shark wannabe's

I'd recommend the below combination. Its not what I have currently but after a few different combinations Ive tried, this is what would be pretty good/balanced for T5HO and could grow some easy SPS if you wanted to:

front.

Blue plus-fix 1 for morning/evening 2 hours

Purple plus-fix 1 for morning/evening 2 hours

aqua blue special-fix 2 mid day combined with fix 1, 4-6 hours

purple plus-fix 2 mid day combined with fix 1, 4-6 hours

KZ new gen-fix 3 mid morning/evening combined with fix 1, 1 hour then off when fix 2 comes on

blue plus-fix 3 mid morning/evening combined with fix 1, 1 hour then off when fix 2 comes on

back

You will need 3 separate timers, now this is based on if your 4 bulb fixture has separate power cords for pairs of bulbs and if they are paired with front 2 and back 2.

Just my .02c