Wade

I stopoed dosing kalk a few days ago and have been working to dial my 2-part in. I have noticed the cyano starting to recede. I'll wait a coupe of weeks before I draw any conclusions, but all indiations seem to point to the kalk.

I guess that leads to another question. I think I've read somewhere that you want to have some phosphate for coral growth, just not too much. If the Hanna is not accurate bellow .03 then it seems like as long as I'm not reading above .03 then anything below that should be ok. That's a little phosphate, but not too much. I guess my question is do I really need to know exactly what it is or just be happy if it's below a certain level?

I'm using a Hanna device. They're supposed to be pretty acurate. I've had it or about 6 months or so I guess so I'm guessing it doesn't need to be calibrated yet.

I'm using the BRS kalk and my phosphate is always testing at 0.00 in my DT. I suppose I could test my top-off jug to see what the phosphate level is before it hit the tank. Never thought of that.

"My goal is probably different from many. I'm just wanting to create a beautiful reef aquarium which has the absolute minimum maintenance possible as I just don't have time to spend hours per week on it."

This is me to a "T". I'm going to rinse out my ATO container today and stop dosing the kalk. I've also got another 20% water change and substrate vacuum planned to continue replacing my old substrate with new CC. Hopefully the cyano will go away soon.

ONE DOES NOT SIMPLY

"STOP DOSING KALK"

FWIW, my only breakout of cyano came after dosing kalk for awhile. I have since simply stopped dosing kalk.

Did the cyano go away after you stopped using the kalk? How long did it take?

Currently, the only thing I'm adding to my tank is kalk. No other additives at all. I have a 2-part system in place, but kalk was just easier since I don't have much stock so the load is small. I could probably get by without the kalk at all since I'm doing 5% weekly water changes. I think I'll try that and see if I can do away with the pink fur. By the way, will the cyano kill any coral it gets on?

Do you dose 2-part now?

I've been dosing kalk in my ATO for several months now (only 2 - 3 teaspoons per 6 - 7 gallons of water) and during that period have also experienced a cyano outbreak that I'm still dealing with. I didn't attribute the outbreak to the kalk though. I figured it was maybe old tank syndrome since my substrate is about 10 years old. I'm in the process now of slowly removing and replacing my substrate a little at a time. My parameters have been steady since dosing the kalk so I hate to stop doing it. I don't think the kalk itself is to blame. Even in the aquaria world it takes two to tango so I'm thinking it's an underlying thing like the old substrate saturated with who knows what that's now keying off of the kalk dosing and causing the cyano outbreak. Just doesn't make sense that the kalk by itself would cause cyano since it's a bacteria that feeds on something else other than calcium. It's also possible that I have secretly stolen the mind of a laboratory monkey and replaced it with my own, without a license to do so.

I'm thinking of adding a strip to the front of mine since the Photon 48 hits the inside of the curved canopy before it gets as far over the front as I would like. What DIY do you recommend?

Most everything I've read recommends only one tang per tank so that's my plan. If I can get a species that will be happy long term in my 72, then all the better. It appears the bristle tooth is my best bet. I don't see a bigger tank anytime in my future unless we move to another house.

Mmmmmmm, beer batter.

Is there a difinitive chart that tells you what size aquarium is need for each kind of fish? I've been using LiveAquaria's recommendations, but Saltwaterfish.com, PetCo, etc. all say different things. Who's the authority?

OK. Crisis over. I scraped it off with a knife. Came off pretty easy. Scraped all remnants and then some ans rinsed it off. Hopefully that's the end of it. I haven't seen any others. Thanks all.

Can I cut it off the frag to get rid of it?

I noticed this thing growing on one of my zoa frags, but couldn't get a good look at it until I pulled the frag out and snapped a picture of it. My closest guess is some kind of feather duster although I've not seen any in the tank for years. What say you?

I set mine up a little differently. After all the horror stories of water level switches getting stuck and flooding the house I decided to set it up without using a cut off switch. I marked a line on the side of my sump where the return pump is located at the desired water level. I determined by that line how much water evaporates each day and then set my top off doser (BRS) to come on at timed intervals throughout the day to keep the water close to that level. It's not exact, but it always stays very close to that line and will never ever over flow.

PMed you.

Nope, no heater. My MH lights always made it run hot so I needed a chiller. Looking at the graphs on my Apex it looks like it's not got below 76.4 so I guess I'm ok. I'll keep a close eye on it over the next few days. Thanks all for your input.

My tank has been running a lot cooler since I made the switch to LEDs. Following a 20% water change yesterday it's been running at about 76.7 degrees which is about 2 degrees colder than usual. I heat my replacement water to 78% so that shouldn't have cooled it down that much. Is 76.7 too cold? it'll probably drop a degree or so through the night I imagine.

Yeah I was including them with the bristle tooth (in my head). They're good looking fish. I'm leaning towards either one of them or the two spot with the white tail bringing up the rear.

Fair enough. There's 4 or 5 different kinds of them and they're all good looking fish.

How would a Powder Blue Tang do in a 72 gallon? It's rated for a minimum of 125 g on LiveAquaria, but I don't know if that means that it just won't be happy in a smaller tank or will just not grow as big as it could. The 72 is 48" long so it should have a bit of swimming room.

That's a good point, bige. That may be the key to success right there.

The only Tangs that are rated by LiveAquaria for a minimum 70 gallon tank (I have a 72g bowfront) are the bristle tooth tangs all of which are recommended to only have one per tank. What other fish are good herbivores?