dapettit

Super Glue Gel is how my wife does it. If I do it I get super glue on every thing but the zoas. We use the glue from the $ store. WEAR GLOVES! If the zoas and yellow polyps are on the same rock can you break the rock? Post a pic if you can. Dave-

Might give Regal Plastics a call. Dave-

Doged another reef bullet! Glad everthing worked out. Dave-

I thinking of adding kalk to my top off water so I might be in. Dave-

Upate: I doubled the effluent rate this morning from the calc reactor and added 8 oz of epsom salt to raise the magnesium. Here are the params as of 6 pm today. pH = 8 Calcium = 400 KH = 7.5 (no change) Magnesium = 1438 Added 1/2 the amount needed of Reef Builder tonight, will retest tomorrow, Turn photo period done to 8 hours actinics and 6 hours MH's. Dave-

Ok new info. My hand held Milwaukee pH 600 handheld probe was off by .7 (dang lazy reefer)! So that makes my pH at 7.9. I re- tested the pH this morning at 7 am, anticipating a swing do to lights off (my refugium is on an opposite photo period and my pH is 7.6. I'm slow raising my calcium using Seachem Reef Advantage. Addin 1/2 this morning and will test again tonight. Thanks for all the input, Dave-

I think I agree with the par issue. The MH's are off and the coloring looks better. I Know the actinics make the colors fluoresce. So changing the photo period won't help, right? Dave-

Would the lighting cause the corals reduce polyp extentsion? I trying to understand what is happening when the par falls off/

I noticed today that a large number of my SPS's are starting to lose their color. Almost bleaching and the tips of my birdnes which is the highes coral in the tank seemed to be burnt. Poply extension is there but not like before. I just went through a 2 week treatment for red bugs. I did a 40 gallon water change and switched out the carbon. My lighing is 2 X 250W MH 14K Hamiltons I purchased in March. I also supplement ligting with 2 X T-5 54W Super Actinics. I run the T-5's on a 10 hours and the MH for 8 hours. I'm also running a calcium reactor and carbon. Here are my params: dKH 7.5 Calcium 380 Magnesium 1325 Salinity 35 pH 8.6 I don't have a nitrate, nitrite and ammonia test kits. I will pick them up tomorrow. The dKH, calcium and magnesium seem a little low but are acceptable. My pH i think is a little high. I'm thinking the bulbs are getting wonkie. I'm going to turn the lighting down to 8 hrs and six hours. Any input would ber appreciate. The meeting is at my house and we will using the tank for the photography lesson. Dave-

Why not!

bring um

Rey, God forbid you don't have an iPhone (like me). Contact me. I have instructions on how to set up your Smartphone. I don't have graphs but I can control the AC# from my phone or any computer Also I'm looking into another site that has better graphing than either AquaNotes or the web interface. Not sure if the later is accessible by smart phone yet. I working on setting up the graphs by the weekend. Let me know if you are interested. Once I get the kinks worked out I'll post the how-to for both on the forum. Dave-

We have a mated pair of Occalaris clowns that host in the frogspawn. They completely ignore the RBTA. They don't wvne swim on that side od the tank! We picked up a white strip maroon for the same tank. The maroon took right to the RBTA and we were so happy. The next day the female Occalaris was playing in the RBTA and the male is cowering in the frogspawn. The maoon is no where to be found. The female swims back in forth between the two kicking the maroon out of the nem and sending him/her into hiding (rather small). Go Figure. . . Dave-

Ty, I didn't get mine for a vivid order but I have had one for several months. We originally place it in our 58 softie tank under compact pc's. The flow was medium to high. I never saw any polyp extension like it displayed at the LFS, however we continued to feed it DT's every other day. We are setting up a tank for seahorses and moved the WL into that tank. It has one Koralia nano and a hang on filter for flow (very low). It is also under very low lighting (24 led lights that came with the tank). This made all the difference in the world. It is happy and polyps are extending. I believe they prefer low light and flow, but it was under halides with polyps extended when we purchased it. I hope this was helpful, Dave-

ro/di + vinegar if need. Dave-

Good point Wayne. My concern, on top of the cast iron, is flow through your sump. I had a mag 18 originally on my 150 w/ 50 gallon sump and the flow through the sump couldn't keep up. Instead of using a ball valve to restrict the flow I went to a mag 7 and the flow is perfect. Also not sure how much heat the pump would generate. Just my two cents. . . Dave-

Andrew Campell would probably know the answer. Any one else out there with a Solana could help as well. (I know I just wasted your time!) Can you see inside any of the chambers? If so see which one is not filled with bubbles, then move back or up from there? Dave-

mmmm trash can punch

Last year a thread was started concerning the murkiness of Red Sea Pro Salt Mix. I had the same problem too. I would have mud looking stuff stuck on my mixing pump and the sides of the mixing barrel. I thought it was the nature of the salt since everyone else using it was having the same problem. Well I figured out what my problem was. I would put 25 cups of salt into 45 gallons of water all at the same time. I'm sure that this method was causing the mud caking on everything. I've been mixing it this way for quite some time. When filling the tank I would filter the water through a sock and run a sock for three days. Yesterday I decided to try something new. I added 5 cups of salt ever half hour and the final two dumps of 5 cups every hour. This morning my mix is almost clear! I will continue to mix the salt this way and monitor the water clarity. Dave-

*******Disclaimer******* If you use this medication it is at your own risk. No one but yourself is responsible for your actions with this medication. ------------------ Over all my observations during the week where positive. Not one red bug to be found. For the first time I'm seeing polyp extension and the corals seem to pop with color. Not all the inhabitants survived the second treatment. We lost our Coral Beauty, however I'm not ready to blame the death on the treatment. Still no pods any where. I'm glad my mandarin eats frozen food and pellets. I did three days of darkness that seems to eradicated my cyano problem in the sump. After my normal water change and tank maintenance today, I will be reseeding the tank with copepods I purchased from Reef Cleaners. Now why not do a third treatment. Well I was treating the tank 3 times assuming the life cycle of red bugs included eggs and larvae. I was directed by Muddybluewater to an article by Eric Borneman. Apparently red bugs are live bearers. Since I haven't seen a single red bud since the initial treatment I have to agree. In conclusion, I believe that doing a double dose just help me to believe the red bugs are dead. Dave- Here is the article by Eric Borneman: ""Suggested Treatment Protocol: Based on my observations and work described here, I suggest the following as a treatment protocol for Acropora colonies that have been colonized by the parasitic copepod, Tegastes acroporanus ("red bugs") as a modification of the novel protocol developed by Dorton. The process is more labor intensive, but should be more effective in preventing any future need to treat Tegastes-parasitized Acropora in the display tank (provided quarantine is utilized for any new coral acquisitions). It should also help to reduce the current epizootic within reef aquaria by limiting the potential for spread between tanks by trading or purchase of Tegastes-colonized fragments or colonies. 1. Assume that every Acropora in the tank is colonized, even if there are not visible copepods on the colony. Rationale: copepods are cryptic on normally colored colonies, can be cryptic on pale colonies, and are small enough to be easily missed by examination through tank glass or even by direct observation with the naked eye. Furthermore, the copepods are motile, and swim between colonies. Therefore, any colonies removed for treatment may leave unnoticed individuals on other colonies or allow for copepods that abandon hosts being removed for treatment to locate un-colonized Acropora. 2. All Acropora colonies should be removed from the tank and placed into a container for examination. This can be preformed one colony at a time. A magnifying glass, magnifying lamp, dissecting scope or some other method should be used to slowly and carefully examine each colony from every possible angle. The corals will tolerate extended handling periods out of water to facilitate examination. The copepods will be covered with a smooth and somewhat shiny carapace and with coral mucus and a thin film of water. Without examination from multiple light incidence angles, it is possible that individuals will go undetected. If a colony is too large or too densely branched to allow for a complete examination, consider it to be colonized. Any colonies that are determined to be free of copepods can be placed into a quarantine tank without treatment, but I would suggest reexamination prior to reintroduction to the main display tank. Rationale: Examination by the naked eye is insufficient to detect all copepods. 3. All Acropora colonies found to have copepods present should be treated in a treatment tank or container where dose levels and colonies can be carefully monitored. The treatment tank can be large or small, and can be used to treat many colonies at once or one at a time. The water should be circulating strongly across colonies to not only for drug exposure but to help dislodge dead copepods. Following treatment, each colony should be re-examined in water under magnification to ensure 100% kill rates. Copepods still attached to the coral can be probed with a needle, pin, pipette or syringe and removed from the colony. If copepods are found to still exhibit any motion, retreatment should occur immediately. rationale: treatment in the tank should be avoided for several reasons: a) it will be impossible to assess whether or not a 100% kill rate has been achieved; b) in tank treatment will result in mass loss of other susceptible species including amphipods, shrimps, lobsters, crabs, polychaetes, nematodes, copepods, and possibly other invertebrates which have not been tested for toxicity to the drug ; and c) repeated treatments can result in resistance making future treatments more difficult. 4. Treatment dosage appears to flexible, if not variable. Given the apparent low toxicity to corals even at elevated dosages, I would suggest a dose level equal or higher (up to 10x) than suggested by Dorton. Dorton suggests three separate treatments of six hours. Upon examination of treated colonies, six hours appears to be insufficient for a 100% kill rate, while 12 hours seems to be more effective. In the one test where coral mortality was observed, the treatment time was only six hours, and in all other tests, no ill effects to the coral were seen with extended treatment times. It appears that time, and not dosage level, is the critical variable towards providing 100% kill rates for the copepods. Regardless of the dose or treatment duration, all colonies should be carefully examined before they are removed from treatment. For colonies being treated that are too large or densely branched to allow for examination, the treatment should be continued for 24 hours with careful monitoring to ensure that the colonies are enduring the treatment well and that the water does not become fouled from excessive mucus production, other fauna killed during treatment, or other stressors. If these conditions occur, treatment tank water should be dumped into buckets, sterilized by the addition of bleach to the water, and disposed down a sanitary sewage line. The treatment tank should then be refilled with tank water and new drug added to the water. 5. All treated corals and completely free of Tegastes acroporanus, as well as those examined and found to be un-colonized (#2 above), should be placed into a quarantine tank filled with tank water filtered through a coffee filter or other filtration apparatus. The quarantine tank should have filtration, water flow and light sufficient to keep treated colonies alive for five days. 6. No Acropora should remain in or be placed back into the main display tank for five days. This is the longest period of time it has taken for any Tegastes acroporanus to survive without a host from observations to date. This assumes that there are no other surrogate hosts for this species, and that the observations of death from 3-5 days without a host are realistic of what would occur in a display tank. rationale: It is possible, even likely, that during the removal of colonized Acropora, some copepods swim off the colony into the tank. They will seek out other hosts. It is also possible that some are in the tank at any moment seeking new hosts, even without the process of colony removal. As far as can be ascertained, they are direct developers and thus do not have a free-swimming larval stage and they do not lay eggs on the host or substrates that can later hatch. However, they can live without a host for several days. Ensuring that any copepods left in the tank after removal of hosts die requires, at my best estimate, 3-5 days. I suggest five days to be conservative. 7. After five days, colonies in quarantine should be re-examined under magnification and if found to be free of copepods, can be returned to the display tank. If copepods are found on any colonies, repeat steps 3-7." _____________________ Eric Borneman

OK, according to my records one order hasn't been picked up. EJaustin please contact me to set up a pick up time. You can reach me at 762-7848 or 837-4078. Thanks, Dave_

Cool.

oh yeah, I'm back in.

I going to assume you have upgraded the unit to the most recent version 3.40S_6B09. Are you having the problem in Aquanotes? I had the problem when logging into the controller. I re-flashed the upgrade & graphs and they now work. Don't know it this would solver your problem. I found this link invaluable for programming. AC3 Programming Dave-

Ric, have you tried cleaning it? It may just be the impeller too. I think Aquatek carries the replacement impeller. Dave-