Bpb

Tests for 8/9/2014: Temp: 80.0 (apex currently) Ph: 8.20 (apex currently) Salinity: 1.026 (refractometer) Calcium: 430 ppm (Red Sea pro) Alkalinity: 8.2 dkh (Red Sea pro) Magnesium: 1700 ppm (Red Sea pro) Phosphate: 0 ppb (Hanna) Nitrate: 0 (Elos) Didn't take pics of the Red Sea tests, but as this was my first time using the Elos kit, decided to snap a shot. Really hating how low phosphate and nitrate are. I know we strive for low, but nowadays, it seems difficult to keep them elevated slightly. Can't say for certain that this is the cause for the STN, but they're the only things I can measure. Do y'all think the Mg being that elevated could be an issue as well? I'll do a 10% water change this evening either way.

I'm gonna go with nitrates and phosphates. Kind of have to. If it is aefw or red bugs, once everything is dead I'll be acro fallow for several months anyway, but I'm not seeing any of the classic aefw or red big symptoms like polyp retraction/irritation, bite marks on healthy tissue. I know it's a possibility, but not showing the outward symptoms

Test 3 days a week. 8.0-8.4. Never outside that range. Hasn't been for over a year, including tank change period. And the people that held my sps for me also kept their alk in the low 8's using the same test. I had some issues with the new water y'all remember but when I ended up mixing it all up it ended up resting in the 8's. Wavered a little at first while I dialed in the dosing pumps, but never more than 0.5 dKH or so. In other words I haven't had a bit alk issue like a runaway dosing pump up to 12 dKH or anything. Last alk test was actually this morning before work

Just off work. Tricolor Valida and red planet now snowing signs of STN. If I don't do something I will have a tank void of Acropora within a week. I'm cutting bio pellets right now. That's the next step. Ball valve off. Three phosphate tests of 0ppb, and only algae I see is bryopsis which can easily grow in an ULNS. At this point I can't regret it because I have nothing to lose. I'll further regret doing NOTHING.

Well...I actually like Jones unlike most fans. And if I were betting, I'd put money on him...however; of anyone in that weight class, Cormier stands the best chance. He's so sick. Definitely top 5 current favorite in any weight class

Give me some time. I guess like victory said, a good measuring stick on when the tanks troubles are past...when crap stops dying. Montipora seem largely unaffected. Maybe I'll do a monti dominated tank. As far as UFC bets go....interesting proposal, though I think given both our backgrounds we will probably call fights mostly the same way. Unless you're a Chris Weidman fan...which case, we can't be friends anymore. Big one coming up in 5 weeks. Jones vs Cormier.

Reburn, looked those up. They're beautiful. I'm wanting to get ahold of some finer leaved fast stems and more red. I'll have to hit up aquatek next time I'm on town. Plus side. Fixed my mp40. Works again. Tricolor Valida now showing STN. At least my equipment is back on track. This track sure is bumpy. Glass half full...with all these sps dying, I should save a lot on 2 part dosing. Maybe I'll cut the bio pellets too and really let these softies go to work

4 months later, bout time. Nice product. Happy with it. Apex programming went fine. Very happy with the look. Unfortunately I cannot share detailed close ups. Impossible. The phone does not compute but they really are beautiful. Mounting was easy by following BML canopy mounting instructions. 2 hour dim from 10-60% sunrise and sunset. I'll work my way up to 100%. Onto the bad. Death is worsening. While they've not died entirely, I'm running out of fraggable tissue. Dead or dying inventory as of now: Blue stag Northern lights Nasuta ORA Hawkins Echinata Unknown red smooth skin Acro with yellow polyps Red Milliepora Tyree lime in the sky Acro Ora Cali tort Miami orchid Acro Raspberry cheesecake Acro Red digi All softies and Lps unaffected and actually growing at an alarming rate. Unaffected sps still hanging on/growing: Green montipora stellata Montipora spongodes Purple montipora capricornis Red montipora capricornis Green montipora capricornis Rainbow monti Sunset monti Montipora setosa Oregon tort Acro Ponape birds nest Purple meridiana Purple polyp birdsnest Tricolor Valida Purple slimer Red planet Strawberry shortcake I "washed" the mp40 dry side in rodi water and have been letting it dry in the sun for 3 days. Nothing else to lose there. This has all been beyond frustrating. It's been enough to make me quit. Not leave the hobby, but quit on sps. I'm strongly contemplating just not touching the tank anymore, and just feeding the fish and not stressing further. Whatever dies will be thrown in the sump as rubble and just say to heck with it. Discouraging. No more livestock purchases for me. Updates will probably come fewer and farther between. On the plus side, this pressurized co2 and EI dosing of the planted tank have caused a dramatic and near Immediate turnaround. Explosion of growth and pearling. Water cleared up, algae dying off, Good stuff. I WILL be hunting for more plants now

Nice. I was for a minute. At this point. What good is anger going to do

Another update. Great news this time. Broke my MP40 tonight. Accidentally stuck the tongs into the wet side while it was running. Took it apart. Reassembled (ceramic washer came unseated), discovered the magnet was swelling and rusting...that's a $50 + S&H fix...but at least it was still functional. Right? Then as it was putting it all back on the tank, I dropped the dry side into the water. Took it apart, tried to dry it out entirely. Thought I did, reassembled. Fired up. But couldn't get up to top speed, them the red light started flashing and all was still and calm. I've got the most expensive paper weight in the brazos valley now. Fml. I suppose there ARE worse things that could happen right? Now have the wp25s at each end pointing at each other and turned up the return pump to max (was running at minimum). I started thinking "hmm well maybe I'll get a wp40 to replace it with, or try out two of the new rw series pumps, lord knows I can't afford another vortech or a tunze on my income with a baby on the way...F*** this tank. I don't even care. TV = on. Nobody talk to me"

Oh well, I quit! At this point I'm not going to screw with anything and just test alk once a week and make sure it stays topped off and skimmer cup emptied. What happens will happen. This tank change has been emotionally exhausting. Messing with my fw planted tank has been a refreshing change of pace, even though I nearly gassed all my fish yesterday. Brought on pressurized co2 for the first time and in my infinite stupidity I cranked the bubble rate up to like 8-10 bubbles per second. More is better right? Drop checker turned bright yellow in a few hours and all the fish were frantically gasping at the surface. Oops

Also. Any ID on that chalice? Color is pretty true. Purple base that has kind of an iridescent metallic blue sheen to it, with red/orange mouths/eyes

I actually prefer the classic yellow believe it or not. All the other foxface varieties are a little drab. Now there are some super colorful rabbit fish out there but they're a little harder to come by

Thanks for the replies. Next question. With magnesium already up over 1600 ppm, and some already stressing sps, would it be advisable to use tech m? I don't want to do a series of large water changes and muck everything up when I'm really trying to get that stability back. Can I possibly dose small amounts perhaps with some 5% weekly water changes and it still be effective. I've been wanting a fox face for a while so maybe this is a sign. I considered a couple gigantic turbo snails but I know they fall over easily and not all of my acros are glued down real well

Oh well. No idea why the last 4 won't post and just show the link. Click the link if you feel so inclined

Not gonna get pic crazy posting the same shots over and over. But here's the August 1 update. Alk down to 7.8 from 8.4 a few weeks ago. Growth. Still kinda slow though. I'm still seriously considering going even older school and getting some xm10k bulbs or ushio 10k. Keeping my eyes peeled for some cheap electronic ballasts because I don't wanna fry them in 3 months with these m80 ballasts. I think I can tolerate a white tank. The more pics i see online the less it bothers me. I want faster sps growth. The xm10k bulbs are literally double the par and ppfd than the radiums are, and it would be 160 less watts. Some stuff looks good some stuff not so much. Luckily my few favorite sps are the ones that have done the best. I've got several new ones I'm grabbing on Tuesday as well. Bryopsis starting to really get crazy. Ty. Help. Plz. Forgive me if these pics are already done. Trying to post ones I haven't posted yet. Unknown chalice. Zoas Zoas Miami hurricane chalice regaining its blue Been posted, but has grown about an inch all around and pointing upward instead of out which is good for real estate Leptastrea Hawkins Setosa Montipora stellata growing well Dying northern lights Recovering red planet http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag426/Rshackelford1215/August%201%202014/imagejpg7_zpsa97bad00.jpg Strawberry shortcake (allegedly). Don't know that I'll get a good pic of this one for a while due to its position http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag426/Rshackelford1215/August%201%202014/imagejpg1_zps7dbae71a.jpg Spongodes http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag426/Rshackelford1215/August%201%202014/imagejpg5_zpsd5038b43.jpg Tiny purple stylo http://i1374.photobucket.com/albums/ag426/Rshackelford1215/August%201%202014/imagejpg1_zps89283d21.jpg

Good question Rob. It ended up being a bit of a pain actually and I kind of wish I had just picked up one at the dome when I was in town last. Mine should be here in a couple days though. Reasons for not buying locally. Aquariumspecialty.com has BML in their product catalog The base prices are actually lower than the manufacturer by about $10 for the 48" super actinic No state sales tax I needed to order several other odds and ends The BML strip brought me to free shipping. Back fired because the vendor didn't actually carry them. So BML had to make it still and ship directly to me. They told me today it should ship out this week at some point. I still saved about $30 all in all though.

You all watch what you say about my fw tank!

Wow that warning by Ty was actually pretty dang good. Reminds me of many a letter I've received by the city/homeowners association/work/ect. Alright alright. Take it easy. Here's a pic. This what you had in mind?

I'll give a verbal update. No pics though. I'm going to take my time and try to get a clean clear pic of every sps coral in the tank and some of the main Lps. I will do that on the first of august. I'll use my photobucket to document growth monthly. I understand radium bulbs aren't exactly par monsters, but as I feel like things are still light acclimating, I won't consider a bulb change until these are a year old. I will get my photoperiod to 8 hours, then begin lowering them closer to the water. One way or another I know that if I change bulbs...the color won't be as nice, growth will be faster, and I'll need either new ballasts or light pendants as there aren't any other SE bulbs that can reasonably run on m80 ballasts and not be torched inside of a few months. Just too much juice. So there's that. Got a new algae magnet. That's exciting. Love it. Algae free hammerhead good for up to 5/8" glass. Mine is 1/2". Still testing phosphorous. Feeding super heavy. Using amino acids almost daily. Still 0 ppm. Turned down the flow on my bio pellet reactor and I'll likely start skimming dryer. I'm still fighting a little RTN/STN unfortunately. Running out of backups too. Guilty parties are blue stag ("Stuber stag", second guessing my id on that), raspberry cheesecake, and northern lights Nasuta. I've created backup backup backup frags of each of those, the smallest of which seem to be holding out the best, but the bigger pieces of those three just keep getting hit by it. They'll be fine then I'll notice the encrusting base dies and it just travels upward. Trying to stay ahead of it. Doesn't look like aefw bite marks, just even and moderately paced STN. it's ok though, if I lost the Nasuta and blue stag I wouldn't be too heart broken. They're probably my least favorite children. Those three were the fastest growers in the last tank. Rainbow montipora is rocking. Looks real nice now. Hard to capture its essence in photos. Got some new pieces as well I'll throw in the pic catalogue as well. So...some good some bad. I've actually been paying some attention to my fw tank lately. Getting co2 up and running and going to start estimative index dosing. Pulled all my dwarf sag and java fern. Hoping to get this thing looking nicer. It's looked too much like an actual river bed than a planted display. Murky, tannin stained water filled with algae and gross muck. Needed some love.

I'd certainly believe it. Looks like the biopellets and macro fuge are doing their job. My tomini tang actual eats bryopsis too which helps. Looks like in this instance it's probably a good idea to continue NOT rinsing my frozen food

To paraphrase Manny...I'm just not sure God wants me to have a BML light strip. I placed a rather sizeable order though an online retailer, which shall for now remain nameless, and is not an ARC sponsor, who not only carries alot of nice gear, but also the full line of BML lights and accessories. To kill 14 birds with one stone, and save about 10% in cost, I decided to order my BML super actinic straight though them. Order was supposed to arrive today. The vendor was out of the Vortech MP40 gasket, bubble counter fluid, and Spectrapure DI resin, as was emailed to me by their staff, and reflected on the invoice, it should arrive in 7-10 days. Everything else is on the invoice. Invoice clearly shows my Super Actinic 48" strip as ordered, in stock, and shipped along with everything else. I get to the UPS pickup store, and they hand me a tiny box which says "1 of 1" on the shipping label...I open it and check the invoice...yep. BML super actinic strip...right there...itemized...shipped...but never recieved by UPS along with the other items. So while I'm excited to have a few new toys...The big thing I ordered...Practically the whole reason for placing the order, is somehow lost. I showed the clerk at the UPS store the invoice, described the item, she did some computer searching and looking around and sure enough the only had one box for me in my account and nothing matching that product code or description arrived. Told me for now it'll have to be considered "will call" and they'll let me know if it comes in, or if for some reason they used another carrier for that particular item (which happens from time to time). So I call the vendor again from the parking lot to try to find out whats going on, and I get a stupid voicemail. Left a message 3 hours ago...Still no call back. I'll send an email again here in a bit. I'm so tired of dealing with this I have decided...if the BML strip doesnt come, and I can somehow get a refund, or whatever, I'm done...No supplemental lights for me. I'll just run the MH for 8 hours and call it a day. Whatever. So tired of dealing with this. Maybe the universe is sending me some kind of sign. Anyhow... Also in the order: Vortech cable tie managment pack so I can clean up the look Floating feeding station - so I don't lose so many pellets and frozen bits into the rock work and down the overflow Nori clip with mesh - to hold strips of nori in place and the whole sheet doesnt get carried off which my clown loves to do Hanna Phosphorous ULR PPB tester with extra reagents Algae Free Hammerhead - Mag float just not getting the job done. This thing is wicked strong, i'm afraid i'm gonna push the tank over its got such a tight grip. 40 coraline colored frag plugs TLF 150 phosban plumbing kit (my diy plumbing job leaks and is super ugly Tested the Phosphorous immediately. Following Victoly's instructions I was super careful. Even wore Nitrile hospital gloves (powder free) to avoid getting oils from my hands onto the curette or mixed in with the reagent. No bubbles, fully dissolved. Test yielded 0 PPB. Doing some reading, this unit has a margin of error of +/- 5 PPB or 5% of your reading. Meaning at the low end we're talking 0.01533 PPM after the formula to convert to phosphate. So I'm running pretty low it seems. Colors are holding well and aside from a little bryopsis here and there algae hasnt really shown up. No hair algae, or diatoms really. I guess it's time to start dosing amino acids again. i just find it so hard to believe that I'm not showing any phosphate still. I am running biopellets but no GFO. The glass only gets covered with a white-ish bacterial film it looks like. Oh well. It is what it is Ive been taking lots of pics of corals in their forever homes but I don't want to post any yet. On Aug. 1 I'll start my running log of monthly pics for growth purposes and a few full tank shots. For the most part everything is looking good. Down to my last two frags of my big blue stag colony due to RTN. My first colony of Raspberry Cheescake I had just started to RTN the other day and it's spreading. I've got another full mini colony on the frag rack, as well as a separate, non-connected frag on the same plug that is RTN. If I have to I'll cut a tiny nub of each and re-grow it. My oregon tort is looking fantastic. Hard to believe it literally started from 2 polyps and nothing more. Maybe 1/8" tiny little clip that I didnt expect to make it. It's about 1" now and probably 30-40 polyps. No branching yet, but it's holding its color well and has fantastic polyp extension. One Cali Tort and one Miami Orchid mini colony now dead as well. Luckily I have a healthy Cali Tort that is encrusting onto it's plug and actually growing. Hawkins has ceased to RTN and is beginning to encrust. The corals that are struggling to look nice are the reds and purples. All those are a rust brown color but with good PE. Blues and Greens all look very vibrant. Thats all for now

I'd be way down for one of those

Thanks fellas. Shouldn't be tough to hunt down some green. Little mind trick here, Jeremy's montipora there, neon green pocillopora. Troubles are over