Jpowell490

He is a superb specimen. Nice job.

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Any shadowing will produce that. If it can't get to the light, or vice versa, then that will happen.

Yea 40W is a monster lol. Be careful and not vaporize yourself with that thing

That seems like too much flow for the UV. I was thinking that you only need about 200gph to run through those. However, at 40w, maybe you can get away with a bit higher flow.

Now, in a high nutrient system such as yours, you will have some issues running that sterilizer 24 hours a day. I would suggest running it about 2 days a week and cutting it off the rest.

I am a huge proponent in UV sterilization in Reefs, but I took mine off recently to put it on another tank and my corals responded in a very positive way.

That tells me that there is in fact some truth to UV sterilizers killing off some beneficial nutrients in the water column.

I still run it, but only a couple of days a week. Just some food for thought.

I have had one that disappeared too, but I think it went in between the rocks and then the sandsifting goby covered it up.

Now the ones I have that are mounted to plugs, sometimes they shrink up VERY small, but they are still there. I have always attached any frags to the plugs using a rubber band. Glue won't hold those things on for anything with the slime they produce.

I am sure they are still in your tank somewhere, I hear they are almost impossible to kill as well.

Here is my thoughts.

1). That temperature swing is WAY too much. You need a heater, stat. Mine never fluctuates more than a half a degree.

2). I hate to say it, but something is going on with your lighting. You have had the same light for quite a while and it has never looked super. Absolutely no offense meant by that, don't take it that way my friend.

3). You calcium is low and your DKH is a bit low for my liking. I know everyone shots for 7, but I have always had great luck around 9-12.

4). Please Wade, listen to me, I know what I am talking about. Drop that Reef Crystals garbage and get you some Red Sea Coral Pro, black bucket. All of your parameters will be spot on in 3 weeks.

5). Lastly, don't change water every week. I was doing that myself and I got a little busy and started going about 2 weeks between changes. My corals have shown a huge difference, for the better. So do a change about every 15 days.

I would change salt and see how that goes and then if there still is no difference, I would seriously look into lighting.

Wade,

Stop being cheap, just chunk it! That stuff will spread like crazy and they will get into any other area connected to the cheato.

They did that because people were not paying. You used to be able to check out and then pay, thus, getting the item that you wanted without paying immediately. Not anymore.

Just say no to Dwarf Angels. Good fish, but you can forget ever keeping a clam if you so desire.

The best fish I could recommend would be a Foxface. Super personable, will eat out of your hand, skittishness really reduces as they get used to their surroundings. Completely reef safe, never had mine bother anything.

Wanting to move out to Colorado myself.

Nashville is a nice area.

You guys are scaring me.........

I have a Reef Gen Birdsnest that I purchased just about 3 months ago as a small frag. It has quadrupled in size and is doing great.

I am in Johnson City. It is up at the NE tip near Virginia.

Let me know if you need help programming them into your Apex, etc. Did you get the connector cable to control them both at the same time?

If not, it isn't a deal breaker, but.....

OH!

Well disregard then, I misread, I thought he was saying that about his SAND bed. Now if your mud is like that, I could see that.

Sorry Patrick

Patrick,

That sounds like a sewage treatment plant lol.

I have never had a sand bed that felt "spongy" to the touch, just feels like sand to me.

No offense meant in any of these posts, just trying to help. If you are not achieving a good ecosystem in your reef tank, you are doing something wrong. If we know that we have a non existent ecosystem, or unstable, then we should never add any kind of livestock to it.

Bpb,

Sitting here thinking about this again and I don't want to derail Wade's question. I have a question though.

So I see two options:

1) you do frequent (weekly) water changes and your levels all stay pretty much perfect.

2) you do no water changes really and you dose daily.

I would think that option 2 would open up a lot of risks. If you miss a dose or something goes wrong, you have the potential for a catastrophic event with a tank crash because your water change regimen is not there and you are relying on dosing.

Option 1 is just good husbandry and you are creating a nice security blanket of sorts.

Now, I would think that people with very large tanks > 180 gallons would want to go the dosing option possibly.

Make sense? Or am I missing something?

Bpb,

I would think in your case, your 55 gallon would have to be absolutely full of SPS to have a 1 dkh a day drop in alk. I have never heard of alk dropping that fast.

Like I said, I am definitely not the dosing master lol.

Jimbo,

Did you find some? I might be able to help if not.

Easy fix. Forget the dosing and just use Red Sea Coral Pro salt. You will get

Calcium 450-480

Alk 10-12

PH around 8.0

Every time.

Not the dosing expert, not me. I just know that using that salt will take care of your dosing all together.

Pick you up a small bucket for 20 bucks at Pet Cove, give it a whirl.

Vic,

The idea of a "live" sand bed is just that to me. It should be live and take care of itself. Now by vacuuming, I vacuum water out and swish it around a bit to kick up any detritus that hasn't been picked up previously.

If you have the correct clean up crew, you shouldn't ever have to vacuum your sand.

If you were running something very large like crushed coral, I could see vacuuming that. Sand, however, should be taken care of by the inhabitants.

And never vacuuming sand, it just removes your sand. You accomplish nothing really.

I will put my 2 cents into this. I have ran deep sand beds, shallow sand beds, and in between. You should NEVER vacuum your sand bed.

Get you a sand sifting goby and be done with it. I never, ever touch the sand bed. I have a few hermits which are a pain in the.... when it comes to keeping them off my clam and sps.

Your inhabitants will turn the sand over. As above, get you a good goby and a few snails, hermits, etc. and leave it alone.

Get the FINE sand, the Fiji Pink or something similar. Sand sifters will die if they swallow a larger sand rock or shell, I know this trust me, I had one die. So go with really fine sand and do the above, you will never have to touch it.

I purchased this kit, almost just like it, about 2 years ago. It works great, but I will tell you, you hardly use half of these tools.

Nice to have though, and can frag anything.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?pcatid=18487

Lol, that is funny.

Useless fact of the day, the big complaint on the first Kessil LED's is that they weren't "tunable".

Therefore, they added a tunable blue channel that was the 350. Hence the "tuna blue".

I know way too much about these lights lol.....

I meant to post this as well. The new WE version has a simple male/female plug in. The 360W had a weird T connector that was very easy to damage if you didn't have it lined up perfectly because you had to put quite a bit of pressure on them to connect it.

Just really good improvements and definitely an upgrade. I can tell very quickly how a light is going to do for corals and this one is top notch.

Haha,

I used to. We worked at the same place, but I haven't seen Wade in 2 months.

I am the fish tank psychic, rofl.