Dan H

Wow that stinks. Looks like calcium snow in there.

I'm running a Reef Octopus and it's been a great CaRX. High build quality, and easy access. I'm running the carbon doser as well and love it. Definitely worth the money. With respect to the 5lb bottle, if you can fit the 10, get it. I switched to a 20lb bottle and love it. The bigger bottles hold a higher pressure longer so it stay more consistent on the regulator. As the PSI starts falling when the bottle nears empty, you have to fudge around with the regulator pressure. Bigger is better. I have the 20 + 2x 5lbs. I may sell one of the 5's and keep the 2nd just to have a spare when filling the 20.

No sand in QT, save yourself the trouble. In fact, nothing that can't be cleaned easily, no rocks - just PVC pipes for them to hide in. That's all you need.

You roll the dice.

Potters are notoriously fickle. It may make sense to put one of those in last. Until they adapt to eating frozen/dry food, they will pick on the LR so make sure there's stuff for it to pick at. Ours took a few weeks of watching the other fish pig out at dinner time before she figured out that we were dispensing tasty food. Now she's a complete pig.

You shouldn't have to spend money buying pods if the system is producing enough on it's own. Look around with a flashlight at night and if you can see pods running all over the LR, then you're probably ok.

Don't worry about the fire worm. They are cuc.

Road biking (used to race but don't have enough time to train anymore), mountain biking, scuba diving, work. That's kinda the sum total of my awake time at this point.

do you have a water sensor for leaks and such?

^^^^^^^

This! Get one if you don't. Although if it's not a web-based one, you're still screwed unless you are home.

Don't be ashamed, everyone kills fish in this hobby and it's not as though you were neglectful. It's unfortunate but it happens. Hopefully it results in learning - not just for you but for others reading about your experience.

Hey hey hey! No free rides!

That's way more inventive than I could have ever dreamed up. Looks like it works well too.

You'll probably want to change out your carbon when you get home tonight and get some fresh stuff in there to help pull out the ink.

My house will hit 1000 when I have people over or sometimes when we just don't go outside all weekend. Also, since the tank has an exhaust fan, it's pushing out air from the house which will pull in air through cracks and seams elsewhere. So I'm sure that's helping keep the CO2 down some.

I've seen inconsistencies in the pH, but there are so many factors that affect it that I'm not always sure what is the cause. I have noticed that pulling outside air for the skimmer definitely raised the pH overall - both the upper limit and lower limit. So that would suggest the opposite of what you're seeing.

I recently added CO2 scrubber to the air intake for the skimmer as well, and that brought it up even further. On my tank, the 3 biggest influencers of pH are the skimmer, the lighting, and the ambient CO2 levels. Obviously when the lights are on, CO2 is being consumed by the photosynthetic creatures so the pH goes up. If the skimmer isn't working efficiently, the pH goes down - sometimes a LOT. If the CO2 in the house goes above 1000ppm for a while, then sometimes the tank's pH will start to go down.

Interestingly if you are seeing the pH go down when the pump is on, then perhaps it's getting stale air? Is it well ventilated where the pump it?

Here's my charts.

This is just a theory, but I saw similar things too when experimenting. I only got good results when the skimmer was pulling in the fresh air. I suspect this may be because of the contact time with water, the skimmer producing microbubbles so dramatically more surface area for air/water contact, and volume - the skimmer is holding close to 1 cubic foot of water/air vs a tiny column of air from the air stone.

Beautiful pictures!

Perhaps if someone is going to go there, they could see if anyone else needs some stuff? I'd be interested.

I was more thinking about little nuclear bombs flying around if it gets chopped up.

Just a thought but shouldn't you have a guard on that pump just in case it comes loose?

I love the little fungia department.

I like the optimism. That'll be some amazing SPS when it's filled in.

Ha! That's $15 of calcium reactor media...

DOH!

I had to dose my Mg up using Magnesium Chloride - in quite massive quantities I might add. Only after I got the Mg back up to a good level was my reactor able to maintain it (after adding the NeoMag). NeoMag says to use a 9-1 ratio or so, I'm using more like 5-1. My corals consume the heck outta Mg!

Get some Trochus. By far my favorite snails. Fast, sturdy, eat a lot, and can upright themselves. Plus added bonus, they don't get all huge and start knocking stuff over. Frankly a good mix is ideal so they all can do different things and provide a variety of services.