Mike M.

Jeremy,

Your Pearlberry looks awesome! Nice work at keeping those SPS happy!

Hi, just found this. My notifications have not been working.

No, I won't be fragging anything for a good while. I have managed to crash a really nice tank so I am back in "building" mode.

I lost the pearlberry and the prostrata. Makes me very sad.

So anyway, death of a beautiful tank, but life goes on. I'll be back in the game in six months or so!

Thanks for checking in though and good luck with your tank.

Mike

I had a sump built for me at GC. They actually worked well for me and the sump worked great with no leaks over a year before I reconfigured. They do not build a beautiful tank like AGE, but for the money, they got the job done. I wouldn't have a huge display made by them, but I did want to share that I had a decent experience personally. Remember, it is the unhappy customers that make the most noise. You never hear from the happy ones. You usually only hear the cacophony of the unhappy ones.

Did you receive my information on the calcium reactor?

Sounds like the consensus is for using dead stuff these days. I have had my live rock eight years or so and put the tank together back when dead rock wasn't even being talked about.

All that said, I recently purchased 50lbs of the BRS dead rock. I used it to fashion a rock facade around the frag rack I built for Fat Jack, our little 60 gallon LED experiment tank. I really liked working with the "cheap" rock and used an auger bit to drill holes to mount frags in and such. It allowed me to customize the rock work for the tank in ways that I have not been able to do with "live" rock.

Now, when I put it in the tank...holy mother of algae blooms Batman! It cycled out with the carbon dosing I was doing at the time in about three weeks, but the mat of algae that it propagated was truly unbelieveable. So what you are being instructed about curing it is completely correct and I would urge you to use a good 6-8 weeks to cycle your tank. I would recommend something like microbacter 7 or zeobak and a carbon source to help things along and then you'll probably need a sea hair, emerald crabs, and snails down the road to deal with the algae. I was amazed at what work the emerald crabs did on the hair algae once I put them in the tank. They are great janitors!

If you want to dabble with zeo products, here is what I would suggest:

First, if your corals are not dark, stay away from B Balance and ZeoSpur.

Zeo Start 2 and 3 are carbon sources and you do not need that.

Food7 - Coral food/bacteria food-I think this is a useless or of little use supplement. Don't buy this one either

Coral Vitalizer and Sponge Power - Dose 4 drops of each 3-4 times per week in a 100 gallon system. If you have a bad case of majanos or aptasia, don't use Sponge Power. It is rumored to aggravate growth of those pests. Otherwise, these two are two of the cornerstones of the Zeo regimen. I like them and feel like they are part of the success I had with zeo.

Pohl's Xtra Special - This is my second most favorite after the Coral Vitalizer and Sponge Power supplements. 3mL twice per week. Helps with reds.

Potassium/Iodine/Fluoride- 4-6 drops 2-3 times per week. This will bring up your blues and purples

Coral Snow-waste of time

Jod Complex-Another iodine supplement. Good for purples

Amino Acids-2-6 drops 2-3 times per week. IF you polyps are dark, discontinue using amino acids. If your corals are light, use more.

So there it is. Coral Vitalizer, Sponge Power, Iodine in some form, and Pohl's Xtra Special That's my team of zeo favorites.

There are users running both zeolites and biopellets. There is the danger of OVER CLEANING the water. Zero nutrients is not the goal and if there is any question, just come look at how I killed about $3000 worth of colonies when I took the tank near zero on nutrients. It has taken me several months to diagnose this and at this point, I am certain that you can crash a tank trying to get to ZERO PHOSPHATE. So, learn from me...zero is not the goal in ULNS systems. If you are successful with biopellets, stick with it, but don't add additional carbon/bacteria systmes running concurrently or you WILL crash your tank and it will likely make you cry!

I'm going to cut to the chase on all this. You cannot water change your way out of a nitrate or phosphate problem. There, I drew a line in the sand. In addition, you can reduce those levels too quickly and cause STN to begin in your stoneys so don't get in a hurry(i.e. a huge load of GFO)

I suggest a slow approach. Take weeks or month or two to begin reducing your nutrient levels via use of the BioActiv Salt you mentioned which I do believe is a good product and then using a carbon source... I would suggest ZeoStart3 and Zeo Bak. Dosing 3 drops of Zeo Bak three times a week and 1mL ZeoStart 3 daily and you will get the problem under control in an ordered fashion. Pick your alk point and run it there. If 10 is your bag, then 10 it is, but if you do dose bacteria and carbon, you'll find your tank will run near seven.

Get a Hanna Checker and monitor phosphate. When you get between .02-0.04, reduce your carbon dosing by 50% so as not to over reduce the tank. At that point, everything should be looking super. 5 gallon weekly water changes for your tank at the most. Don't rock the boat with water changes. They are overrated in my mind.

Run your magnesium at 1300 and calcium 380-420. Higher isn't better like Mark said.

Skim, skim, skim.

This ought to fix you up!

I'll TAKE THE CLAM! I'LL PM!

I use double ended 250watt MH bulbs for my tank. I am thinking about replacing the bulbs. Currently I have 12k reeflux bulbs, but I don't think they are giving me enough PAR.

Any suggestions/recommendations on bulbs?

Thanks

Troy

Concerning your concern about PAR, there is a growing group of opinions that we over light our reef tanks. Your 250W DE lamps are A-okay. Putting a higher K lamp will lower PAR so take that into consideration. The Reeflux lamps you were using will grow SPS and anything else...so will the Phoenix 14K. If you feel like you are not achieving ideal growth rates, look to your chemistry stability and husbandry as the source of the problem. Most young reef keepers believe that a certain lamp or circulation pump or wave box will solve the growth rate problem. It just isn't true. If it was, we'd all have tanks of the month! I have grown more and more convinced that you can use whatever lamp you want and get good growth. An excellent example is the current fad amongst the local SPS guys for using these $20 Plusrite lamps. Shoot, I may even change to them next when my ungodly expensive Aquaconnect 14K's get to their replacement point.

Another interesting change locally is Hydro's move or rumored move to 250W lamps from 400W. Once again, growing opinion that we overlight our tanks.

So I'm not trying to cause a poop storm, but instead, keep you from feeling like you need to chuck huge dollars into a variable of your husbandry that in all likelyhood is not as critical to growth as you have been led to believe by all the attention paid to what lamp people us and their obsession with dissecting the "numbers" on the ballast and lamp pairs.

Mike

I think your best bet is to remove the rock that is most infected with the aptasia, use Aptasia X, boiling freshwater, or one of the many other creative ways to mechanically kill aptiasia, reduce bioload on the tank and figure it will take 6-12 weeks to get in control. That's the sort of approach I have used in the past with Velonia and Aptasia.

Hey K!

What model Poseidon PUmp is that...T1,T2,T3 or T4?

The Apple Air Ports work flawlessly with the Apex controllers. Not the least expensive, but the user interface is for mere mortals as compared to that Windows based PC stuff. Just FYI.

So Jason, you are in fact, culturing bacteria with your zeoliths to create the "holy zeo mulm" to feed your corals. That is the heart of the zeo system. I'm pretty sure it is beneficial.

APEX-Neptune Systems

They lost the marketing war to DA. They are a bunch of engineers, not business oriented at all and its why they lost the marketing race. They DO, however, have a good product. I have run the Apex controller over a year, I've added a WXM module and a Dimming module and an HD4 outlet box in addition to a second Energy Bar 8. I did have a heck of a time with the HD4 box so I won't lead you to believe that I haven't EVER had an issue, but we were able to get it straightened out.

I CAN recommend the APEX controller and Neptune Systems. I have been satisfied overall and have a fairly complicated application of the controller with 20 outlets plus WXM and Dimming functions. The system runs well as long as you program effectively. The advanced programming language is not entirely intuitive and does require one to use their noodle to make sure an outlet works properly. That said, the advanced programming language allows you a great deal of flexibility.

I hate hearing how much trouble you had Stephen. WIth a system like yours, appliances should make your life easy, not add hassles. I would recommend the Neptune systems controllers to you and I know you have probably talked at length with Mark about your DA woes.

Mike

I would not worry about your possibly high calcium level. It won't poison anything to my knowledge. Get the facts about all three parameters before you DO anything.

Having just gone through the nightmare of bad test kits, let me assure you, it is better to not over react to your test readings than it is to be HYPER reactive to one or two testing parameters that seem to be high for no good reason. Have a friend test your water...take it to a LFS and have them check the alk, calc, and mag. Do anything to verify water parameters before you go doing a big water change or dumping anything in that will rock the boat.

Let to itself, the calcium level will drift down on its own. That would be my recommended way of dealing with the imbalance should it prove to be the truth.

Get a magnesium test kit. Use it. The Calcium/Mg/Alk marriage is a three way. All three are vital in making things work.

As far as your current water...the calcium will continue to drift down. I wouldn't DO anything about it.

Now, my suspicions are that your calcium is not actually that high or your alk is not that LOW. I bet your magnesium is way off, high or low, and that is influencing the outcome on the Ca or Alk test. So get the third test kit. The Elos Kit is most worthwhile in my experience for consistent and reliable results with Salifert a number two. NO API-EVER!

When we know your magnesium levels, we can give you better advice about the chemistry three way in your tank!

Magnesium 1250-1350 is where I run my tank.

Calcium 400ish

Alk 7-9 (9 right now)

One more...the most quiet external pump out there is a Poseidon T1 or T2. SILENT!

I'm running one and it is whisper quiet compared to other externals I have "heard".

If the TDS of your RO water is zero or near zero, pH of the filtered water is relatively unimportant. Mix the salt, bring it to 1.026 and check your pH. Due to the buffers in the salt mix, it will be near the 8.1-8.5 you'd like to see.

The vent hole you drill should be on the bottom of the return line up in the tank. That way, the little pee stream of water is directed towards the tank. Should the return pump fail, it will back siphon until air is pulled through the very small hole which will then arrest the back siphon.

See Mark's link below!

You are welcome to come check it out Friday-Sunday. I got Bruce to order me a DSA at Aquatek. Had to be patient, but glad I was. It is a very nice tank.

What benefit? I have a loaner SOL unit. One, not two....not even the right configuration. At the end of our "experiment", I have to give it back. Not like AI just gave it too me because of Mark. I own two other 400W ballasts so I didn't even need the SOL unit, just thought it would be fun to play with.

Discounts? Freebies? None...ask Mark. I've paid for all other equipment/livestock that he and I have ordered together.

You took the first stab at my friend Derek. You shouldn't be surprised that I poked back at you and so did PBNJ and Will.

No hard feelings on this end, but just realize who threw the first punch buddy.

NO PH CHECKER. USELESS DATA IN MY OPINION.

Another place to save money.

Mike

I have the old, larger, way more expensive unit. I'd bet the guts are the same though. Same reagent. Buy the $60 checker. Save the cash. THis is one of the few times you'll hear me give that kind of advice!

Since you don't have experience with advanced progamming of an Apex, I'd order your Apex and Sol from Callahan. He will be willing to supply the after sales service to help you avoid setup headaches. It'll be worth the 10% or so more in cost you might save by price shopping. He is an APEX rep and quite knowledeable. I think he also reps the SOL fixtures. PM him.