madmac

Thnx eternal.! You joined only a few days after I did and this is your fisrt post. I think you jus defined what the name means. No offense bro and Welcome to SRC!

Nooo they won't precipipate, not if there's any decent amt of Mg in the water.

You can, but not at the same instant. Its very hard to test the SG effect until after maybe 30 mins or so.

neokn, you could lower the temp just before the shut down, thats slows down the metabolism and also allows O2 to be retained in the water for a longer period. Keep the tank room fully ventilated. 2 to 3 hrs, should be ok. Watch for signs of stress, like excessive slimming from the corals... If any goes first, it'll would be the fishes as they require the most O2. So keep it cold and dark and that prevents activity. Maybe even standby a battery operated air pump.

If its just on those two rocks then, the rocks are leaching out nutrients(plant fertilizer) from within onto its surfaces. The moment you blast some light... plants and algae appears before long. Those two rocks are nutrient loaded. It is best to have them removed from the tank altogether and just use the remaining.

.... Did you know what you just dosed? Ca alone won't raise your SG. If it is Calcium Chloride + Sodium Carbonate, then resulting equation comes about := Calcium Carbonate + Sodium Chloride (common salt) It really helps if you know what the additives are made up of before you dose... boy you must have dose quite alot for SG to spike up so much. What are you doing now about it?

Thats beautiful! I always liked it. I've tried for one before, couldn't get it to eat much and it starved to death after two weeks. Is she eating?

Depends on what you like to keep. E.g Some fish will require sand. How big is it gonna be?

Hi all, thnx very much. Reefaholic bro, I most definitely think you need one too. Very hard to find all ur great pics. Teo, Wonder, I think you guys are right. I think it should be Stylopora Pistillata and not a Pocillopora. Thnx somehow got confuse with bwt the two.

For the past few nites, I've been working on an update to a webpage showing some SPS corals. There is a slide show there, made easy and here's a sample of the pics you'll see in there. I hope you'll like them. Please do provide me some feedback if you like it (not) or ways to improve it. Thanks all. Fiji Tri-Colour Tin's Blue Millie Pink Pocci Oh and here's the webpage : My Webpage

bump for an update. How are the frags doing? The orange monti? Still waiting for the temp probe... any chance it can come soon.

Well, when they say low Mg, it means real low... like somewhere in the region of 200 PPM. 1000 isn't low enough. Try it as see if you get precipitation. Its not so easy, not for you at least, not when your ions haven't reached anywhere near saturation levels. Don't forget pH also plays a big role before ppt takes place, and heat in next in line, then followed by a whole series of other SW ions available. Is Mg impt.? Yes, but most times it gets overblown. I've gone with 1080 and nothings happens... . Don't get me wrong, I'm not hitting at you. Only to say by all means go strive for NSW levels, its healthy, but when you plong down such data, its great if its goes complete.... otherwise, it just gets passed on wrongly. and yes, I'll bump up Mg first followed by CO3 then Ca. I won't do Mg and Ca on the same day.... unless you know what makes up the Salifert's Mg. Do check your Sg all the time... expect to see it go up during the topup. best to you.

I think RP made a very insightful point. There was alot more sharing, maybe due to the lack of knowledge, reefers depending more on knowledge and husbandry and on one-another to keep their passions going. And the DIY stuff made great sense, because... it was just as expensive for what you're getting today, only reefers had dreams that tech back then couldn't deliver. I'd dare say the passion is still alive today, carried on by different ppl in different shoes. Today's equipment is gonna run on less and be smaller, but it will achieve the same, tomorrow's will be even smaller and hopefully take lesser to run while still delivering. Reefers turn on the web and forums with virtual faces for pointers instead of meeting face-to-face. Here's wishing the best to all the 'Old Timers', may your early passions continue to inspire us all.

Yes. I've mentioned above that I tested the pH. It was at 5.68. If 5.68 is not acidic then I don't know what is. Look at it this way, if the effluent pH in CRs are peg at 6.5 there abouts, then rain at 5.7 is very acidic. This explains why coral skeleton rubble collected at the beaches look so rounded. BUT, rain is natural, you get them in places where tropical corals grow. If corals don't get hurt by rain, which sometimes go on for severals hours, then a little rain water won't hurt your tank either. Collecting them after 15 minutes of heavy downpour would give you pretty good water. Rain, being very pure, is highly reactive, so most pollutants/particulates get carried away by the first fall. The thing about pipe water is the chloramine and metals(most use copper pipes) thats difficult to rid off. NO3 at 5 PPM is nothing a good tank can't handle, its organic. Alot has to do with how much your adding each time. If you top up 1l for a 150 l tank, its no issue. If you use it for water change and do say 20% then thats pretty significant change.

So how is it so different now? . . . any one of you '02s and '03 can share to post your tank pics.. many thanks.

Sorry, I'm real lousy at SPS id. Maybe someone here can help. Only to say that it does look blech to me. That piece does not look like a beginner one to me. If you get the chance go for millies, pocci, stylos and even staghorns, I think should much easier. For all its worth, you may not be having a problem after all, I think I would find that one challenging too. Maybe you could select something like that after you've established more SPS in the tank.

Fish? Generally speaking if the SPS is stressed then yes they won't extend much. So if you think its lighting issue then move it away first. How high away are the 400W from the surface Dying symptoms could be a shedding of tissue, slow and sometimes fast. Or an expelling of zooxanthellae, also commonly called bleching, where the coral turns whitish and very translucent. Corals are not dead and can recover from bleching events. Some corals may shed alot of slime when stressed, but a lack of PE(polyp extension) is almost always not a good sign. Is the SPS new? What type is it? Some like birdnest and pocci, stylo, are very easy to extend and some are more sensitive.

Polyps extend all the time here. I'll be worried if they don't. and yes they do extend more at nite, but you should be able to see polyps in the day quite easily. In the nite, the extend primary for respiration purposes, due to competition for the lack of O2. There could be a no. of reasons, last I use to have a potteri and a golden pygmy and for some SPS, I don't see polyps until the nite. Where they were no longer in the tank, the polyps extend full time. Care to list some of your tank parameters and is your SPS secured nicely on the rocks. Sometimes I find that when they don't anchor themselves well, you won't see much polyps.

oh dear, what a mess. Don't confused yourself further with Ca now. You've already correctly stated the reason for the low pH,... quoted above. Clean up your NO3, bring it down to as low as possible, and you will see your pH improve. 50 is way above limit. Care to list your tank parameters. It may be possible that the salt you're using is causing this. If your SG is high, replace some water with clean fresh water by syphoning out as much dirt as possible.

Because while they are related, it doesn't mean they are the same. Your Alk measures the carbonates, which 'buffers' or cushions the rise and fall of your pH. The more carbonates you have, i.e. the more alk, the less volatile your pH will be as it 'buffers' the daily swing your tank pH will go thru. Generally speaking, your pH will keep rising until late afternoon and then if falls to its lowest point just before dawn. Depending on what time of the day you test. You may not have known, but the daily pH can swing from 7.8 to as high as 8.4... and these are generally acceptable durinal ranges. So pls tell us what time did you do the test? Is yours a test kit or are you using a calibrated pH meter? A consistently low pH is almost always because of two things : a dirty tank or excess CO2(an ill ventilated room). Do you smoke where your tank room is? there are diff methods depending on weather you want a quickie raise or are you trying to hold it consistent. [eidt]Oh and pls don't try to buffer further as your alk is the top end. Any further alk increase can bring your tank and its contents to a dangerous level. In fact at 11.2, I'm most uncomfortable for you. I'll leave everything as it is until it drops back to about dKH 8. Best

This article explains it very well. : Chemistry and the Aquarium: What is Alk. Excerpted from the above, are two points which I hope you can grapple with : So what we are doing is using a very simple alkalinity test as a surrogate measure for bicarbonate and carbonate. Since these two substances comprise the great majority of alkalinity in seawater, it is safe for most people to equate alkalinity with "availability of bicarbonate and carbonate for my corals". .... Finally there is the German term dKH (degrees of carbonate hardness), or just KH (carbonate hardness).Strictly speaking, it is the same as the carbonate alkalinity (AC in equation 8). Unfortunately, it is a very confusing term, as it has nothing to do with hardness. .... Consequently, most hobbyists should think of dKH as simply another measure of total alkalinity. The results obtained with such a kit (dKH) can be divided by 2.8 to yield the alkalinity in meq/L. You're are testing for alk, units are in meq/L, and confusing with dKH. (both are alkalinity test) The conversion is a multiplication by 2.8 for your case. So 4 meq/l would give you a dKH of 11.2

I've used rain water for a while. Not nowadays. I've tested pH of the rain collected, after about 15 minutes of good heavy downpour, its about 5.68, so thats pretty acidic. I don't have a TDS meter, but rain water was used to topup my evaporated loss, as a kalk solution for several months until I gotten myself a RO/DI unit. Kalk powder dissolves very well with rain when compared with tap water. Tap always gives me a great deal of residual kalk left over undissolved. I attribute this mainly to the acidity of the water. As far as corals are concern, I find that even if there were dissolve pollutants in rain, it won't be as bad as dissolve metals in tap water. So between rain and tap water, I'll go for rain anytime. Trouble with the harvesting rain water is, don't do it when you're not around. And thats the difficult part, you'll have to wait for the first heavy to go, and then hope that theres more rain to fill the buckets you have. It has to be open collected and you have to some form of storage to keep the water collected, until the next heavy rain comes. andsometimes it jus doesn't rain, for weeks on end. Also to collect, its very dependent of the layout of your home... so no more rain water for me... too much and too old.

I don't use filter wool at all. Jus wet skimming. YOu'll lose some salt water, but it works well. I also have quite a bit for flow for my small tank, enough to bring all the particulate matter to the overflow and then for the skimmer to take out. This leaves only the heavier stuff on the bottom.

I think the pumped air will reduce flow to the skimmer. Its acts as a blockage to the venturi's 90º inlet. I don't think its any good to tee off from your other pump(canister). The weipro 2011 works best with a dedicated pump attached as close to the venturi as possible. When size right, the pressure will pull in the air for you... naturally. I've found that somewhere btw 1000 to 1200 l/h works very well with the 2011. The small height of the skimmer means you don't need too a bigger powerhead to get them out fast.... and IMHO, tune the 2011 for wet skimming will give you the best results. If you're inventive, and have a sump, you could try for a gravity/pressure feed to the 2011. Pressure from the overflow, see the DIY overflow, can be surprisingly great enough to power that small skimmer.

Will be trimming some SPS. Frags about 1 to 2" with multiple branches. $5 per piece.