KimP

Yeah, having a successful reef tank without water changes doesn't make any kind of sense to me. Unless you have things dying and releasing building blocks back into the water, it seems like the water would get stripped. I feed mysis a couple times a day, and cyclopeeze once or twice a week. And I don't rinse the mysis either like I should . Luckily it all works out.

Do phosphates have an effect on alk levels? Should I be watching phosphates more closely?

It's been running a little over 3 years. I don't do anything to remove phosphates besides water changes. I have a really simple setup.

Well, the first time I had it tested it was at the LFS and it was 6 dKH. A day or two later I do my routine 10% wc, and weekly cleaning out of the canister filter, switching out carbon, etc. I go in a couple days after that, have my water tested at the same LFS and it's up to 8.0 dKH. I was surprised and took home my own alk test and the Reef Carbonate to bring it up further. After adding a capful for a few days, it shows 8.4 and hasn't gone any higher. I should prob have it tested by the LFS again, just to compare. Oh, and with this weekend's wc, it's still at 8.4. I'm baffled mainly because my Ca and pH all stay the same . I would expect the pH and alk to go down if there were lots of organics in the water (that's my basic understanding of it anyway), or the Ca and alk to go down from the coral's use of it. But for only the alk to go down? This is all confusing I'll test it daily for this week w/o adding any of the carbonate and see what happens. And I have the LFS test my phosphates and it's always 0 or right near there. No algae problems so I don't tend to worry about it. The Red Sea Pro Mg test is great, I highly recommend checking it out. Super easy, very easy to read titration, and the gadget for doing the titration is a cinch.

In the past few months I have added my first LPS corals and I've started regularly checking other water parameters in addition to the nitrates, salinity, etc that I've always tested for. I recently bought a test for Mg, Ca, and KH. It's the Red Sea Pro kit. These are the results I'm getting: Mg 1600+ Ca 550 Alk 8.4 (I've been adding Seachem Reef Carbonate and I can't seem to get it higher within the recommendations of the bottle) pH 8.3 I have randomly tested my Ca in the past and this is consistent with previous results, with different test kits. I have no idea how my Mg got that high. I've never dosed anything until adding the carbonate just recently. Do these results sound right? I'm trying to bring my alk up a little but even with dosing the carbonate daily, it has not risen above 8.4 dKH. Mostly I'm wondering if these water parameters look okay and if I should try to bring the alk up. I get nervous adding supplements like this to my tank when all corals look great. However, I want to make sure they stay this way I don't really understand why my alk is getting so low (it was 6 dKH a couple weeks ago) while the pH stays 8.3 and my Ca stays at 550. Any thoughts? Should I even be concerned?

I also enjoyed the meeting. Thank you Mike and Dave! I sure learned a lot about photographing my tank. Now to give it all a try

I have a new thing of Ocean Nutrition Green Marine Algae w/garlic extract if anyone can use it. I bought it a month or so ago for my tail spot blenny to eat in the qt, but never used it and he's fat and happy in the dt now. I also have the clips to go with it.

Wow, that's neat! Good thing you didn't glue a coral right on it

That must have been a horrible accident. Glad you both made it through and are recovering well!

Happy birthday!!! Hope you're having a great one

Wow that is beautiful!

The lights look great and so do the corals. I bet you're SO happy to finally have great lights . That plate coral looks amazing!

Wouldn't be a problem, no fry in my tank, but in general I would imagine a bunch of corals would gobble up fry if given the opportunity.

Pm'd

What he said...

I've been researching corals I might be able to keep in my seahorse tank and started attempting to learn about Duncans recently. Even in my Aquarium Corals book, there is only a tiny, not even half a page, excerpt on them. I can barely find any info on the internet either. I do understand where they're from, what their feeding/light/flow requirements are, etc, but I am looking for info on whether they have the ability to sting or send out sweepers or anything of that nature. Any ideas on if these would be appropriate for a seahorse tank or not?

What is this? Is it just an older bristleworm? I have one that looks exactly like that, that is huge, and I just figured wow, one of my bristleworms sure got big! Didn't even think it might kill snails, etc. :/

One thing I noticed in your picture is it doesn't look like you have things plugged into a gfci, or do you (sorry if I'm mistaken )? Also, doesn't look like you have drip loops, at least not on that top plug. Just in case you're not plugged into one, they are super cheap at lowe's/home depot and could save your house or life from fire. Cheap and easy insurance.

Welcome! This group is a great resource and incredibly helpful. A great feature to utilize is the search. I spend about half my time researching the archives. Tons of useful info and experience there. Looking forward to hearing about your tanks

Thank you! I love to drool over all the beautiful pics yall post and dream of having a tank big enough one day to host them all

Yay! Thank you wa1tx Please pm me to work out pick up.

Wow, everything sounds much better! I bet your clowns are so happy now. Good job! Have you gotten in your new lights yet?

Good one, lol!