FarmerTy

Yeah, peroxide dip + SPS = bad idea. Peroxide dosing in your whole tank at 1ml/10 gallons is great for fighting dinos, even if you have SPS. That's been my experience at least. My advice, like others before, cut the tips off and glue them all to a new frag plug. You'll have a new colony in no time sans the algae.

I want a frag of your frag! [emoji4]

Yeah I struggled with that a bit as well. I do think it is a thing, but the sump "platform" will be just a bit off the front, few inches, while the QT rack could/would be a bit higher so I could get into the pump... but it is less accessible than I'd like. Putting it in front... that is an idea. I'd have to make that platform a bit wider, eating a bit more open space. I guess I could put the pump on the QT rack itself, that would add a couple feet of head pressure getting back to the tank. Or put the return on the left of the sump, again adding some head pressure, but maybe have a little better access. I like it! Just didn't want one of those emergency situations where you have to service the pump ASAP and theres a bunch of QT tanks in front of it making it difficult. I like the idea of just putting it on the QT racks somewhere.

I agree with having the sink in the same room. I like the setup but wish you could put that return pump somewhere else. You'll have to maintain and clean it on occasion and it seems like it might be hard to get to once you get the QT racks in there. Maybe you can run it in front of the sump?

Sorry, had to share. I keep reading the title of the thread as Dogface Puncher for some reason, which cracks me up because my idle threat to my dog is always, don't look at me like that Zorro, I'll punch you in the face! To which my wife always tells me not to say that and to be nice! I don't really punch my dog in the face people... just in case someone tries to take it the wrong way. I just have a really twisted sense of humor. I fell in love with the statement when I was hearing sports teams say they went out there and got crushed. "What can I say, we went out there and tried our best and got punched in the face." Still cracks me up just hearing it. Sorry, one of my random moments... I'll go back in my hole now.

I'll pay good money if you can bring back just one tentacle for me!

Oh nothing brings the ARC community together like a collective Ty bashing and scapegoating session... = I'll play my part! You can blame me in person at C4! I'll be manning this frag tank:

Well said El Jefe!

Ty, Self reflection is always good. We all have room for improvement. However IMO this group wouldn't be the same without you. You are instrumental in the preservation of the Austin reefing community. I have greatly appreciated all your help!! TY TY haha! Thanks for the kind words Cliff! I always get a little confused when people use TY... not sure if they are saying "Thank you" or screaming my name. I like to think the latter...

That better be sarcasm SChrisEV or I'm going to call the new home build salesperson and tell them you've change your mind about the fish tank equipment room. No no, just wall it in. Actually, he said he doesn't even need plumbing anywhere close to his tank so go ahead and remove these water lines and maybe even these electrical outlets too...

But what about the Kraken!

I know I've been at this for a long time on the forums, 2007 was when I joined ARC. I've had a wonderful experience on here during that almost decade span, progressing from a 3 year nano cube/softie tank owner doing regular water changes weekly to a 215-gallon SPS-dominant, no water change, throw whatever technology I could at it reef tank owner. During that progression, I've had many insightful, thoughtful, and truly engaging interactions with members on this club in person, online, and even with a beer in my hand. A large majority of the members have become close friends over the years and I talk and interact with them more than I do my "regular" friends... you know... those that are handicapped without a reef tank so untimately have nothing interesting to say. [emoji23] The club is like anything else in life, what you make of it. Have I had some bad interactions on it over the years? Yes. Have I had great interactions as well? Absolutely! The key for me at least was to focus on the good interactions. I don't let the bad experiences define what I wanted the club to be for me. On that note, if I had received the responses received in that other thread in 2007 when I first joined, to be honest, I probably wouldn't be here today. Just being honest. These two recent posts of new members leaving because of the atmosphere on ARC has caused some self-reflection. I can honestly say my normally jovial attitude is in need of a tuning and I know I can make more of an effort to chat with new faces at the monthly meetings. I'll also be more careful of my tone in posts and aim to just help out instead of just having a know-it-all attitude. I'll make this my promise for the rest of 2016. Thank you for the moment of self-reflection. No promises for 2017 though. [emoji12] Bwahahaha!

It will once the cloud is up and running. They underestimated the issues that they encountered transferring it from their in-house servers to the Amazon servers. While a little annoying, I have to keep in mind that the controller is still beta and that they completely took fault for the underestimation of the issues they would encounter migrating the cloud service to Amazon servers. It's refreshing to have a company straight out just say, my bad, we underestimated how difficult something would be and work their tails off to make it right.

Sorry to hear this as well. I appreciate you and your wife's contributions to the club while we had you guys! [emoji4]

Thanks all. I've been a little distracted with life/work so it didn't even phase me... Which is a little sad actually when I think about it. I was more concerned about the snails and urchins in the frag tank actually. I know I can always grow more frags. There were no original colonies/frags in there, just frags of stuff I already have in the display. I did have some mother colonies of zoas but I fell out of love with those a long time ago. Thanks all for your concern and thoughts. Such a great group we have here on ARC! I'll be fragging this week and storing everything in the display tank for C4. If it has branches, polyps, or tentacles, it's going to get fragged. Hopefully I don't end up at any nearby ERs this time around.

Christmas in August!

Tubs? It was in a frag tank! Way to pay attention Brian!

My tank is directly on the plywood I placed on my metal stand.

So this happened over the busiest weekend of the year for me. Had 3 birthdays, a concert, friends in town, and inlaws staying with me for 3 nights. I turned on the doser manually and forgot to turn it off when I left for the first birthday celebration. 6 hrs later... Can you guys guess which vial has the super high alk in it? Let's just say the alk level was beyond the hanna meters detection level, which stops at roughly 16 dKh. [emoji50] I wasn't able to do anything about it until 1am that night but I at least plucked what I could out of the frag tank and throw it in my sump to save. Even more convinced that shutting down the frag tank is whats best for me. [emoji6]

Welcome!

Holy thread from the grave! Last post was from 2013! You must have an elephant memory Tim to remember to go back and post on this thread. Was the study only concerned with the processing of ammonia? I think he should study my fish tub next. I have about 80 lbs of live rock in the tub, 50 gallons of water, and I feed the heck out of it with no ammonia issues. Now this only applies to a fish only system as my nitrates are sky high as well as my phosphates but the fish don't care about that at all as long as disease doesn't run rampant in there. I keep the bacterial population in check by running a skimmer and also use it for additional aeration.

But no one else is speaking for me Ty. So what are your criteria for determining a bioload of a system? Do you think you are keeping a large bioload in your system? I explain why I prefer to keep fewer fish in a system here in post 19. As autotrophs it's the corals that are the central component of the filtration in my systems. The cryptic areas (and you don't necessarily need refugiums) are for sponges that are converting DOC into alkalinity. Haha, I was actually paying you a compliment Tim because you are always very careful about your fish/coral selection so I grouped it as being very cognizant of your stocking/bioload levels. I only mentioned cryptic zones and sumps in reference to the original posters question/setup, not yours.And yes, I consider my bioload to be on the higher side. You can bring a scale and weigh my fish one day for me. I'll pop open a beer for you sir. [emoji4]

I always have thoughts Juiceman. [emoji6] I say just leave the tubs as is. I think you'll get the same results from switching tubs. Yes, there is a possibility the newer plastic may leach more phosphates than the older tub but I think the algae has more to do with the fish grazing their tub while the coral tub had none of that. I also think you should just hold off on fish until you have your tank put back together and stabilizing. At that point, you can focus better on just QTing fish only and not having to worry about keeping a makeshift tank setup functioning and happy. While the fish are being QTed, it'll give your main system more time to stabilize so I see it as a win-win. I only say that because I was going through a similar situation of running a fish tub, a QT tank, a frag tank, and my display and it was exhausting and I felt like I was juggling too many things at once. All it took was one thing to fall and the whole thing could have come crashing down. Too much risk in my opinion. I went through it and if I'd had known the risk I was taking ahead of time, would have opted to just QT more fish later and not risk my current fish and coral population in the process.

Dude, that's terrible! Just keep powering through the upgrades and rebuild that fish population once everything is back together and stable.

Naaa, "Dynamic Equilibrium"! We're dealing with competing and opposing organisms in a complex ecosystem. "balance"!Kidding aside, this has been a great, thought providing discussion! I feel like I've been fighting to find a lasting balance/DE/homoeostasis in my tank for a long time now. It seems to easily tip out of it with no apparent changes on my part. As far as having a lit refugium vs a cryptic one, how do you guys feel about keeping algae in the sump and the DOC's it might add? I never had issues with my corals when running a refugium though I only really used chaeto in mine.That being said, I don't run a refugium anymore. I had wanted to turn the area into a cryptic zone but now that I'm shutting down my frag tank, I'll be reusing the section in the sump as a lit frag section again.