FarmerTy

Well, my tangs typically mow it down but they're on strike for the immediate future.

That's pretty much as far as I know. Does it try to spin at all even with the old impeller in it? Like can you manually spin it?

I believe that's the pump for his skimmer. Can you just order a new impeller Chris? Or is the pump itself shot?

500 PSI sounds like it still has a lot of CO2 left in the bottle. I used to use the Caribsea coarse size media for the better part of 3 years but have been talked into using the TLF Reborn media after seeing the consistency of the media it offers. It actually looks like dead branches of acro colonies instead of just large chunks of live rock like the Caribsea media. Plus, the Caribsea media I feel has more random items in it like mollusc shells in it than the Reborn media. For the leak, I'd just cut the union off and replace it with a new union from HD or Lowe's.

I've always had great success with a gentle tumble as the Ecobak manufacturer recommends for their brand of biopellets. I've turned it up once to a turbulent flow and it resulted in a bacterial bloom in the tank as the polymer was released throughout the tank instead of just accumulating inside the reactor and getting skimmed out. Perhaps different recommendations for different pellets.

That's an interesting theory. I'll have to keep an eye out on my ball of chaeto but the mass has not visible shrunk in size or I haven't been finding pieces of chaeto on the prefilter on my return pump that I usually see when my chaeto is dying. I'm getting more macro algae growth in my display tank which is why I was assuming my nutrient levels have increased.

An interesting observation in the display tank are the signs of increasing nutrients in the tank. I'm not sure if this has to do with the draining of the tank to remove the fish or possibly the removal of some live rock from the sump for the QT tub but I've noticed cyano growth, an odd growth similar to cyano, even some dinos popping up and going away, and of course excessive macro algae growth. I'm sure some of the macro growth is due to my fish farmers, aka the tangs, not being in the tank because they devour any algae that grows but I have to think it's also due to a nitrate increase in my tank. Odd that this happens after removing 18 fish... my nitrates going up? Very odd. Either way, all corals look happy and are growing just fine and my alk levels have stabilized for the most part. I may add my biopellet reactor back on line and let it strip the water of nitrates and see what happens.

Well, I had introduced the mandarin pair to the tank directly a couple days ago and have been monitoring them for any signs of velvet. I don't know if I'm being paranoid but they seem very lethargic to me the last day after being so active the first day I had them. I'll keep monitoring but if they continue to not swim around feeding, then I will remove them and QT them and start all over with running the display fallow. I don't want to risk my fish population and I'm feeling just a bit more comfortable having the fish in the tub longer term as all fish appear to be healthy and happy, despite the 50 ppm of nitrates and the occasional fluctuating temperature. I forget that fish are not SPS... they won't die if I look at them wrong or sneeze in the general direction of the tank. [emoji4] If I end up having all the fishes back in the tub again, I'll proceed with the 10 days of chloroquine phosphate treatment again for the new additions and then remove all medication in the tub and see how every fish is responding. If well, then I'll follow up with some prazipro for intestinal parasites and at that put some chaeto in the tub to help with the nitrates as well as oxygen content of the water. I am not able to do that now as chloroquine phosphate is a great algaecide and will kill it quickly. At least that way the chaeto can be an indicator for me as well to make sure I removed all the chloroquine phosphate.

I'd be surprised if it was the biopellets that are causing it. It usually takes 3-4 weeks to ramp up the bacterial colonies in the reactor... possibly 2 weeks if you used some sort of bacterial additive to jumpstart it. Make sure you're not tumbling them too forcibly... a gentle tumble is all that is needed. If your tumbling too much, you could be releasing bits of polymer into your tank and causing your nitrate levels to reduce already and cause a bacterial bloom in your tank.

The possibility of basically volatizing the palytoxin that some zoas/palys contain could be lethal. You may end up releasing palytoxin into enclosed environment of your house and could cause serious health issues that could be fatal.

You're tank seems to be coming in line nicely and I'm glad you're taking your time to do it. Once everything is hitting it's stride and the water parameters are fluctuating less, we can discuss what you want to do to maintain your parameters. Of course, the easiest is water changes from a stability point-of-view... maybe not a labor intensive point of view. We can also look into kalk dosing in your topoff water, 2-part dosing with peristaltic pumps, or a CaRX. This is of course just concerning your foundation elements, alk, calcium, and Mg. For you nutrient levels, it seems that GFO is working well for you for phosphates, which leaves us with nitrates. The continued water changes will probably keep them at a level that is acceptable but if you want to get away from water changes, then you'd probably want to look into other strageties for nitrate reduction. A deep sandbed is out as your sand sifting goby will destroy any opportunity to keep the sandbed anaerobic. You could look into feeding less, carbon dosing (vodka, vinegar, biopellets, etc), more macro algae, or adding a substantial amount of live rock in the sump.

I definitely like the look of that alk concentration a lot better than what you had before! With changing parameters, you'll usually see a halt of growth until the corals get used to the conditions... even if the conditions are even better than before. Once everything has stabilized and some time passes, I'd bet you'll get some good responses from your coral then.

He's looking to buy Gig 'em.

Its the same patient zero flame angel that brought the marine velvet plague into my tank. I've since picked up a replacement pair of mandarins for the tank as well as a replacement midas blenny. My music is brought to you by the musical stylings of youtube and I enjoy the variety of odd music to add to the videos.

Regal eating a freshly shucked clam. If he's this high maintenance, I may have to tap out! My wife has that covered already! [emoji24] He shows just a little interest in mysis but that clam was the best feeding response I've gotten from him since I've had him. I'll start mixing in mysis on top of the clam or even just put it in an empty shell and see if it tricks him to eat it.

Haha, well played sir! Yeah, I remember the name of the reactor. It was the one I was leaning for you to get. Good thing you came to your senses! [emoji6] A leak is not a terrible thing regarding the cylinder... well... not terrible as I don't think anything is broken. I just think the seal was not perfect and it allowed your tank to empty out quicker. Your first gauge reads your bottle pressure, the second gauge reads your output pressure. The first gauge should read a decently high pressure, for instance my 20lb tank reads 900 psi right now. The 2nd gauge on my dual-guage regulator reads 30 psi... I keep my secondary pressure higher than most so I wouldn't keep it that high if yours is not reading that. I think most keep 15 psi on the second gauge.

Wow, that's some precision there Jim! The beauty of alk flatline is when all corals that uptake alk/Ca are in a steady growth mode so that the occasional monthly tweak is all that is needed to compensate for the increased coral mass. When some things are happy and some are not, you're constantly fighting this back and forth usage and it'll drive you nuts trying to keep levels stable. Once everything is in full growth mode, you only have to worry about the increasing coral mass... which the monthly tweak should be able to handle.

I think it's a funny concept but I actually keep a very aggressive LPS in my tank in the far corner by itself. The only reason it resides in my tank is for when I need to kill something off, I put the LPS by it and slowly over the course of weeks, it'll slowly sting whatever I don't want to grow to death. I used to use my hydnophora for that but sadly sold it all off. That thing not just stung the coral like my LPS would, but would actually ingest it! It would release these filaments all over the nearby coral and literally ingest it and use it for food reserves.

New toys are always fun! Don't forget to savor the moment of hooking everything up... new and expensive equipment only come once in a blue moon! Was the ETSS the other reactor you were deciding against when you first bought yours? For your sump, it'd be hard to imagine your fitment scenarios without having it in front of me but any thought to running some of the equipment out of the sump? I'm personally with you and accident avoidance is always key to prevent leaks but just a thought. As I mention it, only my secondary chamber for my CARX is not in my sump. For your CO2 cylinder, I'm thinking you had a leak. Did you do the old soapy water bubble test when you refilled it last and hooked it up? I'd always have that as a standard procedure for health reasons as well when replacing bottles... asphyxiation via CO2 is not too far of a reality even though unlikely as it's only a 5lb cylinder and most homes aren't sealed that tight. The culprit usually is that little plastic washer on the end of the regulator. You should replace it every couple of cylinder exchanges just in case and it's super cheap insurance. Looking forward to the tank taking it to the next level with all your new toys!

Woohoo! Guess who's joining the once/week alk testing club! If after 3 more weeks and it's still looking steady, I'm joining the bi-monthly club... and 3 more steady readings after that and I'll go ahead and apply for the once/month club. [emoji41] This step-by-step program to break alk testing addiction syndrome is doing wonders for me. [emoji4]

I hope you're talking about replacing the GSP and not the wife!

I'm all about taking it out, drying it out in the sun, scrape off the dry stuff a couple weeks later, soak in vinegar, and soak in RO/DI. Done. If you wanted to be extra safe, soak in RO/DI with some carbon.

The red monti polyps don't really show much but can get bigger than expected. They are kind of hard to see sometimes as they are the same color as the background base of the plate. That's great that all of the corals don't look distressed anymore! Did you see my questions in my earlier post MadSalt?

I'd tell you not to overfeed but I'm guilty of that myself. At least they are a bit smarter than freshwater fish and don't eat until they die.

The JeeperTy 125 is getting a new home! GLWS bud!