FarmerTy

I was of the Voltron generation so I had to ask.

5 drops with reagent A, each with 15 seconds between each drop. That is what gets you... the counting and then trying to remember what drop you were on. After that, 5 drops with reagent B and then titrate.

That's terrible about the old colonies dying. As long as the frags are growing, keep your eyes on the bright future instead of the dying past... I know... so deep. [emoji57] Throw "Confucius says" in front of that and you got the makings of a good fortune cookie. I'd just hold steady and keep changes to a minimum and ride the stability. You'll have colonies in no time again!

Robb has them but I don't know if he had the WP pumps before to compare with.

While I don't know the history of your tank Hula, I think you're taking all the right steps to righting the ship. The new skimmer should help a ton once it has broken in. Once it does, I'd run it "wet" for a bit while looking into getting your GFO reactor functioning properly and looking into carbon dosing of some sort. You have cyano and GHA due to nutrients... plain and simple. Some of it will go away with time if your tank is new... it's just waiting to hit a good stable balance of nutrients in... than nutrients being exported or utilized by bacterial/coral processes. I would just continue to aggressively export nutrients and allow your system to balance out with time. One thing to think about, but it really doesn't matter if every bit of food is eaten or if all of it falls on the sandbed. It will all end up contributing to your nutrient level... the main difference is the route it eventually gets there if that makes any sense. It either rots and adds nutrients directly or ends up as poop that contributes down the road. So the point I make is you have a lot of control of the amount of nutrients that enters your system.

I have a trinket system where I place 5 random things to the side and everytime I add a drop and count to 15 secs... I remove one trinket. I've wasted enough reagent and time that implementation of that system was a MUST!

The numbers are looking promising Madsalt. Just be careful how quickly you are bringing up the numbers. You can cause just as much damage raising them up too fast as to the levels dropping fast. Once you get them to recommended levels, I would stick with water changes for a bit to maintain stability. I think 2-3 months into that stability, you're going to like how your corals are responding to it... with increased growth rates and coloration.

To the alk mobile! [emoji23]

That's an edible sea cucumber, also known as a pink and black sea cucumber. Is that MMPRs?

It's a doozy! Luckily it rarely ever changes so you can just test once/month and be set.

Agreed, I feel any additions at this time were a little early. Just the bioload of the additions alone probably caused an ammonia spike which in turn killed your serpent stars.

I'd be surprised if it killed the damsel. They get much worse reputations than they deserve.

How long have you had it? Looks like it's either getting too much light or just adjusting to your lights.

Hula, looks like you're on your way to becoming a reef master with the way you are tracking your parameters and your plan going forward to maintain them. For your question on nitrates, water changes are the simplest form. Dilution is your friend in that scenario. You can always look into carbon dosing as a viable alternative too, now that you have a big bad skimmer. Carbon dosing is great for removing nitrates and there are many available forms to use, each with their own pros and cons (vodka, vinegar, biopellets, etc). I personally use vodka when needed but have taken my biopellets offline because it strips the nitrates out of the tank entirely in my case. I see nothing wrong with 2 ppm and actually prefer to run anywhere from 1-5ppm.

I like the greens but if some reds came in, I wouldn't be opposed to them.

Thanks Neon Reefer! Looks like an interesting read.

Never!

I'm not so worried about it being fallow with just ich in there. I haven't decided yet on the fallow or not decision yet. The mandarins are still on hold. I'm going to wait for some bigger ones to come through... the last batch were smaller than I wanted.

Well, I knew I was taking a gamble putting the regal angelfish in the tank directly. The hope was it would have a higher survivibility going into an established tank with stuff on the rocks to eat versus a QT with nothing but bare rocks and plumbing parts. The toughest part is getting them to eat. Well, I have that part down as he was accepting mysis and brine shrimp for now. The problem now is he went into a fallow tank but he brought ich with him. I went ahead and caught him out of the display tank, which was much easier to do than I thought. I put him in the QT tub I have all the other fish in and will separate a section out just for him with eggcrate so that he can eat in peace and not have to worry about tank mate aggressions. At least I have the harder part taken care of with the accepting of food but he's not in the clear yet. I'll have to get him over the Ich hurdle next!

So strange! Here it is almost completely gone at 11pm last night. The cyano on the sand was still there but this stuff disappeared. Odd!

You got me ol Aggie. I froze them so I'll probably throw them out in a year.

Sounds like you got it all under control. I agree with you, those corals will be good test corals as you bring all your levels in line. Good call on having the covers on the MP40s. I've never had an anemone get cut up in my powerhead but I'd hate for the first time to happen.

What type of calcium, alk, and magnesium supplement did you pick up? That's great to hear that your alk has increased. You really shouldn't need to dose Ca at all, you were already above the recommended value. For nitrate, do you mean 10 ppm, down from my 22 ppm? Btw, if RCA tested it for you, they use API which I find highly inaccurate too. I trust it to tell me if I'm high or low but not for an actual concentration. But from your water changes, you're probably at least at a ballpark around 10-15 ppm so it should be much improved already. While normally I wouldn't suggest adding any corals until the water parameters get in line, they must be doing fine for now if you haven't mentioned any detoriating conditions. Keep an eye on the anemone. He's getting too dangerously close to the MP-40 for my likes. Everything else looks good. Just monitor the new additions and look for polyp extension as well signs of distress.

Yes, just the initial coming together. Once they are there, you shouldn't have to worry about it. Believe me, the pressure from the water is probably much greater than the magnet.

I'm going with the salt from your mix burning it since that's where you pour it in.