FarmerTy

Ckyuv, may be a dumb question but are those perhaps the white growth tips from a digitata growing? Hard to tell from the pic... you LED guys and your hard to photograph tanks... throw in an iPhone and it's like blue city in there! [emoji13]

Danger... danger... JeeperTy! Another reefer trying to scam on your plates! [emoji6]

You're telling me! Either way, I don't plan to do anything about it... just let it run its course but thought I would throw it out there.

I'll take another picture at the end of the photo period tonight and show you guys how much it goes away once the lights are on.

I don't ever vacuum my sand so I guess the answer would be no. I'm going to let it work it's way out of my system but just curious if anybody knew what the heck it was. My lights come on in an hour but the growth has been starting to grow again as usual from 10am - now and almost covering up most of the central sandbed.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/coral-morphologic-latest-audio-visual-reef

It's because he leaves them alone! [emoji12]

I say if you have room under that Megatank, to get a container to hold the topoff water instead of dumping directly from the RO/DI. The reason for that is the dirtiest water your RO/DI makes is in the first initial burst. If you're just having it topoff directly, then you're using that initial dirtier burst everytime to topoff your tank. If you allow it to fill up a container, then the initial dirtier burst will be followed with much purer water afterwards.

Clean-up crew fun:

Hello ARCers, Just a fun video of some of my favorite members of my clean-up crew being silly. Happy Sunday and enjoy!

The one's I ordered for my stand can hold 12 lbs/piece and about the size of a quarter. Let's just say I pinched my fingers really bad a couple of times working with them.

Google neodynium magnets. They are rare earth magnets and are crazy strong. Don't get too crazy with them... the force of them coming together can crack glass if you order too strong of magnets.

I'm sure most of you are thinking... duh... cyano JeeperTy. I have some cyano in the tank from me draining the tank to catch the fish, and it definitely looks similar but not the same. Diatoms? Nope, had it plenty with each new tank I started and this isn't it. Dinos? Nope again, had them twice (which I'd never wish on my worst enemy) and have a good eye for them. So what's left? Well, you tell me! Been wracking my brain trying to come up with an answer. So it looks like cyano and acts like cyano, but here's the kicker, it covers my sand when the lights are off... yes I said that correctly... when the lights are off, it starts growing from 10am-4:30pm. Then when the lights come on, it starts to recede and die away... and in about 4 hours into the lighting period... it's mostly gone. And the cyano right next to it by the clam... does the opposite. It's gone until the lights come on. Then it starts growing and gets thicker. When the lights go out, it starts to die off... typical of cyano. Three thoughts come to mind: 1) bacterial 2) a low-light loving cyano? There seems to be enough ambient light in the room that this could be a possibility and there's a million strains of cyano. 3) a different type of dinos? Any thoughts?

Just for the sake of things getting lost in my bottomless pit of a build thread, I thought I would copy this post to the main forum for all to make use of it if they wanted. I've been interested in pursuing some food options at the MT supermarket (Asian market) after seeing freezers and fridges full of various sea creatures of all origins. Frozen sea cucumbers, gobies, eels, snails, crabs, fish, octopus, and squids to name a few. I've been researching masago (capelin eggs) used for sushi. They had a pound of masago for $9 at the MT supermarket and I couldn't pass that up. It has sugar, food coloring, salt, sorbitol (sugar alcohol), and msg (monosodium glutamate). I went ahead and soaked it 3 times to remove most of the sugar, salt, and food coloring. Look at that food coloring running off! Now this is the real color of the eggs... not that crazy neon orange stuff we eat on our sushi! It was gladly accepted by most of the fish and a couple didn't take it and were generally confused by it. I put some in the main tank for the regal but couldn't see if he ate any. Anyway, thought I would share how you could buy 1 lb of fish eggs for under $10. Good ole' Asian markets!

I think you need to visit Sam again!

It's like the Eastside and the Westside in your tank. I'm a big fan of the Westside then! Go SPS! That black sand looks really good in there. Are you happy you switched it out?

If they have salifert or red sea nitrate test kit, I would grab that. I know Aquatek has the Red Sea nitrate test kit if RCA doesn't. I wouldn't raise your alk more than 1 dKh/day and your Mg 100 ppm/day. If you are picking up the 2-part, I believe they have the BRS brand. If so, just use their handy online calculator to estimate the dose needed to bring it up for the day. http://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reef-calculator

Hmmm, I was hoping your alk would increase more than that with the water change. It actually might be a better idea to go ahead and dose your alk and Mg up to normal levels and then just use the water changes to maintain them. I would honestly toss that API nitrate test. It has to be expired or something to give you 0 ppm when you have >20 ppm in your water.

Thanks bud. I hope to get back to my every 2 weeks testing regiment on alk. My old tank was on cruise control and I only had to check the alk monthly. It always stayed roughly the same because all of my corals stayed at the same growth rates and I only had to tweak once a month to catch up with the greater coral mass associated with the growth. I sure hope the regal angelfish makes it. He sure is pretty... until he eats all my clams and my zoas/lps. But at least I'll think he's pretty for a little bit before that happens.

We should start a support group...

Man, I'm hitting the bottle again. Not to mention the syringes... I officially have a problem! [emoji482] [emoji382]

Reserved for Wardlaw to tell us a little about his tank, his goals, and an update on the crash. So as Ty mentioned, I had a crash occur over the holidays. I believe it began with the death of the large carpet nem you can see in the center of the FTS. This fella became unhappy and crawled into the rock wall. I was unable to remove him. I then noticed my pink cuc bit the dust. I removed him promptly, but he probably died at least 24 hours prior to my discovering him. I had been dosing carbonate through my ATO. I used visual cues from the corals in order to decide how much I would or would not add. The deaths described above occurred when our home filled with relatives for the holiday. With the Christmas tree and entertaining at the forefront, the tank took a backseat. The bubble tips were next along with every other coral until nothing remained but closed and melting/flaking polyps. Ty and I have determined that the most likely cause of death was a crazy high Alkalinity. I have performed two water changes in the last 30 days and am just now in a range that the Hanna checker can register. Without anything taking up the Alkalinity, the new challenge is to lower the rate slowly via water change. The end goal is the same as the reason I set the tank up. I would like to have a very diverse reef that mimics the display tank at Aquadome. I want to be able to support the life of many differing fish, coral, and other various inverts. Current parameters: Temp-79.6 via apex Sal-1.024 via refractometer Alk- 268ppm PO4- undetectible via hanna I will test for Ca and Mg when I get the Alk to a more appropriate range and have completed the next water change.

The pictures look great! You might want to put the pictures in separate folder on photobucket and make the rest of your pictures private or else everyone will be able to access the pictures you've uploaded to photobucket that are not reef-related.

I've been interested in pursuing some food options at the MT supermarket (Asian market) after seeing freezers and fridges full of various sea creatures of all origins. Frozen sea cucumbers, gobies, eels, snails, crabs, fish, octopus, and squids to name a few. I've been researching masago (capelin eggs) used for sushi. They had a pound of masago for $9 at the MT supermarket and I couldn't pass that up. It has sugar, food coloring, salt, sorbitol (sugar alcohol), and msg (monosodium glutamate). I went ahead and soaked it 3 times to remove most of the sugar, salt, and food coloring. Look at that food coloring running off! Now this is the real color of the eggs... not that crazy neon orange stuff we eat on our sushi! It was gladly accepted by most of the fish and a couple didn't take it and were generally confused by it. I put some in the main tank for the regal but couldn't see if he ate any. Anyway, thought I would share how you could buy 1 lb of fish eggs for under $10. Good ole' Asian markets!