FarmerTy

Unless you're a time traveler, I'll forgive you this time around Shawn. Sent via Tapatalk

My own blood and sweat went into fragging these corals! If that happened, I'd be selling some radioactive everythings! Who wants radioactive orange fungia plates? Radioactive blonde naso tang? Hulk green zoas?

I wish I could work on my tank all day Jim! There are houses that need new owners! :-) I'll hopefully have an update tonight or you'll see on the nightly news... local reefer fell through ceiling after being electrocuted trying to install a SSR to his vent fan. Luckily, his 215-gallon tank was below him and the assortment of corals in his tank broke his fall (ouch, I should have ran a softie tank)! Sent via Tapatalk

Welcome to the club Kia! That was a great looking setup that Vu Deezy had. You should hit up the MFrame (owner of the club) if you have any interest in our new mentor program. Otherwise, I'd start a build thread and start documenting your build. Plenty of people will jump on the thread to help you out if you have any questions! Sent via Tapatalk

No problem. I only mentioned the bags because they are smaller and I know you have a ginormous tank. Wasnt sure if it was for your QT or for the DT.

I thought I saw Nutramar Ova at Aquatek at one point in time. May want to give them a call. I've seen Curisorb at Fish Gallery and I think that's the only place that sells it locally. Mind you, it's only the small bag and not the large container size of it. Sent via Tapatalk

Let's see if I can not blow up my Apex when I make my exhaust fan Apex-capable!

No chance for zombie snails in my tank. Nothing lasts long after it dies in my tank.

CBB seems to be really effective as long as it can reach all areas that there are aiptasia. I didn't really have an infestation, but the 3 that were there were immediately swallowed up. The CBB does have an abysmal survival rate. It's a very sensitive fish, hard to get it to eat prepared foods, and if it's delicate mouth is any way damaged during transportation, it will typically die.

I picked up one on the same notion and all he ever did was mow down my zoas. Just depends on the one you get. He was a cool little bugger though.

I'll be honest Tim, most of my observations are based on acropora and not birdsnest or digis. I always had good color on those so there wasn't much need to observe them to tweak for colors. They always seemed to show great color for me in any condition. For the acropora, I noticed subtle coloration around 0.1 ppm (instead of just a brown or brown with green highlights stick) and anything below 0.05 ppm showed most of the natural colors. At 0.03 ppm, is where I saw the best coloration and as I crept lower than that, my acros started showing the dreaded "pastel" color... a very faded, pale version of the coral.

Haha, I thought the same thing about nitrates. I always remembered having to rush any groundwater samples that had nitrate as an analyte and have the lab analyze immediately upon receipt.

I'd get in touch with one of the LFS. They may have some contacts. I met a guy at the frag swap named Shawn that said he does cabinetry. I unfortunately don't know his name on the board but I bet if you contact Jake at River City Aquatics, he'll know who I'm talking about. I think Shawn was going to do some work for Jake. Sorry for the non-direct non-answer answer. Welcome to the club! Sent via Tapatalk

That my friend, I tend to agree with you on. Surely though he can get some of the basics correct (Ca, Mg, Fe, Cu), at least the one's that us hobbiest have hobbiest-grade test kits for currently. You have a link to their "discussion"? I want to read up on it a bit more. Sent via Tapatalk

I'm curious about the ability for them to read the concentrations accurately. I'm not so much interested in the Triton method, more so curious about the levels in the tank. Curiosity may just prompt me to submit a water sample just to see what I get back.

Jim, I would revisit my earlier post, if phosphate concentration is low... is there algae... etc. For coloration of SPS corals in particular, it's really just a dance with removing enough phosphates, but not too much. I've always noticed a peak coloration around 0.03 ppm in SPS. Any lower and I started getting faded colors. Any higher and things started to brown out a bit. I think once you saw the 0 ppm of phosphate, you assumed it was too low in your tank overall but you probably had algal interference. Once you stopped using GFO, the algae kept uptaking the phosphate as the level increased and though you saw no increase in the actual concentration of phosphate, your levels did increase, but the algae was uptaking it. I would just continue to use GFO until the algae recedes, and then base things purely on your visual observation of color for your SPS. When your Hawkins echinata goes from a drab blue to this sparkling iridescent, almost pearly blue, you know you're at a good concentration of phosphate. I almost stopped using my Hanna meter entirely once my corals had really good color because I could really base it off coloration alone. From that point, I ideally found the perfect schedule of GFO replacement (i.e., 1.5 cups every month) and stuck to that and my colors never waivered. Hope that helps! Sent via Tapatalk

Tim, your longer-term experience is definitely beneficial for us to understand the role of phosphates in our systems. I too, employed a higher nutrient environment to nurture my corals (mainly SPS) back to health during my upgrade. I think I went on a rant about this somewhere on the club but I stopped running GFO, biopellets, and stopped skimming so that nutrient levels would climb in my tank. The hope was for the direct uptake of nutrients from the water for nitrates and phosphates by the coral... I even dozed amino acids heavily during this time period. The goal was to nurse them back to health since they were teetering on death. The elevated nitrate levels browned out my acros and I'm sure the higher phosphate inhibited some of the precipitation of calcium slowing SPS growth. The benefit though was healthy, recovering SPS colonies and frags. They weren't pretty, but they were getting healthier. I mentioned this before but at least for SPS, we skirt the line of making them look the prettiest they can be at some cost to their health. The higher nitrate levels increase the zooxanthallae within the coral allowing them the ability to feed their host more... but all we see is a brown stick since zooxanthallae will reflect a brown pigmentation. Healthy, but, uuuggllllyyy! Then we lower nutrients and slam them with light, they dump all their zooxanthallae and the brilliant color we see is actually their defense to being bombarded with light and the loss of brown zooxanthallae. It's pretty, but probably not as healthy as that brown stick. Zeo, carbon dosing, Triton, balling method, they are all loosely based on the principle of removing the nutrients (starving the coral, controlling nutrients), and then adding back nutrients for the corals to uptake. In the end, we all do the dance of some nutrients, but not too much, to keep great looking corals in our tanks. Sent via Tapatalk

Wuh? Tapatalk turned my b) into smiley faces! Way to upstage my critical thinking! Sent via Tapatalk

That's beautiful. I have been running this over and over in my head as well the last couple of months as my phosphates kept testing at 0 ppb. I was coming to the conclusion as well that although it's nice to be able to measure the unbound, inorganic phosphate in our tanks, what does that number really mean? I actually started to ignore the reading and just judge from my SPS coloration and the amount of algal growth in the tank. Your graph illustrates it perfectly. If you read a low phosphate concentration, you're either in the area where algal growth is interfering with your readings causing a low reading... or you are in the area where there is minimal algal growth and you just have low phosphates. One scenario, the algae is uptaking the phosphate and skewing your phosphate number low... the other way, your unbound phosphate level is just low. So perhaps we should go with the caveat of: A) Is your phosphate concentration low? B) If yes, is there noticeable algal growth in your tank? Or do you often clean your glass due to algal film? C) If yes, you have higher phosphates than your test is telling you... employ a form of removal (water changes, GFO, lanthanum chloride, etc.) Same scenario: A) Is your phosphate concentration low? B) If yes, is there noticeable algal growth in your tank? Or do you often clean your glass due to algal film? C) If no, you have minimal algal interference in your phosphate reading and it is probably correct. D) Keep doing what you are doing. :-) Sent via Tapatalk

Glad everything made the transition Kim! I'd nip that aiptasia in the bud now before you regret it down the line when everything is settled. Better to do it when transitioning! If you have the rock in hand, can you just chip the rock off where they are attached? Or perhaps get a small pen-sized butane torch and roast them? I'd do a good job of mentally noting where they are first (or stick pins in the rock near them) before removing from the water only to watch them shrivel up and loose where they are. Sent via Tapatalk

Wondering how this turned out.I just started noticing a small amount of what I think are dinos in my tank. I reduced the photoperiod just today, tommorrow I am going to give everything a good blasting with h2o2 and a turkey baster, scrape everything, let the filter catch it, and then go lights out for a few days. I'm hoping that since I caught it before it was everywhere that this will work. I'd snap a photo for verification if possible. At least a good way to confirm what you're really fighting to make sure your methods are appropriate for what you may have. Sent via Tapatalk

Welcome to the club! Sent via Tapatalk

Ohhh, I want to play. Spend money on this Chris! FarmerTy tried and tested! Works like a charm on the 3/4" glass (and probably easily on 1" glass) and I can throw my stick scraper away now. This thing mows down coralline nicely and can flip in-tank to wipe down the film algae without you getting wet at all.

I'll grab Shawn's stuff from you Thursday James if that works for you. I'll text you on Thursday for a good time to come by. Thanks! Sent via Tapatalk

Don't get me started! Lol! Area is selling like hot cakes! Sent via Tapatalk