FarmerTy

After months of slow STN and an inability to register a phosphate concentrate, I finally registered a stable concentration without having to continually dose. Even when I dosed phosphate, it would be gone the next day. Now I am registering around 0.03-0.05 ppm. Woohoo! All it took was trimming half my giant chaeto ball (was the size of a large frozen turkey), slowing down my biopellets to a trickle, feeding extra food, and adding a ton of cleaners to help mow down my pretty red turf algae. Let's hope the phosphate is here to stay! My nitrates hovered around 5ppm for the longest time after I dosed potassium nitrate (Spectrum stump remover) and has slowly decreased to <1 ppm so i dosed it back up to 5ppm again. I hope keeping a registered level of phosphate and nitrate in my tank should stop what STN I still have going. Sent via Tapatalk

I have 6+ used SE bulbs if your friend wants them. They've probably been used somewhere around 6 months each. Otherwise, was gonna toss them in recycling. Sent via Tapatalk

Oh no! One of my babies! And competition! Initiate JamesL buy out plan! Sent via Tapatalk

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This sounds like the setup for an Aggie joke... 3 Aggies... a ridiculously large tank... Sent via Tapatalk

As always, thank you for letting me stare at your tank for way longer than I should and thank your wife for putting up with me never wanting to go home! Looking forward to hooking up that new pump and being able to hear myself again! Sent via Tapatalk

Thanks for the reactor Clay! It was a pleasure meeting you and your wife! Sent via Tapatalk

Sorry Dave, got 3 ahead of you right now. I'm too good of an urchin salesman! Sent via Tapatalk

Be careful James, if they aren't properly stored, they are basically trash. Sent via Tapatalk

Hi Tickle Fish, I actually have 2 in front of you for the urchin. Sorry, haven't had a chance to update yet. If both fall through, I'll let you know!

You should hire me part-time Travis! :-p Sent via Tapatalk

Great work Kim! You've done more in the last couple weeks on your stand than I've done in half a year! Sent via Tapatalk

Here's him trying to hide his shame after the BYU game. Sent via Tapatalk

That's right folks, here's your chance to get a one-of-a-kind Longhorn urchin. But Ty, that looks like a Halloween urchin!? That's where you are wrong my friend. This urchin originated from Bevo's four stomachs and rumor has it he regurgitated it up after Vince Young tucked the ball under his arm and ran to the right for a TD in the Rose Bowl of 2006. Fair-weather Longhorn fans, just keep moving along, as you'll probably have no interest in this limited edition Longhorn urchin (and you're probably rooting for Baylor now anyways) but if I don't end up selling it, I'll hold on to it until UT starts winning again and I'll sell it to you for the low, low price of your pride. For those true Longhorn fans, it can be had for a mere $15, what this Aggie originally bought it for (is there a business school at A&M?). And no, I do not accept bevo bucks. Thanks for shopping, -Ty P.S. Pictures to come soon!

Just a quick note on why I don't bother rinsing my frozen food. Randy Farley-Holmes, a reefing guru chemistry buff, has quantified the phosphate addition of the rinse water of frozen foods and calculated it at roughly 1% of the phosphate content of the food itself. So basically, rinsing the frozen food gets rid of 1% of the phosphate addition of your frozen food. To give scale, that 1% of phosphate added from the rinsed water to 100 gallons of water would bump the concentration of the tank up roughly 0.0003 ppm. Quoted from Randy: "That amount washed away does not seem significant with respect to the "in tank" target level of about 50-100 times that level (say, 0.015 to 0.03 ppm), nor does it seem significant relative to the total amount of phosphate actually added each day in foods (which is perhaps 50-1000 times as much..." Here's the article he wrote for reef keeping magazine, for those that like to read the nerdy stuff. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/3/chemistry Sent via Tapatalk

My initial impression is just new tank syndrome. It's going to go up and down after the initial cycle for the first 6 months to a year as you continually add corals and fish, increasing the bioload. I just see this as your tank finding it's balance. You're near the 4-month mark if I'm correct. Time will take care of it as the silicates in your sand will be consumed entirely and the diatoms will go away. As for the cyano, try to get more flow in the spots that it is getting a foothold and keep doing what you are doing with sucking it out with each water change. I don't normally push red slime remover but your tank seems like a good candidate since your maintenance routine and parameters line up perfectly. In that, I can reasonably assume most likely it is not something you are doing but just the tank seeking balance. You can try to tip it in your favor by using the red slime remover to attack the cyano. Tank is looking good from the picture and it seems like all your corals are happy. Just as a side note, as pretty as the star polyps are, if your intent is to not have a tank entirely covered by GSP, I would think about how to isolate it on its own island. It has a tendency to outgrow everything and cover all your rocks if you allow it to. Best of luck with the fight against the diatoms and cyano. I think you are headed in the right direction! Sent via Tapatalk

Do you have a picture you can post Hula? I don't see anything wrong with your parameters or maintenance routine. Sent via Tapatalk

Yeah Sam, it looked the best at 650 par, really yellow base, but then my urchin relocation system moved it to the sand this week. Sent via Tapatalk

I have no idea what you're talking about... :-) Sent via Tapatalk

If you have a small flat rock, I'd just lay it on that for a bit and when it attaches, then move it into the rockwork. If it's doing fine in the sand and sitting still, then just leave him be. Sent via Tapatalk

Welcome back to the hobby Casey and welcome to the club! Sent via Tapatalk

Their preference is to be attached to rock instead of on the sand, though typically they'll do fine on the substrate too. Sent via Tapatalk

That's the inhalent siphon. All clams have one but it may he more or less pronounced depending on the species or even depending on activity. The clam looks fine. Sent via Tapatalk

For sure the picture! They are a nice neon orange. I showed my wife the video and she just about cringed... told me it was too cheesy and I'd creep people out on the forum. I told her awful music with my videos are my MO on the club. Sent via Tapatalk

I would have just put him in some water in the freezer for a bit. Some goldfish can survive being completely frozen and then thawed. I remember reading an article about it. Sent via Tapatalk