FarmerTy

Great add PBNJ. I bought the complete 2-part dosing from BRS and picked up their magnesium supplement last year as well.. I've actually toned my Mg down a bit because I was getting so much polyp extension that I was not seeing enough of the color of the base of the SPS. It's more a matter of preference. Currently I keep it at 1350 and happy with what I have. I didn't know about dosing it with the CaCl. That's a pretty cool trick.

Thanks for the awesome frag Angelito! Nice meeting you.

PM'ed for the yellow milli.

Whooops, well, you know what I mean. Haha.

Good talking with you and your wife, Mitch. I appreciate the bathroom advice!

Yeah, be here if you want to swing by. Just text me first. Pm'ed.

Hey Mitch, The color is close to what it is in my tank right now. It was moved into the main display about 2 weeks ago and was under 10k lighting in my sump. The two war corals I have in my main display are more intense red than the frag right now but that should be a function of the lighting it was under, and not the coloration it can achieve under normal lighting. I try to color up the frags before selling them but I posted the picture of the war coral in haste with my other frags. It should turn more red in regular lighting and should eventually glow red under actinic like my other war corals. This frag was the one I expected to go the quickest.

Aww bummer, the little guy looked cool sitting up in that little spot of his. Sorry for the loss Chris.

Used test kit (approximately 80% left) for nitrate and phosphate. I don't have the most discerning eye when it comes to color charts so I bought a Hanna checker for dummy proof operation. I like the Red Sea test kits and trust their results. I still use their other test kit for alkalinity, calcium, and magnesium. I bought it from Aquatek for roughly $50 but don't need it anymore since I have the Hanna checker. First $25 $15 gets it. Thanks. -Ty

Even with the little amount of biopellets I'm running, I think I'm going to go 1/4 of that even. I going to assume that in the same sense as when you overdose vodka and get a cyano bloom, the same may be happening to my system. I think the manufacturers grossly overcalculate how much biopellets you actually need to maintain a stable system. So, planning to treat cyano and remove what I can, then dose bacteria (the good stuff), and then run a lot less biopellets. I'll report what I conclude after trying it for a couple months.

Gotcha Grim. 3 spots left...

Got you down Tim.

Jestep, I was running GFO in conjunction but the cyano materialized anyway. I'm almost tempted to run the reactor with very minimal biopellets as my levels have stayed consistently low. Hopefully this, with the combination of removing the stronghold cyano has right now, will put my system back into more of a balance.

Good point Dave. They 20ks are comparative to most 14ks however I ran 14ks last time with some actinic supplementation and got a nice cool, crisp white with a hint of blue. The 14ks are a lot brighter IMO but I'm going to switch back to the 20ks now... I want my color back!

Good question. We'll wait until I have the 6 on board (or less) and will split up shipping accordingly. Then you can paypal if its easy or just pay me when they come in. Dave, I have you down. Thanks.

Cool, thanks for the heads up. I've never had a cyano problem until I ran the biopellets. I still think it's worth it to keep the ULN environment that my SPS love. My phosphate was reading 0.021 ppm the other day. Awesome!

Yeah, I've been reading that the cyano is outcompeting the bacteria in the tank from the biopellets. I was thinking of wiping out the cyano, then dosing beneficial bacteria so that it can get a foothold and hold off the cyano when it tries to return.

You think leaving my skimmer on would cover the aeration portion?

Hi all, I am going to order some plusrite bulbs from 1000bulbs.com and was opening up to the first 6 people that want in on the group buy. This way we can all split the $11 shipping cost for the bulbs. Let me know what wants to be in on it. I will coordinate and place the order to ship to my place in north central Austin (Braker/Kramer area) where everybody can pick up from when it gets in. The order will be finalized Tuesday, the 17th and will hopefully arrive by the end of the week since they are only in Dallas. Sorry I have to cut off at 6 people but I didn't want to run logistics for too many people because it is way beyond my capacity to keep that all straight. As far as I know, they only carry the 14k and 20k 250-watt and 400-watt mogul bulbs. Thanks and let me know. Here's a link to the bulbs: http://1000bulbs.com/search/?q=plusrite+aquarium -Ty

For those that run biopellets, have you ever had cyano and if so, what did you do about it? I ran into Innate and he had success dosing bacteria every 6 months to out compete the cyano. Any other tips? I've been running biopellets for almost 8 months now and just curious if anybody had little tricks to avoid cyano as well. I currently run my output from the reactor directly into my skimmer by modding the input to the skimmer. Let me know what tricks you got! Thanks! -Ty

PM'ed for Biomate and Zeobak.

Bump, available

Roy, pm'ed

I've thrown coral into checked luggage multiple times now. Southwest is the easiest since it's free. Just make sure it's packed well.

Nice running into you again D.R. Enjoy the frags!