FarmerTy

Congrats on the new building. It is going to be awesome by the looks of it. Can't wait to make another excuse to go down to San Diego again and cherry pick from your store. -Ty

I just bought one recently at Aquadome for $25 to pair with my lone clown and it doesn't look like a match in heaven. I'd be willing to sell for $20 if you pick up. It's about 1.5 inches. LMK.

Ooops, didn't see the other post. Thanks anyways!

Hmmm, can't PM right now. I guess the system maintenance may be holding it up right now. I can meet up after 1pm today and sometime this weekend too. Ty 512- six eight nine - 6 four 3 five Thanks.

If he doesn't nip at SPS and LPS, I'll gladly take him. -Ty

If that's purple valida, I'll take it. Pm'ed.

That's encouraging news Don, thanks for your input. I know you have a great selection of SPS so your input is invaluable.

I'm going to follow this topic. I'm curious myself. I'm mainly interested in input from SPS keepers, as that is where we'll see a majority of the difference. I'm sure LEDs can maintain LPS and softies just fine. I know Tim (wizard) is running his own experiment at his place.

Thanks for your service in Iraq! You're gonna have a hella lot of algae scrubbing to do! :-)

So I went and bought a Red Sea Iodine test kit that tests for total iodine/iodide in the system. I got a reading of 0.05ppm, not too much below the recommended range of 0.06-0.08ppm. I dosed 1.2 ml of potassium iodide to the system and am planning to test this morning to see if it raised it enough to fall in the recommended range. I'm going to guess that since it wasn't too far below the recommended range, iodide might not be my problem. My cali tort is starting to exhibit less of the deep blue coloration and now showing a slight green tint with the polyps becoming dark green.

PBNJ, those are pretty representative of what my blue's are. I know they look great but they POP in Tim's tank. We are talking bright blue. That's what I'm aiming for and can't seem to get. And it makes it harder to settle with those colors knowing they are the same frag. The whole grass is greener saying... or more appropriately, the SPS is bluer. I think I will do some research on iodide. I've already switched my bulbs to the 20k's to see if I notice anything in the next couple of weeks and see if a simple water change will help with the trace elements that I don't dose or monitor. Thanks all for your help!

I'm stumped. I can't figure out why my blue's are so muted in my tank. My strawberry shortcake and red planet have good reds/pinks. My sunset monti and Setosa have great looking oranges. My green slimer is nicely neon green. My tricolor has a good purple on it (think Barney). But my blue mille and my cali tort are just a dull blue. I know that can be bluer because they are ridiculously bluer in WizardX322's tank (same exact frags). Setup: 250W Plusrite 14k bulb in Lumenarc reflectors, approximately 1.5-1.75' above coral. VHO supplementation. (12hrs/day VHO actinics, 6hrs/day 14k MH) Parameters: Calcium: 450ppm Magnesium: 1400ppm Alkalinity: 7.5 dkH Nitrate: 0ppm Phosphate: 0.040 Salinity: 1.026 Temperature: 81 degrees Here are my possible ideas. 1) Plusrite bulbs (great enough to look good, but maybe not enough to get your great looking blues?) 2) 14k spectrum (have chips acro under 20k in middle section and he's blue like no other. 3) Not running calcium reactor yet and haven't changed water in tank in 4 months since carbon dosing. Missing trace elements? I've just been dosing 2-part. Just reading over what I wrote, I'm starting to lend towards the idea that the 14k spectrum is the culprit and that I should be running 20k to get the good looking blues. What's everyone 2 cents? -Ty

Yeah, I freaked the first time I saw a flatworm in my tank, after seeing the population explosion that occurred in my brother's tank. I was thinking chemical warfare the whole way. Then I started to notice that their population was directly related to the amount of copepods in my tank. As I watched my natural population of copepods decline (due to adding some chromis), the flatworms went with them. I haven't seen one in two years. My 2 cents, just leave it be and they'll take care of themselves, especially if you know that you are going to add some type of fish the eats copepods off your glass walls and rocks. My theory is all the success with 6-line wrasses and mandarins are more based on them reducing the copepod population and reducing the flatworm food source then actually being lucky enough to find one that has a taste for flatworms. But, in light of your tank being so new, you could just save yourself the gamble and buy flatworm exit and dip each coral and remove it from the main tank, and then bomb the main tank with it. -Ty

Thanks everyone for your input. It's only 2" of fine sand (not oolitic very fine). I may just divide the tank into thirds and remove it 1/3 at a time. I'm thinking of leaving the sand around the rock structure as I don't want my aquascaping to come crashing down. I think that would not be as big of a deal as the sand under rocks usually stays under rocks and I won't get as much of the large pieces being kicked up to the top of the sand layer.

I'm tired of looking at my dirty sandbed. I was an idiot and took my fine sand and mixed it with some fine crushed coral from old tank to seed it. Well now all the fine sand has settled to the bottom and these large pieces of non-white crushed coral keep getting sifted to the top. It looks horrible to me. I'd rather just have fine sand throughout the tank. What's the consensus on removing sand from an established SPS/LPS tank and replacing it? Do sections at a time? Do it all at once? Another idea is to just use some sort of filter, like a mesh or sieve, and pull out all the larger pieces leaving just the fine sand. Only problem is that it will kick up all the stuff in the sand and probably end up being worse than just replacing it entirely. Thoughts? -Ty

+1 on the worth it's weight in gold part. Higher upstart but lower costs down the line. Plus it saves your back and the frequent trips to pick up water, where more often than not you're tempted to buy more stuff!

Yeah, I have an 8" desjardini sailfin tang in with the 5" blue and 4" yellow. That guy is huge and I almost feel like 125 is going to be too small when all of them get full grown.

Yeah, I have a blue and yellow in a 125-gallon and they still barely tolerate each other. I'm sure you know but the blue will get to a max size of up to 1'. Just stating just in case you weren't planning to upgrade tank size in the future. But as most of us that are hooked on this hobby know, you always go up in tank size... it's as impossible as trying to avoid getting old. :-) -Ty

Welcome Warlock, Hit us up if you have any questions. There aren't as much discussion threads these days about coral husbandry/tank setup just because it's been pretty much nailed down for the most part now as a collective whole but happy to explain anything that seems confusing. Someone will always chime in if you ask. -Ty

150-watt clip-on metal halide is what I would do. Most people are getting rid of them on this forum for under $100. Add a fan to keep temperatures more constant and you're done. But I wouldn't do it without an auto-top off as you'll be topping off your tank all the time. Even if you bought and setup an auto-top off, it'll still be under $200 for the whole switch. I know nothing of LEDs so take that into consideration. -Ty

I saw some at River City a couple months back.

Just off the top of my head, but I would imagine that the calcium and alkalinity that got dumped into your system precipitated out of solution and that's the white stuff all over your rocks. The alk probably lowered because the percentage of alk being removed during the process of precipitation is greater than the amount of calcium, slowly dropping the ratio of alk to calcium you have in your system. That's my wild shot in the dark for an explanation this late without researching it. -Ty

At least I tried, no free shipping on replacement corals so ignore this post. I'll probably order some more before the end of the year so I'll hit everyone up then. Sorry for the false alarm. -Ty

Good luck Tim. I'm curious as to what you find out.

Hi all, Will from AquaSD is sending me a clam this Friday and was asking if anybody else was interested in ordering so he can ship it with the clam. I don't know if this means free shipping for all involved because he is sending me a replacement clam but just throwing it out there now to gauge interests in case that it is free shipping. The order will ship to my house and people can pick up from there. I live off Kramer/Lamar. Let me know and I'll let you know as soon as I hear back from Will whether it will be free shipping or not. -Ty BTW, I got to check out his facility at San Diego and the stuff we see online is only half the story. Great business owner and top-notch service.