Sharkey

mmm might be something to this zeovit? Im always amazed by the tanks and colours on the site. The use of bacteria in this way must be the next step? PS Im in the planing stage for my next tank. Some very good ideas in this tank. Love the colours. :bounce: I see he has a lot of lighting including a red bulb. Guess it helps bring out the colour also. Top ten tank just goes to show what can be done. Amazing Ps The low Alk was surprising

They had a profile on the mandarinfish in coral magazine. heres some of what they have written. "mandarinfishes do not have scales.Instead,their skin is covered with a protective mucus layer.The mucus is toxic and its production is greatly increased when the fish is stressed.For ths reason it is important to put these fish in individual bags when transporting them.They sometimes wrap themselves in a thick "cocoon" of mucus at night,emerging in the moring and leaving the sac behind". Hope this helps? PS coral is one of the best magazine out there. Always a good read from cover to cover. Mandarinfish are amazing fish. my fav.

Dosing can be a pain, while looking around the net I found this. http://www.seachem.com/products/reef.html And I use a lot of the seachem stuff, Its made my life a lot easer. Hope it helps 8) This is what I did in the hope it will give me a stable tank. (It would be a lot easer to buy a Ca/ Mg Reactor ) I measured my tank left it for three days then retested . Divided the difference in results by three (This gave a daily consumtion rate) Then using the above calculator worked out how much I need to dose I also use Kalkwasser so I continued using as per normal during testing days. Hopefully this should help me keep my system stabile. I will retest to check that its all going to plan in a few days. Can anyone see any problems with this method? PS also found this http://www.kademani.com/reefchem.htm

Yep only wish I could get them to look that good Very true Thats something that Helifax has always shown not only with his corals but his livestock. And it shows. Excellent tank

Wow love the brain and the blasto. Tanks looking awsome :bounce:

Me to. They do eat a lot and your right about personalities they have a heap of that. Very cool. And the copperbands very nice they look amazing.But are very hard to keep good luck with that one. I take my hat off to anyone who can get them to feed. Sounds like your doing everything right Keep us updated some pics would be nice . What colour is your LMB?

How can we read more about his tank? Has he got a web site? Would love to see more

I love it :bounce: Nice clean stand good sized tank very nice look forward to watching its progress.

Do you guys remember the Stainless Steel stand that someone got made up about a month ago? It was really nicely made. What ever happened to that? Any updates I looked back but I cant find the thread. It was about 3 or 4 foot I think. :roll:

Very Nice :bounce: How large do they get?

Remember it not recommended to add a alk supplement( baking soda )and Mg at the same time The Mg will enhance the lose of carbonate alkalinity. that what I read. And I see they write a warning on the bottom of the Seachem Mg packets looking at your reading you almost have them right With the common ranges being 4 meq/L or 7 - 11 dKH or 125 - 200 ppm CaCO3 equivalents Calcium: 380 – 450 ppm calcium ion or 950 - 1125 ppm CaCO3 equivalents I don't know if you have read the 100 marbles explanation on Calcium and alkalinity its like having 100 marbles say blue and red what ever you do you will only have 100 marbles put more blue ones in you will get less red in other words increase you Ca you will lose you Alk add more Alk you will lose Ca that's the way it works basically Good to see the tank back on target. It made me double check mine and i found my Alk was getting lower than expected

Holy shivers looking a bit closer at this one. A DKH of 5.2 is 1.9 Meq/l boy that is low and a reading of Ca of 380 is on the low side but ok. If it was me I would do a larger water change. And still double check your test kit this dosnt look right?"Ca was at 480 a week ago" it would be very hard to keep your Calcium that high without dropping your Alk That would have screwed your alk something strange going on here. If it was me I would do a 50% water change I use NSW and get the Mg on target if thats not in target it will screw your Ca and Alk then get the Ca and Alk into the right range then take all measurments wait three days retest then you will be able to work out what you systeem uses daily just dived the change in Ca ALk by 3 and work out a dosing system by useing a formulation like this below for alk and calcium it depends on which option you pick. I really dont now alot about zeovit but if you use it then they recommend no Kalwasser so probley a calcium chloride based additive? Cookie ? Baking Soda To raise 50 gallons of tank water by 1 meq/L will require about 16 grams of baking soda (sodium bicarbonate; sodium hydrogencarbonate). Since a level teaspoon of baking soda weighs just under 6 grams, then 1 teaspoon will raise the alkalinity in that 50 gallons by ~0.4 meq/L (~1 dKH). PS Remember what dosnt kill us (or the fish)Makes us stronger

mmm Mg Thought so. Had the same problem not so long ago. You could get Mg chips for your calcium reactor thats what they do overseas. It would take a little bit of playing around to find the balance but would be almost care free afterwards for awhile at least. When you get the Mg up your problems should go away. I would still double check the test kit just for piece of mind Ps want to read a real good actical with some simple very good help http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm

Yeah I think laytons right . And it would also be a good idea to test Mg if thats low it will be very hard to keep Alk and Ca in check.

Can someone clarify what we are talking about when we are talking about orthophosphate? when I do a search I cant anything that makes sense? .And why is it important? And getting back to the start of the thread I guess its all coming back to basically the DSB vs. BB Debate right ?Can a Dsb control phosphate the answer is yes it can. Can it do so for a long time This is the one that we will always have debate about. All I can say is yes it can work long term but indefinitely that's a good question and you will find healthy debate after all we have closed system it has to go somewhere right?Or is it a closed systeem if we are doing water changes at 40% as the tank of the month is. I've run a DSB for almost three years and have had no problems so personal experience says yes and from what I have read from some very experienced people yes it can there are tanks that are ten years plus with a DSB nutrient sink or not that's the whole real question isn't it?Time bomb or aid to the hobby?

I bought a new flashy digital one a couple of years ago it had all the different settings also the time etc .. A year down the track it was giving me wrong temp readings Which caused all sorts of problems( Good lesson there double check any odd readings ) now I have one of the cheap mercury ones in the sump I think it was $3 and it reads fine. IMO that's all you need. Save the money for all the other stuff you will need to spend it on. Skimmers Pumps etc etc

How long has it happened? Any new inhabitants? Do you have a Wrasse ? Goby ? There is a real danger of a sudden nutrient influx resulting in the strong growth of algae

Hi Guys There seems to be a few things that would keep his phosphate levels down . 1st It sounds like he has a good water flow into his sump etc and my guess is he is lowering the dissolved phosphate level in the water by ejecting the phosphate as a aerosol. 2nd Im not to sure about the balling effect hes talking about but dosing calcium hydroxide solution causes rapid Precipition of dissolved Phosphate due to the supply of calcium ions and the increase in Ph caused by the hydroxide ions. The precipitated phosphate is insouluble in natural saltwater ph.( This is when he sucks it out ) Could be the same theory? 3rd Algae obtain phosphate by secreting Special enzymes that digest it 4th Major Water changes And to Finish. Something Julian Sprung wrote in Coral 7/2004 Talking about the Plenum System . My practicle experience with this system including measurment of nitrate and phosphate convinces me that the system is dynamic.And so the Plenum is not a nutrient sink.Its true that nitrate and nitrite phosphate and silicate may be found in plenum water at levels much higher than water above the gravel.However they do not stay high. The plenum water does not cause sudden fluctuations in water quality as suggested by some authors. Also professor Jean Jaubert who works at the university of Nice france has shown amazing result at the Monaco Museum with prolific growth of Stylophora Pavona Motipora etc. Still very inpressive tank . PS I see the constructive arguments have started again.

Looking Good !!! Have you taken more rock out as well?

Im useing also and getting good results. Like westy1 said full polyp extension and I dont use zeovit :bounce:

Nice story. At bedtime tonight I will read that one to my kids. Bets Nemo!!!

30 on a rock!!! lose the rock!!!!

Are you talking about the pipe into the display tank. From a sump?

If you use a cannister filter with filter wool and or sponge Make sure you clean reqularly and wash in your tank water not tap (Or you will kill the good bacteria that will be growing in the sponge). Good when your starting a tank But cos the inside is out of site, its out of mind. If you leave it dirty it will break down and start to pollute your tank. How bigs the Tank and how many fish? What corals are you looking at getting? Do you test ? What are your readings? Sorry to sound like a cop with all the questions but want to get the full picture.I used to have bio balls and canister filter but have slowly changed to a berlin style tank which sounds like thats they way you want to go? But if the tank is young I think its a good idea to have the canister on there to get the bacteria levels up untill your rock can devalope. But there are so many options when it comes to filtration it really comes down to what you want to acheive tank size and fish load.

Not so much on the berlins but more of a skimmers in general. They really are a good skimmer. I do find ive been tinkering with it getting the flow right but I put a lot of it down to the Big clean. It will be interesting to see how it settles after a couple of days. I think getting the water directly from the over flow has also helped. I've noticed nuisance algae on the wall of the tank slowly disappearing. I've been cleaning the neck /. Cup every day. It really has been a big improvement. Keep us posted with which way you go it will be very interesting.