Ira

The dehumidifier water is probably cleaner and safer than most city water supplies.

I guess that would be a no.

Thanks, if I get out to your place any time soon I might grab it. The baking soda seems to be working, I just need to dose more than I have. Been putting in 1/8 tsp into the topoff water so about 1/8th every 4 days. I'd calculated that should be enough, but it's not quite. Once I get the exact amount figured out I think it should be good. I'm doubling it and we'll see how that goes.

Anyone mind answering my question? KH drops by abouy .5 per week. Is dosing with baking soda a good way to keep it up? Baking soda added to the topoff water a good idea? PH and calcium are both ok, maybe a little bit low for each, so I'd dose with a bit of kalk if I had some, but they're not low enough that I've made the effort to get any yet.

I've noticed my dehumidifier has a little funnel shaped part where the water drips from the condenser into the collection container. That funnel has developed a black tarry gunk which I'm thinking is probably left behind by evaporated dehumdifier water. It definitely doesn't seem to be mildew or anything like that. I mean, I love the idea of having a dehumidifier sitting above the tank dripping the evaporated water back in, but...

I don't bother with the primer things, just put the inlet in the tank, suck on the outlet until the water starts siphoning, put the outlet where it belongs, wait for it to finish filling and plug it in.

The problem is possible contamination from copper condenser coils, mostly.

Thought it might be a good idea to start up a thread listing inexpensive supplements for reef tanks and where a good place to get them is and how to dose them? For noobs(And me :lol:) I can't get my KH to stay up, but the calcium is fine so let's start with that. Just add baking soda? Any cheap ways to dose magnesium, iodine, etc?

Don't most powerheads come with a grill over the intake anyway? And a sponge usually. All I've ever seen do. Seems kind of a waste to get rid of those and then try and figure out a way to replace them.

Needs more water changes and less feeding.

Actually, I'd like to get a bit MORE algae for my lawnmower blenny to eat. He doesn't touch the algae on the back glass and doesn't eat anything else, getting a bit thin.

Steve, I'd say the lights have definitely burned in. It's been, what? A month? Anyway, they're less blue and a bit brighter than the started out. Reef, They're Aquamedic Aqualine 16K kelvin bulbs. Angelfish, the red stuff is a macro algae, rodophyta or something like that. Pies, I'm not too worried about looks right now, at least as far as powerheads and things. Eventually I'm thinking I'll replace them with an oceans motions squirt or something. But for now...Well, I dunno, half of them aren't starting up when the wavemaker turns them on. I suspect the Hydno is probably a lost cause. It's looking MUCH better since all the hair algae and cyano practically disappeared after I treated the tank with flatworm exit. There's a few little patches of hair algae scattered around on the powerheads and the back still has a fine layer, but the rocks are pretty much totally clear, no cyano anywhere.

To distract everyone here's some current pictures of my tank. Not the greatest pictures, but I don't feel like taking a whole bunch of pictures at the moment. (Note to self, clean the glass better before taking more pictures)

Pleco looks hungry, you need to feed him more veggies. I love big plecos.

2 is a couple platys. 5 are I think serpaes, off to the right that looks more like a cardinal, not a neon. Neons the colored stripes only go through half of their bodies, not their whole body. Cardinals are MUCH better than neons...Neons suck.

Off the top of my head since I'm at work and don't have the last results... PH 8.3 KH 9 Salinity 1.026 Calcium 400 Nitrates 5 Temp 26ish

Yeah, that's more like 425 liters.

Oddly, my hydno frag is dying. Dunno why, no reason that I can tell. Just slowly losing all the tissue from the tips inward.

20ppm of nitrates is nothing to worry about. That's a safe level, far from a mess. And if you don't have chlorine in your water, don't waste money putting water conditioners in. That's really all they're there for. Same with Cycle. Just extra crap in the water that you don't need.

Another thing a friend that's a photographer for a living says is, "Half of taking good photos is being good at tweaking them in photoshop." Or something to that effect.

I find I get better pictures WITH the flash. Though, they ironically tend to be darker. Need to figure out how to fix that... Anyway, most of the blur comes from movement so the faster shutter with the flash helps the most.

Judging the sea conditions is practically impossible, in my experience. Nice, sunny weather, no wind at all at home, Sky weather channel says practically no wind, hasn't rained in a week...Drive half an hour-45 minutes to get the water and huge waves, muddy water. Anyone want to set up webcams at all the collection sites so we can just log on and have a look?

Customwood is MDF(Medium density Fiberboard) It's what most of those black stands you see around are made of. If it's well coated with polyurethane or similar it would be ok. But, I'd still prefer just standard plywood.

Some more pods... under a suction cup on a powerhead that's come unsucked...

You could pour it through some filter wool, or just let it settle for a bit before pouring into the tank and try not to pour in what settles out.