lduncan

Good question. Know one knows for sure what it actually is. Current thinking from Eric Borneman is that it is a stress induced shutdown of a coral. RTN = Rapid Tissue Necrosis, it is also known as SDR, ShutDown Reaction Really only common on acropora, and some other sps corals. It happens over a matter of hours, tissue just starts peeling off the skeleton leaving nothing but the bare white calcium carbonate. Corals can die within a couple of hours from this, while appearing to be fine up until the point of shutdown. No really effective method of stopping it, maybe get 50 / 50 success rate from fragging, if done early, and well away from the affected area. It is not thought to be a bacterial disease, or no one has isolated the bacteria responsible for it if it is. Layton

I haven't heard anything bad, like the usual rio pumps exploding and leaking crap, but I have heard that they are no comparison to Streams. They would be good for smaller tanks/nanos, but for the big tanks, streams are the better option. Reefcentral has reports of people moving from streams to these and were extremely dissapointed. But still good for smaller tanks. Layton

Just continuing on from the "Calcium Levels" thread about nitrate and zooxanthellae. So nitrate feeds the zooxanthellae increasing the density in the coral, making it appear more brown. Very few soft corals produce the fluorescing proteins that hard corals do, that is why they are often brown. So high nitrate levels increases the density of zooxanthellae algae which in turn provide more food for the coral. With normal nitrate levels, the coral itself is able to regulate the nutrients that the coral gets, and therefore it density. But if the nitrate levels in the water column get too high, the zooxanthellae population increases, providing more and more food to the coral, and it will die if it can't get rid of it's waste fast enough. Here is an article which touches on this topic, from the perspective of bleaching, but still gives a good idea about what role zooxanthellae algae plays in corals: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2002/cw.htm The colouration in corals comes from proteins: Yellow, Black, Blue comes from melanins. Yellow, Orange, Red comes from carotenoids. White from astaxanthins. There are also many other proteins and pigment which give these colours and others. Layton

Proteins which fluoresce. Pocilloporine is the one I know off hand, obviously it is pink, and found in pocillopora, and seriatopora's. There are others which show as green and blue etc. I thought that it was desirable to have low nitrate so corals don't suffocate themselves. Never thought it had anything to do with fish. Some soft corals do not produce the proteins which give many hard corals their colour. Lower nitrate will not necessarily mean better looking soft corals. The higher the nitrate, the faster they will grow (the more food the zooxanthealle provide the coral) there is more to it than this, I'll post some more stuff tonight when I have time. A bit busy at the moment.

The only colour zooxanthealle algae provide to corals is brown. What you are after is a low density of zooxanthealle, so the fluorescing protiens that give acro's, and corals in general, their bright colours. Zooxanthealle like any algae feed on nitrate. The more nitrate, the higher the density, and the more brown a coral looks. I have never heard of nitrate being harmful to fish, I only though nitrite was, cause it stops oxygen binding to hemaglobin in the fish's blood. Layton

caluerpa will use nitrates, (not as much per mass as freshwater plants/algae), but more than mangroves, it also grows faster, so you are removing more per kg, and more volume for a particular time than you would with mangroves. However, I think the biggest consumer of nitrates will be the mud itself acting as a DSB. DSB's are extremely effective in reducing nitrates. Caluerpa will consume phosphates, most importantly it will use organic phosphates, rather than orthophosphates which most test kits actually measure. Layton

Alk that high is alright. All it means is the corals calcification rate increases. I think where high alk gets it's reputation for causing rtn, is because calcification is increase, but other nutrient used in the calcification process are in short supply, so the coral becomes stressed. If you keep your alk high, while adding some sort of food, like phyto, or amino acids, I think there would be much less chance of rtn occuring. Plus growth would go through the roof. Just my thoughts. Layton

Those are the two. Mangroves are not big nitrate users from the studies I have read. Layton

Magnroves are not particularly useful in removing the nutrients we are trying to remove. Plus they grow too big. Layton

I agree the hobby has changed even over the last 5 years. A quick search of a forum like reefcentral, or reefs.org will show you that. I think is is entirely possibly to sustain a marine tank indefinitely without it crashing, given proper maintenance. Acts of God would be the only thing to interfere to cause a "crash". Layton

There are no definitely no imports or exports of corals allowed to or from Australia. There corals come exclusively from the reefs around Australia where I believe there is a permit system for individuals, and businesses to collect them. That shop looks to be very well presented. Layton

PIC Arghhh! Definately not, I hate them. At the moment it's on an AVR mega128, but looking seriously at an ARM7 processor, just to beef it up, if it has to handle video streaming in the future. I've just ordered a whole lot of parts for some prototypes, got the DS1820 1-wire temperature sensors last week. I put together a temp controller over the weekend, just tuning the control algorithm this week. I'll get some photo's up tomorrow, when my camera arrives back. Layton

I think everyone will still agree, get a big skimmer. Layton

I've been wanting to post mine for a while, but still waiting for my camera to come back. Layton

In a tank situation there will be no siphon from the bleeder through the powerhead if the power goes out. It would be like filling a tube with water and lifting the middle out of the water, with the two ends still submerged. There is no water flowing through the tube. Layton

Do you mean 5% water change weekly? 50% is a lot. Layton

I suppose that every now and then you would have to bleed any air which becomes trapped in the top. Now doubt micro bubbles will collect up there? Layton

Do you know the dimensions of the tank you are going to have? If you notice in the pics I posted, the holes in the bottom need to be spaced out so that they don't weaken the base too much. You could do what pies did, having an overflow in the middle, a round acrylic pipe running top to bottom in the centre with laser cut grate at the top would look good. Then you need a return hole. A closed loop would be good, but you probably don't have enough room to do one, plus in a roundish tank, its easy to set up a constant swirl of water, you need to make it a but more random so this doesn't happen. Maybe feed the return out of the top of the tank and have it running a couple of seaswirls. Layton

Just don't ask me how that overflow works! :lol: Layton

You mean something like this Layton

Both raise alkalinity. Reef builder will not affect your pH as much on immediate addition to the tank. But what they achieve in the end is exactly the same; an alkalinity boost, and therefore a pH stabilisation at around 8.3. pH Up, while entirely safe to use in a reef, is really designed for fresh water use. It is an alkalinity booster, which means it contains carbonate / hydrogen carbonate, but it comes from Potassium salts, where are ones specialised for saltwater use, like the seachem products, use calcium salts. Because calcium levels and alkalinity and pH are all closely related, it makes sense to kill two birds with one stone. Layton

At this early stage, don't be too concerned about testing pH. You should be testing Ammonia, The ammonia will spike and then start to drop off, when it starts to drop, start testing nitrite, this should rise as the ammonia level drops. Once the nitrite has dropped to zero, you can start adding some livestock slowly. If you could give us a run down of your tank so far, that would also help us in giving any appropriate advice. Layton

Brendan, what about the Amino Acids High Concentrate? I have some of this and once I get my camera back, I will start dosing it. I will start a thread and do the whole before and after photo thing properly. I had some promising signs with the Salifert Amino Acids, (until I ran out of it), and thought I would give the zeovit version a go. Have you had any experience with it? Layton

True, after the first two of three days of adding the zeostart, I could tell it was potent. The water turned ultra clear. I noticed that they have extended the product range dramatically recently. Any experiences with these other addatives? Zeospur and others? Layton

I followed the instructions provided on http://www.korallen-zucht.de at that time, (being the creators website, i though this information must have been accurate). It was a single page, maybe two at the most. This has now morphed into a 23 page booklet, along with many changes to the recommendations on using the system. Like I said there are many reports of people following the instructions to the letter, and still had losses. I you have good results with it then fine, but for people who are reading this and want another experience with it they have got it. Just be careful with it. The instructions may not always be appropriate for your tank. Layton