wasp

Quite interesting. One explanation I read was that long before the rest of the world, Germany became quite eco conscious, and this included banning the importation of many marine species. ( This has since been lifted ). This forced the hobby to get pretty advanced about the care & propagation of their livestock, in fact a heckuva lot of the advances & innovations in the hobby come from Germany. I guess also, in many feilds, German equipment has a reputation for quality, must be part of the national mentality. Something of an aside, and perhaps not that PC, but I also read a thing in the paper where somebody had collated a lot of data to discover if any races are superior or otherwise intelligence wise, to other races. IQ was used as the detirminant. Not all races were included, and unfortunately, not Chinese, which would have been interesting. However, the top race tested, with an average IQ of 108, was Germans. 2nd was Dutch, with an average of 107. Poms came in quite a few places down at 102. The dummest race tested came in at an average IQ of 96. Probably not a good idea for me to say who they were, but they are in a country that has been on the news lately, with a lot of fighting happening.

OK Layton, well said, a good post, and informative. I'm happy to see positive stuff like that, as to why you like a particular system, but don't like the negative snyde remarks in the other thread about a system someone else is using. So I'll second your post, although I still believe, as a person who has used Randies 2 part for quite a while, that a calcium reactor, run properly, is easier. But each to whatever suits them, no worries. BTW, Reef "dabbled" with 2 part, and has now given it away & returned to the easier calcium reactor.

I don't see it either. It is obvious from you initial comment you find it difficult to run a reactor Layton, but you have been quick in this thread to leap in several times with little critisisms of them when a read of the thread will show several people, myself included, who find them dead easy, the least effort method.

Once again, look before you leap Layton :lol: :lol: :lol:

Ha Ha! Kalk can be as easy or hard as a person wants to make it. For me it was a bit of a pain, I had to fill the container each evening, put it above the tank & set the drip rate. But it can be easier. Randy Holmes Farley uses kalk, he claims it takes all of 5 minutes per month. He has a drum downstairs which once a month gets filled with fresh water, kalk added, and stirred. The it settles 24 hours, and then a dosing pump on a timer delivers a set quantity to his tank each night. The drum contains enough to ensure he only has to refill & mix the kalk once a month, which he claims 5 minutes, literally.

Once I did a treatment, I syphoned all I could see each day, and did this for several days. Then I thought I'd got most of them so did the treatment, and could not believe how many flatworms just seemed to appear out of nowhere and swirl around the tank dieing. Frantic work with the syphon trying to get all them out fast as I could too. Had a nice looking Royal Dottyback in the tank, the morning after treatment his colours had really faded, he was no longer his beautiful self. I thought he would get his colours back, but he never did, stayed like that several years. Don't think it was the flatworm exit it would have been the flatworm poison.

Sharkey, that was a very informative post! Well done! I think Chimera should put that in his sticky it tells a person much of what they need to know in a way that is easy to understand. I knew vinegar was good, and a couple of the reasons, but did not know all that. TM I'll agree with Layton on one point ( there's a first! :lol: ), using a calcium reactor is not an exact science. The 2 adjustables are the amount of water going through the reactor ( drip rate ), and the amount of Co2 going through the reactor ( bubble count ). So to increase output, you can turn up say, bubble count, which will increase Co2, thereby making the water in the reactor more acid, dissolving more of the media, dispersing more calcium and alkalinity into the tank. However, in one way a 2 part mix can be more precise, Layton is correct, the water can be tested, the amount to add to bring levels to the desired amount calculated, and then the mix added. Whereas with a calcium reactor it would be nigh impossible to test the water, and then calculate drip rate & bubble count needed to achieve the desired levels. Instead, no calculations are needed. When first setting up a calcium reactor, often several weeks of fiddling are required. The tank water is tested, and if levels are too high, the reactor is turned down. If levels are too low, the reactor is turned up. This is what I did & have now hit a point where the input is about right, the reactor has not been touched for quite a while. But as others have said, the balance between ca and alk can move over time, so for me anyway, I test the tank water once a week, and I have a stock of both calcium and baking soda, I will add one, or the other, if needed. But recently levels have stayed rock solid in the tank, I have not had to add ca or alk for some time. But commonly, it will happen. I have ended up with a spare reactor since closing my fragging system, so have put it in tandem with the other one, the second one is performing the function of a degasser. With this setup, I am only using around 1/2 the Co2 I used before to achieve the same results, and it is also quite powerful, I have to keep it turned well down or it will boost levels way too high. The strange thing is, it is also using less media than before. I have yet to figure the reason for that one. But PuttPutt is also correct, many people find their reactors will only just keep up with demand. One thing I like about reactors is that levels in the tank stay relatively constant, as opposed to dosing, say once daily, although of course continous dosing can eliminate this but may cost more than a reactor. The other thing is ease of use, mine is pretty much set & forget now, just test weekly to check things are in line, and perhaps from time to time some minor adjustment may be required.

May not be a silly idea :lol: Used with something that encrusts quickly no doubt would do the job!

Well it's a case of knowing how to use a calcium reactor. Once you understand it they work well, I haven't touched mine in weeks, tank levels are perfect. Not knocking any other system though, they all have their uses, and in fact I've used most of them over the years. But now I've got a ca reactor I would not go back.

Yes the surfaces had to be dry, but I just towelled them they were still a bit damp, but it worked OK. Would be awesome if there was something like that could be used under water.

Well went & got the supa glue & chopped up a few acro frags just to try it out, very effective and incredibly easy! wish i'd tried supa glue years ago. There was one that claims to be dishwasher safe ie it doesn't leach any toxins, and it is a gel, so that is the one I got.

Very interesting I never knew zooanthids spawn.

Like yourself Duke, I put some uncured rock into my tank recently when I set up the new one. Actually it was 6 kg dry uncured rock, added to the approximately 20 kg existing cured rock. I thought I could wind up the zeovit & deal with the extra nutrients, but in fact there were some problems. I still have a phosphate & nitrate problem, nitrate is around 10 ( used to be zero ), and phosphate is around 0.10, used to be around 0.02 ( hanna ). Phosphate when i initially set up the tank was much higher, at around 0.70 but dropped fairly quickly to 0.10, but i have not been able to get it lower. Not sure if this is still a residual effect from the uncured rock, or it may be I have set the zeovit reactor up a non standard way, I thought it was clever but it may be a mistake. Or it may be something else, I don't know. Also, simply setting up the new tank can upset things and cause some problems. Anyhow, be interested to hear how you go. For me, I'm hoping phosphate will sort itself out, but it has not shifted for several weeks now.

Let's face it Layton, a lot of stuff you come up with seems to be contradictory. This is one of the problems with the way you post unidentified, anonymous quotes, and hold them up as gospel. Anybody could have said them. Another problem is the way you like to post "myths", and "facts". A lot of your "myths" are facts, and a lot of your "facts", are myths. You were saying I was wrong, and as usual, that was your preoccupation, not the truth. To say otherwise is just more word games. If you were really interested in finding and sharing the truth, when Randy gave it to you, you would have come back to this forum & shared it. Instead, you went strangely quite because to your horror what Randy explained to you was what I'd been saying the whole time. Of course, if you had been right, you would have been back here with it in a flash. As demonstrated by how fast you came back with that graph you thought proved me wrong :lol: . Anyhow, the way you insist on arguing even when wrong is really sad. You always just HAVE to win. But that is not life Layton, and as you get more mature perhaps you will learn to look before you leap. I'd now suggest you take the advice I offered a few pages back, and get over it. But if you can't, send me a pm, don't degrade the thread even more. If you are still trying to win this, you won't, because you are wrong, plain & simple. Let it go, it's a learning experience for you.

The Gilmours house brand is not the best quality, fine to use in baking, but not necessarily for our tanks. Having said that, it is the one I use, but only because I don't use much of it, if it was my only KH additive I would use something else. As for a 3 way dosing system per Chimeras suggestion, this will definately work. I did this myself for a time by using a 3 channel dosing pump. However, there is a drawback, you will actually use a lot more chemical than is being used by the corals, as much of it will precipitate out. When I was doing it my pumps calcified much faster also. It is nice to dose the magnesium automatically too, but not that essential, as it depletes more slowly & a weekly or even much less often top up with magnesium will not adversely affect the corals.

I agree with you both, no doubt these stupid arguments do provide some amusement. But to me, I find them degrading. In fact, I will often not post something, knowing Layton will automatically want a stupid argument over it. Notice I at first tried to avoid this last one, even although I knew I was right, however Layton just HAD to persist. Sadly, Layton will always keep arguing, even when he is wrong, as he has just demonstrated. Layton I feel you have over 2 years made us BOTH look like jerks, and I am insulted that you persist with this. Having said all this, you do have many good attributes, if you could stay with what you do know, for example electronics, you can be an attribute to the forum.

You are still playing word games Layton. The reality is you thought you had caught me making a small mistake, and then set about going to huge lengths trying to make my statement seem it isn't correct. Here is an example of you doing it. Note you said So it seems that this isn't correct in the case of CO2 In fact, you were incorrect. You then further demonstrated your lack of understanding by attempting to write chemical formulae to prove your point. In terms of demonstrating your point the chemical formulae were flawed and did not make sense. I don't really wish to go on about this any more in fact i wish the whole thing had not happened. I'm just saying if only you would check your facts before you start these stupid arguments, none of the arguments over the last 2 years would have ever happened, the forum would have been a much happier place.

Well, looks like you should check your facts BEFORE you start silly arguments Layton I now have absolute proof, I WAS RIGHT THE WHOLE TIME!!! Both the initial statement I made, and the one I added some words to for your understanding, were both correct. After trying to find your facts at Reef Central, and presenting your formulas, here is what you asked Randy Quote Layton "Is this calculation correct (logically at least, Ka values may be wrong)? If so, it's showing me that for two different alkalinity levels if you change the partial pressure of CO2, then the pH drops by the same amount in both cases?" Randies reply Quote "No, they will not drop by the same amount. Take an extreme, with no alkalinity (no HCO3- or CO3--). The first little bit of CO2 will drop the pH way down, like you'd get in fresh water. For a small amount of CO2 added, the pH drop is directly proportional to the amount of alkalinity. I don't know how your equation shows anything about the effect of CO2 on pH. The level of carbonate is not a constant. The higher the alkalinity, the higher the amount of carbonate at any given pH." End quote. Here are the 2 most interesting parts again :- No, they will not drop by the same amount. and:- I don't know how your equation shows anything about the effect of CO2 on pH I did wonder why you suddenly backed off telling me I am wrong a few posts ago and insinuated you were "just asking" :lol: Checked the timing and found out it was after Randy told you you were wrong. So all of a sudden you were "just asking" :lol: I am hoping this will be a lesson to you about your stupid arguments, and also I am tired of you constantly trying to insinuate that I am wrong about this, that, or whatever, when it is obvious, to me anyway, that you often do not have a full grasp of the facts and are simply wanting an argument. You could have saved yourself some embarrasement if you'd let the whole thing go way back when I said I really did not want an argument, instead of doggedly carrying on. Do you still think it was worth all the effort you put into trying to split hairs over this? I am hoping I am going to be able to post on this forum like anyone else now without you always trying to argue everything I say. You have never proved me wrong on anything yet, just ruined lots of threads.

When I changed over tanks recently many of my sps, leathers & mushrooms sat out of water for 3 hours. Nothing died although most sps went brown after the move, although there could be several causes I'm not sure which. Wasn't sure how lps go out of water so they stayed in water. About chucking water they have been moved in, IMHO you should if you can afford to, the corals, if moved in water, will make a lot of slime it will be better to stock the new tank with clean water.

Righty Ho! I'll head off to Bunnings & get started! Wasn't it amazing to see those brains get cut up. I thought it would get chopped in 1/2, and then he just keeps going & going! Had me cringing to watch, but he will certainly get a heckuva lot of corals from one big one!

So just normal superglue is good, Suphew? I assume the bits must be thoroughly dry first?

Yes I have some speed glue but it's a slighly different application, you use it for bigger jobs, the sort of thing you would otherwise use two part epoxy for. I was looking at the way he glued those fine wafers on, need something to do that type of thing.

That superglue he was talking about, anybody know a good one for the purpose that can be purchased here?

Do you think it's been an aweful lot of effort just to split a few hairs Layton?

Well Hey look what I found! Someone trying to check their facts on one forum, AFTER they opened their mouth on this one! :lol: :lol: http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... did=858930 This, from Randy, will also enlighten, Layton Quote "The higher the alkalinity the more the tank is buffered against changes in pH due to the addition (or removal) of any acid, including CO2/H2CO3/carbonic acid. However, there are other factors as well. The buffering provided by bicarbonate/carbonate is greater the higher pH is in the range of 7.5 to 9."