cookie extreme

please note the time chim was bored (1:29 am ) know what i would do at that time!

i received a message on saturday? that they are having some problems and were working on it.

where did part one go???

zeovit makes a great product (speed glue) that cost about the same has aqua-knead-it. but it looks like rock from day one. its a kind of concrete powder that will set hard within 5 minutes above and under water. and it doesn't look ugly for month before its covered with coraline algae. looks superb with SPS frags from day one, don't think i will ever go back to epoxy. :bounce:

if you wouldn't spend half the day on this forum your house could be finished by now! how many post have you done in less then 2 years? 4020 8)

if you don't like the advise/answers you are getting.... yes!!!! it becomes quite frustrating if beginners have no (thats none) knowledge whatsoever regarding marines and ask very simple questions that a book would cover all in one go (and most of the time this book is written by someone who knows). the advise aims also at beginners in most cases. where here on the forum you will get more in depth/conflicting advise that seem more useful to someone that allready has a little bit of info/knowledge (i.e. salinity, KH, nitrogen cycle etc). none of any of the advise is meant negative or rude even if it comes accross that way. we all like to help some more some less, but help nevertheless. have fun with that new hobby of yours.

thats the reason i never reply to any off these questions because you look bad in the end being such an honest truthful reefer in giving them a straight answer. i rather give my advise ion person to people that come to see me for help or to get some frags etc.. one is then able to ask all the right quetions, getting answer and can make recommandations face to face. i quite often get questions like what light is needed when i sell mushrooms at trade me. my response lately has been to buy a beginners guide to marine keeping. basic start up help needed = buy a beginners guide to marine keeping thats the best advise i can give you and you wont get pissed off with people either.

T. Gigas?

very impressed with the lighting today. very bright for such a large tank. (5 * 80 watt T5's on icecap ballast). my tank looked almost dark compared!!

i was living in the maldives (veligandu island, north rashdoo, aari atoll) in 1998/99 and would say that 90% is a bit over the top. maybe in certain locations. true is that lots of corals were dead by the time i arrived. sad part was that most tourists went "oh look at the beautiful white corals aren't they pretty" until they got told the corals were dead hence the white colour. but in saying that this was only in the top 3-5 meters and mainly in the inner lagoon. the outer reef with a lot deeper water and heaps more water flow didn't seem to be affected much. but like i said this could be different from location to location. if anybody around akl is interrested to have a look at the under water pic' i took they more then welcome. the other thing i did notice was the speed that new small acro colonies pop up everywhere. (mortality on those was quite high IMO at about 50% but i couldn't comment if this is the norm). it was acro's that suffered the highest mortillity overall. the diving was still awesome.

yellow damsels look good but will not form a group. they will each claim their own territory and defend it. with one in the tank the clowns could move to the other side of the tank, but having 3 or more damsels they could find themselves in a situation of not finding a peaceful corner at all wich could lead to stress in the long run. :-?

very good i would have never guessed! and here is poor me trying to get "real" pictures.

bet ya he sits with his torch in front of his tank to watch the "night life" :bounce:

being a grazer i would say very little to get the algae growing, so no zeovit.

or with a bit of coconut cream while still wiggling (like they eat a kind of worm over there that comes from the sea {palolo worm}. i didn't try it and don't call me chicken but it was "juck" just to look at.

keep an eye out for your red and green LPS, they must be very tasty to some angels! mine ate my red trach within a day and a half. and the green scolymia is recovering in the garage. also likes red brains. :-? but sofar hasn't picked on any SPS or leathers (maybe xenia but its hard to tell)

:roll:

kind of right, but if the effluent has a PH of 6.7 but contains very little KH and Calcium whats the point of having a calcium reactor. the flow could be to fast and not enough media desolves or not enough CO2 is being added. even if the the PH is lower then 6.7 thats ok you can always run the drip over more coral rock to release more CO2 or aireate (spe.?) it before it goes into your systems to remove excess CO2. and i am not against the idea to add bicarbonate at all, its just the amount that worries me.

i managed once to get some rock from a guy further south that imported rock (thats vague enough i guess) he had over a ton of live rock coming in with beautiful growth on it. almost everything fitted in the drum with the bleach. well almost everything

add some leathers corals first! many add a small damsel but once in its hard to get out, so unless you want to keep it (i still have mine!) start with a couple leathers corals. they are very hardy, i have added one before my cycle even started. and it grew like crazy.

thats not cheap!! ad to it your labour cost, some profit , GST and suddenly your up there with the expensive skimmers. sorry forgot the advertising cost and marketing. :-?

very good question Layton! hi chim, get your reactor back on track with effluent coming out at 50-55 KH. this should also bring the calcium down a bit. make sure you got enough mag chips in the calcium reactor to raise your mag a bit. also if you can disconnect your fuge for a day or two and see if the result is the same (KH and PH) in both systems! is your PH stable at the moment or is it swinging as well? you not using any other acids around the tank in any form (building etc?) that may end up via skimmer or other in your tank?

yeah i purchased a few corals over the years for the extra's and not the actual coral. 8) lots of americans do that with stuff from the caribbean because of the ban of the collection of stony corals.

so why would you have a bacteria problem? what use are they if what they cosume is carbon in form of KH? why don't have people the same problem? and it is a problem due to the fact that your reef is very unstable? does one speed up the problem by adding BS and encourage the bacteria population to explode? chim you may have to add more mag chips to your reactor then the instruction says, i have over 20% in mine.

come again? if nothing is "wrong" then why add so much sodium bicarbonate? i would say that something is wrong if the KH drops so fast in such a short time considering Chim has already added quite a bit. if thats the case you would have to test nearly every day to prevent the tank from collapsing! if you call that nothing is "wrong" what would you call wrong. also you trying to fix it directly with adding baking soda. so instead of chucking more and more in one should find a solution to the problem and not a quick fix that has to be repeated constantly resulting in massive swings (another bad thing) in KH. one of the reefer on this side did the same thing (he is from dunedin) and ended up with a KH of 20 and very little calcium. all i say is be careful adding heaps. the last thing you want is a KH of 8 and dead and/or dying corals.