MadReefer

Check the salinity of the water that is in the bag with the fish when you bring it home. Some stores use hypo in their fish only systems but it is hard on the fish when you try to raise them back to full salinity. That is just a guess with the information provided. Can you give us more details about your water? What is the alk? Give it a few weeks/months. Make sure there is algae in the tank for the angel to graze on. Then it might be time to try again.

I always try to run near natural sea water levels. It works for me.

Oceanic all the way. I had a tank split and lost 80% of the water out of a 60 gallon tank. I mixed up some tap water with Oceanic and filled it back up in just a couple hours (as fast as I could). Fish looked happy right away and all but the tips of corals that were out of water the whole time survived. I don't know how other salts would work in this situation, but Oceanic has never given me a reason to switch.

I think the nice thing to do is only enter drawings for stuff you will use. But you don't have to be nice if you don't want to. If you want to donate to the club, but don't want to win anything. You can donate cash. Or if you win something you don't want, donate it to the next event's raffle. These are JMO. I find it strange that the seller's post would be removed. Once it is your item, shouldn't you be able to do whatever you want with it?

I run alk at 8-9 dKH. Cal about 350-450 If the alk is low, the pH will be low. This will start dissolving stuff in the aquarium. Also it will make it hard for animals to build things like shells and skeleton. So it could be part of the problem with the feather duster. Honestly I've heard mostly bad things about feather dusters, such as they die slowly unless they have a lot of tiny food that can be supplied by a big refugium. So in a small tank like yours, I'm not sure how good the idea is of having one at all. Hopefully others with more experience with feather dusters will chime in with more information specific to their care.

Open top is great. Is a power head moving the water around so you see ripples on the top of the water? Other than that, don't worry too much about pH. Just get your alk tested and add baking soda solution/alk additive if needed. I suggest you buy an alk test kit. You should know how to maintain these: temperature specific gravity/salinity alk cal

How are you trying to get pH up? The only way you should is by controlling alk and make sure there is good gas exchange.

Carbon filters are cheap. If you ran a few of those to a storage container and used a little prime, you probably would not have too much of a problem. If you wanted ammonia and phosphates gone you could setup some type of veggie filter before you use the water.

I hear ya, and I used to worry about that. Here in Utah my TDS is about 400. But in reality it is mostly cal and alk. If I did more water changes I would use tap for everything. But I only change water every 3-6 months so my top off water needs to be as clean as I can make it. Often with water changes I just use tap treated with Prime.

RO might waste water that you have to pay for, but it's not a problem for the sewer as they have to add water to process the waste. That's what I've been told anyway. Also, it will waste your DI resin if you don't use the RO. IMO you don't need the DI. But I use the full RO/DI. 6 stages total. 1- sed. 2- carbon 3- carbon 4- RO 5- DI 6- DI

You might be doing too many water changes. With what you've said, I would suggest you stop water changes for a week or two. Personally, I only do water changes every 3-6 months, unless something is testing off.

I think that you should add some macro to the display and maybe a piece of live rock and a cup of sand from an established tank. Don't worry about the ich other than making the environment as happy as it can be.

These would work: http://www.koiphen.com/forums/showthread.php?117567-1000-gallon-tanks-forsale

I have a 2000 gallon koi pond. If I won the powerball it would quickly become a shark pond. Because I'm in Utah, it would cost a lot to heat and I would have to build a structure over it so that it wouldn't waste too much energy. If I had the space I would build a wood frame, line it with carpet, and put a pond liner in it. I bet it would be less than $400 to setup and it would be about 1000 gallons. Then down the road if I had the money for a better tank, this build could be converted to the sump. I think this is very cool and I'll keep watching and seeing how it goes for you as I dream of something like this in the future.

58 is my guess