milesmiles902

I don't think that high of nitrates is a good thing. I am astonished that your nitrates are ~20ppm with multiple five gallon water changes a week (bolded). I do two on a 75 display, ~90 gallon water volume and there is never any nitrate or phosphate issues. If you don't find what the source is you will probably burn through GFO, which is fairly expensive. How much are you feeding at once? What are you feeding? We should try to get to the bottom of this. It might be the skimmer. Do you keep the water level fairly constant? What is getting caught in the skimmer? I only have macro-algae causing issues in mine, otherwise it never gets clogged. A refugium would help. Getting a test kit for phosphates would help too.

Welcome to the club. If you run into anymore challenges we are here to help. Someone around here has to know or can at least point you in the right direction.

Here's my update. Two mouths, but not two bodies...Maybe this is the start of something good.

Huh. Never seen anything like those before. I've had montipora eating flatworms and acro ones before, but they were never that dark. More translucent white or red. I completely agree with keeping insecticides out of the house while the baby is still newborn. Things like Revive are pure essential oils and might be a good alternative (limonene oil and citrus oil). I am unsure about Coral RX. Where did you hear about the hydrogen peroxide and potassium chloride dip? I don't cruise any other forums and am curious. I could definitely see them working, but I wouldn't know what concentrations to start with. If you are running an experiment on SPS you could easily buy the solid online and test different concentrations.

That's awesome you built your own dosers and you bring up a good point. What all does everyone does in their tanks? Outside of hand-dosing.

How fast do these things eat them? There are tons of zoas out there that grow at ridiculous rates. Almost like GSP. I have one in my tank that is definitely becoming a nuisance. We should just bring old zoas each month as a sacrificial tribute to a club nudi tank.

I think a lot of good things were said here. I just feel guilty. At least when people go hunting they eat the meat. We just watch them for our pleasure assuming that they are happy. I would hate to be pulled from the breeding population. The pros and cons both have tons of weight to them. We wouldn't be able to produce captively raised species if we didn't get fish from the sea. Reef builders showed at least 5-10 new species captively bred in the last year. Some were even pelagic spawners, which are very hard to breed. I guess taking it slow, buying from a reputable source and buying fish that we know are sustainable is the best we can do. I do believe that there is sustainable harvesting, I just wonder if we really know that these fish we are buying were sustainably harvested. It would be interesting to hear from some local fish stores. I really don't know the whole process.

I think it is an awesome piece of equipment. I had to re-calibrate the doser, which took about an hour, but since then it has been rocking. I trust it at this point. You bring up a good point. I think after two, four and eight weeks I am going to see if there is dosing drift. I wouldn't be surprised. If it is adding another mL over a month I don't think it would hurt the tank too much because the corals are growing. I'll throw up a table in a couple months. Thanks for the advice.

Same here. I have never seen a goni produce sweeper tentacles. The tank is coming along. Maybe one of these days I'll have something to trade.

Hey everyone, Been out of the house a lot lately and I end up skipping dosing for a morning or afternoon with my schedule - or- I have to have my roommates dose my aquarium. Kind of scary putting all of my corals in the hands of another person, especially with something that can incinerate them if done wrong. So, I got myself a doser. From left to right I have Calcium, Alkalinity, Red Sea Energy A+B Mix and lastly water. For now I went and cut some PVC to hold the hoses, which works pretty well. I know a lot of amino acids/vitamins decompose under light, so I went and added a solid white hose for the energy blend. Looking at it now I need to also put a white hose on the inlet. i know it should be refrigerated, but I just don't leave a lot out at once. The water dosing is a way to compensate for an auto-top off. Temps don't change much in the house and the evaporation rate is usually constant. Gotta love the dried gorilla glue. The corals took a hit with climbing phosphates and nitrates, and lack of consistent dosing, but some of them seem happier since I've added it: Can you see the acro-crab? It was a hitchhiker from Jeff's grand opening. Shhh. Don't tell him. Anemone I got from Gil & Fin. It's split a couple times now. Roommates dog with half-eaten carrot. He loves ripping out the stuffing. Recently, he has been stock piling half-eaten animal legs and only the leg. He eats the rest, but leaves the leg. I think there are four or five around the house. The sump area. The baffles just fell apart last week. I have been told that acrylic-silicone-glass is a bad idea and next round plan to design my sump before the tank. It was poor planning on my part. I have had this beaut for about 5 years, but this run is about 1.2 years old. There is a lot of stuff I am going to fix next time, but for now it's my baby.

You must have done a good job in moving. Twice.

Or the monthly meeting at the end of this January. You would just have to tell me what you are looking for and I'll bring it.

I have a few types of birdsnest already fragged, duncans, mushrooms, and xooanthids if you want some free LPS. There are also a bunch of montis lying around, maybe a pavona or two. Just come down to Corvallis. I am sure you'll find some coral.

Water pump and hose.

My sump looked like that last week. I have been seeing NO3- and PO43- rise and thought cleaning the sump would help. It did. I think a lot of the junk down there was finally decomposing and began causing issues. I probably do it every six months, but only because it's hard to access. If I ever build another tank I will probably make the sump easier access.

He should be added to: http://www.pnwmas.org/page/officersandboard2017.html

That's pretty creative. Keep up the work!

Welcome back Cherany! Glad to see that goniopora still kicking. It's my favorite.

Great Pictures, Tanuki!

Can you make it to the January's monthly meeting? http://www.pnwmas.org/topic/39515-january-2017-meeting-at-hollys/ There will be a frag swap then: http://www.pnwmas.org/topic/39558-january-2017-meeting-frag-swap/

Welcome! Glad to have you on the team.

I am just curious. No hard feelings. If you feel it isn't an issue because there are plenty of them and we regulate the capture of species, say it. If you think all species are sadly being taken from the wild and should never be. Let's hear it. Maybe you just feel some species are over captured, etc. I want people to be open about this. After all this is the place to talk about it. It is in our constinution. xD

What are people's opinion of wild-caught ornamental fish? *Washes hands clean still having two wild-caught fish*

100 dollars.

Show me the goods!