Higher Thinking

Jeff is the man! Happy birthday and thanks for always going above and beyond with extra effort.

That's it! I want my money back!

😉

Congrats y'all!

Yeah, that's a tough one. There's definitely no guarantee for coral longevity. That being said, most online retailers at least have a live arrival guarantee. 

However, I only buy corals from local shops. I've actually never purchased livestock online before. I can't go wrong with the relationships and trust I have with the local shop community. Your relationship with the seller will be the determining factor about what the recourse will be. You may need to provide a water sample to verify your parameters, but a local shop owner could conceivably work to make it right. 

On 12/10/2020 at 1:57 PM, Trailermann said:

Since I got no useful feedback on R2R, perhaps some sympathetic club member has some advice. 

I am wondering why many people run a pump periodically to circulate the salt mix once the salt is thoroughly dissolved. Any ideas?

Second question: If a closed loop is set up with canister filter and pump, would that reduce the brown precipitate that forms in the salt mix tank?  It is extremely inconvenient for me to clean out the bottom of the tank every two to three months.  I saw some set up on BRS earlier but cannot find it now.

People do a lot of things just because other people do them. And those other people only do them because they heard of someone else doing it. I think having some healthy skepticism is good. In this case though, I'm not really sure whether there is merit to long term or period recirculating. 

I recall BRS doing some kind of test about keeping the pump going continuously or just a few hours. You'll have to look it up because I can't remember the conclusion to which is best. Maybe it was a day or two.... 🤷🏼‍♂️

On another note, I've yet to scrub down my mixing barrels. I probably should. I just open the spigot and flush the first half gallon because that inevitably has a lot of sediment. Maybe I'll improve on this process someday. 

On 12/10/2020 at 10:03 PM, pdxmonkeyboy said:

So I spend a bit of time here and there on hubblefishes forum and it seems that the latest guidance on fallow ich periods has changed.  It used to be 78 days but if you keep your temp constantly above 81.6 then you are good to go after 7 weeks.  

Thought i would pass that along. 

I wonder how the hotter temps affect the coral. This seems to be good news though. Humble Fish has produced a great deal of info for the hobby the last few years. 

1 minute ago, SuncrestReef said:

On the Eleventh Day of Giving my reef club gave to @susp1cious ... a VorTech MP40 powerhead!

Congratulations!  Your prize is available at Cuttlefish & Corals.  Since you're located in Olympia, contact @Higher Thinking if you want to coordinate shipping.

The drawing for the BIG 12th DAY PRIZE is tomorrow at 5:00pm!!!!

I'll be honest... That was a really major pump fake! I just got a notification that I was mentioned in the 12 Days thread. I immediately thought I won! Imagine my disappointment 😬😬. 

All good, of course. Congrats to the winner!

Like said earlier, it's a pretty cheap process and provides a good deal of piece of mind. Plus, you may even go larger later down the road. I built supports for my 180 and did so in a way that when I upgraded to the 360, I didn't have to do anything else except add a couple more brackets to prevent joist twisting. Can't tell from the photo, but that span looks pretty long. That's a big part of it, span length. 

1 hour ago, CuttleFishandCoral said:

30 hour old and already getting into fish. 

Literally the first place we stopped after leaving the hospital..... Because why not?  

I think the Apex will almost cost as much as the baby delivery 😆😆. 

3 hours ago, pdxmonkeyboy said:

Nice work!!  (bye bye tank funds.  LOL) 

That's why I've been trying to spend as much as I can with Jeff all year. 

4 hours ago, CuttleFishandCoral said:

Andrew! Congratulations goes out to our fearless leader! So happy for u and your wife. 

Thanks man! Our club's newest reefer!

I tend to think newborns always look like aliens, but she seems perfect (obviously I'm biased though, 😉😁🥰😘)

That's brutal, man. Real sorry to hear it. I think I can say with some confidence that every reefer has gone through something similar. Have you been using one salt box during this time? Could it be a bad batch?

I'm not convinced nutrient levels being high is to blame. Although stripping them too fast could be. Not saying that you did in fact remove them too fast, but in my reading and collection of hearing anecdotal evidence, stripping nutrients with stuff like gfo too rapidly is always way more damaging than just having elevated levels. 

Is there a fish addition that's eating coral? 

On 12/7/2020 at 8:57 AM, Reefsakes said:

Hmmm heard lots of good things about your shop. May have to visit soon

For reefsakes, get in there! 😁😁

Looking good. Keep em coming!

Give it to someone with a larger tank that would give it the room to stretch 😆🙋

Sorry this got lost in the shuffle. Free bump. 

6 hours ago, TheClark said:

Never mind that bubble algae, this is my son's tank 🤣

No officer, I promise. That stuff's not mine...

Welcome back to the game. Sounds like you had a pretty epic system. Biggest advancements if you haven't been keeping up are lighting (most going to LEDs) and reef controllers. I'd be looking into those if you're interested. 

15 hours ago, Hincapiej4 said:

Yea. I've had people say the calcium uptake is huge on a clam, but for me, it's the alk that's it's sucking down. Haha

That's the thing about calcium carbonate. It is formed with the exact same ratio of calcium and alkalinity at all times. That's 20 ppm calcium to 2.8 dKH alkalinity. That means for a coral to drop your tank 20ppm of calcium, your alkalinity will drop 2.8. That's why you'll always see alkalinity drop much more than calcium. 

Wowsers. You're quite the wordsmith!

1 minute ago, SuncrestReef said:

What can I say...the random number generator works in mysterious ways.

For the record, each person who entered was assigned a number in the order of their entries.  1 to 55.  I then use Google's Random Number Generator each day to select a number between 1 and 55 for the day's winner.

Oh I know, I'm just given him a hard time 😁

On 12/1/2020 at 5:27 PM, Manny Tavan said:

I can’t wait to....win nothing...story of my life...:)

59 minutes ago, Manny Tavan said:

Hmmm....🤔🤔🤔

Welcome to the club, great looking tank. 

Just now, obrien.david.j said:

Great timelapse shots of the Gigas growing.   How much time does it represent?

I got the clam in January. So right at one year overall. 

The Gigas continues its growth. This is definitely my favorite item in the tank. The rock it sits on was once a shallow dish for the clam to sit on. Now it can barely hold it!