Lexinverts

Here's mine, Holly. Do I win?

Are you making the donation, Tom? How about $25 sushi credit?

That's a bummer, Kelli. Did anything else in the tank RTN? Or just the Tenuis?

My bottles of reagent are apparently bad, per Hanna's website, but I cross-checked them with my Salifert kit and they are spot on.

I've got some nice big Orange Ricordeas--I know that is a common one. Also Strawberry Fields Montipora and a rare one, Montipora caliculata.

What is that one, Robert? That is pretty sweet!

Mine in starting to grow vertically now, and the color is really nice!

I almost always drip acclimate into a bucket, but this is usually because the water the fish is in comes from a system with copper in it. I never want to risk getting that into my system with corals! As for Lawn Mower Blennies, yes, I have had less success with this fish too. For some reason, I have better success with Starry Blennies, which are very similar fish.

The Premium Aquarium in Salem always has a ton of nice Acan lord frags. I have one that looks just like that, that I got from TPA.

He responded to my text. I'm going to pick it up in Eugene early next week.

Text message sent.

Now that Ecotech has lowered their prices and reduced the pump noise, I think they are worth it. I love my MP10s. They used to be 300 bucks and were really noisy. If you have a bigger tank, the Maxspect Gyres are a better value than the Ecotechs, but both work really well. I have found my Jebaos to lose some power over their lifetime, but they work pretty well for me for at least a year. You can get the WP25 pumps for 40 bucks on amazon. Nothing cheaper than that.

I have not had good success getting clams from Diver's Den. They have a great "stay alive" guarantee, however.

With a 38 gallon tank, you probably have about 30-ish gallons of water volume after you correct for the volume of the live rock and substrate. If you did a 5 gallon water change once per week, that would be about 17% of your water volume. If you are worried about nutrient levels in your system, this would be a better choice in my opinion. The reason that people often carbon dose is because they have systems of 100+ gallons and it is not feasible or cost effective to remove nutrients via water changes. The problem with carbon dosing is that it requires very close attention to detail and it is easy to overdo it and stress out or kill everything in your tank. I tried carbon dosing in my two 66 gallon Red Sea systems for about 10 months, and it was a lot of work and did not benefit my corals. I really tried to make it work. I added a medical grade peristaltic pump to my systems, and for a while I was testing my nitrates 2 or 3 times every day. The difficult thing is keeping your nitrates high enough to provide your corals with enough nitrogen to grow when you are carbon dosing. It's a razor's edge between too much and too little---at least it was in my systems. As soon as I turned off the pump, my corals stared to recover. Some people on the forum have had good success with carbon dosing, but these folks usually have large systems, and it is probably easier to prevent over dosing in large system. So, I would strongly recommend that you try something else to reduce nutrients, like regular water changes.

Thanks for the pictures! Wish I could have made it.

It has been ages since I updated this thread. Ever since I switched to LEDs in my home RSM250 system, I haven't been able to get a halfway decent shot. I finally got some of those amber filters from Barrierreef, and here are the results. It makes the tank look a little too yellow, so maybe I need to go with a lighter amber. As you can see, I really like Gonioporas! Bring on the LPS growout! As for the SPS, it has been a slow climb back up from my tank crash this summer. Finally, everything is thriving, from Zoas to SPS.

Steve came to the Scott Fellman talk a year ago. In the talk Scott referred to Steve's system as one of the all-time greatest tanks in reef-keeping. I wish I had a chance to see it. Apparently Steve lost it all in a catastrophic crash caused by skimmer overflow and then, in an emergency fix, replacing the lost water with tap water and a bad batch of dechlorinator.

Those A.R.I.D. setups are $1,500, plus they are too big for your RSM250. I've been thinking about trying one of these guys for one of my RSM250s. I wonder if you could use Chaeto with them? I know some people worry about buildup of toxins that can come from other types of algae. I'd like to try this instead of GFO, which I find to be messy and annoying. http://www.santa-monica.cc/HOG1x-Hang-On-Glass-UAS-Upflow-Algae-Scrubber-with-Green-Grabber-surface-and-Xtra-LEDs--1-Cube-feeding-per-day--MAGNET-VERSION_p_38.html

Are you getting a new tank, Son?

My goodness, Holly! How many tanks are you running now? You must have come through with a really nice Valentine's Day gift for your husband.

I'm really looking forward to this one!

Whoa! That's a long time to be gone from your system. Glad it still looks good!

It's ok, Jorge. Nobody liked my video either.

It's a wild acro that I got from Ocean in a Box during the party bus trip. Huge polyp extension on that one.

Do you mean phosphate is .02-1 or do you really mean 2-10? I've heard of some people having success with high phosphate, but that is a little higher than I would expect.