milesmiles902

What if your wish was to make coral grow at a rapid rate?

That would be so amazing. It would probably be so much cheaper if we each had our own "plot". Although, I could see pests being a huge problem. I guess with money...most of these wishes could come true. If we had the wish of perfect water quality, Triton would hate us. :P We could collect all the water from the wishers tank and just pass it around. Perfect water for everyone

Hey everyone, I thought this would be a fun one to start. If you had one wish, about any single thing in your aquarium...what would it be? I'll go first. My wish for would be to get a cuddlefish.and have it not eat everything else. Maybe that is two wishes. :P

What type of fish were you thinking of? I have never raised saltwater feeder-fish, but I do know that many freshwater fish can be acclimated to saltwater. I bet they are easier to breed too. Maybe start there?

This is going to be an exciting adventure. Glad we can be apart of it.

I am not going to say CO2 is the only thing that caused this. Don't get me wrong, I love my car as much as the next person. Although, there is no doubt that it contributes a great deal to the livelihood of the ocean and its inhabitants.

I can't remember how I came across this one: https://www.jcu.edu.au/news/releases/2016/may/federal-election-last-chance-for-the-reef-jcu-scientists It required some digging to find it, but it is a pretty decent read. I think there has been some eyes opening to the idea that these ecosystems need to be saved, but the problem is a lot of the issue comes from global problems. An example would be overproduction of CO2. Well, CO2 couldn't cause problems because it is in the atmosphere, right? Wrong. Ocean acidifcation is caused from excess CO2 and this annihilates coral skeletons (think about a calcium reactor). Until we can come together and solve these world problems, I think we will just have to continue to understand that these things are going away. Rapidly. Note: Here is the original article http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272771416301469

Secretly, this skimmer is the father of the other skimmer. This is the scene where Luke...err...the baby skimmer throws it's father down the reactor shaft. That reef hackers club is an amazing group. Good job on the build.

Top View: Side View: Tank Parameters: Calcium: 420 Alkalinity: 9.8 Magnesium 1280 pH: 8.2 NO3-: 0.05 PO43-: 0.00 Dosing: 10mL Red Sea Energy A+B every other day A bit of Reef Chili every other day 0.25mL of Vodka in the morning and night Edited: Said 2.5mL :P 24mL of Randy Holmes-Farley Alkalinity 30mL of Randy Holmes-Farley Calcium Fish food once a day. Usually frozen. Equipment: 4 x Koralia 1500 alternating in pairs with the Hydora Koralia Smart Wave Pump Controller on 1 min alternations - High Flow 2 x AquaIllumination Hydra 52's. 8 hours of blues with a 1.5 hour rise/decay. 6 hours of white with a 2 hour rise/decay

Ok. So here is the averaged tabulated data for three weeks of experiment. I will let you judge the data for yourself, but I would make sure to look at trends, rather than single data values. Also remember, there is a 10% to 15% deviation of test kits, which I think caused the variation. It may have been better to make these graphical, but the scale of numbers is too drastic for either logarithm or axis breaks. Here is the raw data for weeks #1,2 and 3. There was immense deviation in Magnesium tests, but most were consistent. Sometimes if I came across an outlier, I re-ran the test and commonly came to the same result. So, I began to accept what the test kit was saying. Salinity did rise slightly for the warm bucket by week #3, even with sealing them. pH stayed roughly the same. After weeks of testing, I finally found how long I am comfortable with leaving my saltwater. I hope others that use Reef Crystals will utilize this data and find their comfort zone.

Did you take out the old aquariums that were in that room? They were beautiful.

I will say the refresh feature has come in handy when I was typing something in the "quick-post" and someone else posted on the same thread. Other than that, it is an annoyance. What is the original reason for having the webpage auto-refresh? It would make sense for to not/limit auto-refresh if the banner never changes.

Simple is great. Plus, I didn't even expect there would be food.

Is this the miracle tank you were talking about last meeting? I remember you pointing out that your son has a tank that anything can survive in. Even when stuff is dying in your main tank, if you put it there it will live on.

That seem very reasonable after the results I have been getting. The last set of buckets will get pulled Wednesday and I will probably report on Thursday, but I wouldn't use Reef Crystals after two weeks, especially if it is warmed. That's what the data is at least showing. I haven't been opening the buckets either. They have been sealed the entire time and the bad things continue to rise. Hopefully the trend continues with the last set of buckets.

What are the water parameters looking like? I am sorry to hear that your tank crashed. No one wants that. :/

I thought it was going to be beautiful coralline covered rocks. Still I am happy to offer some corals for coming through Corvallis. Thank you.

That is so crazy that people think corals are not animals. Maybe that is why I never have to put a pet deposit down for my aquarium. :P What is this insurance called? Home owners insurance? Pet insurance? Maybe it falls under many categories. I don't know. Also, I feel that even with years of growth some corals could even be more expensive than the equipment you run. I would definitely want it to be covered.

Hey everyone, This thought rolled through my mind on the walk home. Who has insurance on their aquarium? Don't get me wrong I didn't even have car insurance for five years of my life, but now I have it and it doesn't seem too unreasonable to have aquarium insurance. After my car, it is the next most expensive thing I own. So, I was wondering...how expensive is it? Is there a good place to insure your aquarium? Is there any added benefits in the case of an earthquake? Who is your insurance provider? Insurance or not, I would love to hear what you have to say.

PM sent.

I think PowderBlue said it right. Have an end goal in mind. The path your tank takes really depends on your willingness to test, monitor and care for certain animals. Even the equipment depends on the type of animals in the tank. Large Polyped Stony coral are great places to start. I don't think it would be a bad idea to head to a local fish store and just start looking around. Start looking at the type of corals you want and design the system around them. Also, talk to the owner. They always have wisdom to give.

I don't have an apex, but these tips are very realistic. A power outage can kill a tank and the whole purpose of the Apex is lost. I hope if people are willing to put in the money for an apex, you are willing to try these out.

Hey Zwickm, I use Reef Crystals salt, which has a dKH of..11 something (It is on this forum somewhere). I keep my alkalinity of my tank around 9.8-10.2 most days. I want to lower it down, but I am in the same situation of using a salt that has a very high dKH. All in all, it doesn't bother my tank at all, since I dose in the morning and afternoon. Whenever I do a water change, I just don't dose the night of. The new water makes up for my dosing and probably more. If you are setting up a new tank, I would at least do 50/50 until they become acclimated. A new tank AND new salt might cause problems. I'd eliminate one variable. Also, don't add muriatic acid to the saltwater. It will lower your alkalinity, but I could definitely see someone adding too much. It would also upset the buffering capacity of the salt causing drastic swings. Lastly, I think each aquarium has it's own niche and you need to find that. Just like every salt has their own niche. Make any change slowly and everything will fall into place.

What type of fish is this anyway? Damsel?

I would love to take a poll to see how many reefers garden. There are so many of us that enjoy doing both. Maybe because they are both somewhat similar.