SuncrestReef

This video has been trending, and for good reason...It's just an awesome example of excellent engineering combined with karma:

I can understand people wanting to save money by buying 2nd hand equipment or maybe the gratification of building a DIY light fixture, but carbon media costs less than a couple trips to Starbucks. Really???

Thanks for asking. He's doing great! Yes, there's still some scarring, but he's got a strong appetite and is very active in the display tank. It's funny, I originally wanted a kole tang to tackle my green wire algae outbreak, but my emerald crabs took care of that before I even got the tang out of quarantine. That's a good thing because the tang seems to prefer cleaning off my snail shells rather than nipping at the rocks. 🤷‍♂️

Nice one! Welcome to the forums. Good to see another Beaverton reefer here.

I recently helped another forum member with setting up an Apex for backup power management. As for what model of UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) battery to get, it really depends on how many and what type of devices you plan to run, and for how long, on battery power. I'm using an APC BR1000MS on my Reefer XL 425: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0779KYKLB Things like heaters and return pumps will drain a battery very quickly. I recommend programming the Apex to shut down any non-critical devices to conserve battery life, but to do so, your Apex needs to know when it's running on the backup battery. This requires a 12V auxiliary power adapter that's plugged into a regular wall power outlet (not plugged into the UPS battery, while the Apex Energy Bar is plugged into the UPS battery) so it can detect when your house power fails. Here was the recent advice I gave: ---------- Purchase this Apex 12V auxiliary power adapter: https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/12v-power-supply-neptune-systems.html Plug your Apex Energy Bar into your UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) battery backup. Plug the new 12V power adapter into a regular wall power outlet and connect it to the Apex auxiliary power port. In Apex Fusion, click the Apex menu, then click Misc near the bottom of the menu Under the Power section, set Monitor to Enabled, then save the settings to your Apex. Once these steps are done, you can configure various outlets on your Energy Bar to react when your house power goes out. Here are some examples: Turn off return pump: Fallback ON Set ON If Power Apex Off 000 Then OFF Turn off heater: Fallback OFF If Tmp < 78.0 Then ON If Tmp > 78.0 Then OFF If Power Apex Off 000 Then OFF Turn on air pump: Fallback OFF Set OFF If Power Apex Off 000 Then ON In general, you should only run the bare minimum devices on battery power. Heaters, lights, and anything with powerful motors (like return pumps or skimmers) will drain the battery quickly, so they should be turned off. Since these programming commands need to be integrated with how things are already set up, I'd highly recommend you run things by me or other Apex support resources rather than just pasting in my examples. ------------- I took my setup to the next level with a whole-house generator, so my UPS only needs to keep things running for about 30 seconds until my generator automatically starts up and switches the whole house over to backup power. But that's beyond the scope of this thread...

Living the dream. 😎

I was sure to leave a bit of the film buildup on the inside of the neck which I think should alleviate the need for break in. I'll know for sure in the next day or so, and will report back.

Yes, along with a toothbrush and paper towels. All told, it only took about 1 hour.

Wow, that's impressive! Very cool.

My emerald crabs have eaten caulerpa, bryopsis, wire algae, and bubble algae. And they're really fun to watch!

And your frags are the best, too! Happy birthday!!

Today I thoroughly cleaned my Nyos Quantum 160 skimmer for the first time since starting my tank. It's been running continuously for 8 months with no problems, but in the past few days I started to notice the skimmer struggled to start up when turning it on. The motor was turning, but the air intake seemed to be restricted so the bubbles didn't start forming for about 20 seconds after turning it on. Before: \ After: I also took this opportunity to siphon out the detritus from the bottom of my sump: The skimmer is now running smoothly, and starts up right away without the delay I've seen recently.

Me: "Jeff, how much for that master scoly?" Jeff: "Normally I'd charge one gallbladder, but for you, just a spleen." 🤣

What's the going rate for donating a kidney?

What’s the latest update on this tank? Are you just waiting for it to cycle?

Since the bacteria lives primarily on the rock and in sand, your 50 lbs of rock being transferred will eliminate the need for any extra bacteria. As long as the rock is moved quickly from tank to tank, you shouldn't see any signs of "cycling".

The calcium carbonate can also precipitate if your 2-part liquids are dosed in close proximity or in low flow water. I use a small powerhead in my sump right below the dosing tubes so the liquids are rapidly dispersed before they have a chance to precipitate.

I used Dr. Tim's ordered from Amazon back in April 2018. It was $25 for 8oz. I dosed ammonium chloride as prescribed and saw a nitrite spike as expected. However, over the next several weeks nitirite remained high and I didn't see any increase in nitrate. I later learned that my phosphates at zero was inhibiting the cycling process. I was running my GFO reactor at full force because Pukani rock is known to leech a lot of phosphate and I wanted to avoid algae outbreaks. After turning down the GFO reactor to allow phosphates to increase a bit, I suddenly saw an increase in nitrates and a decrease in nitrites. The cycling ended up taking 5 weeks for me, but I think it would have gone a lot faster if I wasn't sucking out all the phosphate while cycling. Just keep this in mind.

Yes, I have a microscope! (see my recent post:) Too bad I didn’t keep a sample when I cleaned the coral yesterday. If it comes back, I’ll examine it and post microscope photos.

It looks a lot better today after yesterday's cleaning. I also increased the flow so hopefully the cyano won't come back.

Yes, it cooks vermitids in their tubes. I've also used it on bubble algae.

If you can't find it locally, you can order it from Amazon with 2 day delivery or next day pickup with Amazon Prime: https://www.amazon.com/DrTims-Aquatics-Nitrifying-Bacteria-Saltwater/dp/B002DVRHMS

I found another aiptasia, this time in my refugium. Here's a video of killing it with the laser. It took a little time to get the laser focused, but at 0:28 you'll start to hear the aiptasia sizzling as the laser cooks it. Sorry for the red lighting, but that's from the chaeto grow light.

No signs of it on the sand or anywhere else that I can see. Only on this particular frag. It's in a pretty low flow area. I managed to siphon it off using Julian's Thing. I'll keep an eye out if it returns or pops up elsewhere.

Over the past couple days I've started to notice a brownish slime covering my Blue Summit Monti. I have not seen this anywhere else in my tank. Here are some detailed macro shots: It normally looks like this: