SuncrestReef

I have not. But since I’m heading to the coast this weekend, I might collect a small sample to bring home and test the water parameters just for fun. I’m curious to see the alkalinity and nutrient levels.

And I need salt. Must...resist....buying...more.......corals! 🤣

11am tomorrow at CNC would be perfect!

They appear the same size to me. The only way I can tell them apart is that one has a notch missing from its tail. When would you be able to pick up, either at my house or we could meet at Cuttlefish? My only scheduling challenge is that I'm heading to the coast tomorrow evening through Sunday. So I could either meet before 4pm tomorrow, or after Sunday 3pm-ish. I just want to break these two up as soon as possible to avoid any injuries.

I just looked it up, and maybe I’m wrong. Everyone says the male has a log spike on the first dorsal fin, but mine don’t have that. Here’s another video of them taunting each other before the fight began:

I have two mandarins that had been peacefully coexisting in my tank for weeks, but now it's becoming obvious that they are both males and are starting to fight for territory. I'd like to give one away before either one is harmed. You MUST have an established reef tank 50 gallons or larger with a healthy pod population because these mandarins do not eat any frozen or flake foods. They will only eat live copepods and will starve within days if you don't have pods, and they go through them quickly. If you're not sure if you have pods, then please pass on this so the fish goes to a known compatible environment. I'm located in Beaverton.

@Kingtriton92 That's a good thing since ReefBox is probably the closest store to you.

Very cool. I'm definitely interested in seeing your future write ups and further data analysis. Thank you so much for including us in your project! Please let us know if you ever want additional samples to see how things change over time.

Yes, I dip every coral before it goes in the tank. I still ended up with aiptasia, red bugs, bristle worms, asterina stars, stomatella snails, bryopsis, ulva lactuca, and bubble algae. None of these were introduced on purpose. If all of these critters survived the dip, I'm sure bacteria weren't deterred.

Eli, I know you probably need some sleep after all your work on this, but overall did our samples provide data you were roughly expecting, or were you completely surprised by the results?

Here's that summary:

Here's the breakdown of microbial families in my tank. I'm all about the Pelagibacteraceae. 🤓

Where do you keep your NO3 and PO4?

In my case I'm guessing it's random luck. I have added inverts from 3 stores, corals from 5 stores and 11 individuals, and fish from 3 stores. The only other possible source of life was from a bag of "live sand" I added while my tank was still cycling because I decided I wanted a deeper sand bed but I didn't realize the extra bag of sand I ordered wasn't dry sand.

NO3: 4 - 8 ppm (measured by Red Sea Pro which doesn't give any granularity between those two values) PO4: 0.02 - 0.03 ppm (measured by Hanna ULR Phosphorus HI 736) I'm trying to reduce nitrates to combat a bubble algae outbreak.

I'm guessing it was the aiptasia infestation at that stage of my tank progress that pushed me over the top! 🤣 All kidding aside, I started my tank with dry Pukani rock and Dr. Tim's bacteria.

I don't want to brag, but...

Yes, the Apex Classic is fully compatible with all Neptune modules except for the EB832 and Trident. The DOS will work fine.

Very cool! Do you mind if we share snippets of our reports here in this thread to compare with our fellow participants? We're a bit of a competitive bunch, so I want to show off my relatively high microbial diversity score! 🤣

+1 on the Hanna Alk tester. That's all I would use if I didn't have a Trident. 😎

I've been trying to find a good replacement for my wife's 5 gallon tank at her office. Being a wine lover, this would be perfect for her!

Congrats! You'll love it. Let me know if you have questions about how I have mine set up.

Here are a few more links to my macro photos for you: http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/topic/44433-new-top-down-macro-photos/ http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/topic/43554-new-macro-lens/ And a macro video using the same Nikon D610: http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/topic/44599-coral-macro-video/?do=findComment&comment=442134

I learn so much from this hobby, and much of it totally at random. I never knew about the IP rating scale. Thanks for posting this.

I choose not to use filters on my DSLR. Instead, I set the camera's white balance as far to the blue spectrum as possible and it really helps to compensate for the blue lights. I have a Nikon D610 which can only go as high as 10,000 Kelvin on white balance, but it's enough to work well. See some of my macro photos with the Nikon here: http://www.pnwmas.org/forums/topic/45689-macro-photos/ What DSLR do you use?