Blog Comments

Hopefully, it's just the new tank still settling in and will resolve itself soon...by the way, I really like the "strawberry" looking sps

I'm sure Jessy will take that as the compliment you meant it to be.

Well I just re-listned to all the old podcasts and listening to Jesse's story about vomiting off of the side of a boat for an afternoon makes me want to hear more.. What that doesn't sound right

I just posted up a picture of my refugium, which recently had two large wads ripped out to share with another guy. I'm not sure about your light that has fallen in and had some LEDs go out... might need to look at replacing it perhaps. With Grape Caulerpa, it is best to cut it with scissors rather than rip some out. The cut seems to pinch off the branches so they are less likely to bleed out anything.

I don't know why I kept referring to it as Asexual, as I read in a blog posted on here about it actually going sexual and not asexual. Anyways, I use a marineland 11" LED light which i have dropped in the tank on multiple occasions so about 5 or 6 of the LED's don't work. Maybe I should use something better for lighting? It seems to put out a lot of light, even though i have dropped it into the tank. It has done well, until recently. It also didn't get too heavy that I would need to trim it off, at least I don't think.

Grape is what I have as well, no one around has any feather type. I also need to get some chaeto in there, just haven't seen any in the LFS lately. I think as long as the grape gets trimmed regularly it is less likely to go sexual.

Yes, Grape Caulerpa is one of the worst offenders when it come to going sexual. What light do you use?

Thats good to know! I run grape caulerpa. I recently had some die off, I dont know what caused that, but it released some nitrates into the tank causing some cyanobacteria to grow. About 3/4 of it just widdled to nothing. It didn't turn white which most say is a sign of Asexual, it stayed green and just shriveled up then disappeared. It has since been growing back though.

.2 daily is about what one can expect. Yours is .25 daily, still fine.

My tank seem to vary from 7.8 to 8.0 daily, and has for the past two years. The 280g ran from 8.1 to 8.3 ... I miss that pH probe since it gave me a warm-snuggly feeling.

With some Caulerpa species, running the lights 24/7 seems best. For my refugium, I run it full of feather Caulerpa and the light is on from 2:30pm to 11:30pm. I should run it from 11:30pm to 7:30am, but I've been enjoying late night TV in the darkened room better. I may change it back to late nights to help bring up pH .1 perhaps.

I do run a refugium with caulerpa. I run it on a 24 hour cycle in fear of it going Asexual. Any thoughts on that as well?

That is fairly normal, do you have a refugium and is it on a reverse photo period?

On the subject of PH swings, what is a healthy amount of swing? My PH normally tops out at 8.3 when the lights go off, then in the morning before the lights go on it is around 8.05. Is this a normal amount of change?

I am not sure. I have some ph packets on the way to re calibrate. It has not been calibrated since the before moving houses. I have not paid too much attention to the numerical value as much as the swings which have been minimal. I am at a loss why the alk is low unless it is due to the Red Sea Pro salt I have been using. I mixed two tea spoons of Baking soda to some RO water and added to the tank to bring it up a bit. Going to retest it tomorrow.

I was surprised to find the NO3 and PO4 undetectable with the stringy brown algae in the tank. It is probably stuff coming from the old rock. My Macro is growing substantially since getting that new LED strip.

You'd think, right? I really do want to get one out soon.

I can send you a copy of my spreadsheet. What I do after entering and saving the file, I take a screen shot of the spreadsheet, cropping away all the stuff I don't want to display, and save that as an image to share.

How are you getting pH that high but lowered alk? What are you dosing presently?

Yes Henry, Marc insisted that I have the full set. He didn't offer to come plumb it all together Melev's way though.

Very nice! Can't decide if the first, or last is my favorite.

Cool, that's a gorgeous acan...bet you can't wait for that one to "grow in" a little more. You've got a good start. I'm really digging the low island/mounding rock work style. Gives lots of room for lots of different corals and gives plenty of room for them all to grow.

Blake, I am 99 percent sure it is an acan, the contours is what I am basing that on. Chalices seem flatter, less curvy.

Hey, that's one of those Melev's Reef top-off-systems huh. Very nice systems I hear.