melev

As this day draws to its conclusion, I couldn't let it pass without mentioning it turned 7 months old today. 30 weeks of TLC and for the most part it has down very well.

Here's a couple of pictures from above, showcasing the double-thick Eurobracing of the Marineland custom-made 400g tank.





I just installed my Eheim autofeeder ...

WTMRAC (West Tennessee Marine & Reef Aquarium Club) had their frag swap today. They rented a huge building at the Agri-Center, and it provided everyone with plenty of space to set up tanks. There were at least 15 individual tanks set up, some from hobbyists, some home-based businesses and a couple of store owners as well. There was plenty of livestock to pick from.

I spoke about Pests in the Aquarium, showing image after image of baddies we don't want as well as benign good guys ...

At the end of the recent Frag Swap I attended in Tennessee, I asked the seller how much he wanted for all the Maxima clams in his tank. "Seriously?" he asked, and I said yes. After a little deliberating, we agreed on a price and he bagged each one up for me. They were in small clam cradles he'd made with frag plugs and two-part putty. If the clam was attached, he bagged it that way. If they were loose, the clam was bagged by itself and the cradles were ...

My reef was set up February 6, 2011. It's a 400g custom-made Starphire glass reef-ready tank by Marineland. The footprint is 84" x 36" x 30" with an external overflow at one end that is hidden behind a full sheet of black acrylic, providing five 1.5" drains to the sump underneath.




The sump is 58" x 31.5" x 17" and has a full length refugium zone. It holds a Euroreef protein skimmer, a Nextreef biopellet ...

I've wondered about re-using dead coral skeletons in a calcium reactor for years. I asked about the chance of the stony corals releasing PO4 into the water, but never got an answer of any kind. So I thought, I'll take some of the former colonies from my last reef tank and immerse them in RO/DI water for a week and then test for phosphate.

I filled the bucket with water, and tested it. Zero phosphates. In a week, I'll test again. It's not precise, but...

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