melev

I say that tongue in cheek, but in a way it's true. One of the best pieces of advice I got from Joe's 20,000g reef (video) was how he stays ahead of trouble before it happens, steering the 'ship' to avoid catastrophe. Fixing stuff post-wreck is far more expensive and time consuming.

Earlier this year, I explained how nitrates rose to extreme levels for no good reason. It just happened and I couldn't explain it. I did a number of things to get them back under control, and last Sunday's ...

As you know if you follow my blog, I share the good with the bad. I hate admitting the bad, because people often put my up to higher standards and I already set my own standards quite high, but here's the scoop:

The staghorn coral continues to STN slowly from the base up. And a couple of other spots of white appeared in about three more corals. I kept testing, trying to find the cause. When I tested nitrate this week, they were off the chart. Since that doesn't match what I measured ...

I just got back from MACNA late last night, but walked in on a semi messy situation. It took me about 30 minutes to get everything squared away, and I was really glad I didn't extend my trip by even a day. As you know from my previous blog, I concluded that I badly overdosed Prodibio and caused issues with some corals in the process. I also worked hard to get things back on track before it was time to fly to Denver.

At the show, I explained what I had observed to the president ...

Checking on an acropora in the reef today, I saw new white areas of damage on a coral that has never suffered once. Since I thought I'd resolved the alkalinity situation earlier this week, that meant two things: 1) I'm not done with areas of loss, and 2) I hadn't found the solution yet. The anemones still aren't their normal happy selves, and the SPS losses are discouraging. I should just fill the tank with leathers and mushrooms and call it a day.

Every day this week my skimmer ...

Today, my reef turns one year old, but I can’t really feel the reason to celebrate. If anything, I’ve been really frustrated that my reef isn’t humming along nicely and showcasing beautiful corals that have been growing in over the past twelve months. At nine months, it was looking great and was vivid with color, now it feels almost like I’m starting over.



Granted, I’ve been very busy over the past few months ...