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silly clowns, yeah mine ended up not taking the plunge yesterday of course. I am still crossing my fingers but now that it is at least noticing the anemone it is a start for it. Thanks I definitely have my hands full with this cyano right now, but hopefully things are looking up

Very cool. I'm jealous of the BTA clown combo. Mine are hosting the most expensive coral in my tank (typical right?)... my open brain. Good luck fighting off the cyano! :-)

oh and a quick update, I did just finish getting my RO-DI system hooked up, no leaks, a little modification, and 14 small holes drilled into my wall trying to locate studs later (my washroom used to be in the garage that was converted into a den so whoever did it used sheet rock then decided they didn't want to mud, sand, and paint it so they put a really back wood siding over it so they really didn't want me to find those studs) after flushing it and all that preliminary work I am currently seeing how much water I can get made before I have to go into work. now all i need is for everything to get here for my closed loop system

thanks guys for the input I will definitely look into everything, midnight it was my understanding that they believed carbon may disperse enough phosphates into the water to cause a cyano outbreak but I may be mistaken, though if this is true could that mean that there may be certain proven brands that don't cause it, seems like it may be worth looking in to (I am currently nor running carbon but I do from time to time)

also have you successfully ordered chaeto online before? I am always leery of ordering anything living online, bacteria or not.

hmmmm dj, I wonder if it my salt rather than my tap water that has the phosphates, if so my water changes even with RO water could be fueling it rather than eliminating it.....I would not be a happy camper if that was the cause, guess I will have to do more tests and look at this in a whole new light, thanks a lot

there are snails you can add to the cuc that eat cyano. I use to use IO salt, I switched to seachem reef salt this go around and getting good results, I had some phosphate trouble last time i was useing IO.

Mag test can be odered from just about anywhere. Chemi-clean works well and has been reviewed by marc on this site. Flow and nutrients are the keys to fighting cyano bacteria. Also people who carbon have sometimes believed it to cause cyano breakout. Chaeto can be ordered through several places including eBay.

lol, as soon as I can pry the camera away from my wife i will do so, all of our memory card are full of pictures of our son (not complaining about that mind you) but I tried grabbing the camera yesterday and she said "your not taking any pictures till I take care of the ones that are on there" so yeah....

anyway I am using instant ocean right now DJ I am about halfway done with a 5 gallon bucket of it before I bought this last batch I tried a little research on a different salt and with so many pros and cons and no one I could find really agreeing on anything I just stuck with IO one more go around so I will gladly take alternative suggestions there.

I am using both the reef test kit I have had since beginning this hobby for ph as well as a constant monitor on it through my reefkeeper elite (calibrated weekly-biweekly) also with my ph I try to test about midway through my lights cycle for the day when it is at it's greatest and alternate my light times between my display tank and my sump to try and stabilize ph (so when the sump lights are on the dipslay is off and visa versa)
and the test kits on everything else except magnesium as thats the only kit that is aparantly non-existed in any lfs around here (I asked one of the stores if they had any chaeto the other day and after explaining to them what it was they said "we have that freeze dried algae thats flat in a package.....")

my parameters are:
salinity 1.026 (tested with a hydrometer)
ph 7.9-8.3 (really need to fix this one)
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 0
phosphate 0 - 0.25 ( I am fighting cyano right now as well and believe it is whats holding it to undetectable levels but i have seen 0.25 after vacuuming all the cyano out of there)
calcium 480
kh 11 drops = 196.9 ppm km
magnesium ??

and another question has anyone ran any type of red slime remover in their reef tank with success that has softies, sps, and an anemone? it is really a last resort type of thing where I know i have to solve the problem of why it is coming back but I am really tired of looking at it and once I get my rodi unit set up (started to last night and somehow broke a fitting I bought coming off my hose bib.....and i used to be a plumber ) I will be using that for all of my water and plan on doing a few water changes a week, so my thought process was "if that is my problem and it is fixed and I am manually removing the phosphates rather than waiting on all the cyano to die i can kill it, vacuum it out do some more water changes and be happy to have white sand again" so anyway chime in on that idea as well i am off to the store to replace my broken splitter

And how you are testing PH? really all your parameters, that way if something sticks out we can help. also some pictures of your gorgeous tank so we can ohhh and awww.

curious as to the type of salt you used