Blog Comments

Thank you Marc, I am going to do a few day worth of reading on them before I really attempt to attack this algae problem. I already sucked a ton of it out with a tube and am planning on doing the water change this weekend. I have always trusted your advice and appreciate all the help.

I think you'll need to read up on Dinoflagellates. It tends to look like snot. I'd siphon out all you can to reduce the volume of it, using thin diameter tubing to not siphon out too much water at the same time.

+1! Your equipment room looks amazing, and I too am interested in your heating system. I am in the planning phases of a basement equipment room build, I'd love to see more information about yours.

I'd love to tell you yes, that's fine. However, it won't work out more often than not. I had two pairs of clowns (both were mated) in a 400g and two chased the other two relentlessly. If you somehow could manage to get them to host at opposite ends of the tank and ignore the rest of the reef, it could work out.

Another option is to set up an anemone with about 5 or more Skunk clowns. Those fish seem to share nicely.

Nice to hear from you again, Articfox. I think you could do a blog entry just describing everything in your fishroom and how it works, as well as a blog just about the hot water system you installed.

Long time ArticFox. Glad to hear you are coming back with pictures soon.

You can definitely soak the rock in water and I'm pretty sure you'll end up with a PO4 reading. If you have the rock in a system that can house a protein skimmer, you could use Phosphate Rx to export the GFO into the collection cup. If you don't have that, a 100micron filter sock would do the job. Place a pump with tubing in the barrel of rock, add Phosphate Rx to the water. Point the tubing into the filter sock and let it run overnight. The filter sock should trap the particulates.

http://melevsreef.biz/catalog/blue-l...a-phosphate-rx is what I use.

That should be fine.

The ones that I bought are bulk reef supple of calcium, alkalinity, magnesium chloride, magnesium sulfate.

Flow patterns are really personal preference. With a 60g, I would think Sync would be better. I'm going to be setting up a 60g cube myself, with an Mp40w ES soon.

Brand of which type of media?

I ordered a bubble magnas dosing pump and it should be here tomorrow, along with 2 mp-10's so I can take the mp-40 out and put back on big tank. I believe even with a mp-40 I was getting a couple dead spots which I believe was forming some cynro algae.
In a 60 cube would it be better to have the vortechs in sync or anti-sync?
What's a good brand of media to dose with? To start with I bought bulk reef supply media. Is there a better brand?

Originally Posted by melev

Time for a picture update, no?

Indeed. Maybe I'll work on that this weekend, after the water change.

Originally Posted by Alaska_Phil

FYI My great looking tank has been without a skimmer since September.

Time for a picture update, no?

In my 55 I use Kalkwasser for top off, and manually dose Alk with a soda ash solution weekly. The Kalk keeps the Ca up, but doesn't quite do the trick for Alk. My tank goes through about a gal of kalk a day.

FYI My great looking tank has been without a skimmer since September.

Thnx guys. You all have great looking tanks and I will probably be getting a sro 3000 external. Thanks for the advice.

I've heard that about skimmers and reefs before too. I think it applies maily to the cheaper skimmers, like my old back Pak. I know some of the higher end skimmers will give ratings for Fish only, soft coral and stony coral tanks now.

That's different - sounds like you'll need a bigger refugium to deal with the water, since the sump will drain down in a power outage.

I think your skimmer question has been answered. I don't agree with the fish-only premise - too many reef keepers use that brand for me to believe that's a F.O. rating.

You need to update your profile pic. It's gone.

I was researching about skimmers last night, and came across a lot of web site that are saying that the gallon amount that the skimmers are rate for is for a fish only tank and that if its going to be put in a reef tank then the amount is cut in half. Does this spun right. I emailed reef octopus an asked them about it as well. Waitin to hear be back from them. If that's the case my reef octopus 6 rate for 120 gallons is only suppose to be on a 60 gallon reef tank. With the excepting of what the coral am fish load is.
Marc when i get the filter room done i post some pics. Naming on having the sump above the refuge letting the water gravity feed into it before getting skimmed and adding a back up tank next to the refuge with a bulkhead fitting to plumb so if the power or pump goins out and drainage happened it can gravity feed into reserve tank.

I'd probably stick with the 3000. I was considering the 5000 for my reef if the Euroreef wasn't going to cut it. I know you are planning to have a lot of satellite tanks, but the main one is still less than 200g.

Note: Please make sure your sump can handle all the combined water that would drain down in a power outage, including water in the skimmer and other reactors.

Thanks Marc, that's great advice.
I still want to stay with a super reef octopus. I have to go with an exturnal but all they have is a Sri 2000 for up to 250 gallons or a sro 3000 for up to 400 gallon. Would the 400 still be to big?