Blog Comments

2/3 of a cup ... how did you come to that number?

Pellets in SMR1 tank is 30 gallons sump is 20 galllon tank. With rock and said I figure 30 or so total water volume. Pellets are moving niceley as no clumping. I diid not want to do huge water change because I want to see if the pellets can do their thing. As long as they do not get any higher then they are I am fine with that since I do not have any coral in this tank.

At 8 weeks, they are nearly at the point of being beneficial. You can dose MB7 weekly. A bigger water change would be quicker. What are you running the biopellets in? You can add more. 1 cup seems like the bare minimum.

They have been in close if not over 8 weeks. I feed these guys a lot so there should be plenty of extra "stuff" in the tank. Mybe with me hitting the MB7 again that will help. PO4 is really low, .03 or lower, never did have an issue with it.

You might not be worried about phosphates because you have no corals, but you should track them. Bio pellets require both phosphates and nitrates to work. If you find yourself in a situation with nitrates and zero (or very low) phosphates, bio pellets will not be effective... so you would need to find a way to add phosphates in that case, usually through extra feeding.

However, I agree with Melev, you need to wait longer before bio pellets will kick-in. I think the general rule of thumb is that bio pellets will not do anything for at least 6 to 8 weeks, then you will start to see your nitrate and phosphate levels drop.

I used MB7 at the beginning but stopped. I started up again to give it a kick. I think I have a total of 2/3 of a cup or so it might be more but not a lot more. Was thinking about adding another 1/4 cup.

A month is too soon to call it an issue. How much did you use? It will take two to three months for it to drop them. The first two weeks it only seeded with bacteria, assuming you used MB7 in your system.

1 scorpion, 1 fuzzy dwarf lion 1 banded eel 1 Rhinopias , pencil urchin and long spine both small. No algae so to speak of as urchins and I keep it clean. PO4 is between 0 and .03

That doesn't add up to me. How many fish and what types are they. The weekly water changes should be all you need unless the tank is crawling with fish... do you have plenty of flow and a clean up crew? My understanding from somewhere, is that you have to have phosphates also for the bacteria to grow. Are you having algae issues?

I know home depot/ lowes sells some sort of clamp on fix sleeve type of deal for use on pvc. I don't really know the ins and outs of the parts, never really checked them to closely. I don't even know if they'd work for what you've got. But, just thought id throw it out there. I also know they sell marine caulk that is suppossed to work when wet, but I don't know if its reef safe or not.

you could try some water weld, it is a material that you kneed together and is usable on wet areas, try that out and see what happens, if not that then yes you will be changing the parts out

Wow, thats an impressive amount of calc and mag for a salt mix.

Thanks for that!

http://premiumaquatics.com/aquatic-s...LT-SYR-50.html

correct link.

This is from one of my previous postings: I'm very pleased with how the Sybon Reef Formula salt mixes up, so here's my preliminary findings. I filled up a 55g barrel with RO/DI water and added my normal amount of salt to get 1.026 sg, and after it mixed for 30 hours, I did the full gamut of water tests:

Temperature: 76F
pH: 8.39
Alkalinity: 8 - 8.5 dKH
Calcium: 425 ppm
Magnesium: 1450 ppm
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0

It mixes up crystal clear with no salt at the bottom of the barrel and no residue on the walls. I'll be putting up a full review on RA very soon. In the meantime, here's a link to where you can buy it on PremiumAquatics.com: http://premiumaquatics.com/store/mer...SALT-SYR-50-PK

there are bubbles in the reef crest and tidal zones

the biggest issues I know of are A) bubbles getting in sponges and killing them assuming u keep sponges and B) your fish swallowing the bubbles which could damage their swim bladder and lead to death. I am not aware of anything, but I have notices with the water current required for reef systems it takes a lot longer for bubbles to successfully escape the water meaning they accumulate to quite an abundance quickly.

How are you doing it? I've never had zoa's spread, they just barely stay alive for me! In the same tank where LPS and even a few SPS are thriving.

I'll second the be careful when handle zoas and plays, in fact I will take it one step further and say don't handle them without wearing some type of rubber gloves. If you do some research on playthoa toxin you will find some pretty scary stuff. There is a thread on RC where someone was doing something with some zoas, he had a hangnail and got a nasty infection that landed him in the hospital and he almost lost his arm. The can go even further and just plain ol kill you.

If you want them all gone then there are some zoa eating nudibranchs that will devastate them in a hurry, I would only suggest this if you want them all gone as it can be very hard to get rid of them, I know this first hand.

Palythoa can overrun a tank like you've noticed. You can sell off rocks full of them, or even try to get some store credit at your favorite fish store. If you want to scrape them off, be meticulous and remove every trace of tissue. Be careful not to get any of the slime in your eyes or mouth - it's easy to do so as these corals can squirt when working on them.