maroun.c

Thanks for the nice update, Maroun. I've been wondering how it was going and where you were at this stage. That's a great shot of the fire shrimp fry!

Tell us about your livestock add-er - I've not seen that before and it looks interesting.

Thanks Marc,
The Fry shot is one of my favorite shots ever, used my 50 mm on a couple of extension tubes and had not tripod on hand so I'm very happy with the result.
The Fish adder is a pre requisite when you want to move fish in the presence of RAed (the guy in the middle on the first shot) he's a Fish addict and does not agree to the use of nets when moving fish (skin and eyes abrasions, risk of fish spines getting caught int he netting, an additional shock for the fish being introduced when it's just bumped in the new tank...) so had to get me one of those and I must confess that it's much easier to catch the fish as they don't see it coming, even my 6 years old was able to catch the fish from the sump and take them up to the tank.
Currently the tank also has some corals in and a big batch of corals will be moved in in a few days (update on the way!!!) I'm still struggling with some cyano on the sand and some slimy algae on the macro alga int eh fuge for some reason, also struggling with some light burns on many corals moved in although my halides are only on for 2 hours per day and I've raised the lights rather high!!! Light acclimation is proving very difficult. My parameters are spot on so far and I will be adding some more fish when I get my hands on the fish on my list.

That thing is neat. Let's see a few pictures of the addition gizmo.

Do you treat for Cyano, or do you turn off the lights again for three days? Either way, it's always nice when the tank is cyano free.

MH 2 hours a day and corals are burning? Are you sure is it light related? There are other things that could be attributed to it, like fish nipping, alkalinity spikes, and vitamin C dosing. It's hard to imagine 2 hours of light being enough to burn corals, honestly. If you wanted to add a little shade material over the tank for a brief duration, that could help if it really is intense lighting. Did you measure PAR? Or could a bulb be cracked, exposing the corals to UV radiation?

Do you have a link where one could purchase the fish grabber? I don't recall, did you use any live rock or is it just the ceramics? could be a complete lack of the right bacteria that is allowing the cyano to grow. Many people have noted being able to fight back cyano in a new tank by adding bacterial specimens from different sources.

Originally Posted by melev

That thing is neat. Let's see a few pictures of the addition gizmo.

Do you treat for Cyano, or do you turn off the lights again for three days? Either way, it's always nice when the tank is cyano free.

MH 2 hours a day and corals are burning? Are you sure is it light related? There are other things that could be attributed to it, like fish nipping, alkalinity spikes, and vitamin C dosing. It's hard to imagine 2 hours of light being enough to burn corals, honestly. If you wanted to add a little shade material over the tank for a brief duration, that could help if it really is intense lighting. Did you measure PAR? Or could a bulb be cracked, exposing the corals to UV radiation?

Its made by aquarium systems if I remember correctly.


As for the Cyano I'll just wait and see if the added flow will make a difference and I'm currently loading the sytem with bacteria if that will fail I guess I'll just do a 3 days lights off again.

Got 4 rows of T5s on the tank running for 6-8 hours and 2 hours of halide every day. most frags were in teh frag tank under 6x54W halides at 4 inches from water level burning for 8 hours a day. most except the ones under the racks or in the corners were getting a par of 150-250 for SPS and 100-150 for LPS and soft corals so they weren't really in low light. in the Dt they are getting similar or only a bit more par but still I'm seeing some light burns especially on LPS where I can see a burn line following the rocks shade. couple of frags have shown a dry skin before shedding the skin and I presumed it was also from light burn. corals have had a very slow acclimation during the move from the frag tanks to the Dt as they spent a week in a temp tank where they reecived a couple of dips. Tank temp did shoot a bit high (up to 82 ) for a couple of weeks before I installed the chiller. not sure if this could have caused it. no alk spikes but my alk did slowly drop to 6.5 before I raised it to 8 over the course of a couple of weeks. Ca was at 450 adn dropping to 420 my Mg was on the low side 1180 and I'm slowly upping it. nitrates and phophates are 0. As for the bulb cracking I doubt its the case as its happening under the 3 bulbs and I also have a UV protection glass under the bulbs, Double ended so not sure if a cracked bulb would still release UV?

Originally Posted by Midnight

Do you have a link where one could purchase the fish grabber? I don't recall, did you use any live rock or is it just the ceramics? could be a complete lack of the right bacteria that is allowing the cyano to grow. Many people have noted being able to fight back cyano in a new tank by adding bacterial specimens from different sources.

Got it from a nearby LFS, I believe it's made by Aquarium systems, sorry don't have a link to it.
I used Ceramics and dried LR as my LR from my previous tank rottened in the holding barrel. however I did start my sump 4-5 months before starting the tank and seeded it with a couple of LR from my old tank. I also loaded the sytems with MB7 and Prodibio Biodigest when I started it and I'm doing another bacteria loading phase now using MB7 Biodigest and Zeobac. What I'm also worried about is that my sand was cleaned (not sure if it still contained some die off that caused the cyano) it also hasn't been seeded with microlife so far so I'm trying to catch bristleworms and bristle starfish from the frag tank to seed it.