Recommended length of daylight cycle?

[Scoot]

Yeah, one thing I don't have (anymore) is a fuge. I miss it - my fuge used to be covered with macro, full of all kinds of 'pods, and none in the main (this was before I moved up to a 180 from a 75).

I didn't design my sump very well - it's a custom acrylic 45G from glass-cages.com. I didn't put a place in it for a fuge, i was planning on hooking an external one up to it, but I've never quite worked out the plumbing. I think I'm going to T - off one of my 2 drain lines into a small fuge tank, then overflow that into the sump. But I'll need another acrylic tank to do it, and will have to figure out where the heck to put it.

A 45G change is easy - I had a drain pipe built into the area where the sump is in the basement - I drain straight to that (with a screen over the end of the hose so I don't suck up any little guys), then I pump 45G in from my giant rubbermaid tub. All said and done, 15 minutes is all it takes, and I usually don't spill a drop.

It takes a few days to fill from the RO/DI filter - I think i'm going to bump up the 45G change to weekly for awhile and see if that helps.

The down-side is the salt - it gets pricey after awhile.

ANOTHER problem I'm running into now is getting attacked when picking algae... in the left 1/4 end of the tank. My blue trigger - about 5, maybe 6 inches long, doesn't like me messing around that area. He's always nipped at me, but he's getting big enough to break the skin

I can reach out and shoo him away, but he comes right back. He's turning into a agressive little stinker - so I use a really big net as a guard, but that doesn't scare him either. At least I know I could catch him easily if I had to.

Oh yeah, he spits and grunts too. He's awesome. But his teeth are so sharp

[fijiwigi]

sounds like a really fun fish to have. I am jealous you have a nice setup for sure. Have you tried the aquarium gloves to protect your hands?

[Scoot]

Gloves make it impossible to pluck algae

But yeah, going to have to get something if this guy is going to keep attacking me when I move into his area.

I spent an hour last night brushing some rock clean. I've got so much rock, and there's GHA on pretty much all of it, so it's going to take awhile, but I'm going to keep working on it every night.

I've got all 8 of my sump socks cleaned and ready to go (rather than siphon I let the overflows and my powerheads get the algae, then I replace the sump sock and clean the powerheads. There's too much to do while siphoning.

I'm making headway. I've gradually cut back on the lighting over the last week, down to about 7 hours now. I pushed the schedule back an hour while I was at it, so I can see the fish while I'm home at night from work

So far the anemone's don't seem to mind.

[cmor1701d]

Have you tried some Mexican turbo snails?

They do wonders on HA.

[Scoot]

I bought some a long time ago - after my first cycle. 5 or 6 I think. Just lost the last one a few months ago, not sure if my triggers would bother them or not - I have a bunch of astrias and even more nassarius, but none of them are even on the rocks - just on the sand or glass.

I should go look for some turbo's. Even if they end up as a snack for the triggers

Spent the entire morning scrubbing. Hands are sore and cramped up, but I have all but 3 or 4 rocks at one end cleaned up. I'm surprised at how much purple coralline was under all that algae, it's really taken off. Am I right in thinking that it's harder for GHA to get started on coralline?