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We have them for just $45 Affordable Aquatic Supplies Salinity Refractometer [AASREF] - $44.99 : Affordable Aquatic Supplies LLC

You should be looking at the kessil lights. They make a 6500K light which would give you more light in a usable spectrum for your plants. Most other LEDs are going to be designed for corals

There are so many great options for your fish. I would suggest getting a few different packages of single ingredient foods, like mysis shrimp, cyclopeeze, plankton etc. If you plan on feeding brine, look at Hikari spirulina brine shrimp they are gut loaded with spirulina and pretty nutritious.

Run some GFO in a reactor and your phosphates will come down. Definitely keep up the water changes, and make sure you are using RODI water. If you are using tap or well water you might be adding the phosphates with your makeup water.

Acrylic will give you less distortion and will give truer color to the inhabitants of the tank. Glass usually has a greenish tint. Acrylic is light and easily moved. It wont spring a leak and is easily moved. But unless youre getting a large tank, I would say go with glass. Its cheaper, wont...

Just throw the old sand away. I cant imagine how you could mix heavy wet sand, and since its the cheapest part of the whole system, its just not worth the trouble. If you were to put new sand on top of the old, you would see a layered effect, and since you can avoid that easily you should.

That's the problem with oolitic sand. The grains are little egg-shaped spheres. Because of their smooth surface, they don't 'lock' in together very well. In my experience, coarser sand of varying sizes works best. I usually recommend Caribsea special grade because the combination of larger...

Yes, that's exactly what you do. A few things to keep in mind, this is for fresh water only, if you are filling a brackish tank, you MUST make the water and adjust salinity prior to adding to the tank. Also its important that the temperature of the new water match the tank so you dont shock the...

How large are you looking. For $700 you would be getting something larger than a nano. Have you looked at the Red Sea Max tanks?

The python connects directly to your sink and with turn of a valve, will either siphon the tank or fill it. When filling a fresh water tank, you would add a dechlorinator like Prime BEFORE you add temperature-matched tap water.

If you just move your MP10 closer to the top that would probably do it, but it would also draw in a ton of bubbles which you would probably dislike more. I would try a small koralia or Maxijet shooting across the top of the tank. Careful that you arent so high that you create too much splashing.

It probably is oil. There are fats in the food you feed so naturally there will fats (oil) in the fish waste also. This is entirely normal. What I think is happening is that you aren't skimming any water from the surface of the tank and you dont have much surface agitation. It looks like you...

I am not familiar with that HOB specifically, but from what you said, the dense sponge is the bio media (bacterial colony). You should try to schedule your filter cartridge on alternating schedules. Bacteria will colonize that area as well, and removing both at the same time will greatly reduce...

Its really a complicated decision on which rock to use. Live rock has the potential for introducing pests but it will also provide lots of micro fauna, some macro algaes and plenty of bacteria to get your tank started. It also looks more authentic. Dry rock is essentially the same rock but is...