Recent content by CorallineAlgae

You may need to directly ask a mod about that. I usually use an offsite image hosting service like photobucket and just link my pics. That's how anyone can post unlimited photos in the forums. The site has a pretty strict limit to how much memory it'll store for each user.

Sorry for the delay (family fun). Both ballast types use the same LED chip. If yours is still working once you put the new ballast in then everything should be fine. I just recommended that as a "just in case" option but seeing as they're so pricy... you can definitely hold off on that. Let us...

You can get a very cheap replacement 110v driver and a new LED chip on eBay. They're easy to fix. Just takes a soldering and some fresh thermal paste. Some of the LED drivers are better than the ones that come with the floodlights. Many people switch them out just to upgrade them. You'll need to...

Woah! No, not that I'm aware of. The ones that are considered safe from Odyssea are the remote ballast units that come separate from the fixture. The internal ballast fixtures that have the built in timers are relatively new. Honestly, I don't think any of their T5 fixtures are good enough for...

That's very outdated info. It was their early generation MH ballasts that were the fire hazard. Their T5 ballasts are as cheap as they come but aren't dangerous. Now their LED ballasts get scary hot! I don't recommend using their LED fixtures. My brother uses an Odyssea LED system and he had to...

Bettas can be hit or miss with shrimp but they will usually eat any juveniles they can catch. I had a betta with a few adults and some babies made it. Your milage may vary. If you don't mind sacrificing some shrimp to him it may be worth a shot. Otherwise you could always exchange the betta. in...

My brother gave me a freshwater and saltwater mini reef edition of that book series. They're surprisingly useful and they can be found for around $5 used on Amazon. It's definitely worth the modest cost and it should have plenty of info to get you started, but they're not on the same level as...

100% agree. Fish are plenty adaptable to small salinity changes and don't require pin point accurate salt levels. I always used the glass type hydrometers personally. Just lookup how to properly use and maintain them. Piece of cake. It wouldn't hurt to put a bit of the savings into a saltwater...

I ran a soft coral only tank for around 15 years and had the same results using Logoul's solution. Leathers, mushrooms, zoas, xenia, etc, all did better with weekly iodine additions than without it. BUT, I only did monthly water changes with normal Instant Ocean, which may have meant that it was...

I wholeheartedly agree. Instant Ocean is a great choice. The store brand would probably be fine for a fish only tank but if the price is close then IO would be my first choice. I used normal IO for 4 reef tanks for over a decade. It's a very solid choice. Also, the RO water refill stations...

The way I remove mushrooms and zoos is to get an old screwdriver and grind down one side to make a small chisel. It doesn't need to be very sharp. Then I just scrape the unwanted shroom right off of the rock then bag and tag it for sale or trade. If you don't have an old screwdriver you can get...

That's a great point. Water should flow well enough but I don't believe it would reliably be as fast as a drain line that doesn't have an upward bend in it. That's the main reason I wouldn't use a pump that's rated at the maximum flow of 2 1" drain lines. If the pump has to much flow for the...

Yeah, I only used 20 watt floodlights and I ended up putting high quality thermal paste and a fan on it to keep it cooler. That won't be an issue with the TaoTronics. Hopefully they'll have better floodlights eventually but they don't hold a candle (a pun!) to real aquarium LEDs, except for...

My marsilea crenata is mostly just sitting there, too. The marsilea quadrofolia does much better in all of my tanks. I'm glad I ordered both types when I decided to change things up. I haven't given up on the crenata but the quadrofolia grows circles around the dwarf stuff. I find it attracts...

1800 GPH is about the max flow 2 1" pipes usually carry. It may be tricky with this setup. Going with something smaller may be a good idea in this one instance. Another option could be to drill the top side of the sump so the drain line can enter it unrestricted. That's how I would approach it...