Recent content by phases99

Full tank pics here

I clean mine thoroughly every other month or so. You will notice that the output decreases as they get dirtier.

I prefer to leave the sandbed undisturbed and let the hermits, snails and other lifeforms do the stirring. I have around a 4" sandbase so the bubbles are a normal part of denitrification. I'm kinda curious now why you are seeing so much bubble activity if the bed is only 1". I'm sure its not a...

It appears you tank is fully stocked, depending on the actual size of those fish. If you could add enough cured LR to get up to 1lb per gallon then it would be totally safe to remove all the bioballs. The LR that's in your sump counts towards the 1lb/g rule. Take it slow, there is no rush...

Re: calapuera help The bioballs are most likely your problem, remove half now and the rest in a week and I bet your nitrates go down. I use a turkey baster and blow off the LR to get all the debris in suspension and siphon out as much as possible during water changes. You would be suprised to...

Most bubbles are normal and healthy. It sound like the denitrification process is working right before your eyes. Anaerobic bacteria deep in the sand convert nitrate to nitrogen which work their way up through the sand to finally be released into the air as nitrogen. How deep of a sandbed are we...

You would not want to use sand in the QT as you want to be able to easily sterilize the tank if used to treat disease. The pvc works well.

If Chaeto is not doing the trick than I doubt Caluerpa will either. If I were you I would add a decent skimmer if you don't already have one, double or triple your amount of LR, turkey baste your LR every month or so and siphon out the detritus, add a remote DSB to your 20g refugium. With 3" of...

Sounds like pods to me. Get yourself a decent magnifying glass from the local pharmacy. With a 5x lens you will get a much better look.

It worked for me awhile back but I needed a couple of treatments to get the stubborn ones. The guy at the pharmacy looked at me kinda funny when I told him I needed a needle for my reef tank. :lol:

Here is what I did to solve the problem in case anyone wants to do the same. I bought an extention cord with a square opening on the head from Lowes and screwed a white hook into the wall and hung the controller from it. Suprisingly it looks fine and now the temp is clearly visible and out of...

I just picked up this heater from Darin at Captive Reefs, a nice place to buy supplies. I have to admit that the heater has a lousy design. Instead of having a power cord the plug is located on the back of the controller. This prevents you from hanging the controller above the tank where the...

My pagoda was also very yellow when I bought it. After I heard about the practice of Coral dying I felt duped. Over the last year it has slowly turned paler but has grown steadily and is doing very well. Good Luck with yours! I found a picture of what it looked like when it started losing its...

Maybe the same kind of worm is eating my Xenia? Mine is just eating the petals and leaving the stem. I have not been lucky enough to catch it in the act yet. Good Luck catching yours!

I am more worried that the tank was used to no more than a .5 per day flux and suddenly its a 2F per day flux. I have moved one of the heaters out of my bakpak and into the main tank hoping that the increased water flow will make it more accurate. I chose 80f as my base temp because last summer...