Recent content by rygh

A big thing people are ignoring is pollution. Big tangs eat a lot of food, and have a fairly inefficient digestive system. While they are herbivores, they do eat meaty foods that are intended for other fish. A small tank system may really struggle to handle the bio-load. While you can solve...

The only brown crud I know of is Cyano (somewhat redish) and Diatoms. Both can be removed fairly easily, at least most of it. So not sure what to say there. Diatoms = silicate problem. Cyano = phosphate problem. Green hair algae can be tough stuff though, jsut like Bryopsis, so I would not use...

You need a close up with a flash. Can't see anything. Look online for pictures as well, to see what matches. Brown fuzzy algae is likely diatoms, and is something new tanks get. If you can squirt water at it, and a lot flys off, then likely that. Really not a big deal. It will go away in a few...

I tend to agree with those numbers. Corals do better with nutrients, but you need to limit P to keep nuisance algae down.

Some history: Most experience is on my 240G tank, with both a lot of big fish and a lot of SPS. Difficult combination! Salt water exchange was maybe 5% per week. Trident water testing drove automatic Apex dosers. I also had an algae scrubber (obliterates Nitrates, perhaps too well). I fed fairly...

The downside to auto-water exchange is the need for space. Although these water testers take space also. Especially the reef-bot. You need a place to mix salt water, a decent size salt water storage, and a place to drain the old water. The plus side is you only need to run 1/4" RO tubing, so you...

Suggest you look into "Tank transfer method." I switched to that after using a QT. Use buckets. New bucket every day for 2 weeks. Tank water => Bucket. Fresh salt water => Tank. Easy to get in the rhythm. Nothing fancy needed. As a bonus, no acclimation needed at the end. Perhaps with a Formalin...

Apex Dos pumps. I used them before on the large tank. They are quite well matched. I have a 50G mixing garbage barrel, and a 100G SW storage tank. Total overkill for the future.

I had the reefbot a long time ago. First revision. It worked pretty well for a couple of years, then died. Nice that it tested a lot of different values. New version looks pretty nice. I switched to the Neptune Trident. Also old version. That worked well, and had a big advantage that it could...

Not so uncommon, but I had good luck with: Bicolor Angel Swallowtail Angel Coral Beauty (lived a LONG time) Cuban Hogfish Harlequin tuskfish Sailfin Tang Yellow Tang Magnificent Foxface Keep in mind: 1) Uncommon fish are often uncommon for good reason. 2) Aggressiveness is probably the most...

Smallest is 6", tallest is 17". Yes, dry. They have been out of the tank for a while.

UPDATE: These are the rocks left / not spoken for.

To be clear, I mean good two part west system epoxy, like used for boats. Not the crud you get at the fish store.

I think Rich was ahead of you by a little bit on those.

Because cement messes with the water chemistry. Epoxy is just plastic. Also, the hydraulic cement used cures very fast, so there is a temptation to mix it a bit wet. If you do that, it disintegrates over a couple of years.