Recent content by SeanMc

Ugh, sorry friends. It looks like it melted overnight.

I have a very small jawbreaker mushroom that detached after changing the flow. Oops. I don't have a place to rehabilitate this but I put it in a cup if someone else wants to give it a try. The mushroom is maybe the size of an eraser head. Downtown Oakland.

I hadn't heard that, but I will try that. I also like the idea of alk in the lower 7 range because then if I go out of town and the manual dosing doesn't get done, the alk is only dropping from 7 to 5 which isn't a big swing. Yes, I test with Hanna checkers. My Hanna ultra-low phosphate is 0.00...

Definitely possible it was the light. I was confused by that one because it grew aggressively for six months, wobbled a couple times and came back, and then began a slow decline that I couldn't reverse.

This seems correct to me. I do anecdotally feel like when one is unhappy it affects the balance in the system. I could see there being a real benefit to being stricter in a smaller tank with pulling things that aren't doing well. It's a tough line drawing question. You don't want to throw things...

lol

It's room temperature. I've only tried the ESV stuff. It took a while to dial in the right dosage, but it has raised the nitrates on my tests so it seems to be doing its job. Five drops per day directly into the tank has keep the nitrates steady around 20 ppm for several months now. Does...

@tribbitt 's tank is an inspiration. I love it. I'm looking to do something similar to what he has, but peninsula style and a little fatter with all the bells and whistles. I buy seawater from High Tide. I don't test it. The alk is low, so I throw in an extra dose of ESV when I do a water...

September 17, 2025 Battlecorals Buy #2 In early June, I bought again from Battlecorals. This time I got a Backdraft and Muthaship. Expensive red tables. Adam threw in small BC Aquatic Man and a Mariachi Static frags. Pretty happy about all of them. Backdraft is perhaps overpriced, but, IMO...

May 15, 2025 Changed the Direction Flow and Overall Turnover I changed the flow in a big way. I removed the diverter on the top of the powerhead so that instead of coming out at an angle, it shoots straight up. I did this trying to increase the overall flow in the tank, since I was moving...

January 29, 2025 Lots of changes since the last update. Finally had a house sitter who didn’t do a great job taking care of it. Lost very little. Still pushing to see what kind of SPS can survive. Changed the flow. Added a light. House Sitter Kinda Blew It, But Everything Is Still Fine Had...

December 12, 2024 Lots of Montipora Changes If anyone has the opportunity to do a frag trade with Newfly, you should do it. I gave him the Hanna calcium checker, which I wasn’t laboratory-minded enough to work consistently. I also gave him the yellow brick road zoas. I liked them, they had...

November 20, 2025 Vivid Confetti Acro and Starburst Monti Cap I cracked and bought a couple pieces online. Vivid had wysiwyg pieces of the starburst/sunburst montipora cap and vivid confetti acro, and I had already made up my mind that I was going to get those at some point. The cap color...

Pros: Water changes are super easy Cons: A lot of nuisance algae has to be removed by hand I have a 7.5 gal, which is a cubic foot. Mine is a little overbuilt with a skimmer, ATO, and oversized lighting. The super small tank has been really good to me. My tank journal is way out of date...

I was very graciously gifted this frag from fellow member @divewsharks in February. It started to STN (more like ultra slow) at the tips in mid April. I moved it into a very high light, high flow area, but it's not working. It looks like a couple other tips are starting to melt. I'm out of tools...