Reef nutrition

Euphyllia's 34 Gallon Red Sea Max

I'm pretty sure I read that mangroves are Magnesium sponges compared to the normal macro algae so you may want to keep an eye on your Mg levels.
 
Ok. I didn't know that so thanks for the information gomer! :)

Also, for all of you who haven't read my WANTED: RBTA thread, It is in the Buy, Sell, Trade section and I am looking for an RBTA. It tells more in the thread.
 
GREAT NEWS! :)

I built up the rock structure to the top of the tank and there are 7 arches! It looks amazing! It actually looks like a real reef! It is better (WAY BETTER) than the rock structure in the 14 gallon tank! It is PERFECT! ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
 
I just checked the pH of my water and it was 7.8. I realized that since I had phosphate absorbers in the tank, that it was what caused sudden drops in pH (it says so on the box of Rowa Phos). I just added super buffer DKH (which raises the pH to 8.3) and will test it tonight. I realized that this drop in pH risked the lives of the hermits and the shrimp, so I am going to be way more careful from now on when using phosphate absorbers. The salinity is between 1.027 and 1.028 and I want to bring that down to 1.026 by doing a water change of a few gallons with RO water. Does anybody else know a way to get salinity down? Or is it good to have it high since I've heard some of you saying "inverts like it salty! :)"
Thanks for taking your time to read this! Please try to answer the questions I asked.
Thanks! ;D
 
1.025-1.026 is proper for inverts. Sometimes people will keep their tanks at lower salinities (<1.025) because fish have a wider range of tolerance (and for other reasons). When people start geting into corals, or other inverts, they forget or don't know that they (the inverts) prefer a "saltier" tank.

Water change with RO water is a good way to bring your salinity down. Keep testing.
 
I just did a water change with only RO, and the salinity is now at 1.026. I brought the pH up to 8.0 (which is +.2), and I'll test it again tomorrow and if it is still the same, I'll buff it again. The Phos is at 0 since I have the phosphate absorbers in there and the ammonia and nitrates and nitrites are all very low (0 - 0.05) so no problem with that.
 
Salinity - 1.026
pH - 8.3
ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, phosphate - 0

My clowns had been fighting in the 14 most of the time. They are now about 2" each. The male seems to be doing what the female used to and the female is doing what the male used to do (behavior/aggression). The male... or used to be male... was getting much much more aggressive. So I moved them into the 34 gallon 2 days ago. They LOVE it. They have so much more room to swim, a HUGE rock structure to swim about, and they have 3x the amount of current they did in the 14 gallon! They swim differently than they did in the 14. In the 14 they swam like any other fish, but now in the 34, they go up and down and up and down like other clownfish do. They stopped fighting and they sleep on each other in the very front of the tank touching the glass on the nice, soft sand. When I get my anemone in April they'll be so happy (since they are wild caught and have probably been in anemones before).
 
So a few weeks ago I saw some hair algae on one of my rocks and I hurried and pulled it off. I got rid of most of it, but now it is back and has spread in small areas of the bottom to middle area of the tank. I don't want it to end up like my 14g, and I want to quickly get to the source and stop it. I went to All About Fish and got some sort of fancy-smancy poly filter to replace the cloth filter that lies on top of the sponge filter in the 34g back compartment filter system area. It is supposed to help remove ammonias, nitrates, and phosphates. I have a cloth baggy thing filled with Rowa Phos (the bag came with the rowa phos) in the filtration system. My Phosphate levels are 0. I know my tank is still in small stages of cycling, but my 14g didn't do this when I cycled it so I'm worried the hair algae is going to take over like it did to my 14. Does anybody have and Idea what the source could be and how to stop the algae? I REALLY don't want my 34g to end up like to 14g. I leave the lights on for 6-8 hours a day. I will admit I do sometimes forget and leave it on for 12 hours or more which I'm trying to stop. But if you have any experience with this or have any ideas on the situation please post. Thanks! :)
 
Yesterday I put in a big, beautiful white feather duster and he is doing great. I also added two different species of caluerpa including the illegal kind (store person put some in the bag on accident), some halimeda, and some chaeto. I put the halimeda and chaeto in a breeder box that I used to use for my freshwater so I guess it sort of created an in-tank fuge since it has tank water moving through it. Since the guy at the store accidentally put in some of the illegal caluerpa, it ended up a very small amount, so I put that on a rock in with the chaeto and halimeda hoping it will attach.
 
Be weary of letting caulerpa get a hold of your rocks -once it does, and gets settled in, it grows like mad, easily taking up real-estate on the rocks -and depending on the species, it may even smother corals. It may be very difficult (or near impossible) to remove all of it later on; Caulerpa was one of the reasons I shut down my last tank :(
 
I'm planning on controlling it and I know it will spread very fast. I think it looks very pretty and adds nice motion effect to the tank.I wedged good amounts of caulerpa between the rock hoping it will attach soon. All I really want in my tank is a lot of rose anemones, a garden of zoas & mushrooms, a few feather dusters, and the plants. I want it to be different from my 14g so I'm going to fill it up with mainly rose anemones instead of corals.
 
FWIW, I was manually pruning back my caulerpa 3-4 times a week, and I still lost many zoanthid and mushroom colonies from being smothered.
 
I won't let it go near my corals. I put all the caulerpa away from the rock I'm going to turn into the zoa garden. I'll trim it back to keep it from invading the entire tank. It won't be able to smother anemones since they are bigger and can move right?
 
Doesn't matter IME... if you put it in there it can and will take over very quickly... try to get a slow growing macro for the tank insteade... calerpas are just too invasive IMO.

[quote author=Euphyllia link=topic=5720.msg89234#msg89234 date=1237255362]
I won't let it go near my corals. I put all the caulerpa away from the rock I'm going to turn into the zoa garden. I'll trim it back to keep it from invading the entire tank. It won't be able to smother anemones since they are bigger and can move right?
[/quote]
 
To tell the truth, when I made the plan on setting up a 2nd aquarium back in November, I was going for a lagoon theme. I wanted to get caulerpas and rose anemones and let the rose anemones split and cover the aquarium and have the caulerpas cover the rest of the rock structure. I only planned to have a few zoas and shrooms here and there and a couple of feather dusters so I think I ended up and will continue to stick with the plan. If I notice them getting too invasive, I can always remove them next week.
 
Well... that's the problem... by the time you figure out for yourself that they are to invasive there won't be much you can do. You can cut it back and cut it back but it's justy going to keep coming back. If you want advise on this i'd say take the calerpa out ASAP... get yourself a NICE slow growing algae instead.

[quote author=Euphyllia link=topic=5720.msg89238#msg89238 date=1237256275]
To tell the truth, when I made the plan on setting up a 2nd aquarium back in November, I was going for a lagoon theme. I wanted to get caulerpas and rose anemones and let the rose anemones split and cover the aquarium and have the caulerpas cover the rest of the rock structure. I only planned to have a few zoas and shrooms here and there and a couple of feather dusters so I think I ended up and will continue to stick with the plan. If I notice them getting too invasive, I can always remove them next week.
[/quote]
 
Perhaps caps are needed here.

THIS PLANT CAN SMOTHER ALL OTHER LIFE IN YOUR REEF

IT WON"T TAKE AS LONG AS YOU THINK FOR THIS TO HAPPEN

PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO HELP YOU
 
When they attach to your rock, it would be almost impossible to remove it. I had some before. I removed them all and still doing it after 5 months. I'm sure I will continue to do so until I toss out the rock and let it dry.
 
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