My 65 Gallon Mixed Reef

[biggles]

:lol: biggles, priceless and a hell of a story

And you just have to throw in an SSC pic outta the blue, just to rub it in eh?

I've been tearing my hair up over the last couple days with the scape, and have decided to just leave the damn thing be. Will post up a pic tomorrow on where its at, at the moment.

Also I finally picked up 4 mari's, PE is low at the moment....let's see how they go

Lol i knew you'd appreciate my latest cunning stunt with the clown and shrimp Bello....
You know me and my SCC frags mate, it's my favorite coral and every day i look at it i'm still blown away by the intensity of the pink no matter how much light you give it, low, med or high - you have to get a frag buddy !
I know what you mean about the frustration when trying to tweak your scape and sometimes i think it's best to do what you have and just leave things alone for a few days otherwise you'll drive yourself nuts.
4 new corals eh........ can't wait to see what you bought and if you have any PE it's all good news and will only improve over the first couple of weeks :thumbsup:

Your tank looks amazing. I love the colors. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks very much my friend, i appreciate you taking the time to comment on my little reef

Now that i'm getting serious about which pieces i like i've decided to remove another colony which i don't like - it has a lot of nice blue but it's now developing a green around the base and the growth overall is downright ugly to me, coupled with large shading it was causing at the front of the tank and its need for very high light - another LFS donation coming up lol.

 

[Bello]

Hmmm, if that's the piece you're gonna return, I'M not posting pics of my Mari's!! I wouldn't want you to choke yourself laughing...:lol:... I dunno biggles, I like that piece, why don't you sump it for it a bit? Maybe for the new tank, then? You could make 4 islands with one brown island, one blue island etc :lol:

My SSC frag MAY, and that's a BIG MAY, arrive at the end of the month...fingers crossed. Then we can worry about its survival and colour :lol: under disco lights. Wonder if Travolta has a reef tank?

I think I'm done (fed up is more like it) with the scape... I don't love it, but I'm just too tired, and I'm not doing the corals any good. Really need to get rid of a couple of the dull monti mari's :lol:

 

[biggles]

Please don't think i won't appreciate seeing your new pieces buddy as that coral took 4 months to color up to the point it is now - i just can't get past that ghastly browny greeny pooey color it is on 2/3 the colony and it was really giving me a lot of headaches atop the arch. I should point out that it's only been in the last few weeks that i realised how much better the SPS on offer are now compared to when i last had a tank so i'm going to start getting picky about anything new i add both color wise and growth - i really like the very fine growth, fragile branching acros, the ones i commonly smash being a putz in the tank.......:hmm2:
I'll put it under the LED's in the sump for a month or two then and who knows what it might do - it's fate is in the hands of the Travolta lights.......:lol2:
I really hope you get hold of an SCC frag Bello, it tollerates low, med and high light in my tank but grows faster the higher the light in my tank conditions. Since your other acros are doing well there's no reason at all the SCC won't also go well :thumbsup:
I'm not 100% on the raft anymore and think a pinnacle would have been better but on and on i go second guessing myself so i'm leaving things alone as i've slowed growth a great deal constantly moving corals around thus forcing them into different flow and light constantly. That's why i'm biting the bullet now and removing the few corals that i'm just not liking so that any disruption is over and everything can be stable not just in water parameters.
Since dropping alk from 8 to 7.5 my corraline growth has been basically zero so i've gone back to 8.0 to day to see if i can get some of the putty covered a bit lol - some of it is still white after 3 months whereas the very first few months putty completely covered within the first few months when i had alk at 9.0.
I found a small delicate branched acro that looks like it had purple tips before browning in the LFS - when i last kept a tank blue acros were extremely hard to get, now they are always on offer but the easy to get purples now seem very scarce, prob because i'm never seeing anything less than a week old in the LFS's I'm really hoping it doesn't turn blue as there's a lot of blue stuff in the tank already even removing the acro i just did. I'm basically shopping for color and growth form only from now on.
All in all everything is going along well except that big green blob stag at the back is now only 3/8" away from an encrusting duel with the largest SCC frag and i ain't about to let any harm come to my SCC precious lol........ anyway i'm more interested to see those new pieces you got hold of and water in Troub's tank this millenium........ just kidding Troub (bloody slow poke)

 

[Bello]

Hmmm, so I wonder if that piece will be "Stayin' Alive" under the Travolta sump lights...cheesy...yes....lame....yes......couldn't resist, I tried, I promise

And I now see your point about that piece, as I understand, there are always gonna be certain spots in your scape that you would consider to be "Prime Location", and you'd want to seat something better there :thumbsup:. All the same, if your throwing arm is good, at precisely 7 pm tomorrow night, fling it in a north-west direction, I'll catch it

I'm beginning to like the deep water thin branched species as you described. I may be getting a couple frags of those too, along with the SSC. I also just requested my supplier, to try and source out a yellow-ish A. Suharsonoi. So maybe in 10 years I'll have it :lol:

I hope you don't remove the raft for what it's worth. I liked the combo and structure that you had going on there. In a way, you're sailing in the same meddling boat that I'm in. Just can't let things be!!!! I'm officially fed up though, so with a bit of cleaning I'll have pics up.

I don't know if you're familiar with the user Jawsee, on these forums. Amazing system, well anyhow, his dislike of coraline algae was based on the theory that with its growth, thereby coating the surface of live rock, it decreases the usefulness of live rock. Just an interesting theory . Personally, I'm fed up of it, and will happily view your epoxy plugs all day long....and no slagging...promise!!! Hope the alk theory works if you do give it a go, would be equally interesting to observe. Possibly the reason that I barely have any coraline on my tank, my alk is usually 6.5 to 7.0 (ELOS).

I'll take blue over purple anyday , but yeah, you're going for the colour combo :thumbsup:

My mari's are ok, one lovely millie that I know you'll despise, and a colony of a frag that I'm pretty sure I already have. The other 2 are on the SPS id section, awaiting Jason's IDs. Have a look

Any progress with the second tank or is that stalled for the moment?

 

[biggles]

Removing that colony has opened up the front a great deal and the tank looks a lot better for it overall to me so i'm happy that i did it Unfortunately as you know i can easily reach the lawn in acro tossing but getting it all the way to you might be a stretch lol.
I should point out that 5 days ago i began using what i thought was an overpriced additive simply because it was a Zeo product but having the bad experience with those amino acids didn't deter me from 'sperimenting' after :reading: what the Zeo guys have been saying. On the third morning after adding it each night i looked at the tank when the lights came on and everything looked very vibrantly colored, so much so that i went outside into the sunlight and came back inside and again looked at the tank - that's how much better the corals looked and i'm not ashamed to admit that a big dopey grin developed on my face. You know how ULN i keep my system so i can safely say that the only change was the Zeo amino acids which btw i no longer consider overpriced..... I can assure you that the pic above is under saturated in regards to most of the coral colors and i just need to work out how much and how often i need to add now to keep the results i've seen in a very short space of time.
I haven't seen a single 'deep water' acro since returning to the hobby so i think i need to get to shipments earlier or they may not be common. I'm talking of the delicate and smooth branching types with little in the way of radial coralites, so far i've only beed able to grab a couple of very thin branched acros but they aren't of the species i see on here. I'll keep looking and hopefully will come across one sooner or later.

That new acro is acclimating very quickly and the purple is returning so i've finally got a purple acro that is also very delicate in growth structure

When i added it about a week ago it was pretty sulky and beginning to brown.

It went right where the blue acro i removed was in high light and it's coloring back up quickly and has good PE at night.

I still want another one or two purple colored pieces but i'm going to be picky as to what i add. And no Bello i did not also add 2 more stags and a green scrolling monti at the same time as the purple piece - it's an optical illusion lol.......

I saw a couple of your new mari pieces in the ID forum, they look cool so how about a piccy update of your journal Bello, i need to wake Troub up too as he obviously didn't read the setup guide chapter that referred to adding water to a tank.........:idea:

 

[NeilFox]

Looking good mate! I have been getting some flack about my brown acro's lately. Unfortunately they were born that way. I have some new peices on the way. I can only hope that they will look half as nice as yours! why don't you show a real FTS of the corals lounging by the pool?

 

[troubadour11]

That's starting to get the coral forest feeling to it Biggles. Looking great! :thumbsup:

I saw a couple of your new mari pieces in the ID forum, they look cool so how about a piccy update of your journal Bello, i need to wake Troub up too as he obviously didn't read the setup guide chapter that referred to adding water to a tank.........

Oh and that's just hilarious. :strooper: I think I'm headed to the hardware store now to pick up some ammo :uzi: And thanks for pointing that out, I was wondering why I couldn't get anything I put in there to live for more then a few hours! :worried: Hahahaha.

It's been kind of crazy over here. I had finished that contract and was getting stuff done on break. Then they called me back in to do some "fixes" and updates to the project and I've been working CRAZY hours. Just finished it all up last night, so I'm back into tank mode now.

Your tank is looking great from my point of view. The colors are all ready solid, but I can't wait to see all your pieces continue to improve like that purple with blue picture. I especially notice the color distribution. That's going to be a sweet palette of colors when it's all grown up! :thumbsup: ... Although I think it could use some more green :ape:

How is your Travolta Graveyard going? Is it starting to fill up with outcast residents now with all those soldiers ready to join the battle from the frag rack?

 

[Bello]

Hey guys

My wife insisted on going to the pub tonight, and this is the first time I've actually gone out like this in almost a year and a half, so pardon the gibberish. I'd rather be at home meddling with my tanks....

That's a very interesting report on the zeo AA's biggles. I'm glad that its working . Now you're tempting me. Did you find the corals appearing more vibrant? It's hard to translate what you see, into pics.

I was running zeo for 2 years if you recall, admittedly, I had about 10 other more worrisome issues, so I never really got the opportunity to see the full effects of zeo. And with this setup, I was running "bad" zeo i.e. pale pale pale corals. But yes, I do believe in the system, it does work, but it takes effort and understanding. I'd give it a go, but I need to improve my nutrient exports before I can try out AA's again. I'm still very tempted to setup a third 45g, pure zeo system, since I already have everything...but I'm trying not to

Biggles, you need to stakeout your LFS, I'll send you donuts . Get in on the action. The "deeper water" acros, if I'm not mistaken, are the lokani, echinata, suharsonoi, caroliniana etc...or at least these are the ones I like . I'm a bit concerned about the lighting requirements for these, since I'm lead to believe that they don't need/tolerate very high light. But I hope you score some of them, since you will radium blast 'em :strooper:, and I can learn from your experience :lol:

That's some nice colouration, I'd consider it to be a show piece specimen. You've seen the mari pieces I get, now you know what I have to make do with. Hopefully, they'll colour up. They're all in the drop off at the moment. The drop off serves as my coral qt system . Will move them soon, and hopefully, we'll see some colours.

I need to get the pics up asap!!!!

Troub: Updates!! Plumbing!!! :lol:

 

[biggles]

Looking good mate! I have been getting some flack about my brown acro's lately. Unfortunately they were born that way. I have some new peices on the way. I can only hope that they will look half as nice as yours! why don't you show a real FTS of the corals lounging by the pool?

Hey Neil, thanks for the kind words mate I wouldn't worry about negative comments from some, i try not to get into nasty back and forths such as Bello frequently starts with his expletive laden PM's
I saw where you had a spit back in a thread and then apologized when you took a moment to gather your thoughts - was good to see and very big of you to make amends :thumbsup: I've come close a few times to having a dummy spit but just can't be stuffed banging my head against a wall lol.
Looking forward to seeing those new pieces you have on order buddy, here's a 'blue lagoon' T5 only shot as requested lol.

Hey Troub, thanks for the thumbs up buddy it has a lot of growing to do but it's certainly getting there Glad to hear you're getting stuck back into the tank mate, i have to nudge your build thread just to keep you on your toes i think lol. I'm glad you noticed the colors distribution as i've worked hard to mix and match the colors to enhance the contrasts once things grow in. The Travolta GY is looking pretty drab and forgotten but i'll take a pic once i razor the glass - it's so bad the magnet cleaner won't remove the weeks old algae build up - i tell myself i'm leaving it for the snails to eat but i'm just lazy lol........

So Bello you've broken ranks and gone AWOL from tank battles to visit the pub with your wife - if there's a reef display at the pub i'd understand but otherwise i see it as nothing more than a pathetic attempt to placate the wife after the arrival of your 4 new mari pieces.........
When i used the other AA's the colors went darker whereas this time i would describe it as seeing some of the vibrance you only see with actinics or blue LED only lighting, it has made the colors 'pop' i guess is the term we usually use as reefers. I'm only going to use the one AA product and everything else is staying the same for now.
Those are the same acros i was referring to mate, never see them for sale but i have had a couple and they hated direct flow and even medium light was pushing it - makes them great corals as they do well right down the bottom where many things won't thrive. That new purple tipped acro is already one of my favorites being so delicate. Here's a top down of that stag i stuck on the monti weeks back, it's slowly turning a very pretty pinky red with dark polyps and is finally developing new growth tips so i think it's settling in well - i haven't seen a stag colored like this ever before so i'm looking forward to watching it grow.
You can see the stag with teal polyps and blue tips just at the right edge of the pic, it's very touchy with direct flow so i've had to move a pump to keep it happy. You see the stupid pocil bottom right that is taking months to turn pink again has burnt a small section of the monti in preparation for encrusting growth - seriously if a pocil can sting you, you're the wimpiest coral in the tank.........
As always Potatohead made an appearance in the shot :facepalm:

 

[troubadour11]

Hahahaha... that's a great photo bomb by Potatohead! He just kind of creeped into this one. Just wanting to let us know he's still here.

 

[kaserpick]

Tank looks amazing! Definitely jealous. :thumbsup:

 

[Bello]

So Bello you've broken ranks and gone AWOL from tank battles to visit the pub with your wife - if there's a reef display at the pub i'd understand but otherwise i see it as nothing more than a pathetic attempt to placate the wife after the arrival of your 4 new mari pieces.........:

Another priceless quote from el Biggles :lol:.

That's awesome about the AA's. I only have their AA LPS bottle with me at the moment, but will get one with a future order. Will need to improve my nutrient export though, before I can expect to use it/see results.

Thanks for the tips on the deepwaters. Unfortunately, their low light demands will work against me, given that my tank is only 18 inches tall, I don't really have a low light area, but we'll work around that :lol:. I hope you find some more of those :thumbsup:

You know I've actually lost count of how many acros I need to STEAL from you? It's just too many!!! I'm liking the contrasting pinkish tips and greenish base. Love the teal stag too.

And I think your habits are beginning to rub off on me. I'm probably gonna move some of the not so impressive mari's from the monti tank to my frag system until I find a buyer. Need to get some of the good stuff in their place :lol: But moving corals around is getting really really irritating!!!

 

[troubadour11]

What's new over here?

...Nudge... nudge...

Other then growing a beautiful reef of course :eek2:

Is your clown back to eating finger foods after the lighting attack? Poor dirty little pooper! :fish2:

You know I've actually lost count of how many acros I need to STEAL from you? It's just too many!!! I'm liking the contrasting pinkish tips and greenish base. Love the teal stag too.

And I think your habits are beginning to rub off on me. I'm probably gonna move some of the not so impressive mari's from the monti tank to my frag system until I find a buyer. Need to get some of the good stuff in their place But moving corals around is getting really really irritating!!!

eh-EH-hmmm... excuse me... any such "bad habit" frags can please be attached to trained homing pygmy angels and sent towards me. Unspent enemy ammo can still be used in battle! :uzi: Mwa-ha-ha!

^^^ :headwalls: he says from the safe confines of his still dry, empty, tank/bunker :headwalls: ^^^ :lol:

 

[biggles]

Tank looks amazing! Definitely jealous. :thumbsup:

Thanks for dropping by and the nice words Kasey

You best get a coffee or beer before reading on guys as the tank and i have both been in the wars recently - it's a saga :reading:
When i made my last post i had a bad cold or flu but a few days later it ended up as full blown pneumonia and i passed out after a coughing fit at work and was carted off to hospital. Two days later i come to my senses and all i can think of is the tank so i ring a friend who left work for me (great guy) and told him what to do as it would be running short of water by now for sure.
He rang me later and told me the return was running dry and the T5's had been on the entire time. He filled the sump with over 10 L of fresh tap water and refilled the ATO with the same, turned the lights off and set the room heater to 28C as i asked, he then had to return to work. No idea why he used tap water but in my state i may have made a mess of the RO not tap water refill thing. I also thought that the heaters were out of the water so they would be dead and the tank will be cooling down - hence why i asked him to turn the heater on.

They let me leave after three days - against their wishes and i arrived home to find the tank in a poor state. Temp was 23.5C or 74F, alk 4.1, cal 370, Mg 1220, salinity 1.0260. For the first time i had a phos reading 0.07 same with nitrates which were about 3. My clown looked pale and lethargic and Potatohead was hiding in his man cave. All the corals were shut down with STN on a few bases and many tips starting to burn back, no PE whatsoever on anything
First priority was my clown and shrimp so i took the frag section of the sump offline, drained it and refilled it with fresh NSW and placed a new 200W heater in there. A few hours later the sump was clear and warm so i easily caught the clown and the shrimp as both are used to being hand fed. Within a few hours the clown was swimming with more energy and the shrimp was busily exploring his new digs.
I replaced the two broken heaters with the other new 200W heater and changed out enough saltwater in the display to drop the salinity back to 1.0255. The skimmer decided that it was finally time to have an air intake block so it overflowed about 5 days skimmate back into the system - i was really getting bummed out at this point and had a fever which didn't help lol.
I remember it was about 4pm and i felt really sick and feverish so i thought i'd feed the fish and go to bed - move 4 hours later i wake sitting on the floor next to the frag tank leaning against the wall. Everything is dark except the blue glow from the frag LED unit and i look to see my left hand resting on the bottom of the frag tank. Potatohead was snoozing upside down on my arm Good news was i felt a lot better and not at all feverish, my hand was seriously pruned up and i have the cleanest fingernails you've ever seen..........
Next day i cut up the two small colonies that had STN'd at the base nearly to the branches and snipped off the tips of the acros that were losing tissue. I brought the alk back to 7.0 over 2 days and got the cal over 400 again along with boosting the Mg back to 1300. Everything is drab and seriously sulky with very little PE if at all on most things even after lights out but it's been 5 days since i returned and today i did a 50% water change with fresh NSW and have my levels back to 8.0, 420, 1350 and sal 1.0250. Alk draw was 120ml a day and is now 80ml so i know i'm going to take a serious hit on growth because of this but i am just happy that everything is alive and in good condition considering what they went through.
I have placed both carbon and Rowaphos in bags in the sump and will run them until i get my phos and nitrates undetectable again, hopefully the carbon will drag some of the stuff out that would have been in the tap water.

On a better note just before i went to hospital i bought this coral out of the live rock bin as the store thought it had RTN'd - on close inspection i saw it was completely bleached, i couldn't see any sign of a polyp but the branch tissue was still there so i paid $4-00 for it as LR and took it home. The tiny bit of color on the tips went withing hours of placing it on the tank bottom so i chopped it up into 4-5 bits in case it started to RTN and left them on the tank bottom.

Today - check out the best piece of $4- LR you ever saw - lol.

Worms living in the blue acro branches, very pretty

 

[Bello]

My God, biggles!! That's a hell of a story, just glad that you're ok :thumbsup:

Was wondering if everything was alright? I think your tank pulled through relatively well, given everything that happened. The alk and temp drop could've done a lot worse, me thinks.

How's everything looking now? How're you feeling, health-wise?

Nice pics, and pickup, did you actually take that worm shot from your phone?

 

[Reef_Noob]

That's one scary story.
Glad you are feeling better and in fine health now.
It's just great news you brought back the tank to normal and things are in control. Thanks for posting the details on how you managed everything without panicking. Under your care things will bounce back and be better in no time.
Yep you have hit jackpot with that 4$ livestock :lol2:
Wish ya all the best.

 

[troubadour11]

Woah! That's one crazy adventure. But like everyone else, I'm glad you and the tank are pulling through!

I wish they sold $4 live rock like that over here. A worthy pick up in my humble opinion. Are those worms living on the new pick up as well, or just an awesome picture from somewhere else in the tank? Either way :thumbsup: for another nice micro phone picture.

And :beer: to Potatohead for the manicure during your nap. Always the little helper! Despite being all pruned up and having a clean hand, I wonder if your wrist being submerged in the cooler tank water actually helped bring your fever down while you snoozed? :facepalm:

Once again, glad you're feeling better and were able to get things under control.

 

[biggles]

My God, biggles!! That's a hell of a story, just glad that you're ok :thumbsup:

Was wondering if everything was alright? I think your tank pulled through relatively well, given everything that happened. The alk and temp drop could've done a lot worse, me thinks.

How's everything looking now? How're you feeling, health-wise?

Nice pics, and pickup, did you actually take that worm shot from your phone?

Hey Bello

Thanks for the well wishes buddy, feeling better slowly but i didn't realise how long it was going to take to get back to 100% but i should be back at full strength in a few weeks.
I consider myself lucky to have got away with as little damage to the SPS as i did, everything is still looking like crap but i'm seeing better PE every night so i'm not concerned now. The two small colonies i fragged up are looking fine with no further tissue recession on the frags. The only acro i am watching closely are those two fluoro lime colored pieces that STN'd in my last alk swing. Both have zero PE still and i won't be surprised at all to see tissue loss beginning if things don't pick up soon - it's the touchiest water quality coral i have but it's ridiculously flourescent and very slow growng so i don't want to lose it.

Yes Bello that worm is about 1/4" dia and the trusty el cheapo iphone macro lens was responsible as always lol.

That's one scary story.
Glad you are feeling better and in fine health now.
It's just great news you brought back the tank to normal and things are in control. Thanks for posting the details on how you managed everything without panicking. Under your care things will bounce back and be better in no time.
Yep you have hit jackpot with that 4$ livestock :lol2:
Wish ya all the best.

Thanks for dropping by mate, appreciate the kind words

The only reason i didn't panic and had a good idea what to do was years of experience at dealing with my reefing goofs lol. One thing i have always done in regards to water conditions when they are out is return them to where they should be very quickly rather than worrying about shocking corals twice in a day or two - they're still in major shock after your alk swing and won't get worse by being suddenly placed back into good water. I see a lot of advice urging reefers to slowly return alk back to where it was - all you are doing is subjecting your stock to poor water for longer and imo increasing the damage and fallout from the swing. That's just the way i do it and it's always worked very well for me but each to their own.

I actually started arguing with the LFS guy about whether that acro was alive until common sense told me to shut up because i realised if i won the argument he would have charged me $20- for a sick coral rather than the LR rate.

Woah! That's one crazy adventure. But like everyone else, I'm glad you and the tank are pulling through!

I wish they sold $4 live rock like that over here. A worthy pick up in my humble opinion. Are those worms living on the new pick up as well, or just an awesome picture from somewhere else in the tank? Either way :thumbsup: for another nice micro phone picture.

And :beer: to Potatohead for the manicure during your nap. Always the little helper! Despite being all pruned up and having a clean hand, I wonder if your wrist being submerged in the cooler tank water actually helped bring your fever down while you snoozed?

Once again, glad you're feeling better and were able to get things under control.

Hey ho Troub

Lol yeah it wasn't a bad score from the LR tub :thumbsup: Those worms are living on a big frag of that crazy blue piece at the front of the tank, i have xmas tree worms living in two of my acros as well - they look really cool sprouting out the top of an acro, i'll try to get some pics of them once everything settles back down.
Potatohead now resides under the raft rock most of the time as that's the end i feed the clown at and he loves pellet fish food. Since the mandarin has started sleeping under it at night he now spends the night there too instead of behind the rocks near the overflow.

My WP25 is arriving tomorrow so i'll let you know what i think of it once i throw it in the tank. :thumbsup: Here's the sump atm, you can see how poopy the corals are and the crappy colors. I have nitrates back to zero and phos is .05 so i'll keep running the GFO until it phos bottoms out. Feeding the corals three times a day and the fish gets two feedings on top of this. I also feed the corals a pulverised mysis block every third night as i saw the stags catching whole mysis even though they can't eat them so now they get mysis slurry that they can digest.

 

[Bello]

Yeah, it seems that you were fairly lucky, and I'm glad you can see the bright side of things :thumbsup:

I'm due for a 5 day holiday end July, and I'm getting nervy about leaving the tank by itself. But I owe it to my family, can't let this obsession...oops hobby , rule my life :lol:

On the bright side, if after all this, you haven't lost a single coral, that's a lotta hope right there

Hopefully, those fluoro greens bounce back. Those are the thin branched deepwater ones right? And possibly the only green acro you'll ever like :lol:

Sump colors don't look too bad.... at all. I'd expect a whole lot worse, given the circumstances. But it seems like the second tank build is gonna have to wait for a while now, eh?

Oh, and I got me a flame angel...just to mess things up some more :lol:

 

[biggles]

I'd say i was very very lucky to get away with the alk drop this time around. On a good note the alk was 7.7 this morning so it dropped 0.3 - my SPS are kicking back into gear
Yeah those very thin and delicate fluoro pieces are the ones, the two bits left from the branch that STN'd when i goofed with alk a month or so ago - still no PE whatsoever even though everything else is picking up slowly
The brown hair algae that was blooming on my return pipe crashed overnight so that's a good sign as to getting the phos out of my water, i'll prob remove the passive GFO and carbon bags from the sump this weekend and i need to prune the red macro algae at the front of the tank again as it's sucked up a lot of crap in the last week.
I feel your trepidation at leaving the tank for 5 days - triple check everything buddy before you walk out that door and things will be ok i'm sure........... :thumbsup:
A flame angel hey - you bastard Bello......... i want one badly but i'm so paranoid about it eating my SPS. As you've taken the gamble i think it's only right i have a go with an angel too - remember 'who dares wins' in tank Battles Bello :strooper: I'm going to seriously hunt for a nice flame now, btw hows that lovely green acro going that's getting thumped by the other non ugly acro........:lol2: