1. keeping rockwork stable
a. reef putty: make a ball of this smelly stuff and put it under the tippy side like adjusting a restaurant table [try to hide it: it's WHITE until it crusts over]
b. plastic rods [you have to drill the rock
c. [my own] eggcrate laid down on the glass before I added rock: keeps it from crashing down on bare glass.
2. getting corals to stay put
a. IC-Gel or other superglue: glue them to rocks or plugs and stick that into a hole in your rockwork.
b. or glue their rock or plug to a larger rock.
c. [chancier: a learning curve] create a rock sandwich, lifting one rock to gently ooooch a specimen rock into the pile. Good for mounting corals like monti cap that like to be on the edge of a cliff.
3. keeping algae at bay:
a. no substitute for a refugium
b. be sure to mark the date on which you got your lights... on the bulb with a magic marker, or somewhere you'll notice, ...and write down the 'due date' when they should be replaced.
4. preventing 'silent' menaces to your tank.
a. phosphate kills corals mysteriously---if locked in algae, it doesn't show on tests, but when released into the water as algae is eaten, corals start not-thriving. Uptake it with phosban or a refugium.
b. never lose track of a carbon bag: change it out after 5 days. Carbon starts releasing every nastiness it sucked up, after it 'depletes', and can spike nitrates or ammonia.
c. don't lose metal objects, including ballast to hydrometers; don't use brass, copper, bronze, not even stainless steel. If you use it momentarily, like a razor blade on a glass tank, never set it on an edge, never lay it down inside the tank, and account for each razor blade you have used, just as a surgeon counts instruments---don't leave one in the 'patient'!
d. keep a log book...get ahead of the 'trend' instead of waiting until your tank crosses out of the 'safe' zone in any given reading. And are you going to remember whether your tank was at 8.5 or 8.3 two days ago. IF YOU KNEW, you'd know what the trend was now that it's reading 8.4. Should you add? Rising or falling? Additives take up to 24 hours to percolate through the system. Dose now? Yes? No? Corals hate big changes. Fish aren't fond of them either.
a. reef putty: make a ball of this smelly stuff and put it under the tippy side like adjusting a restaurant table [try to hide it: it's WHITE until it crusts over]
b. plastic rods [you have to drill the rock
c. [my own] eggcrate laid down on the glass before I added rock: keeps it from crashing down on bare glass.
2. getting corals to stay put
a. IC-Gel or other superglue: glue them to rocks or plugs and stick that into a hole in your rockwork.
b. or glue their rock or plug to a larger rock.
c. [chancier: a learning curve] create a rock sandwich, lifting one rock to gently ooooch a specimen rock into the pile. Good for mounting corals like monti cap that like to be on the edge of a cliff.
3. keeping algae at bay:
a. no substitute for a refugium
b. be sure to mark the date on which you got your lights... on the bulb with a magic marker, or somewhere you'll notice, ...and write down the 'due date' when they should be replaced.
4. preventing 'silent' menaces to your tank.
a. phosphate kills corals mysteriously---if locked in algae, it doesn't show on tests, but when released into the water as algae is eaten, corals start not-thriving. Uptake it with phosban or a refugium.
b. never lose track of a carbon bag: change it out after 5 days. Carbon starts releasing every nastiness it sucked up, after it 'depletes', and can spike nitrates or ammonia.
c. don't lose metal objects, including ballast to hydrometers; don't use brass, copper, bronze, not even stainless steel. If you use it momentarily, like a razor blade on a glass tank, never set it on an edge, never lay it down inside the tank, and account for each razor blade you have used, just as a surgeon counts instruments---don't leave one in the 'patient'!
d. keep a log book...get ahead of the 'trend' instead of waiting until your tank crosses out of the 'safe' zone in any given reading. And are you going to remember whether your tank was at 8.5 or 8.3 two days ago. IF YOU KNEW, you'd know what the trend was now that it's reading 8.4. Should you add? Rising or falling? Additives take up to 24 hours to percolate through the system. Dose now? Yes? No? Corals hate big changes. Fish aren't fond of them either.
