What have you done with your tank lately?

[maxxII]

I wish I could find a very small juvi.

I got this one off of Live Aquaria Diver's Den....they had a run of them going for several weeks earlier this year. They seem to run in spurts.

MaxxII. They are not losing money in either scenario. They just make more when on livestock. Any retail store is dealing with 10-20% margins on dry goods. Or at least that is the goal. But when it comes to live stock they are normally in the 50-200+ % range.
This doesn't mean they are gouging or anything. You have loss in shipments, shipping costs and mortality issues once there.
Being in sales and working in the hobby many many years ago I understand why a store may not want to trade for dry goods. But imo it's not worth upsetting a consumer or making him wonder why He can't use trade goods for dry goods. Profits at any level is a win. Unfortunately some don't see it that way or feel is worth doing for customers.
Also,what happens in the next day if the corals die for whatever reason. Live stock to live stock is a safer bet for a store any day.
In no way am I defending them. Just a rational understanding of sales/risk.

The red part is what I was stating, and I've been told that they do in fact lose money trading livestock for dry goods. That was the crux of my irritation in that matter. I get that it's their store, and the owner can run it anyway they see fit. I realize it is probably much much easier to come up with an easy lie than explain a hard truth to most folks, but I prefer honesty.


Not trying to derail this thread so I'll let it go.

Thank you for the time you spent explaining all of that, I do appreciate it.

 

[chucklez]

Was talking with my wife when she got home from work, and I told her it appears I have a dinoflagellates bloom. Luckily I caught it in the early stages before it has went to far. My 8 yr old heard me and asked "What is dino flatulence?" After a hearty chuckle, I told him it was when a dinosaur farts to close to your fish tank.

 

[mpgrant77]

That is awesome. Dino farts can be really hard to get rid of.

 

[thabizness]

I finally hid my Apex DOS tubes in the ceiling leading to my drain and fresh saltwater container. I removed the 2x 40breeders that I kept saltwater in next to the tank for water changes. No more pumping water to and from the holding containers by the tank. Fully auto water changes for the 180. No buckets or MAG pumps needed anymore!

 

[Nanook]

I finally hid my Apex DOS tubes in the ceiling leading to my drain and fresh saltwater container. I removed the 2x 40breeders that I kept saltwater in next to the tank for water changes. No more pumping water to and from the holding containers by the tank. Fully auto water changes for the 180. No buckets or MAG pumps needed anymore!

Just lik downtown:thumbsup:

 

[Aqua Man 07]

I finally hid my Apex DOS tubes in the ceiling leading to my drain and fresh saltwater container. I removed the 2x 40breeders that I kept saltwater in next to the tank for water changes. No more pumping water to and from the holding containers by the tank. Fully auto water changes for the 180. No buckets or MAG pumps needed anymore!

sure does make for a smooth water change wed

 

[kegogut]

I finally hid my Apex DOS tubes in the ceiling leading to my drain and fresh saltwater container. I removed the 2x 40breeders that I kept saltwater in next to the tank for water changes. No more pumping water to and from the holding containers by the tank. Fully auto water changes for the 180. No buckets or MAG pumps needed anymore!

I need to get one of those for my WC~

 

[btweymouth1s]

Added a pincushion urchin, bicolor dottyback, sunburst butterfly, diamond goby and longfin flasher wrasse to the tank.

 

[pdt7361]

I've been working today to redo the plumbing on my tank. When I first did it, I really didn't know what I was fully doing and had a couple of small, slow leaks. Luckily they were over my sump so I didn't care...but it has started to cause the build up of salt creep, so I decided it needed to be right. I've gotten my return line done with new manifold and now am just waiting on the glue to dry so I can reattach the drain line.

 

[thabizness]

I am the automate king. I saw a ad yesterday for a automatic algae scraper and my daughter heard me say I gotta get that. She said what to you really do with that tank? You auto feed, auto water change, auto dose, and now you want to auto scrape the algae off.

Point taken... but I do manually feed frozen and empty the skimmer cup. For now.

Next up I'm going to put a 50ft apex cable in the ceiling and put a few EB8's and breakout boxes in the room where my Coral and fish QT tanks are and my RODI/saltwater containers are (laundry room) I want to pump RODI water to the display tank (automatically of course) and automate some maintence on those tanks/containers.

Hello, I am Tha Bizness and I am a Apex-aholic.

 

[thabizness]

Water change Wed? Water change daily!

sure does make for a smooth water change wed

 

[Scubareefman]

So today I noticed one of my fav monti's had significant bleaching. After a much closer instruction just about all of my SPS showed signs of trouble. I did a 20 gallon water change and started looking for the culprit; my skimmer... So during my last monthly carbon/uv/skimmer cleaning about two weeks ago it appears I somehow changed my skimmer apex setting to a blank setting. It hasn't been spinning up after lights out and it never dawned on me. My tanks taken some pretty big hits this last few weeks. First me fumbling around trying to learn how to dose for sps growth, now near toxic water quality for however long. Dang, just dang. On a brighter note my fish are super happy.

 

[Mr D smack]

So today I noticed one of my fav monti's had significant bleaching. After a much closer instruction just about all of my SPS showed signs of trouble. I did a 20 gallon water change and started looking for the culprit; my skimmer... So during my last monthly carbon/uv/skimmer cleaning about two weeks ago it appears I somehow changed my skimmer apex setting to a blank setting. It hasn't been spinning up after lights out and it never dawned on me. My tanks taken some pretty big hits this last few weeks. First me fumbling around trying to learn how to dose for sps growth, now near toxic water quality for however long. Dang, just dang. On a brighter note my fish are super happy.

A lot can be said for keeping things simple. To me it sounds like you got something else out of wack, not the skimmer. Did you test water parameters? I also thought that running uv was a way to not run carbon depending on the flow through the reaction chamber, is this not true?

 

[Scubareefman]

I agree something else is wrong. I'm going to do a full test set tonight along with another water change. I run a 15w UV in-line with my little fishes 150 carbon reactor. I have been running both with good results for a while now. Yea my tank was doing ok when It was simple, but to be honest I was getting a bit bored and wanted to learn more so I added the apex and started attempting dosing...lol I have had amazing growth, but also some set backs. I have noticed that when I dose, the corals I once found simple to keep are now difficult, and the once difficult and now...simple.

Tom

 

[Nanook]

Skimmer is basically an oxygen source. I doubt it had much, if anything, to do with your losses. Keep SG, temp and the Big 3 (calcium,alkalinity &magnesium) rock steady and you'll be golden.

 

[makeshift101]

Wondering who will win the war

 

[maxxII]

Today I:
Calibrated my pH Probes

Tested my parameters-
DkH - 7.0 (Salifert)
Ca - 415 (Salifert)
Mg - 1365 (Salifert)
NO3 - 25 ppm (Salifert)
PO4 - 0.04 (Hanna Photometer 96713)
pH - 8.15

NO3 is too high...lost a tester acro to STN. So I cleaned out and moved over my ARID E18 Reactor from the FSP tanks to the 120.

Added two cleaner shrimp, (Lysmata amboinensis).

Moved my Yellow Tang and Tomini Tang over to the 120 from the FSP tanks.

Wife came home from work and the kids immediately started stressing us both out. I poured her a glass of wine, and sat her in front of the tank for 10 minutes while gave the kids a bath. Wife said it calmed her down immediately and that it was relaxing.

Mission accomplished.

 

[Nanook]

Today I:
Calibrated my pH Probes

Tested my parameters-
DkH - 7.0 (Salifert)
Ca - 415 (Salifert)
Mg - 1365 (Salifert)
NO3 - 25 ppm (Salifert)
PO4 - 0.04 (Hanna Photometer 96713)
pH - 8.15

NO3 is too high...lost a tester acro to STN. So I cleaned out and moved over my ARID E18 Reactor from the FSP tanks to the 120.

Added two cleaner shrimp, (Lysmata amboinensis).

Moved my Yellow Tang and Tomini Tang over to the 120 from the FSP tanks.

Wife came home from work and the kids immediately started stressing us both out. I poured her a glass of wine, and sat her in front of the tank for 10 minutes while gave the kids a bath. Wife said it calmed her down immediately and that it was relaxing.

Mission accomplished.

Nice work, Nick:beer:

 

[M3P]

setting up a break out box on the apex to switch ATO over with some printed reefing solutions ato holders...got confused while setting up the break out box. Now i'm watching the tutorial and drinking a beer. Hoping I finish the programming before the beer runs out

 

[Aqua Man 07]

ive done nothing but clean the glass and feed