Where we are so far

[aquaphile]

hello to everyone, i joined COMAS at the january meeting and have been trying to get going since about november. below is a pic to the creation of me and my room mate wes (wsc). i picked the tank and rock from from poke75 and some tonga branch from rammanok. we just got done tearing it down to catch some damsels that steve so generously donated to the tank lol, thanks steve, we just got over the hair algea and bubble alga so we are good to go now. just thought i would post a pick to see what you thought of the rock set up, i also included a pretty cool pic of my star doing a dance!

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/aquaphile/DSCF0078.jpg

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/aquaphile/DSCF0035.jpg

also what is this, it was growing before we scrubbed the hair algea

http://i45.photobucket.com/albums/f87/aquaphile/DSCF0054.jpg

 

[captbunzo]

Lovely rockscaping! Nice job! Also like you kept the rock away from the glass, which will help avoiding deadspots.

So, what sort of plans do you have for that tank?

 

[MyMonkey]

Very nice. Another 58.

 

[aquaphile]

lol, my plans change on an hourly basis i think, right now we have to get the stand and hood finished and figure out what we want to do for more lights, as far as livestock goes i am going to pick up a couple true percs and a shrimp today and keep a close watch on my parameters for a while, i have very little bio load right now and the water is good, i'm anxious to see what happens.

 

[aquaphile]

ph dropping

ph dropping

i am acclimating the clowns right now last night i checked my water and my ph was reading around 8 so buffered it back to 8.3, and i checked it again today it was back down, i was told that more water to air would help so last night i aimed a power head at the surface what else would cause ph to drop out like that????

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Alkalinity and Calcium imbalances will cause this. If you overdose on pH buffer, it can cause an Alk/Ca balance. I did this when I was new. It's really amazing. Also, cycling will also drop the pH.

I preach on and on about Alk/Ca balance, but you will be surprised how often it is the problem. It's like it's the saltwater hobby's deep secret. It's imbedded in all the quick fixes like pH buffer and other additives, but no one ever really sits down to educate people on it. Here are some links that are definitely worth reading. Even if they don't help now, they will definitely help later.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/nov2002/chem.htm
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-09/rhf/index.htm
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/rhf/index.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2003/chem.htm
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2002-04/rhf/feature/index.php
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/may2002/chem.htm
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/feb2002/chemistry.htm
http://web.archive.org/web/20030608...work.com/fish2/aqfm/1998/july/bio/default.asp
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/apr2002/short.htm