haroldfock

Exactly. You got it right. To be absolutely safe, stick to the aquarium additive instead of these hacking methods. As one forum contributor pointed out, there may be other chemicals which are harmful to marine fishes. Another suggested Hungry Hippo dehumidifier powder which is calcium. I think that may be slightly pushing it haha as there may be other chemicals in it. I did the vitamin pill out of curiosity and so far no harm is done (I think). But I won't recommend it. I may be lucky so far. But here is an idea for new products. Instead of buying dosing equipment, in future, someone can figure out a slow release pill for tank. Throw it in and it releases the magnesium, calcium, strontium and other necessary chemicals to keep the reef healthy. Hmmmm why not? After all there are hobbyists who drip Vodka into the tank and swear by it. Hey maybe I stumble upon a new product class hahahaha

Exactly. You got it right. To be absolutely safe, stick to the aquarium additive instead of these hacking methods. As one forum contributor pointed out, there may be other chemicals which are harmful to marine fishes. Another suggested Hungry Hippo dehumidifier powder which is calcium. I think that may be slightly pushing it haha as there may be other chemicals in it. I did the vitamin pill out of curiosity and so far no harm is done (I think). But I won't recommend it. I may be lucky so far. But here is an idea for new products. Instead of buying dosing equipment, in future, someone can figure out a slow release pill for tank. Throw it in and it releases the magnesium, calcium, strontium and other necessary chemicals to keep the reef healthy. Hmmmm why not? After all there are hobbyists who drip Vodka into the tank and swear by it. Hey maybe I stumble upon a new product class hahahaha

Sir, I have wiped out several corals. Like you, I checked my water parameters and they looked alright. 29 is a bit on the high side but my chiller is set at 28.5. Here is our problem. We keep reading the general water parameters for saltwater tank and we did not go into the coral parameters! And I tried shifting the coral, programming the LED light, programming the Vortex wavemaker and I keep getting the same results. And it is disheartening. Until I stumbled on the following (which is MY FAULT for not learning about it earlier.) You need three EXTRA parameters to keep corals - Calcium, Magnesium and Alkalinity. Yes there are test kits available and yes, you need to meet those parameters IN ADDITION to the usual parameters - Ammonia, nitrate, nitrite, PH, temp, no tap water etc. My discovery sounds like a joke. Dont laugh. Out of desperation, I dropped my vitamin pill - Magnesium/Calcium into the tank and suddenly the corals just bloomed like a new lease of life. Then I realized I wasnt paying attention to these extra parameters. DO NOT follow my example. Just buy the additives and more importantly, READ UP on the coral section. Trust me, you will feel much happier after this. All the best. AND speak to the seniors here who are very helpful. I did not ask for help which compounded my stupidity :-) Good luck sir!

In the evening the corals even stretch further with their "tentacles".

Ok here are the photos taken at evening. They stretch out even further.

This is a close up. I was putting the corals too close to each other (based on past experience as they don't stretched out). After this photo was taken I had to re arrange the corals to avoid them touching each other.

I also have to make adjustment to the usual placement of corals. Previously I put them nearer to each other because they never stretch out anyway. Now I have to move them far apart as the tentacles are like the movie's evil monster. Out to touch each other. My error was this. I keep reading websites on water quality. And they tell you about ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, no copper, PH, saltinity and temperature. But that is general reef keeping. So I get a bunch of test kits and dutifully test every 2-3 days to the point of obsession. Next, I read about placement of corals and water flow and I keep tweaking the wavemaker, programmed it with various flow patterns, then played with the lighting. Shift the coral for optimal flow and lighting. Even got coral food. Throw in the strontium additive. The stupid part is I should have accessed the coral forum - magnesium, calcium and alkalinity. The lesson learned - read and research. And the fishes are doing well too. I should have asked!!! Thank you all.

Apologies for the late reply. The corals just went on overdrive. I used a test kit. Magnesium, calcium and alkalinity all at the recommended parameters. Looking back I have so many failures with corals. At the fish shop, the corals looked beautiful and when brought back into my tank, it shrunk and with the occasional "bloom". Now it is consistently like this. At evening, the corals even bloomed bigger. There is no miracle here. Nor did I discover something awesome. It is just that the previous water did not have enough magnesium and calcium. And the corals just slowly died. My fault. I suppose getting the usual specialized additives will have the same outcome or even better results.

After adding calcium and magnesium vitamin pill (you read it right), the corals just bloomed!

Thanks for all the advice! I love the madzpet store and was contemplating to get those units in his shop. Kind of funny that I am in the water business but has to buy a rodi unit from someone else wahaha. Now I get it from Ah Beng at farmway 2 and the fish and coral loves it. I have a box of salt (tropic marine) but next box will be h2ocean.

Dear Edmund and Patrick Thanks for the helpful and wonderful comments! One of my businesses is in water purification using nano silver embedded ceramic (we make it into a chemical bond instead of just dipping silver, so zero leakage), in fact, a china fish farm is experimenting with the product. As a result, it is a habit to test water and I cant resist testing my own fish tank :-). Call it wannabe scientist hoping to play with chemistry set.. some guys never grow up hahaha. Another reason is I used to add water from the water dehumidifier machine to top up. Like the OSIM previous technology called dragonfly or something, it extracts water from the air. On paper, there should not be chlorine and other chemicals BUT the copper coil is dangerous and any copper leakage will be extremely bad for the corals. I stopped doing that now (zero copper leakage so technically it can be done). I have tried goodness how many ways to get clean water including a Tunze RO/DI but that product wastes too much water and the tap fitting does not fit exactly despite having all the connectors ie waste water. To cut the story short, I experimented. The GNC magnesium+calcium pill is like 30 dollars or less (i recall) per bottle. Took me years to figure out that my body requires magnesium and it stopped my annual 1-month long whopping cough. And I thought why not try it on the tank after reading some Aquarist article on magnesium. And I am merely using half a pill (over two days by dipping it the first day and the second day, just leave the residual half pill in the tank). But that is not scientific. You are absolutely right. Buy a magnesium and calcium test kit and see if adding the magnesium+calcium have adjusted the parameters by how much and for how long. Like I said, this was one of those experiments that yielded almost stunning unexpected results. WIll try to get a photo from my phone - I have never seen the corals opened up like that. Again this is a conjecture based on logic - I suspect my water parameters are way below in terms of magnesium and/or calcium, so dropping the half pill inside merely adjusted the parameters back to the ideal ranges and therefore the corals like it. And your comment is very true that such experimentation is equivalent to pouring toxic substance inside. Agree, so I will do it very slowly henceforth and thanks for the advice. It is a small 1.5ft tank with US 13 gallon volume which amplifies the impact of any additive due to the small vol of water. Of course the ideal outcome is every month, I just take a half pill and drop it in the tank like a vitamin routine. If only... Will keep all of you posted.

I have a nano tank for a year. Like any new hobbyist, I often envy the display tanks at the aquarium shops. Even their nano tanks looks 100 times better. You buy a coral and when you put it in your own tank. It flourishes a while and then it becomes smaller and lacks its former beauty and brilliance. Well, the LFS owners run a business and we do it as a hobby. And their tanks are mature and have been around for years. Fair point. But wont it be nice if we can do the same. I do water quality test on ammonia, nitrite, notrate, copper, phosphate, PH and trying to get the ideal water condition and I have no idea how many "magic" additives I have bought. It is like golfer with their new clubs. Yesterday I tried something new and crazy. I dropped half of the GNC Magnesium and Calcium vitamin pill into the tank. The calcium caused the tank to be slightly cloudy but it cleared up in 5 minutes. Then I noticed the mushrooms began to open up till they covered the rocks and everything seemed to go hyperdrive in terms of size. It is like they were given steriods. I did some research and found out that magnesium is important to corals and fishes, the third most common ion (or element) after sodium and chloride (guess that is why it is called salt water). And most artificial salt and artificial seawater lack the magnesium. The chemistry is pretty complicated and I am no chemist. Summary: some artificial sea salt has plenty of magnesium and some dont. I am sure someone has tried this before. But it works for me. It is too early to tell if this is the solution as I would need more test over time. Perhaps it is the calcium and not the magnesium. Or is it a fluke result? Maybe some seniors in this forum can shed some light but it is fascinating if this really works! Exclusion Clause: Do this experiment at your own risk. Maybe dont even experiment until it is proven safe. Maybe everyone knows this trick. Any advice?

Nice!

Thanks Eric, YES patience in this hobby. It is hard to resist the urge to add fishes. Thanks for the timely reminder.

Hi Chew, You can access the Market Place forum in SG Reef. There are many hobbyists selling their products and you can get a good bargain. And the local fish shops are very helpful too.

Dear All thank you for the nice comments and feedback. 1. The light is is MicMol LED light that looks exactly like the Apple Mini. And it has a look-alike Montblanc logo. China product :-) http://www.micmol.com/ I got it from Sani and it is wonderful. 2. The plate is in the middle. But there is a large anemone in the picture but it is not really clear. I have another small anemone at the side. The clowns have simbiote with the anemone. 3. I wish I can cut slits to the Ikea drawer so that I can slot the entire chiller underneath the tank. I dont have a sump. So the design is far from elegant. All I need is to get some electric saw to saw a big hole at the back and the chiller will have an outlet. You cant call this an iTank when there are so many wires and tubes :-)

Nice!

Thanks for the advice. I just got a flame angel, a dottyback and a clam at LCK yesterday, Thanks Ericmz! Will hunt for the red bamboo, boyington. I have re-arranged the reefscape. The whole purpose is to try to get the anemone to be in front. Been trying for weeks :-) I know the anemone finds its own comfort zone but if I can tweak it such that it is in front, will be nice

No I did not glue the live rocks. I have just two pieces.

Thanks all for the encouragement. I need some red in the iTank. Part of good fengshui (whatever excuse) and part asthetics because there is no red. The red wrasse somehow slided into the Tunze filter (which I thought was impregnatable) and became minced fish meat. I had two black domino damsels but they turned aggressive and attacked anything you put in. So those were gone. The two yellow belly damsels always hide. So there is little front view activity. Any recommendation for some red fishes that do not hide too much? Thank you all!

This is my 6 months old tank. Thanks to the participants on this forum, my tank is going well. I had my share of mistakes and wrong purchases. 3 Tunze Comlink filters, 1 Innovative Reactor (just got it today), Arctica chiller, UV light - I think it is an overkill for such a small 1.5 feet tank. 2 yellow belly damsel, 1 blue tang, 1 yellow tank, 2 red fire shrimps, 2 cleaner shrimps, 2 anemone, 2 clown fishes, 1 anemone crab, 2 stowaway hairy crab, 4 bumblebee snails, 4 turbo snails. That's about it.

I am new to this forum and need some advice. I hope I don't end up posting in the wrong forum. Has there been any aquarist who has used silver nano to kill bacteria in a reef tank? I am hoping to find an aquarist who can perform experiments and better still, knows a bit about chemistry (nitrogen cycle). I did this experiment at home by leaving Nanosilver chemically bonded ceramic in a small freshwater tank. The PH level has risen to 7.4, the Ammonia is lower and the Nitrite is lower relative to a tank without the ceramic. We know that silver nano kills bacteria but in a tank, it will not be able to kill all so the nitrogen cycle still can takes place. I am wondering if it can be applied to saltwater aquarium? The said ceramic has been able to prolong cut flowers in vases (removing microbial pathogens) and now I am testing it in aquariums. Chemically bonded nano silver means zero leakage of silver particles to fishes, so no harm is done to the fishes and the water supply unlike nano silver colloidal solution or chemically coated ceramic. And I don't pretend to know what the esteemed members here have learned over the years so I really need help and advice. I am a venture capitalist and I am excited about the possibilities of reducing microbes in this field but I am not a scientist nor a hobbyist, hence this posting. 1. Will Nanosilver killing microbes affect the nitrogen cycle? 2. Can it work in salt water as well as fresh water? 3. Is it true that good bacteria stays in the filter and the bad bacteria resides on the "seabed" substrate? This is unrelated but I am thinking seriously of setting up a nanotube for my office. One of my bucket list in life. Thanks for listening and please advice. Huo Min Kang