SubzeroLT

DD Jump Guards are quite nice as well. Rigid & neat. Not too expensive.

Well thought of set up! The RODI flow rate is impressive. Curious. Is the booster pump connected just before the RO membrane? Or placed just after the water source?

IMO, that's good enough. Standby more bio media. That should be sufficient to handle the bio load once livestock is transferred over. Use good bacteria products (eg. Prodibio where the bacteria is manufactured & stored in inert gas for longevity)

I think a 1/10hp chiller is perfectly OK for 20G (80L). In fact, its within the spec range of say the Hailea 1/10 product. Advantages - chills faster, more versatile for future upgrades, better resale value

You can/should start cycling more media now. You can run the extra media in your existing tank if space permits. Or run it in an external tub with a small recirculating pump. With that, you should be able to drastically reduce or even eliminate the cycling time + major water change since there is an early head start.

Yeah. But they do capture & eat fish. So do remember to feed them occasionally. Refer to one of my earlier post of it catching a spotted mandarin

Realized the Max Mini Carpet Anemone split into 3 (not 2) Kenya Tree from fellow reefer from some back after doing PAR measurement. Growing well (thanks for the frag).

I suspect it will remove all heavy metals (including iron) so I'd probably use it short term.

I used 250g of it so far (5ft tank). 500g shared with other reefers. I'm using it because the aluminum in my tank is 180x above normal sea level. Though my corals are OK, i'm not comfortable with it. Hence the decision to use this product. I believe the product will remove what it is designed for. But I'll know for sure only after the next ICP test. In an email exchange with Jack Kent (CEO Continuum Aquatics), he mentioned : The product primarily shows color for copper removal, which would be bluish or greenish. Aluminum will show up as a gray shade which is very hard to recognize. Also, organics in the system can discolor the resin in the brown tones, which can make distinguishing difficult. It is not an indicator resin, it will only display a color if the color of the basic ion shows up, which is most prevalent in the case of copper. Of course, i do need to remove all sources of aluminum in my tank else they will continue to leach. I suspect they are coming from 2 main sources : - John Guest quick fitting connectors (those RODI tube connectors). I have about 6 connectors in the system. - Marine Pure (though marine pure contribution is very minimal)

The one in my pic is the 1000ml bottle.

I bought the big bottle from Amazon during one of my USA trips. Yes. Acetic acid (vinegar) works just as well here. You can get muratic acid (Hydrochloric acid) from good hardware shops. They sell it as paint/cement remover. I've used it for soaking rocks before without issues. But for most reefing purposes, vinegar works just as well.

Nice & neat. More pics please

What's your tank plan when you are away like? (eg ATO, skim collector, auto feeder....) Of course we all have a fear of power trip. Need to prepare for such contingencies as well.

Looks good! Anything new recently?

Just back from a 2 week vacation. More or less, the tank ran on its own. Many thanks to a fellow reefer to came in between to help check on things & to target feed the mandarin. Some things that helped with the long absence. (1) Large waste water / skimmate bucket with float sensor (2) Clarisea roller mat filter (3) Alkatronic KH measurements. I did make some calcium reactor CO2 timing adjustment remotely during the trip via the Apex Neptune. Quite happy with the Alkatronic to enable a close loop measurement of the most important parameter. Pleasantly surprised to find the max mini anemone split. Crowded Sea Cucumber's new fav spot

Need to send for another round of ICP test soon to determine if it works.

Time to re-generate the Continuum Aquatics Cleanse HM Heavy Metal. Soak in vinegar for 1-2hrs. Then rinse thoroughly. As good as new. Ready to re-use

Yes, it was for Zoas. Some pics here : I've decommed it for the moment.

Do share more pics & updates Its just easier to make your own salt mix. You can use your old pump to help with the mixing. I would not collect water from the shores around Singapore. Don't think its very clean. Also, natural sea water has the issue of inconsistent salinity (eg. if collected shortly after rain) The white stuff on the glass bottom could be precipitated salt. Possibly due to lack of sufficient water movement over extended periods? That's a good choice of pump. The pump will slow down over time as it gets dirty. I have a Eheim 600 for my 10 gallon & feel its under powered after a while.

Weather here in Singapore has been quite warm the past weekA. At times, hitting 32DegC inside the apartment The compressor kicked in more often. That prompted me to check the compressor temperature controller & realized that the accuracy drifted by about 0.5degC. That is, its reading too warm => cooling the tank 0.5DegC more than it should. I cross checked the Apex temp probe (supposed to be a 'long life' probe which is 3yrs old & still accurate when further cross referenced to an alcohol thermometer) Monitoring stuff : Emerald crab munching away on red turf algae. Some of them have grown quite big ~ 1.5" big.

An alternative is just to purchase Larry's Reef Frenzy frozen food from Iwarna. Good product. White clams is like a lot of effort to prepare for so little meat. An alternative is 1-2 oysters instead. I don't use an electric blender as i find it mashes the fish meat too finely even with a couple of pulses. So end up cutting it with a knife instead.

Thanks. No particular fixed schedule but this should be representative enough : Morning before heading to work. Feed a small bit of Ocean Nutrition Formula One pellets Night time ~ 9pm. Ocean Nutrition Formula One pellets + a cube (about 1cm^3) of home made fish food. Use long pipette to target feed some of the food to the Rock Flower Anemone & super sun coral Reef Roids about 2x a week (night time after lights out) DD Ocean Reef Paste. About 1x a week Live Phyto culture. About 1 cup (~250ml) a night 2x market prawns chopped up & fed to Anemone, duncan, scolly once every 2 weeks, several hours before water change. Some things i need to restock soon which i found to be good : Nyos Gold Pods Selcon (Used to hydrate the reef roids) & to fortify baby brine shrimps Oyster Feast For the home made fish food, its just a mix of whatever can be found in Sheng Siong. Fish meat, prawn meat, clams. Gut of clams removed Fish/prawn/clam meat is hand chopped (not using blender).

Gems indeed. Lovely

I don't quarantine invertebrates as they are not carriers of the commonly feared fish parasites (eg. Ich, Brooke etc) However, 2 things I do when it comes to invertebrates: 1) A longer acclimatization period as invertebrates tend to be more sensitive to water parameter changes. About 4 hour acclimatization (as compared to 30min to 1hr for fishes) 2) Minimize chances of adding LFS water to your display tank. After acclimatization, I transfer the invertebrate to another container with tank water for several minutes. ...then introduce to tank. Its like an extra rinse process.

If the ATO container is above your water level, then you need a float valve. Not sure if the RedSea tank came with it. Else you can get it for about $10+ from Madpetz. For salifert test kit, the color needs to change completely. Just search on youtube for color reference. This is a good example where you can see the color clearly though its not in english.