FuEl

My filtration "room". Hopefully these 2 croceas will do the job of keeping water quality good. Read that they can uptake ammonia & nitrates, as well as DOC. I would never have dared to get them if I was still dosing manually. I got them small, should be safe against spawning events. Will still be supplementing their diet with phytoplankton given their small size.

Supposedly some rare SPS given to me. Not sure what it is though. It had turned brown previously. Now with dosing pump and running ultralith the colors are slowly coming back. Anyone who says LED can't bring out SPS colors obviously has'nt done it right.

You can see the staghorn frags growing in the direction of light. And that purple thing, is still purple as Barney!

Invasion of Chilli Pepper Monti.

New resident. Urocaridella shrimp.

Updated FTS. Added one more liverock to break the scape and to have more space to stick SPS. Removed skimmer so the tank looks less cluttered now. Dosing pump still sits above the tank. New corals go into this tank as well, I kinda use it as a quarantine tank. Fish diseases can come with corals too. Some people call me paranoid but I rather be safe than sorry.

I discovered today that my skimmer had not been skimming. Somehow either the air pump is weak or the airstone became clogged. Corals looked fine though. Decided to take down the skimmer since the tank had been running fine with such inefficient protein skimming. Added 2 croceas few days back, guess they should be able to help with the water quality by absorbing DOCs as well as inorganic nutrients. I am so glad I went with a dosing pump.

So bizzare!

Zac -- No worries. Small tank has its own "fun". You do learn things that you do not find out from larger systems. Like for my daily water changes I use water that I mix to only 1.018. It seems that this compensates for the daily evaporation rate somewhat. Factor in the sodium input from sodium bicarbonate dosing via dosing pump in such a small volume of water, the salinity kinda balances out. No need to dilute daily with distilled/di water whatsoever. Amby -- Yes the tiger goby is quite small, bred and growth controlled by me.

Check with Thairun, I believe he has a pc like that that he is letting off. I can't remember where I got it from, so long ago.

You go to see doctor, just consultation alone need to pay $$. You go to see bomoh, consultation also need $. You buy frags, even if no consulation charge also need to pay for fragging and service fees and possible cherry picking fees (sometimes as late as 2-3am admist mosquitoe swarms). Electrical bills need to be paid, colonies need to be covered for in order for fragging to become a sustainable business. All businesses need to make money, if businesses do not make money, they should become charities instead. Everyone is entitled to their own thoughts but think of it this way, no one is forced to buy. If frags had been more stable, they would'nt be only $15-$18 I would think.

Will QT this fish for you. It's now sitting in the miracle no. 7 medicine. Saw it scratching a little before I bought for you.

I pass to you. Then you can sell to Dr Tanaka. Then hopefully he breeds them.

Came across this fish today.

Reefers here are very lucky. Check out the price in U.S http://lecorals.com/products/misc/greencabbage.html

Given the amount of fish in the tank I would think you need more flow. Sohal tangs in nature are found in surge areas, meaning they probably have higher oxygen demands compared to Zebrasoma tangs. Check out this article by Copps. I would think that if you can provide conditions that suit an Achilles Tang, your Sohal would probably thrive as well. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=13199939 Dissolved Oxygen levels has always been rather overlooked in the health of marine organisms.

Found this interesting write up about STN, 3 parts to it. http://blog.fragd.it/2009/11/12/stn-and-the-real-issues-part-2/

Glad you are happy using Fauna Marin's Ultralith System. Very natural coloration of SPS. People who get put off by the initial costs probably have not worked out the maths as you diligently have.

Solid carbon dosing is said to be safer. However, it must be used correctly. Polyhydroxyalkanotes (PHAs), like NP-biopellets, are bioplastic polymers produced from sugar fermentation. Biodegradation of PHAs in the presence of nutrients (limiting factor) releases organic carbon. As such, this self regulating process is safer compared to manual dosing of carbon sources like ethanol. PHAs provide the organic carbon for denitrification to occur and also acts as a substrate for denitrification bacteria to attach to. However, major issue with this is biofloc formation due to heterophic bacterial activity. As such, PHAs need to be kept in constant suspension to avoid clogging from biofloc and to promote a healthy thin biofilm. If PHAs are not fluidizing and get clogged up from bacterial biomass due to insufficient flow, the resulting anaerobic conditions promote phosphorus to be released by the bacterial biomass into the system. This is when you will see increased algae issues if you are using PHAs incorrectly. It is only under aerobic conditions & anoxic (totally no oxygen) conditions that phosphate gets assimilated by polyphosphate accumulating organisms (PAOs) as polyphosphates. This process involves either oxygen or nitrate, depending on the PAO involved. These PAOs are present in the biofloc that is produced when PHAs biodegrade. You need enough flow through PHAs to drive out the bioflocs to be removed via mechanical filtration (eg. filter socks) or via protein skimming. Referenced from: Recirculating Aquaculture 2nd Edition.

There are 2 groups of bacteria in your biofilter. One is autotrophic bacteria while the other group are heterophs. Carbon dosing promotes the growth of heterophic bacteria which grows 5x faster than your usual autrophic nitrifiers (nitrosomonas, nitrobacter, nitrospira, etc). Heterophs are capable of removing ammonium in the presence of carbon source but they tend to produce 40x more microbial biomass in the form of total suspended solids and 75% more CO2 in the process, as compared to autotrophic nitrifiers. As such, it is only advisable to attempt vodka dosing if your system has very low biological load. When your nitrates have dropped to near zero, slowly wean your system off vodka. Dosing excess carbon source when nitrates are limiting will produce toxic sulfides in anaerobic conditions (in your liverock, DSB, etc).

More clownfish hybrids. http://reefbuilders.com/2010/12/06/sustainable-aquatics-released-ocellarispercula-clownfish-crosses/