Recent content by Crowther

Not happily. Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

What's wrong with my candy cane? Nitrates got a little high while I was out of town. Do I need to cut off the diseased-looking ends? Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

I've had the same experience with my hermit crabs staying away from my BTA. They don't seem to bother it. I don't have a clown. So, I've had too feed the BTA to keep it bubbly and happy. It eats like a pig. So far, so good.

Some tank updates: it's so much easier to procrastinate while working from home now. Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

Never mind. Something (pencil urchin?) just ate two of my three xenia stalks including the one that housed the brownish organism.

Just remember that while fish won't mind high nitrates, your invertebrates and hard coral generally will. The cycle isn't truly complete until you get denitrifying bacterial growth that turns the nitrate into nitrogen.

I haven't seen anything coming out of the red growths, but it seems something probably does? Interestingly, my xenia has been sending out a long strand that it reels back in periodically. I looked more closely at it yesterday and it appears that there is some sort of brownish organism in one...

I am confused about whether you added RO water to your tank after you drained it or if you added RO based salt water. If you added RO based salt water, I think there is much less of a likelihood that you wiped out your bacterial population. It's also unclear what you used to wash your rock...

Disclaimer: I never used the Red Sea Reef Mature Pro Kit; I used the shrimp method. That being said: if you are worried that your cycle never kicked off, add some more ammonia source and see what happens. Your first fish are going to be an ammonia source and rely on the bacteria you are...

Thanks for your response SPR. My nitrates and phosphates are reading zero. I have a biopellet reactor and am dosing NOPOX daily. These are some stubborn remnants of a prior outbreak. For some reason, none of my CUC will touch the super long strands. I guess manual plucking is in my future...

Time gets away from you. Here is the current condition of things. If anyone can ID the red tubular growths that are appearing on the rock, I'd be most interested. I suspect that they are some kind of worm or sponge. Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

It seems like the denitrifying bacteria are slow growers. That has been my experience anyway.

I'm battling nitrates as well. I started dosing a mixture of vinegar and sugar. That didn't work as quickly as I would have liked. So, I ordered some NO3PO4-X. Before I started that, I started a bio-pellet reactor. I ran that alone for a while, but nitrates were still climbing back to...

After removing, scrubbing, and replacing the non-foundational rock, I'm feeling slightly less self-conscious about my algae situation. Sent from my LG-H810 using Tapatalk

I downloaded a custom file that someone created using PAR meters that I have been running for a few weeks now. Here is a link if you want to try that: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2307040&page=170