Monday October 18th 2010 William Penn HS 7pm in the Cafeteria
We will be discussing the DRC elections as well as opening up nominations. This is your chance to make sure you have a say in the direction of the club for the upcoming year. Remember that you must be a Premium Member in order to vote or hold office. If you have any question about your status you can ask Marty at the meeting - if you’re not yet a Premium Member it’s only $10 for the year.
We will be discussing food, topics of conversaiton, and any demonstrations over the next week. If there is anything in aprticular you’d like to talk about, hear about, learn about - please let us know so we can make the meeting as interactive and informative as possible.
I am a newbie and I was wondering if we could discuss converting a bio-ball sump into either an algie system or rubble system. I also wanted to know if your tank could ever have too much calcium, what are the true benifits of a calcium reactor, and should one get one if they have rock and coral? Testing…what is absolutely necessary? Lastly, lighting…size and function. Is it better to have larger or smaller T-5 lights 3-24" vs 2-36" vs 2-24" and 1-48". I have a 125 gallon tank with 3 sections ontop but no lighting yet.
WELCOME! sounds like your switching from fresh to salt?? theres no short answer to your questions, but first i guess it depends on what you plan on keeping…softies, lps, sps, lighting, and if a reactor is needed depends on a lot of things… testing… the major ones are Magnesium, alkalininity, calcium, nitrates, and ph (best with a meter IMO), but your setup can be as simple, or automated as you want. I also have a 125 thats been a mixed reef for about 7 months now, so i’ve probably recently asked all the questions your needing answers to… Come to the meeting, you’ll meet lots of us willing to help, and give advice, and/ or start a new thread in member tanks and you’ll get more advice then you can handle
[quote=“Mandarin, post:2, topic:3390”]
I am a newbie …[/quote]
:Welcome)
Save your self thousands of dollars and buy this book, considered by many as bible of this hobby.
Well folks - John aka Houndsbayman - as been generous enough to donate some of his beautiful frags to our raffle tonight!!! Along with some insightful conversations, discussion of the upcoming election, and -hopefully- food - it should be a great meeting!!!
If anybody has the Algae problem solver book, and reads this before the meeting, could you bring it? i’d really like to take a look through it.
thanks
john
Great job at the meeting tonight Craig. Nice meeting some of the new people and thanks for the food. Congrats to all the raffle winners. Paul left the meeting with a little more baggage than he came with, good win on the cube tank.
I picked up a beauty of a clam from Rich, will post some pics.
Meeting was good John, how’s college? have a tank setup in your dorm yet? Rosti, thanks for letting me check out the algae book, wish it had an answer to my dino problem though…
Sorry about my noisy, distracting boys tonight, i’d like to blame Chris for feeding them all the taffy, but they’ve been in rare form all week. hopefully i can get a babysitter next month! but if they keep coming with me i’ll have to make them members (they ate most of the pizza tonight), and find a janitor closet to lock them in!
BTW did anybody pick up a hungry caterpillar book? my five year old informed me he left it at the meeting when i was tucking him in tonight (its a school library book of course). LMK
Wish i had cash for the raffle tonight, great looking frags, thanks John,Bill, and anyone else for donating to the club… can’t wait til i have stuff growing outta control like that!
[quote=“saltcreep, post:11, topic:3390”]
Rosti, thanks for letting me check out the algae book, wish it had an answer to my dino problem though…[/quote]
According to The Reef Aquarium (volume one) book by C. Delbeek and J. Sprung (page327), to control dinoflagellates you need to leave your light off for one full day, thereafter maintaining a photoperiod of only four hours per day until the bloom dies. This is not a cure, but keeps bloom at a manageable levels. And you must raise and keep PH 8.4-8.5 during day and above 8.2 during night. And no addition of any trace elements.
Use kalkwasser through controlled dosing for high ph control.
Thanks again Rosti, i’ve got the lights off, i’mm gonna try the strict 4 hour schedule for lighting after today, i tried cutting back on light before, but not that extreme because of worrying bout the sps… don’t know what else to do, i’ve been keeping the ph up. hopefully this will help cause i’m running out of options… i tried everything that the Kapt recommened last month except for the Vodka dosing, and i might try that on my frag tank (same problem) for experimentation sake… i’ll have to research the vodka dosing later, or maybe Ken will chime in and give me the rundown
I am sure Ken will have good info on Carbon dosing, I am taking the easy way out by using Bioactive salt. There is a good article in current issue of Coral magazine (sep/oct) on page 58 called “Probiotics Demystified†it talks about it, and gives you dosage info. I can bring magazine to next meeting if you like to.
BTW I loved Kens explanation of DIY sump, great idea. Thank you Ken.
I do some vodka dosing of the tanks, but im not very fastidious about measurements. i just started with one or two Ml. per day. after a while the bacteria started to grow, clump up in gooie mats of clear scum on the surface of quiet parts of the fuges and sumps. so i just scoop them out with a net. removes the nitrates/phos. after a little while more, the excess mats go away, the skimmer removes some more and things start to clear up. i dose a little more over time. but just a couple ml in the morning, and a couple more at night. no more bubbly brown slime on the rock, eggcrates or sand. im happy. run a filter sock on the overflow return pipe in the sump and you will collect some more. clean the sock often. or else it breeds more scum.
its working pretty good on two of my tank systems. the third frag system still gets some green/brown fuzz on the glass, but that is easy to clean off. and the fuge is still growing in.
yes, that is a very good article in Coral magazine.
