Recent content by Timfish

Week 13. another full tank shot before maintenance is done.

It's looking like all the cyano is gone. Doing small weekly water changes of 2 or 3 buckets and using steel straws to siphon off algae. Week 11 And week 12

It's going very well. This system has a purple tang and green brittle star in their 4th decade and a yellow tang in it's third. Naso's have only stared their 2nd.

Well, you've certainly demonstrated far more patience than I would have! I really like the idea of monitoring equipment and believe "in principle" the various controllers can help aquarists keep thier system running and protect against the vagarities of everyday life. As I see these systems...

Week 9 Did some testing. Finally. Alk 9 dKH (API) PO4 ~.5 mg/l (Salifert) Nitrate undetectable (Salifert) Just FYI, when the system was first setup alkalinity was tested a couple times. Initial results when water was first added was 15 dKH and on day three it was 9. (Click on yhe...

Week 8

Week 7

As far as keeping them, give them enough light and room and they'll try to take over. :/ I wouldn't know how much they're actually sequestering. How would I isolate what a mangrove is doing from what biofilms, sponges, corals and fish are sequestering? And how would I figure out what the...

I wouldn't say expert, but I have experienced a lot keeping reefs for 4 decades.

Week 6 More shots of algae before weekly maintenance was done.

Pics From week 5. (Not sure what I did but some pics aren't showing up, if you click on the "X" it'll pop up.) Pulsing Xenia, added with the aquascaping and initial NaCl H2O fill up. Some killer GSP from a friend's system. It was super glued to base rock being seasoned in a frag tank...

I'm not questioning bare carbonate rock and sand can absorb phosphate. However, biofilms will form pretty fast, at least as fast as the algae and cyano that can be a component of biofilms form. Focusing on just the phosphate that's being absorbed by carbonate rock and sand is missing most of...

Day 27. Added a large rainbow BTA colony, ~18 BTAs.

Yes, there are "algae" that produce toxins that are potentially harmful to fish and corals but lighting and corals and algae is a very complex subject. Sorry! But your points strike me as uninformed. I would suggest you look up the research by Dana Riddle on lighting and corals. Here's some...

It seems to me a lot is ignored when focusing on just on whether PO4 is being leached from rocks. Biofilms significantly alter the sorbtion properties of the substrates they live on so there's the question of whether any phosphorus is being absorbed as well as the question of what may have been...