Old Man Sea's Marineland Profile 5.6 gallon pico reef - One Year Birthday - February FTS

[OldManSea]

I set up my first fresh water tank in 1960 and my first salt water tank in the late 1960s – more or less fish only of course with a few attempts at anemones.  In college in the 1970s got a degree in marine biology that I have never used but I did get to spend a couple of days on the Calypso during a multiship multiinstitute exercise in the Caribbean.  Learned a lot about mariculture, mostly of shrimp and some food fishes. Martin Moe was beginning to report on breeding clownfish which led me to breed Amphiprion ocellaris.  By 1977 I was out of salt water with more school and have not kept a saltwater tank since – work, kids etc.  Five years ago got back into freshwater with long cherished discus, anabantoids and killifishes.  I have followed Nano-Reef Forum for several years and marveled at how the hobby has advanced over the past four decades but have not pulled the trigger until now.  My wife and I have been East Coasters all our lives but became enchanted with the Seattle area so now I commute back forth between Connecticut and the Puget Sound.  We are on the West Sound directly across from the Olympics, sort of like being in heaven. 

I have a number of small AIOs that I use for killis and wild bettas and decided after following many of the picoreefs here that I had to start one.  I have avidly read all the aquarium journals for the under-10 gallon reefs over the past few years, fascinated by the likes of el fabuloso’s 3 gallon reef from 2008 which I have gone back to many times.  It was teenyreef’s 4 gallon reef that finally got me off the couch with its variety and the demonstration that even SPS corals can be maintained long term in a puddle.  I also liked the high-tech aspect of his reef.  And, I saw an announcement that the local annual frag event, Bob Moore Frag Swap was coming up in a few weeks.

I chose the Marineland 5.6 gallon tank since there are not many done as reefs due to the tall, thin shape - which lends itself well to excellent freshwater Amano style displays, and because I had several empty ones.  The tank got wet on January 11, 2017. 

Display:  5.6 gallon Marineland AIO

Lighting:  Nanobox Mini Tide M

Filtration:  Stock media caddy with filter floss and GAC, and sometimes GFO

Skimmer: none, cant find one to fit in the narrow rear sump

Heater:  50w Aqueon with self-built controller

Circulation:  Hydor 100 gph with stock water deflector

ATO:  Tunze Nano

Controller:  none at present

Dosing:  manual at present

Substrate:  CaribSea Arag-Alive!

Live rock:  3 pounds ‘Jakarta’

Salt:  Instant Ocean

Additives:  Mostly water changes, 50% once per week

 

Fish:  none

 

Corals:

LPS

• Duncanopsammia

• Goniopora

• Acan's

SPS

• Montipora capricornis

• Monipora setosa

Soft Corals

• Zoas and Palys

• Ricordea floridae

• Green star polyps

• Photosynthetic gorgonian (transferred to the 170 liter tank)

Other Invertebrates

• Sexy Shrimp (2)

• Snails:  Astrea, Nassarius

• Red legged hermit crabs (2)

• Several hitchikers from the live rock

 

Current water parameters

Temperature     78F

pH   8.2

Specific gravity  1.026

Alkalinity  9 – 9.5 dKH    

Calcium   420-440 ppm

Magnesium  1450-1500  ppm

Nitrate    0.5-1 ppm

Phosphate  trying to keep at 0.05 but tends to run around 0.1 – 0.15 ppm due to heavy feeding

 

 

FTS:  January 26 2017 after first algae began to grow, right before the first occupants (clean up crew and a couple of small frags) were added

 

 

FTS:  March 12, 2017

[pappadumplingz]

That feeling when a tank started this year is already looking better than yours . Can't wait to see how this turns out.

[SaltyBuddha]

Really like the scape and the two montipora hanging off the side. Are you planning on adding a fish to the mix?

[OldManSea]

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 5:11 AM, pappadumplingz said:

That feeling when a tank started this year is already looking better than yours . Can't wait to see how this turns out.

This one is turning out well - knock on wood.  Since I don't have a good grasp of reef keeping I measure salinity, calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, pH, nitrate and phosphate four or five times a week.  I thought no the big water changes are very helpful in a tiny tank which I no doubt feed too much - the gorgonian and duncans.  I do need to get a better feeling for additional high color impactful corals to add for the grow out.  The larger tank I started two weeks after this one is another story - still far from stable!

On ‎3‎/‎18‎/‎2017 at 6:22 AM, SaltyBuddha said:

Really like the scape and the two montipora hanging off the side. Are you planning on adding a fish to the mix?

I do want to add a tiny fish or two.  Haven't gotten far in figuring those out yet.  I am still at the stage in which I am astonished that I haven't killed everything yet, a few mishaps but nothing fatal.  Having the goniopora survive for 6 weeks and add many new polyps in the past 10 days and the gorgonion survive for a month and still look robust is my accomplishment for the year.

[debbeach13]

Welcome to NR cute tank already looking like a winner.

[OldManSea]

Setup and Cycling

 

After addition of live sand and water (January 11), food was added to cycle the tank – baby brine shrimp since I generally have them for the freshwater fishes, and liquified scallop.  This is old school, the way we did it when I last kept saltwater tanks but it worked well then and it did the trick today.  On Jan 14 found trace ammonia; nitrite and nitrate were still zero.  Added more food.  On Jan 16 nitrate was 3, ammonia zero and nitrite zero.  Added 3 pounds of live rock from Jakarta.  This was rock that had been in the store for about 6 months so was well cured.  By January 18 some brown “algae” began to appear on the live rock.  Examination of the live rock revealed several small “tentacles” waving about, probably polychaete worms in the rock or perhaps tiny brittle stars (now, I see them wave around and they are MUCH larger - polychaetes).  Also found some tiny feather dusters, the fans about 2 mm across, very cool.  I have gone over the rockwork shooting macro to see what I could find and have found a lot of stuff.  I really like the tiny things.

 

Tiny Feather Duster on live rock

 

By January 20, there was a lot of brown covering the rock, always a good sign in my experience – along with the little critters.  On the 21^st went shopping for cleanup crew with my 4 year old grandson.  Picked up 3 Nassarius and 3 Astrea snails as well as 3 red-legged hermit crabs.  But since my grandson was with me, we also picked up 2 sexy shrimp, 1 GSP (gotta have some!), a 3-headed Duncan frag, a Cespitularia frag, and 3 small zoanthid frags - of course he really wanted a "Nemo.".  By the next day the sexy shrimp had begun to spend time in the Duncan’s which they did for a couple of weeks.  Over time they have spent less and less time with the Duncans and now I see them there perhaps once every 4 or 5 days. 

 

Sexy shrimp with Duncanopsamma coral

 

Within a couple of days the Astrea’s had cleaned all the brown algae from the rocks and glass – all the way back to white – Impressive!  I changed ½ the water volume on Jan 25 and have continued to do that every weekend since.  I have fed the filter feeders with Reef Roids once per week and Phytofeast once per week.  I have fed the Duncans (and later the Ricordea) mysis shrimp once per week and minced scallop once per week. 

 

Red zoa’s.  This frag looked great for several weeks. 

 

I moved it a few inches and the next day many of the polyps had liquefied and the others were closed.  I didn’t see anything specific going on but recalled that dips in 50% tank water and 50% 3% hydrogen peroxide for 5 minutes looks nasty but the salvageable polyps survive.  It tried the dip and couldn’t see anything through the intense bubbling but after I rinsed in tank water I noticed that the liquefied tissue was gone.  I put the frag back in the tank and saw that some polyps, closed, were left and over the next few days those opened nicely and today the polyps look great and the bare spots on the plug are filling in.  I don’t know what happened when I moved it but the frag is still in the same spot and is looking good.

 

Blue and green zoas - very small polyps.  This image is from right after they were put in the tank.  The colony extends beyond the plug now except for one small area which was bare when I got it and still is.

 

 

The third zoa frag has many tiny polyps that are dark blue with fluorescent green centers.  They are very nice but I cannot figure out how to get an image with the correct color, the green I can get close but the dark blue usually turns out looking red unless I set the lighting to mimic 20k in which case the blue looks black.

 

The Duncans have progressively gotten darker with bright geen oral discs.  Here is a shot of them under 20k mimic light.  I see now why the online coral dealers always have these rich dark blue Duncans! 

 

On Feb 3^rd I bought an orange/red ORA goniopora at the lfs on impulse.  This is my showpiece and I am happy that it has done well and has now added more than a dozen new small new polyps around its periphery and it is adding small new polyps within the mass as well (two are visible in the center of the mass. 

 

 

On Feb 6^th I noticed what I thought might be an Aptasia anemone down in a crevice in the live rock.  Closer examination demonstrated that it is really a Ball Anemone, Corynactis.  It is all of 3 mm in diameter during the day but extends its tentacles about 5 mm at night. It has generated no progeny yet, at least none that I have seen. 

 

Ball anemone

 

 

Ball anemone with blue starfish.  This little starfish showed up a couple of days later.  I see it about once every two weeks.  I hope it won't eat anything that it shouldn't!  This shot is under flash after lights out.  You can see see some of the ball anemone tentacles extending to the edge of the image.

 

On Feb 28^th I attended the Bob Moore Frag Swap.  What a great experience.  I saw many, many corals in the flesh that I had only seen in photos up to this time.  The frag swap appeared to be a religious experience for many Acropora fans.  I had a small list and stopped first at Legendary Corals where I purchased 2 nice red rock flower anemones (not on my list!) that I put into the 40 gallon tank, a green and an orange Montipora capricornis that were on the list, 2 multicolored Ricordea's (list), and got two zoa frags for free, one was a two-polyp Utter Chaos and one was two-polyp something else the name of which I cannot remember.  I bought a very nice large blue Ricordea from Your Mother Loves Our Frags, from Stumptown Corals I bought a couple of Acan’s (list) and intended for this tank but which are really too large for the real estate so they went into the 40 gallon.  At Barrier Reef I bought a clean up crew for the 40 gallon tank (list) as well a Caribbean gorgonian (way far off the list but I used to keep them so couldn’t resist). 

 

Ricordeas - this image has terrible colors (flash).  I need to improve.  The large bluish one here is actually a very nice blue, it really chows down on mysis.  The little green one in the mid-ground had two mouths when I got it and it has now completely divided.  The one in the front is really bright orange rather than the yellow of the image and the green around the oral disk is really a nice, bright green.  You can see a mouth and another to the left of it just forming.  This specimen is still not completely divided but is well-constricted now between the mouths. 

 

Utter Chaos - a very nice Palythoa (I think).  The baby polyp is new within the past few days.

 

Other Zoanthid from Legendary Corals - I was going to include an image (you can see this zoa right above the Ricordea's in their image but it now also has a baby polyp that I noticed about 5 days ago and today it opened.  I need to shoot it.

 

Close up of the Caribbean photosynthetic gorgonian.  It is doing well as is the tiny shell in the upper middle, attached to the top of one branch.  The shell is now about twice this size.  The tiny white dots are actually copepods on the glass, they are not attached to the gorgonian.

 

I wish I had not gotten the Cespitularia.  It doesn't really do anything for the tank, especially with the tall thin gorgonian on the other side.  I suspect I will transfer it to the 40 gallon tank at some point.  Too bad there is no functional reef society in Seattle, perhaps someone would want it at a meeting.  And what is up with a fairly large city on one of the most spectacular temperate reefs in the world not having a reef society?  Not much in the way of stores, either, considering the size of the population.  Shameful! 

 

 

Everything has been doing well although I found that phosphate had gotten very high at about 0.36 ppm so I added GFO a week ago.  It did not do anything in 4 days (the water change cut it to about 0.15 ppm) so I replaced the GFO with Chemipure Elite which took the phosphate to  about 0.05 by the next morning.  The inhabitants all looked very nice but a day later the Duncan’s were partly retracted and looked somewhat flaccid (while they are retracted I noticed two new heads forming).  I removed the Chemipure since I have made no other changes so want to rule it out as a cause and made a 50% water change.  The Duncan’s look somewhat better a day later but are certainly not back to normal.  I will change 50% again tomorrow.  Everything else in the tank looks fine.  I looked at a video on Melev's Reef youtube channel today about removing phosphate and he said that when he drops it from 5 ppm (I thought 0.3 was horrible) to <0.05 overnight some of his anemones and corals are flaccid the next day "but so far in several years of doing this nothing has died."  Thoughts?

 

 

 

[Ranjib]

Tank looks beautiful.

My Vergas Cespitularia has grown crazy, I had to frag it multiple time. Its not the most colorful coral :-) , but it has grace. I am surprised Chemipure Elite was more effective in reducing phosphate than GFO. 

 

I love the macro shots you are sharing. They look awesome. What camera/lense you are using? I am planning to get a macro lense for my nikon 5300.

Pretty sad that seattle does not have a society. Can't you start one? Bay are reefers is pretty good here in SF bay area.

[OldManSea]

6 hours ago, Ranjib said:

Tank looks beautiful.

My Vergas Cespitularia has grown crazy, I had to frag it multiple time. Its not the most colorful coral :-) , but it has grace. I am surprised Chemipure Elite was more effective in reducing phosphate than GFO. 

 

I love the macro shots you are sharing. They look awesome. What camera/lense you are using? I am planning to get a macro lense for my nikon 5300.

Pretty sad that seattle does not have a society. Can't you start one? Bay are reefers is pretty good here in SF bay area.

Thank you, 

These were taken with a Nikon 5200 using a 60 mm Nikon macro lens or a 105 mm Sigma macro.  I have also done a few using the kit lens with extension tubes.  The Utter Chaos shot for example used a 20 mm extension tube with the lens set at 45 mm.  I am finding that the light color used with reef tanks is quite challenging as well as the distortion of shooting through glass.  This tank has glass that is especially prone to distortion, which I had not noticed visually until I started shooting.

[Ranjib]

The light related pain can be solved by post processing (white balance & color curve), while the glass related distortion is much harder. You have to remove ambient light (turn off all room lights, windows etc), and some more tricks .. but I am really noob at this :-/ . The photography forum has loads of tips and tricks around it. Tidal garden also has a nice vide on this

[OldManSea]

It has been a while since an update.  Work has been crazy with several deadlines.  The tank has been doing very well.  I am making some changes in the tank and I hope to have an updated FTS by the end of this week. 

 

The Duncans quickly went back to normal with the water changes.  I am not sure what caused them to look distressed but the Chemipure was the proximal change in parameters.  I will stick with GFO, at least for now.  Each of the three stalks of the Duncans has at least one new head forming, one has a new head on each side of the stalk.  The new heads are growing pretty fast and can even eat small frozen mysis. 

 

Here is a shot of the Duncan from the side of the tank so that the back side (left) and front (right are visible).  Two new heads are visible on the back and one on the front.  Not in this shot there are at least 4 additional, smaller heads also forming.  This image is from March 27, the new heads are much larger now and eat mysis.  The fluorescent green on the back of two heads is real except that in life, the green is much more intense than this image, too bad it is only on the back side!

 

 

On March 25, the green zoa frag from Legendary Corals whose name I cant recall was knocked down on top of the Ricordeas, probably by an Astrea snail as it wandered by.  This caused one of the zoa polyps to dislodge.  I reglued it (I am way too messy with superglue, need to practice) and then glued the frag to the rock.  I also glued the blue Ricordea so that I can begin to make the Ricordea garden frags into a more permanent display.  I had planned to glue all of the Ricordea into place but made an adequate mess with the zoa and the blue Ricordea so called it a day. 

 

Here is the glued zoanthid frag, what a mess I made!  The polyp on the right was broken off but I reglued it and amazingly it is doing well.  This image is from March 27.  The baby polyp is now larger and there are 3 additional ones (one is visible sticking out to the right of the baby that is face on. 

 

On March 26, I added a fish, a Gobiodon histrix.  I have always admired them in tanks and they stay small.  This one’s name is Goby Dillis. 

 

Here is the blue Ricordea and Goby Dillis.  He has ultimately decided to team up with the Duncan and spends much of his time perched on top of one head or another.  He has started to eat frozen mysis and scallop and is now much more active.

 

[SaltyBuddha]

Wow, awesome update! Looks like those Duncan's are loving life and should be cool to see them grown out a lot more. I feel like Most of the duncan corals I see don't expand with a lot of heads like that.

 

A ric garden also sounds like a cool plan. Might have to steal that one from you...

 

Your shots look really good too. Do you edit them at all after the initial shot? My fiance has a DSLR but I've never shot anything likes corals through glass before. I will probably spend too much time playing around with camera settings and the tank

 

[debbeach13]

Everything is looking sweet. Great photo's  Is that fish named after Doby Gillis from the old tv show?

[OldManSea]

12 hours ago, SaltyBuddha said:

Your shots look really good too. Do you edit them at all after the initial shot? My fiance has a DSLR but I've never shot anything likes corals through glass before. I will probably spend too much time playing around with camera settings and the tank

My photography of reef tanks needs lots of work.  I have filters coming that will hopefully help with my camera sensor's panic attack when it looks at the blue light.  In the meantime, the Nanobox light has a "Photography" mode that ups the white channel so these can turn out acceptable if not great.  The only processing that I use is to crop the images to save on file size for the web.

2 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

Everything is looking sweet. Great photo's  Is that fish named after Doby Gillis from the old tv show?

Yes, the goby is named after Doby Gillis.  I actually used to watch those shows when they were first aired, late 1950's or very early 1960's?

[OldManSea]

I have made some changes.  The gorgonian was beginning to decline.  I don't think it was getting adequate current, which is hard to set up in a tank that is so tall with small footprint.  I moved it to the 170 liter tank which has much higher currents.  I also moved the Cespitularia.  Here is a FTS from this morning.  It is overexposed - still working on the photography.  I have now added a yellow filter to the lens as suggested by many (see Dave Fason's recent tutorial for example) so now I don't have to change the NanoBox to "Photography mode."  Huge improvement!  These images were all taken with the regular NanoBox settings.  I will continue to practice. 

 

The Duncanops was getting too big for the front corner of the tank so I have moved it to the back corner (that side of the tank is the first thing seen when coming in the door so it is not hidden).  Soon it will be too big for that corner as well since it has 7 new heads rapidly growing.

 

The snails constantly knock over the zoa plugs and sometimes even the small Ricordeas, so I have glued them to the rock.  They look much better now.  Some of the polyps are closed since one of the sexy shrimp was just walking on them.  The culprit is still in the image.

 

 

I have hung the Ricordea garden on the rock as well. 

 

I moved the small red and blue Acan from the 170 liter tank to this one since the front corner is vacant.  It looks very nice here.  When I got it in February it had the 3 heads on the top.  Since then it has developed 4 new heads on the front side and 3 on the back, which are growing fast.

 

I have always admired the bright red Maxi mini carpet anemones in pictures.  I happened to see one in Diver's Den and couldn't avoid it.  It arrived last week.  It will ultimately go into the 170 liter anemone tank but for now it is here since it is just over one inch in diameter (you can see its tiny disk - or rather foot since it has decided to aim itself toward the center of the tank - at front in the FTS above).  It is super cool now but should be a knockout when it is larger. 

 

I bought a blue-with-red mouth Cyphastrea with the maxi mini that I mounted on the back wall.   I will try out some colored encrusting corals so liven up the wall.

 

I welcome any suggestions for additional corals to enhance the growout.

[gone_PHiSHin]

i don't have really much to add other than this is the first time i saw this thread and i am loving your tank.

 

I'm curious though, i too have the Tide Plus M and know that it's a powerful light, would you mind posting your settings for it?

 

 

[OldManSea]

I used to run the light lower than I do now.  I am sure it was too low as everything seems happier with the higher settings of the past 3-4 weeks.  Here are the current at mid-day:

Royal Blue = 90%

White/Lime = 20%

Violet = 80%

Blue/Cyan = 100%

Moonlight = 0%

Fan = 95%

 

The mid-day settings last 4 hours.

 

I used to max at around 75%.  Since ramping up colors are becoming brighter.  There is a glass top on this tank so that likely reduces the light a bit although when I remove it I don't see a visible increase.

[WV Reefer]

Tank looks great!  Sorry to hear about the gorgonian trouble.....it looked so good in that corner. 

[OldManSea]

50 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

Sorry to hear about the gorgonian trouble.....it looked so good in that corner. 

It was great there but since the tank is less than 10 inches on a side I think the flow just didn't make it happy.  I believe that it will do much better in the larger tank with its excellent flow.

[hinnenkm]

Beautiful tank!

[OldManSea]

A small update for May:

 

The tank continues to do well overall.  Removing the gorgonian was a difficult decision but it is recovering well in the 170 liter tank, which has much higher flow than this tank, and will have good room to spread out (which it will hopefully do a lot of!).  The Duncanops continues to grow.  I cant find an angle to get all of its heads in but this top down view shows 7 of the 8 current heads.  The oldest of the new heads is now about as large as the original 3 and the others continue to grow.

 

The red and light blue Acan continues to be happy, it now has 8 new heads growing, at various sizes, in addition to the original 3, and the heads are getting much larger.  I also added a new Acan colony (bottom of photo).  I would like to add a couple of additional colonies and will be on the lookout for interesting colors and patterns.

 

Unexpected new (temporary) inhabitants

In the 170 liter tank about 6 weeks ago the smallest of the RFAs disappeared.  About 2 weeks ago it showed up as a glob of jelly on the gravel.  Examination of the glob revealed the RFA, very macerated and missing part of its disk.  I put it into this tank to see if it would survive.  I am pleased to say that the disk is now full again and new tentacle nubs are forming.  It is not ready to photograph yet but I am looking forward to what might become a full recovery.  Nearly 2 weeks ago I received a few new RFAs from VIP Reef, all intended for the 170 liter tank.  One of them was very small, about an inch in diameter so it is going to spend a few months in this tank getting lots of food so it can grow to a size large enough for the larger "anemone tank."

[Ranjib]

Acans look very nice

[cfaye@Delaware]

Hello everyone.....this forum is outstanding. I have been reading here for several weeks. I have always enjoyed salt water tanks but never knew you could have them so small. I found out about nano tanks on Facebook, so here I am. I have been reading about these tanks on the internet but this forum has a lot of info and it is all in one place. Plus it looks like the info works, pictures of peoples tanks are awesome. Now I posted here because next spring I will be starting a 5 gallon marine tank portrait. I do my ordering when the weather is warm esp. live stock. I do have a fresh water tank, 5 gallon portrait with plants, low light ones and two tetra. Which came from a new Petco in my town, so far pretty nice store. The tank has been running about 7 months, right now fighting algae, the tank is heavy planted. when I was younger had fresh water angel fish but things since then have changed, like huge. I posted here because this member was building a awesome tank by looking at the pictures, I enjoy bright color coral. My 5 gallon will have low light and low current coral, like mushrooms. Maybe LPS, not sure. Also not sure on what critters yet. Now not sure of following list.

Sand...I don't like the very fine stuff.

Lighting....aquamaxx nemolight namo, kessil a80, nano mini tide m ( for some reason can't find this light)

powerhead.....hydor pico evo-mag circulation pump, hydor flo rotating deflector, Taam Rio plus 50 powerhead/pump

salt.....this gives me headache, not sure which to choose.

test kit....headache same problem, please for me, tell me what I need to test for, salifert has like 15 different tests, LOL

I am glad you all are here, thanks for any help.

[cfaye@Delaware]

ok some more things.....so far struggling need test kit. The Petco only test basic which I will do today. Will try to get numbers from them. To see if I could do this I started a 3 gallon pico, it is a tetra cube with the stock filter that is all and upgrade light. I will have to get the light name. Carib sea sand the very fine one, Instant Ocean Reef Cystals, Aquaculture live rock, all of this from Petco....feeding coral Seachem Reef Zoo Plankton (Petco). The corals are from Legendary coral, they did a great job. 1 frag of mushroom combo and Tamarind shroom 1 frag (which is my indicator. Then 2 hermit crabs. My problem is the Tamarind will turn brown sometimes.....I tried using more blue light that helped but I know it is more than that. I will try to post picture, the tank looks cloudy, hermits stirring up sand, easy to clean but hate it....did not clean glass before took picture.

[OldManSea]

I am headed to work but a quick response now - nanobox tide m is a great light (website is www.nanoboxreef.com) but many people like the kessil as well.  I find that I need to test often for KH, Ca++ and less often for NO3 and PO4 - I use Red Sea kits as they seem to be highly accurate.  At the beginning PO4 was very high, must have been bleaching from rock since my other tank always has undetectable PO4.  I change about 75% of the water weekly since it only takes 5 minutes.  I recommend keeping sand very shallow, mine started with about 4 pounds but it trapped a lot of gunk.  It is now about 2 pounds.  After you have some coral growing you will have to dose for KH and Ca++.  I use Red Sea Foundation A and B, I suspect other brands are just as good.

 

For salt I use Instant Ocean, used it in 1970 when it was far and away the number 1 salt among professionals and use it in 2017 when it is far and away the number 1 salt among professionals.  Other salts are for cultists and groupies.  I think there is more whining about imagined salt disasters on all the reef sites than anything else.  I test many parameters for each new barrel of replacement water and they are always exactly the same from batch to batch.  Use RODI or distilled water only - keep in mind that many grocery store brands of distilled water have organics such as oil in them - often they kill my cell cultures when I test them.

 

The stock pump with your tank is not powerful enough to run a hydor rotating deflector - I tried. 

 

I will will send along some other observations from running this tank for several months.

[cfaye@Delaware]

Thank you so much for responding. I did not mean to hijack your thread but with your background I had to say something. Please keep this thread going for the marineland, I think this is an awesome tank for the foot print and price....again thank you so much.