my new baby... AKA The Café

[fishguy242]

Hey y'all...

Blue is looking better by the day...

 

[fishguy242]

...

 

[JoJosReef]

I thought we all were friends here… rinsing sand may be the worse punishment I’ve endured in this hobby.

How is there this much crap in a bag of sand?????

I’m super happy I’m doing it after seeing this, but good grief.

Special grade?

 

[Nate Chalk]

...

Doggo wants stocking now

 

[Fish Styx]

Frank, I've got a cross thread question, so as not to SPAM @Stang67 's thread...

Regarding chalices, where do you prefer their placement? Roughly what PAR and flow?

I have one that seems perfectly healthy, but hasn't grown any detectable amount in the last year. I have another on the way, and want to make sure that I'm meeting their needs.

Any input would be greatly appreciated.

Namaste

 

[fishguy242]

Medium to high flow,"not at first though" med to high light ,dirty ,dirty water...
kinda also depends on each individual piece IMO...
near top "don't know par"high flow growing like weeds.

but lower ,lil less flow is this one...,haven't moved it...
lotta help that was...

 

[Fish Styx]

Medium to high flow,"not at first though" med to high light ,dirty ,dirty water...
kinda also depends on each individual piece IMO...
near top "don't know par"high flow growing like weeds.

but lower ,lil less flow is this one...,haven't moved it...
lotta help that was...

Define "dirty". I like to keep my nutrients higher than most for an SPS dominant tank at between 15 and 20 for nitrates.

I'll move them around and see how they do. I think I may not have this guy in high enough lighting.

 

[fishguy242]

Define "dirty". I like to keep my nutrients higher than most for an SPS dominant tank at between 15 and 20 for nitrates.

I'll move them around and see how they do. I think I may not have this guy in high enough lighting.

Avg 80 nitrates like to keep Po4 under 2.00 ...
and yes y'all read that right...

 

[mjszos]

Special grade?

Fiji pink!

I don’t even want to know how much water I used doing this. 6x 20lb bags took about 5 hours to do and I still didn’t get everything out (noticed some cloudiness still when I was putting it into my RODI rinsing container)

 

[Slocke]

Fiji pink!

I don’t even want to know how much water I used doing this. 6x 20lb bags took about 5 hours to do and I still didn’t get everything out (noticed some cloudiness still when I was putting it into my RODI rinsing container)

I get the pre bacteriad ones and don't rinse. Never had an issue that way

 

[Fish Styx]

Avg 80 nitrates like to keep Po4 under 2.00 ...
and yes y'all read that right...

I didn't want to type it out loud, but I run PO4 at just under 1. Thanks for jumping on that grenade.

80? Wow. Clearly, you're doing something right. I don't think I can bring myself to try that, though.

 

[Fish Styx]

I get the pre bacteriad ones and don't rinse. Never had an issue that way

Yeah, that's what I did and it is my biggest regret.

 

[JoJosReef]

I get the pre bacteriad ones and don't rinse. Never had an issue that way

Next time I'm just getting some diapers and bringing back 80lb real sand. Maybe the green and on the Hilo side of the big island...

 

[mjszos]

I get the pre bacteriad ones and don't rinse. Never had an issue that way

I’ve always done the same, but I was convinced by multiple people to rinse considering I’m adding it into a prefilled tank.

I wasn’t able to clear out everything, but I’m generally satisfied with where it’s at. We’ll see how it clouds up once I add it into the tank tomorrow.

On the subject of the live sand; I bought it because it was cheaper than dry sand at the time… but I don’t personally buy that the bacteria is actually active in the substrate. It gets shipped from wherever being exposed to potentially extreme heat/cold, sits in a warehouse for who knows how long, then gets shipped to me in the back of multiple trucks. I’m skeptical it actually has any meaningful concentration of bacteria.

But I’m also an idiot so I could be totally wrong on my thought haha.

 

[danieyella]

Speaking of - look who I got, I wanted to make sure it wasn't dying before I shared a photo

I was trying to look for the original photo of it to see how much it's grown and in how long but I'm struggling. It's definitely growing though

 

[fishguy242]

Broke out the high tech phone filters tonight...
Glasses worked the best...

 

[tbrown]

I’ve always done the same, but I was convinced by multiple people to rinse considering I’m adding it into a prefilled tank.

I wasn’t able to clear out everything, but I’m generally satisfied with where it’s at. We’ll see how it clouds up once I add it into the tank tomorrow.

On the subject of the live sand; I bought it because it was cheaper than dry sand at the time… but I don’t personally buy that the bacteria is actually active in the substrate. It gets shipped from wherever being exposed to potentially extreme heat/cold, sits in a warehouse for who knows how long, then gets shipped to me in the back of multiple trucks. I’m skeptical it actually has any meaningful concentration of bacteria.

But I’m also an idiot so I could be totally wrong on my thought haha.

I take the sand, scoop it from the bucket with a big plastic bowl or cup and dump it as close as possible to the bottom as I can. Last time I rinsed and dumped I had almost 0 cloudiness.

 

[mjszos]

I take the sand, scoop it from the bucket with a big plastic bowl or cup and dump it as close as possible to the bottom as I can. Last time I rinsed and dumped I had almost 0 cloudiness.

This probably would have been the better approach. My first bag of sand I had a coffee filter in a sieve and was doing it that way, but it just took way too long.

It’s surprising how much silt is hiding in these bags. Now it just looks a little cloudy, but it’s not milky which is a plus.

 

[fishguy242]

close ,but not good enough...