Here I am prattling on about my nitrates rising, completely oblivious to the aging to do item "Buy RO filters for aquarium". Thankfully Ocean@Home posted a reminder that parameter issues often start at the source, the water you put into your tank. Doing frequent water changes to combat nitrates isn't going to help if the tap water is the source of your nitrates. Tonight I'll test my tap and RO output just to verify.



A quick online order from Drs. Foster Smith, and I should have some new RO filters here within the week. I took the opportunity to order a new XM 15k metal halide bulb as well, another yearly maintenance task I've been slacking on. Better late than never!

Labels: Link, Maintenance, Parameters

Crazy idea of the day: adding a whole lot of macro algae to my tank, making it a "planted" reef. Thalassia testudinum.



I also like the look of Halodule beaudettei, which is more like freshwater hairgrass. Combined with turtle grass, you can get an interesting meadow effect, an often sought after look for freshwater planted tanks. If I could get this to grow thick enough, it would be a really interesting effect with the live rock rising out of it.



Live Aquaria has a good selection of marine algae, but they are often out of stock. I found a small company, Gulf Coast Ecosystems, that specializes in tropical algae collection and aquaculture. I'm going to do some more research right now, but think this may be an interesting change for the tank. The only (major) downside I can think of is that these plants are native to the Caribbean, and the majority of my stock is from the South Pacific. Though I've never intended to create a strict biotope, it would be more of an unusual species mix than I've generally preferred to make.

Labels: Algae, Aquascape, Planted Aquarium, Reef Aquarium

Over the preceding two months I've noticed the nitrate levels in my reef tank creeping up from unmeasurable to 20ppm. I blame this squarely on a Glassbox post about fish being fed enough; worried that I was compelling my fish to be "coralexic", my tank has since become an all you can eat Chinese buffet. I believe the elevated nitrate level is responsible for some of my corals browning out. Also I've noticed a few strands of dreaded hair algae appearing within the tank, as well as increased diatoms on the glass of the tank.

My plan is to keep up with my weekly 5% water changes, and also to introduce a new form of nutrient export. If anyone has advice on the choices below, please volunteer your expertise in the comments. Also if you'd like to sign up to come over and do some of the water changes, please feel free.

Option 1: Convert Aquaclear filter into an algae scrubber



Originally I bought this filter with intent of modifying it into a refugium, filled with live rock rubble and chaeto. Since, I've been running a small amount of rubble and two bags of carbon. This option would involve adding a small light above the filter, installing a grate over the exit, and filling the filter with chaeto algae to remove nitrates.

Pros: cheap, fun project with existing equipment
Cons: reduced volume of carbon, not enough volume for a useful quantity of algae

Option 2: Hang-on refugium



Although a real sump is out of the question for this tank, there are out of the box options for hang on refugiums. This would perform roughly the same function as a modified Aquaclear filter, but with a lot more volume. These things always struck me as somewhat gimmicky though. I would run mostly chaeto within the refuge, along with some sort of sand bed and live rock rubble.

Pros: More volume, greater biodiversity, out of the box solution
Cons: Expensive, unsure of their effectiveness, possibility of flooding?

Option 3: Another solution?
Larger skimmer to cut the problem off at the source? Less feeding? Better sand bed maintenance? Some sort of addition clean up crew? All of the above? Let me know what you think.

Labels: Algae, Equipment, Parameters, Reef Aquarium

The less informed may be inclined to think of this as an April Fools joke, but you can in fact train fish to perform daring stunts such as wriggling through a soft rubber hoop. I got my dad the official Fish Training Kit thinking it would make for a good joke, but as the video below shows, fish training is in fact serious business:



The trainer and her star lumpfish (Cyclopteridae one of my favorite cold water species!) are native to the New England Aquarium, and I found this lovely post not from their irregular and uninformative member's newsletter, but via the excellent Zooilogix blog.

Labels: Fish, Link, New England Aquarium, Video