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HI Paul, Sorry to hear about your back. I had some comparatively minor back issues years ago and they are not fun at all. That ageing stuff is just something we can't do too much about over time. I've had a couple of medical issues over the last couple of years, and my tanks have been neglected...

I find this a bit unusual coming from you, Paul, considering your own tank has all those glass bottles in it. After all, if you can expect to find glass bottles in the ocean and fish make homes in then, it would seem quite possible to find PVC pipe and fittings in the ocean and fish making homes...

After having used a CPR overflow, I find that I can not say enough bad things about it. These overflows have several major design flaws and will sooner or later cause a flood. First off, the siphon tends to trap air and fail. To prevent this they must be used with an aqualifter or similar pump...

Nitrate and phosphate readings can be low and you can still have massive algae issues, because the algae is consuming the nitrate and phosphate and growing. If you have not previously used them, consider using one of the phosphate removing compounds such as GFO.

You can use Chemiclean if you want. It does work as far as getting rid of cyano goes. However, the cyano is not going away on it's own. This tells me that you have some other problems that is causing this. Unless you fix the other problem or problems first, all you do is kill off the cyano and...

More to the point, what is the controller doing or failing to do? What do you want the controller to do? Usually this is more a question of fixing one small problem at a time, rather than trying to do everything at once. Also, some things on some controllers are just not possible to do without...

I like the red and green levels because I like the more even spectrum. I think you get a much more natural looking tank. Now I will tell you that I like the color temp of the tank to be only about 10000K to about 12000k or so. I feel that a higher color temp is just too blue and looks very...

I'm using AI Hydra 52's on my 125 gal reef. The control is similar. I run them for 8 hours a day with a 1 hour ramp up and 1 hour ramp down. I run all the LED colors at 80% of max. The thing your going to find out is that every reef is different, so even if you like the way I'm doing it, it...

I'd toss that first batch of water, just to be on the safe side. Think in terms of putting your reef at risk to save a little water and salt.

Well, you learned one important thing here. pH probes need to be cleaned and recalibrated from time to time to keep them accurate. Except as a last resort, I wouldn't soak it in vinegar. I'd get a pH probe cleaning solution.

Before you do anything else, stop and consider what you want to keep in the system. Livestock selection can often drive the equipment selection. For example, if you want soft corals, your lighting requirements will be lower. You need not figure out every fish and coral and invert you want, but...

If you want the colors to "pop more", set the colors you want to emphasize at a greater level relative to the other colors. This can take some playing around. Often in reef systems people seem to like the blues. Note how some tanks seem to use almost all blue light, so you'd turn up the blues or...

I use four Hydra 52 on my 125 gal reef system. This is an older model compared to the Hydra 52 HD. However, I do use them with a director. I use a very simple system. Light ramp up for an hour starting at on at 9 AM and start to ramp down at 9 PM. I run the most of the colors at about 85% max...

If you want to kill most of the day, a visit to Pacific East Aquaculture (Dr Mac) is a fantastic experience. Here is their web page with the store information (Offsite) - Pacific East Aquaculture Coral Farm and Tropical Fish for Aquariums If you make the trip, there are no shipping charges. If...

I would say that it would be extremely difficult to open an LFS and be competitive in this day and age. As much as people say they want quality and how they want service, most are going to shop price. Your competition is going to be the online merchants and the large chain stores. You may want...

I would tend to be a bit of a skeptic here. I'm looking at the pictures of the items, which may or may not be what is actually shipped, and I see quite a few products I wouldn't ever use because I think they are not needed or worse detrimental to my reef. I'll stick to buying what I actually...

It's possible to have flow issues with the unit. Here are a few items to check. Is the media getting compacted because there isn't enough flow? Is the media acting as a mechanical filter? How are you feeding water into it? If you using a powerhead pump, it could be sucking in dirt. I feed my...

Even more important that all the other stuff mentioned is to have full complete backups that allow you to restore the entire system to a bare metal PC. Then test your backup and restore process. That way, no matter what occurs, you can at least get back the system at the point of the last...

Yes, you can run a reef system with out a skimmer. Look at the video and see this guys end result. It's a rather lackluster tank, and as others pointed out, it's very lightly stocked. Note also that the water looks a bit cloudy. It works, but not that well. Now compare that to the picture...

When you deal with this problem, as pointed out, first check the connections. Don't forget the bulb endcaps. They can go bad too. If you still have a problem, replace the bulbs. This isn't as bad as it sounds, because sooner or later your going to need to do that anyway, so no money is wasted...