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No It's a 1/4" square plastic grid sold as a lighting diffuser for dropped ceilings. sometimes in home supply stores sold in the ceiling sections vrs the lights section. a 4'x2' section is around $10 or so. My partition went from top to bottom side to side on my old 55g. held it from the...

IMHO the dirty little secret is that $5 worth of protected macro algae will do more than any man made filter/reactor.

1) do an in tank refugium. Just a partition with egg crate. I put one 3" in front of the back glass in my old 55g and added 2 2 tube utility shop fluorescent lights. nitrates dropped to unmeasureable in 3 weeks, phosphates a few weeks later, the tangs constantly grazed on macro poking through...

any truth to the rumor that a molly miller blenny eats aptasia?

add nitrate consumers like macro algaes or an algae truf scrubber.

I use a powerhead with the "bubbler" and tube in the output. Just hook up the tube to where the bubbles congregate in the overflow. Not sure but think I used a maxijet. To test I killed the power , let the siph9on break, and on startup it took about 30 seconds to suck out the air in the u...

Hopefully you have added some macro algae like chaeto to therefugium

yep What happens is two things. 1) (not as likely) things get stirred up. In a day or two they should settle down. 2) more likely you have an algae bloom as stuff dies off the rock. Killing the lights for a few days will clear either up. You might also add some macro algae to balance and...

other than leaks and evaporation, it could be some blockage in your drain/overflow. Our tank had a screen on the inner overflow box the would become covered with algae. And the sump would go down very fast until we took the screen out and cleaned out the algae. my .02

Hopefully that $200 does not also include that tank. LOL By using diy salt mixes, inexpensive lights (even shop lights or natural sunlight), common play sand, locally available limestone, and no water changes, it can be done. One key IMHO is to insure the tank is balanced out and stabilized...

FWIW the lowest reading (.25ppm) on the api test kit is common in saltwater tanks. very hard with that kit to actually read 0

good point.

Is that like algae? LOL

Op stated they go away after a water change then come back. Hopefully the tank is almost balanced out to take care of the nutrients now. So reducing the lights would just enough to tip the scales away from the cyano/diatoms. My .02

From what I hear is nitrates, are reduced to nitrItes then to nitrogen gas. It is also possible the nitrItes are further reduced to ammonia under certain conditions. All that relies on low oxygen (anoxic) or no oxygen (anaerobic) bacteria. Another method and much more desirable IMHO is to use...

cyano and/or diatoms. both consume nutrients and use light. Best way to fight is to establish other things to consume the nutrients. algae (macros, corraline) is the best IMHO. you can always kill the lights until it dies off. then resume with less lights/feeding and adjust to the good stuff...

IMHO you get corraline algae and/or sps corals established and that calc will drop so you will have to restart dosing. my .02

double check your reading. Look up the diy 2 parts system. check alk. if you have to add baking soda go get 8-10dkh, calcium will lower in the process. if alk is ok then do nothing. calc will drop on its own My .02

thanks for the feedback. back in 2004 or so such words would have resulted and a flame war. Glad it worked out for ya.

I do not work there and I'm sure no public aquarium would want any advice of mine like the beaslbob method. My understanding now is the employees evacuated early in the day with everyone else. But the aquarium was not damaged and the only air breathers were the penguins. And they were breathing...