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Back when I made my own fish food I had an arrangement with a local fish market. Many customers requested that the market fillet the fish for them, leaving the heads and tails with the market. They would save these parts for me, and I could pick off enough meat from the heads and tails to...

Something died - that is where the ammonia is coming from. You could do water changes, as Imforbis suggested, or you could add macroalgae to your system, ither in the sump or by making a chamber in your display. the macroalgae will outcompete the hair algae for ammonia, nitrate and phosphate...

I see no mention of testing kits other than "free vial for water testing at Petsmart". Not knowing water chemistry during the early run-in of a tank is a pretty sure way to kill whatever you add to the tank. Since you already have a damsel, which is very hardy and will probably survive the...

Go very slowly since you really don't know how the tank cycled, and you don't want to kill off your new additions. Good luck.

Take a look at airwaterice.com. You can call them, and they are very helpful and knowledgeable. My AWI system must be 15 years old, and they still provide me with free repairs and replacement parts (the TDS meter wire broke, and they replaced the unit with a newer design, no charge.)

The pH issue probably isn't related to the missing damsel. Over more than 40 years of keeping marine fish I have been impaled many times by fish bones in the substrate when I was emptying a tank for a move or something. Fish disappear, that's just the way it is. You might consider removing the...

Having spent most of my career in analytical laboratories, I would guess that the measurement is faulty. One of the problems with colorimetric kits, such as those commonly used for pH determination, is that there is no standard solution of known pH to test, so you don't really know if the kit is...

I'm curious why your pH is so acidic. A pH like that might be seen first thing in the morning, but I would expect the pH to rise to 8.3 or so by mid-day. This could be a sign that something is decaying in the tank, or that carbon dioxide isn't being vented. Is there a cover on the tank?

Clownfish are great, but I don't know if they are an ideal first fish since they tend to become very territorial, and may attack newcomers as you add new livestock. I generally add my clowns last, or at least very late in the stocking process. Right now I am nervous because I have had an...

Expecting Trump to run Washington like a business earns a big laugh from me. Read his book on the "At of the Deal", and look at his business history. His mo is the "Art of the Flim-Flam", and he gets to declare bankruptcy every few years to start over again. Governments don't have such a reset...

At this point I don't think you need to obsess about having used tap water. After your ammonia and nitrites come down to zero do a water change, about 25-30% is fine. After that, continue to do regular water changes every month (20-25% is sufficient). You might see a spike in diatoms...

Acrylic transmits about 90% of wavelengths above 375 mm, glass extends a little lower. Either material should be fine for your purposes as long as it is reasonably thin.

Snakeblitz has some great threads on starting marine tanks, but your task is to purchase "The Conscientious Marine Aquariast" by Fenner. This is an easy to read and authoritative book on starting and keeping marine tanks. Your second task should be to take a deep breath and decide that you are...

Glad to see someone else coming to the defense of the API nitrate test kit. Knocking this kit has become routine when, as you point out, it works fine. It just measures nitrate differently, but just as reliably as any other.

The bacteria you need to cycle the tank are found only on solid surfaces, not in the water column, so using water from the 29 gallon system will not have much of an effect, other than raising the nitrates a little (which is generally not a good thing, but not a disaster either). Adding live rock...

bang guy's method works fine, especially the "wait, wait" step. Don't rush things and you will greatly increase your chances of success.

Hold the syringe vertically, outlet up, and draw in a little more air. Then tap the side of the syringe to dislodge the air bubble on the plunger so that it rises up to the outlet, then expel the air by slightly depressing the plunger. It isn't really necessary, though, since the amount...

A niger trigger can be ok in a community tank, but be careful not to stock any fish that are black or dark brown in color. I once had a niger who attacked the black plastic head of the algae scraper constantly. I thought it was pretty cute until I added an Achilles tang and the trigger said to...

My first tank, more than 40 years ago was a 55 using undergravel filtration along with a Supreme Aquaking hob. At its peak the stock consisted of a alrge Volitans lionfish, a niger trigger, a queen angel, a spiny boxfish and a hippo tang. Nothing grew very much, but in retrospect I cannot...

A juvenile emperor should be OK in a 75 gallon system if well fed, but there is a time limit on this, so be sure that you will be setting up the 200+ gallon system soon or you will have a real problem. Emperors are great fish, I had mine for almost 13 years before hurricane Sandy killed the...