I stumbled on this thread through people at one of our local LFS here in San Diego. We were talking about how ridiculous people can e on here. I mean Adee, you have done everything wrong. Whomever you are going to for advice at your LFS should be shut down by FEMA. They are obviously just trying to sell you whatever they can. A Cortez in that small of a tank!? Thats just plain cruel. The rock you have is by no means live fiji rock. If you paid more then 1 dollar a pound for that, they saw you coming on that one too. That rock looks like the lava rock our LFS' have on their dry goods shelves. Your protein skimmer is not adjusted properly. You should be getting a slightly tinted skimate forming in the cup, not the thick skimate you are getting. That means you arent skimming the fine particles out of the water, just the larger more noticeable. We use "natural seawater" here in San Diego that Scripps institute of oceanography (lrgest, most respected college for aquatic research in the world) provides us aquarists free of charge that it filtered through industrial grade mechanical filters. The same water also supplies sea world and the scripps aquarium here in san diego. Point is that just bcause you are using "natural seawater" dosent mean your gravity should be any higher.
I really think you should do yourself, the rest of the people on this board, your fish and other fish you are potentially planning on ruining, the courtesy of doing just a little bit of research before you go spend all your tax refund money on an aquarium because you think Nemo, Dori and Bubbles are cute and you want one.
Give us people that really care a break and stop making us look like wannabee oceanography fools.
