Nano Reef Aquarium

After waiting for the latest Ultra Marine magazine to drop through the door and wondering about this months contents it arrived. upon arrival it appeared some what thicker and heavier than usual? The reason, a wonderful glossy magazine/ catalogue from D-D aquarium solutions. What a fab magazine this is, it is full of really helpful reef keeping articles, these are Rowaphos, why waste your money? Understanding salinity Chasing the tail of pH protein skimming An idiots guide to reef photography with a couple of features, including one amazing reef tank owned by David Saxby, plus much more. The magazine also displays all the latest products available from D-D, i didn't realize the had so many. If you get the chance, you must get your hands on a copy. They are available to buy for £2.50 or you get one free with any D-D product purchases.

After some thought and discussion with my partner we have decided to pursue a new hobby in photography. This has brought to us to the purchase of a Digital SLR canon EOS 500D camera. It's an amazing piece of kit and to say it is an entry level camera, there is like reef keeping, loads to learn. The trouble with many hobbies is it tends to lead you into other interests. I suppose it is highly likely many people become interested in photography because it covers so many subjects and interests more so now with the Internet. I wont embarrass myself just yet with any photos, but as soon as i start getting some reasonable shots i will upload some onto this blog.

I have today finally made it to one of my local fish shops. I managed to get hold of a peppermint shrimp, although i wanted two. These seem very difficult to get hold of at the moment. My other purchase was a mythrax crab, to munch away on the overwhelming amount of bubble algae. I have just checked my water parameters that now have been resolved. Alkalinity is back to 9.0 and the corals are starting to look better for it too. Whilst on my trip to local fish shop i stumbled upon some great 25ml syringes, these are fantastic for adding my balling lite supplements and feeding prepared foods. Fingers crossed. My next post will be good news with reduced bubble algae and aiptasia.

I have just returned from probably the best holiday i have ever had in Rhodes, Greece in a place called Kiotari. All inclusive. Only to return to even more algae, I cant believe my luck with this hobby. Time to refresh the rowaphos in my reactor although not due.  You May have noticed that i have not wrote many posts recently, this is because of a long ongoing project in the en suite. This has taken about a month and a half to complete. I don't even like to think how much this has cost. This in turn has had an effect on the time and effort placed in my reef aquarium. Some of my parameters or out of range. Salinity is a little high and Alkalinity is low, 6.4. So i have just removed a few litres of water and replaced with fresh RO water. And Alkalinity is being rectified slowly over next few days. Hopefully this should start to improve in the next few days. I have had a check at my supplement's and a few test kits are running low and my salt supply is almost used so i am goin...

Aiptasia and green bubble algae are about to defeat me. I am becoming unable to control aiptasia and green bubble algae. The only solution other than pulling all my hair out from using aiptasia x and removing bubble algae one by one, only to find it seems to double every time i do this. Is to use natural cures. Namely  a Mythrax crab to eat the bubble algae and a Peppermint shrimp to consume all the plagued aiptasia. If there are any UK readers in the midlands area have any of these please contact me as these seem to be hard to come by. Some good news though, the reactor i bought in July has certainly done the trick. Green algae has all gone and remains that way. So if you have bad hair algae you must get yourself a phosphate reactor.

I have a lighting dilemma and don't no what to do. I am considering two options. I will be keeping my Led lighting, but i am thinking of building a new hood. This could incorporate either T5 lighting with that i already have. These will be stripped out of it's frame and placed in new hood. The other option is creating a new hood that could incorporate a 150watt metal halide unit. Both these options include my current led lighting of three reef white and one blue aqua beam. With these options in mind i am only wanting to use this additional lighting for about four hours per day to keep utility bill costs down. My most favourable option is T5s but unsure if this will be sufficient for SPS corals. I also think running costs between the two will be very little. Please express your opinions and thoughts to aid my decision.