Calcium & Alkalinity & Sohal Tang

Been awhile since I posted, I am not even sure where I left off... Did I tell you I got a Sohal tang?  He is beautiful!!!!  Of course, with the good in this tank, the bad always follows.  In the last three weeks I lost my 6-line wrasse and my royal gramma.  Both of these fish were in my old BioCube.  I have had both for over a year....  sniff sniff

In the meantime, I re-aquascaped a bit last weekend because a good friend of mine was breaking down his tank and I took a bunch of his corals.  I used the opportunity to move some of my corals around in to better spots (for them). 

Yesterday I picked up 2 acans from a fellow reefer and member of the DVRC.  He has a beautiful tank.  There must be well over a hundred frags in there!

Now on to the equipment side.  My new metal halides arrived today.  I am replacing the three 250w Current 10K HQI bulbs with three 250w Phoenix 14K HQI bulbs.  I will post some before and after pictures later.

Picked up my 3rd and 4th cases of salt from Jay (DVRC Vice President) last weekend.  It was part of a major group buy from Garry (yes, 2 r's) over at Get Tanked.  For those of you who have saltwater fish tanks, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND Garry's product.  Its a 2-part salt mix that is better than any I have ever tried.  And I have used, Instant Ocean, Reef Crystals, Kent, and premixed saltwater.  Its not the cheapest sat in the world, but each bag is pre-measured for either 5 or 25 gallon water changes.  Its guaranteed fresh and the quality is unmatched.

My CA reactor is on the way.  I broke down and got the AquaC RX-1.  I ordered it from Blue Zoo Aquatics.  They have been in the coral and fish business for some time, but just started selling dry goods.  And, I got a 10% discount, which was awesome! 

In the meantime, I stopped by Champion Lighting and picked up my "interim" ph Controller.  I got the Milwaukee ph Controller as well as a CO2 Regulator with solenoid, needle valve, etc.  Gary (one r) over at Champion is awesome!!!

Why the CA Reactor?  Well, I noticed that everyone else's SPS have fully extended polyps during the day.  And that the millepora were not very "fuzzy".  Turns out my alkalinity was low, along with my calcium.  So, I am hoping to balance all of this out.

My end goal is to automate about as much as I can and thus, the reason for the Milwaukee controller.  My plan is to get the ReefKeeper Elite (RKE) from Digital Aquatics, whenever that finally rolls out.