This club need more member posting their finding and experience..

I know we are Minnesotan and like to keep to our self.... Is it not your duty as a member to contribute your experience and finding?

I have been watching this forum for a few weeks now and there are not many new posts.

I think everyone is being lazy! At least I have been really slacking on the tanks as of late.

There are quite a lot of products and methods out there that need to be review and talk about and share....
My favorite subject is water quality and control and how to do it cheaply.

To be a good reefer, you need to learn how to control water quality...

I got a method to share... I have three conventional system convert to this method and now I am growing everything in the reef but not algae.

I am about to setup another 75 or or 55 gal for my son... I am going to attemp to cycle this tank in less then a week. The creator of this method said that you can cycle the tank in 24 hours. I am impress with how it does with my systems..., but never try to cycle in 24 hours.... I am a type of person that need to see it my self...I everyone want to follow along I am glad to share the result positive or negative.

Captain it has been extremely slow,
i could talk about a ton of my experiences but they are all mainly depressing. Unfortunetly in this hobby and in life it takes $ for quality.
pumps-internal/external
powerheads
plumbing hard vs soft
acrylic
how to scratch glass class
how to kill acroporas
When someone tells you not to buy a fish " i never listened"
skimmer, atrocious to- bad-descent-and finally on to a good one.
just cause your refractomoter says something does not mean it is right
actually just to round that up everything needs calibrations at least monthly or bi monthly if u are busy like me.



Water quality is a huge deal and i personally will admit i was lazy about water changes. Without anything other than gfo changed every 2 months "pretty week" I have zero pest algae. I do not have the hiat system, or herbie, im not even really sure what it is but it works. It works because of a good controller, good top off, and 50 gal water changes every two weeks. I could probably double my fish load and still be OK.

I am not sure if i think it will cycle in 24 hours but would be awesome if it did. Zeo offers bacteria cultures as well that are supposed to advance the cycle. I would like to hear the results of that when you do it.

I will agree with you Andre it has been really slow here. It seems to go in cycles here. And with spring time I think everyone wants to be outside.
With my tank I still am in the battle with HA I have had my lights off for about 2 weeks and been dosing aleafix it cleaned up alot of differant algea I had but the HA is still there. I can tell it is diying off but I need to do a wc to suck it out. I have just enough salt to do a 20g change but have been so busy I have not done that. I need to tho before the meeting next weekend.....

well that really sucks to hear you are still struggling with the HA. Most likely your rock is probably loaded up with ditrus or something. A large amount of nutrients must be causing it if lights out did not take it out after two weeks. What is your sand bed?

I am all for setting thing up for cheap... Maybe we should gather suggestion on how to do some DIY for equipment for cheap....

I stared the post on setting up the new tank on Hiatt system...I will quantify the cost and see how cheaply I can start this and also see if I can get it cycle in 24 hours.....

As for the HA... I used the Hiatt system on my old tanks and the HA are weeken and now my snails and tang are eatting them. They never done that before when the algae are dark green...I think the dark green HA are too toxic for them to eat.

Well I just want to stir the pot and to get some post moving and get this site more lively.... Share your problems.

I just read a thead of a guy in the middle of a tank built and he got lay off... I continue to work on the built and look for work.... I think the tank build keep him going and keep from going insane... He finally found work after six months... He got lot of people on line help him with his built. They donated rock, sand and parts for this built... The post kind of touch me a bit because I went through the same thing as he last year also.

Talking about keeping it cheap...My god how big is your tank MN. reef Crzy? 50 gal water change every two weeks and GFO every two months.

My 215 gal... Water change 35 gal every two months... Trying to push it to three months... No Hair Algae...I am about to make a water change next week.

You are right MN. reef Crzy about Home Depot rock is dirty...Blow the dirt off the rock and it takes months of good water quality to get the phospate and organic carbon to be remove from the rock.

Let qualify my self about the Hiatt system... I don't sell the product I am just a user that have good experience with it... Not all their product work as advertise and lot of time the product they sell we have alternative souce that are much cheaper... So If you want to start using it PM me and I can give you some advice...

I could post info on my awesome HA farm I have at the moment...lol. It is all due to the losses in my move. It is slowly leaving though and will even quicker now that I have more GFO.

I have been posting on my IC660 6 bulb T-5 build lately (which remi9nds me I have more pictures and progress to post soon...). I should have that done by next week.

Just too much stuff going on during the spring and summer to spend too much time online. I usually jump on and read but don't post much. After this weekend there should be a posting of some FIF stuff for sure but that also depends on available time... Summer is a coasting time where I usualy let my tank just run on its own. Unfortunately I have some stuff to clear up before I can do that but with time it will go away.

GFO? lol im such a noob. i have no idea what that means and i cant fing a meaning.

GFO (Granulated Feric Oxide) for removing Phospate....It is a little spend for me, but If you need to remove phospate that is what you need to add to your tank. I try them before and it did not do much. I guess my tank have too much phosphate. It is better to do water change to control phosphate, but if you have high level of phosphate in your water change then you need to use it.

ah ok cool. i am going to assume it works like a filter then. water flows thru it and pulls it out of the water then.

Most people put it in a container and pump the water through it.