So having gone with the AI Sols, I wanted to see how well they were lighting the tank. The goal was always to have darker areas and more well-lit areas, I didn't want to blast everything in the tank with bright light, I wanted something that looked a little more natural.

So I started looking around for PAR meters - there's a couple of DIY projects but nothing calibrated and "ready to go", so I caved and looked at the professional ones. Apogee's meters seem to be the normal...

Tank crash: when your chemistry goes south, your fish and corals die, and your tank ends up a toxic soup.

Warning signs: ANY of these warrant a fast series of tests and remedial action: tucked in corals, fish up at the top gasping, or all hiding, green water, mucky brown water, test results off the edge, high temperature, as in, 84 and upward.

Actions to take and why: 1. relieve the bioload. Fill your qt with new saltwater. Use a mixing pump to accelerate the mix, or...

Offer 1k shipped to 00682

Disease for beginners...
There are 4 sorts of ailments that befall fishes.

1. germs. Bacteria. These are single-cell organisms about the size of a single blood cell that get into a fish and spread very fast by dividing. They are treatable with ANTIBIOTICS. There IS a slight catch in this: bacteria come in two varieties, one called 'gram positive' and one called 'gram negative', for reasons of how they show up when stained fro a microscope slide. When you treat, you have to...

How a CUC REALLY works...and it's probably not what you think.
A Cleanup Crew [CUC] is the next step after cycling. There's a lot of myth, a lot of angst about hair algae and 'getting something to eat it.' Fageddaboutit...re the 'eating' thing.

Your CUC will eat algae. So will copepods and many desirable creatures in your tank.

But they won't strip your tank of algae. They can't. Not remotely. Algae grows because your rock and sand have some phosphate (algae...