Congratulations! Your reef will thank you for providing excellent water quality from now on. This 100gpd 5-stage RO/DI is very easy to install, but if you have any further questions, you can email me any time.
I'd seen pictures of Sun Corals in forum discussions many times, but always thought they were too picky to be a good coral to keep in my own aquariums. I'd heard how important it was that every single polyp was carefully fed food daily or at least every other day. People came up with feeding domes and syringes with tubing to target feed it. All in all, it seemed like a lot of work and more than I was interested in performing.
Bringing home livestock on a flight can be challenging, but it sure is nice to get your newest acquisitions into your quarantine system as soon as you get home rather than having someone ship them to you a day later and worry about the transit times. Plus it costs extra to ship overnight when you are already taking a plane home!
Many people have thought I've been SCUBA diving for a long time, but the truth is I only got certified about four years ago. I wanted to do it sooner, but life didn't work out that way. Those divers on my business card and website were put there as a goal to aspire to, and in 2012 I was able to reach that goal. Getting certified wasn't too difficult, I just had to purchase some gear, schedule some classes, do my bookwork and complete my checkout dives. Mere weeks later, I was diving off O'ahu and loving that down time. I felt very comfortable, in fact.
The one task I truly hate is cleaning filter socks. When I built my new sump for the 400g, I included a filter sock hanger and purchased four socks to rotate through as needed. These are the large 7" filter socks, not the smaller 4" type. I use a 10 micron sock when I treat the system with Phosphate Rx.
For a long time my blue mandarin was a very happy fish in my 29g, and would eat prepared foods much to my delight. Since that was the case, I never worried about it. However, in the 280g reef, it was actually being starved to death due to stress by the other mandarins harassing it as well as the voracious Tangs that would circle around it and get every morsel of food off the sand.
Susan did a great job putting together a working manual for everyone follow, including myself. After a few years, that resource vanished from the web. This page was originally written by Susan J. Wilson; page last found online on Sept 12, 2006: http://www.sjwilson.net/reef/phytosteps.html Contents placed on my site as reference only, and these are all her words below...
Growing baby brine shrimp allows me to feed the smaller fish in a reef tank containing large voracious tangs. Every day, one batch is added to the tank while the pumps are off. The tangs swim through the tiny bits of live food, while the little fish have their meal.
Hatching brine is easy, and doesn't cost much. The recipe is available on my site. Two hatching stations allow me to always have a new batch available daily.
Buying frozen foods at the local fish store can get pretty expensive over time. Fish need varied diets, so rotating through separate foods each day of the week can be routine, but ask a person to do this for you while you are away and suddenly it seems overly complex.
Live Phytoplankton is very expensive to buy, but growing your own is pretty easy and much cheaper. Flame*Angel from ReefCentral.com has an excellent page that I followed to get my own culture started. I store it in the fridge, shaking it once a day to avoid settling. New batches are ready on a weekly basis.
