Big Update

The powdered sugar fish that decorated my birthday (July 18th) cake made by my sister.

Wow, this update has been long overdue! If you have been following my Twitter Updates (follow me if you have an account {my user name is henryreef} or read updates on this site or my twitter home page: http://www.twitter.com/henryreef) I have been trying to get a post out but have been delayed on numerous occasions. Here are 2 screenshots to help you out:

The Twitter Feed on my site (outlined in red)

My Twitter Homepage


The tank has been looking great the past several days! I am very happy with the way everything is growing and the general aura of the tank. The only major update is that the tang got into a fight with one of the Damsels and tore up its fin, I am giving it some extra TLC and making sure to feed it often. It should make a full and speedy recovery. Here are some various tank shots:



I performed a 27 gallon (about 50% water change) and the tank looked even better. That is all for now, but I will be releasing some big new posts coming out soon. Here are some of the topics:

• A New Domain Name
• The possible big upgrade
• Camera Upgrade
• Reef Central News
• Water Changes

Update and much, much more!

I apologize for not getting a post out sooner. I have been busy with vacations and other various stresses in my life. Any how, I tested water yesterday and here are the results:

Calcium: 400
kH: 6
Nitrates: 0

This looks fine, but I am still working on getting the kH up. I also am planning on doing a water change later today/tonight of at least 10%.

I already got a post out on the commercial brand Kalk mix versus pickling lime. I just wanted to get a direct ingredient list comparison.

Here are the ingredients in Mrs. Wages Pickling Lime

Here are the ingredients in Kent Kalkawasser Mix.
They both have the same ingredient: Calcium Hydroxide. This makes me feel very happy about substituting Mrs. Wages for Commercial Brands. It will save me money and has no catch.

This is a quick post, I will get another one out later today or tomorrow with general tank news and pictures.

The Return-Home Update

My suitcase full of Pickling Lime one of the benefits of my journey

I just got back late last night. I had a great 4th and I hope everyone else did also. I also was able to get several updates out this weekend (thanks to wi-fi and several portable programs example: portable photo editor on my flash drive). The tank looks amazing and I am happy to see that everything did great while I was away. I will try to get another post out soon with test results. As for now here are some tank photos.

The Tank Upon Arrival:
Close-up On The Amazing BTAs:

An Easy Way to Save Money

One common trick reefers will use to save money is to buy pickling lime rather than aqurium marketed kalkawasser. As explained in prior posts Kalk is a solution of Calcium Hydroxide and water. It has a pH of 12 and must be dripped slowly. Kalk is used to maintain calcium and alkalinity levels. The name brand kalk made by Kent Marine is quite expensive and if you buy at the LFS (local fish store) you can pay over $30 for less than 1 lbs. Pickling Lime on the other hand is about $2-3 a pound and it is the same chemical as the name brand product.

Mrs. Wages is the pickling lime of choice. It is pure and safe for your reef. The only downside is it hard to find. I have looked everywhere and have not been able to find it. You can order it online, but I try to avoid that because of shipping costs. Finally on one of my voyages up north I figured out where to get it: Walmart. There are other places to buy it but this is the only one where I have found that it is constantly carried. Now for some pictures:

When I went there were two types of containers, both hold one pound and are exactly the same products.

Container 1

Container 2

I bought 6lbs, which should last me for a while. The reason I bought so much is because Walmart is not in my area, and I don't know when I will be able to get some more. Here is how much I picked up.It will be interesting to see how long they last. One more use for kalk is to kill aptasia, which I will talk about in another coming post.

The June Water Quality Graphs

Even though I am out of town this weekend I have made a special effort to get this out. This is my graphs of the values of Calcium, kH and Nitrates over the month of June. I used to make these every month, but got off track. Hopefully this will be the start.

Calcium

As you can see from this graph when I went on vacation (outlined in red on this chart) the Ca level went down, which makes sense because I cannot add calcium and the corals slowly use it up.

KH

The kH, Interestingly enough did not get used up like Ca during my vacations, I don't really understand why, but the average kH has been really low this month and I would like to see at least a kH of 9. My current average in Red and my goal in Green.

Nitrates

There is not much to say about them other than this shows my fuge/skimmer/low-bioload combo has paid off. Another thing to considor is that I do frequent 10%+ water changes.

That is all for my water quality graphs! Hope you enjoyed reading and staytuned to the Henryreef blog for a coming post on a great way to save money.

Some Tank Shots....

I am once again leaving for this forth of July weekend and I am racing to get this post out and beat the traffic up! I will try to get something out later this weekend but I don't know. The BTAs and everything looks great upon departure. Here are some pictures of the BTAs and the Tank befroe I leave. I am also behind on my water quality graphs so I will get those out asap. I can hopefuly update at least once via email from a mobile phone, but that means no pictures.

More posts and updaes coming soon!