abcha0s' 300G Ultimate Reef

[abcha0s]

So I've been busy working on the tank. I think I have some interesting updates.

• I have really been struggling with the never ending bacteria bloom that has been plaguing my tank. Today I did what I promised myself I wouldn't do and took both biopellet reactors offline . New tanks are all about finding a bacterial balance and I believe that the bacteria that had colonized the biopellets were somehow preventing the tank from reaching an equilibrium. I also think that having started with Dry Rock for most of the tank was detrimental to the overall success of bringing the tank online with the biopellets running. If I had started off with a healthy and diverse bacteria colony from good live rock, it might have played out differently. I do plan to try again with the biopellets, but I will wait until the tank matures a bit.
  .
• I took Brett's advice and picked up a pair of Diamond Watchman Gobies. To be fair, this was not the first time I had considered these fish. I had one in my 90G before I added the screen top and he jumped out (I'm still mad at the Calgary LFS for assuring me it was a good beginner fish). This pair is doing great in the 300G.
  .
• I took Albert's advice and I started looking into Zeovit. I talked to Dave at Concept Aquariums about this and he had the product in stock! - Dave used it on his home tank with similar results to the thread posted by Albert. I bought a bottle of Bio-Mate from Dave and will be testing this on my tank.
  .
• The BIG news - Jeff and Renee at J&L Aquatics hooked me up big time! I don't know if they were doing me a personal favor or if they do this for all of their customers (my guess is the later), but they really came through on this one.
  
  I picked up a harem of 12 Bartlett's Anthias. 1 Male and 11 Females - and they are awesome! Getting that many females in a single order is basically unheard of and no one else (probably in north america) could have done this for me. All but one were eating on the first day. I've had them a little over a week now and they all love pellets.
  
  My next post will have lots of pictures of these fish.

Pictures in my next post...