Milkman Delivers..... JBJ Ocean Pulse Duo Wave Maker This is the third article reviewing products that I have recently acquired and tested. So far we have discussed LED lighting and test kits. In this edition, we will review a wave maker I recently purchased. I have a 45 gal frag tank that is 24” x 24” x 18” which has been running for a couple of years. I primarily use the tank for SPS propagation and since SPS require more flow than other coral, I have a couple of different sources of water movement. The return consists of a ¾” Sea Swirl and two Koralia K2 pumps for additional flow. As has been reported by others, I had several issues with the K2 pumps with the front end and impeller departing the pump landing in the bottom of the tank. I also did not have the wave action since the K2 pumps will not hold up to constant stopping and starting. During the Black Friday sales last month, I found the JBJ Ocean Pulse Duo Wave Maker on sale and decided it was a pretty good value for $89. The set contained the wave controller and two 1600 gph pumps.

Milkman Delivers ..... Red Sea’s New Multi-Test Kits You may have noticed Red Sea has launched a new Reef Care Program they are billing as a complete solution for optimal coral health, accelerated coral growth and enhanced coral coloration. While I am less interested in the hype that comes with these marketing efforts, I have been interested in the new multi-test kits that have been introduced as part of the program. I have also been using the Red Sea Coral Pro salt for the past six months and have been please with the balance of elements in my reef tanks. I purchased the Red Sea Reef Foundation Pro Kit about four months ago and have been using it regularly. The kit is a multi-test kit that contains the basic calcium, alkalinity and magnesium tests that I have been performing on a regular basis. Obviously, calcium and alkalinity are two of the most commonly performed test for established reef tanks. I test magnesium less frequently, but it is still an important part of a complete testing program. The multi-kit comes in a plastic box with all the components neatly packed inside. The instructions are both in a paper manual as well as laminated card for each test. The...

Milkman Delivers ..... Aquastyle LED Kits – LED’s on the Cheap I have been studying the LED craze for a while now and see the constant stream of products arriving on the market. As each new product appears, there are more claims of superiority and must have technology. I believe we still have a long way to go before this technology matures, so I have been trying to decide when to jump in to the fray. About five months ago, I bought a ready-built LED light from Reef Filtration to place over my 45 gal frag tank. The Reef Filtration LED was a Chinese made non-dimmable fixture combining four different spectrums of both white and blue Epistar LEDs. It replaced a 250w MH Icecap fixture, and I would say after several months now of growing SPS, I think the LED is doing just as good a job as the MH. My SPS are showing both good growth and color with the fixture about 12” above the tank.

Shadowramy Field Notes January 2011 Edition When I write, it is sometimes hard to come up with topics that haven’t already been written about, I just don’t like regurgitation of old information that will probably change or be challenged in the next several months. But still the information is important. The other day while shifting through a bunch of emails and private messages I got an idea, “What if I start a thread using all these questions I receive each month and answer them publically?”. Julian Sprung did this in the 90’s with the three volume books called Reef Notes and it was a great success. So let's give it a try.

How to Take and Make Great Photo’s By Shadowramy - http://www.shadowramysreef.com/photo-galleries One of biggest requests from people I get is how do you take those good photos of your corals. I must admit, I know very little about professional photography, just enough to shot corals. But even with a little bit a knowledge and practice you can take some very good photos or your fish and corals. In this article I am not going to cover specific cameras, I prefer to use a DSL and specifically a Nikon because I have always had excellent results with it. I have used some point and shoot camera in the past but I could never get the result with them as well as the Nikon DSL. If a DSL is just isn’t in your budget you can still follow along on most of the tip especially the post processing tips and tricks, you won’t have super nice macro shots but you can still have some very good photos using a standard point and shoot camera.

Pest, Predators and Prevention – The Series Volume 1: Tegastes acroporanus (The Red Acro Bug or Red Bugs) Well its been awhile since my last article and with the recent developments in pest prevention I thought it would be a good time to do a series on reef pests and preventions. Additionally, at this years KMAC (2010) I will doing a workshop on this same topic but it will be more of a general discussion on all pest and prevention. Let us start this series off with one of the better known pests, Tegastes acroporanus or as most have heard of it as the red acro bug or simply as red bugs.

Several years ago the original school of thought was the higher the alkalinity and calcium levels, the faster corals would grow? Scientifically this is seems to be true, it has even been tested on porties species corals and seems to work. It has been the standard advice given to many new reefers for years, alkalinity levels of 10-12 dKH. Over the last few years many SPS reefers are finding that the high end of the dKH scale is not always better and that keeping alkalinity closer to NSW of 7-8 dKH has actually led to less issues of abiotic build up, excessive algae issues, RTN and even better growth results. From my personal experiences (7-8 dKH), I have found this also to be true. And during my research on this article I can now understand why my stability is better and why abiotic precipitation is much less. Before we get into what is a good alkalinity level, let’s take natural seawater levels (NSW) for reference: Alkalinity – 7 dKH Ca – 420 ppm Salinity – 34-36ppt pH – 8.0-8.3 Magnesium – 1280

Alkalinity - How Corals Grow (Part 1) Shadowramy, 2009 For me one of the hardest concepts to grasp in reef keeping was that of alkalinity. Most of us reef keepers come from a background where the focus is on pH, alkalinity was always just a simple little test that gave results of good or bad. There are many excellent articles on alkalinity today by some major scientists and chemist therefore will “tread lightly” in my beginner friendly approach about this topic. At the end of this article I have gathered several reference articles that one should really look over for further information. As the reef hobby (or should I call it lifestyle) has grown we are starting to see shift favoring alkalinity opposed to pH in the reef aquarium. With the advent of ULNS, two-part dosing and balling systems we are finding that alkalinity has a lot to do with a successful reef as well as help us in troubleshooting issue such as poor growth, RTN and coral survival. Gone are the days of a simple calcium reactors that we set and forget, today we really need to pay careful attention to our alkalinity and avoid its negative impacts if we are to be successful.