This is Part Two of JO-BERT step by step guide to setting up your own Reef Aquarium. Jola, I know you are not nearly ready to start even step 1 but since this step is really closely related to 1, I thought I should actually post it now. ----------- It is a real simple one. We have in fact discussed it on the phone yesterday. a) remove all substrate leather coral pieces, and or whatever it may be. b) clean it thoroughly. c) dump it in a bucket and bleach it out. d) spread it out somewhere and let it dry. e) we may use it later but not at this stage. f) Let me know how much you really have in terms of pounds of it. g) Let me know also what it is made up of. h) clean all the filters that were on the tank and store them. i) clean all the power heads that are on the tank, especially the impeller chambers (there may be calcium carbonate it in. A mild solution of water + an acid should get rid of it. If any other pumps were used clean them also and store them. j) give the skimmer a thorough cleaning and bleach it out. Clean the venturi valve by sucking very hot water through it. Albert Albert, April 30, 1995: After the break down of all equipment, I drained about 25 gallons of water from the 55 gallon tank into a vat to re-use upon completion of Step 1. I then filled 4 2.5 gallon buckets with tank water to house the Corals , Polyps, Snails, etc. Then, I filled 2 - 5 gallon buckets with fresh saltwater that I mixed the day before, it was the same temp, pH, and SG as the tanks water. These are the buckets that I would use to clean all rocks and Corals . This was not RO water in these buckets. I had it real hot in the house, around 85 degrees, so that the water in -all- the buckets would not cool down so easily. I stood back and took a -real- deep breath and said " Okay, Albert, Lets go!" At 10:00 am, I got started on Jo-Bert system. The first thing I done was to remove everything that was currently on the system which consisted of 2 Penguin 1140 power heads, Whisper 5 power filter, Sanders WT-350 in tank skimmer, and one "X-Brand" power head. All was cleaned thoroughly, and put aside. The lighting consisted of 1 Vita Light Power Twist, 1 Magtinic, and 1 Coralife 50/50. This of course, was set back out of the way to redo later. When it got time to remove the Corals and Polyps, I took a 2 qt pitcher and submerged it in the tank, which was still -almost- half full, I then gently placed the Coral in the submerged pitcher to lift it out of the tank. Figured this was better than air hitting it. Air still did hit it when I had to put it in the holding bucket, but it was a quick thing compared to going across the room with it out of water. I put the Elegance in its own bucket, the Leather in its own bucket, and the Devil's Hand , in its own bucket. I kind of divided the Polyps equally between the 3 buckets that house the corals, leaving space between them. I did go ahead, at this point and remove the rocks that had the Accordia Mushrooms on them. I put them in the 4th 2.5 gallon bucket, as well as putting the snails and hermit crabs in with them, also. Jola Albert, This reminds me, tomorrow when I'm nearing completion of Step 1, I will be placing the corals that I currently have, which is on the list I sent you a few days ago, back in the tank. Need information on where to place them in regard to the light, etc. Jola Albert, Did do water tests, I have not done anything to the system to change any of the parameters until I hear back from you. Here goes: 11pm tests were done. Temp-79 SG- +.024 Nitrite-Trace Nitrate-.12 pH- 7.97 KH- 8 Ammo- Trace (I did add Amquel on this.) Phosphate-0.05 Copper-0 Calcium-320ppm (Could be due to adding the Amquel? Ca test instructions say that products such as this could mess up the test.) Let me know about all this stuff. Jola Jola, Looked at the test results. Observations: pH is low, please add buffer. KH is just fine Calcium : low, please set up the KW drip system Ammonia : you are likely to find some but not much. No need IMO to add Amquel. Copper : OK Temp : OK (although you could raise it a degree) Nitrite : should go away in a day or two. Phosphate : keep an eye on that one so it does not increase. If it does let me know. Please repeat the tests today if you have the time and repost them for me and all others. Thanks, Albert Albert, On the pH, do you mean to add the Alkalinity Buffer or the Sodium Carbonate or a Total Buffering product? Have all 3 on hand. Will re-test again tonight and post the results. Jola Jola, Add the complete buffer. What brand is it BTW? Albert Jola, As agreed upon you will buffer the 55 with one tsp. of the marine buffer this morning and then again with the same quantity tonight and tomorrow morning. Please run some test on the tank tomorrow evening if you have the time. Thanks (or is it tanks) .... Albert Albert, "Check" on the Buffering. pH this am at 5:30 before adding the buffer was 8.25, at 12:00pm, it is 8.34. More buffer this pm? Jola Jola, No buffer tonight. Let's see what the pH is in the morning. Please leave me a message. Thanks. Albert Jola, Well you are sure moving along. The next step will be the testing and making sure all parameters are within the ranges we want them to be. Albert May 1,1995 Albert, After I removed all the Corals, crabs, snails, and everything that resembled an animal at all, it was time to remove the rocks themselves. One by one, I placed each rock on a new white shower curtain. The white really let me see stuff better than a dark color would have. They were placed in a single layer with a couple of inches between each so that I could determine the shape and size of each of them real well. I kept a spray bottle of saltwater handy to mist the rocks if they appeared to be drying, which they did. So, about every 20 minutes I misted them just enough to keep them real damp. After the removal of the rocks, I drained the rest of the water that was left in the tank into another vat to re-use later when refilling the tank. I then removed all the substrate and discarded since we decided that I would not be using the mixture of live sand and crushed oyster shell later. The tank , at this point, was empty but felt like I should go ahead and really wash the tank out well, which I did. Next, I placed the tank on the new wooden stand and temporarily leveled it. I will level in more when there is some water in it to weigh it down and the settling is done. After temporarily leveling the tank, it was time to put back in the tank a batch of the "old" water. I went ahead and added back to the tank one of the vats that I had removed from it earlier. It filled the tank close to half full. Again, I checked the level of the tank and of course, it was not level, so I had to adjust this. I was very careful to get the level of the tank as close as I possibly could so there would not be any undue stress on the tank itself. I was then ready to wash and inspect all the rocks. I started with the "base" rock. These were the bigger pieces and knew that they would go back in the tank first. I picked up one of the base rocks, and dipped it in one of the 5 gallon buckets of saltwater, and with a new toothbrush scrubbed and scrubbed the rock while inspecting for any crabs or anything else that might be bad. I then dipped the rock into the other 5 gallon bucket of saltwater and swished it around real good to rinse the rock. Next, I took the rock over to the tank, and submerged the rock in the water and turned it up-side down over and over to get all the air bubbles out of the rock that I could before placing it in the back left-hand corner of the tank. This rock touched the back glass, as well as the side glass. After I placed the first "base rock" in the tank, I repeated the same procedure with all the base rock that I had, placing each of them on the bottom of the tank al along the back glass until I reached the other end of the tank. The base rock is now touching the glass in the back of the tank , as well as the ends of the tank. I had two more pieces of the base rock , which I washed and placed in the tank on top of the first layer. I was sure to put the remaining 2 pieces of this rock on top of another rock where it felt sturdy. Again, touching the back glass as well. This was all of the "base rock", about 20 lbs of this kind of rock in all. After the base rock was in place, it was time to start on the Coraline encrusted Live Rock that I currently have. It is very porous. Lots of the pieces have Christmas Tree worms on them. I dumped the 2 five gallon buckets of wash water and refilled them with clean prepared saltwater. Again making sure of the temp, pH, etc. I then selected the largest live rock that I had, which is still smaller than the base rock that I have, I dipped and scrubbed it with a toothbrush and inspected the rock very closely for crabs, algae, and anything else that looked either dead or not wanted. If I was in doubt about something on the rock, I removed it, no second thoughts here! Better to go on and remove it, if your not sure. The same wash, rinse, inspection procedure was performed on all the remaining live rock, changing the wash and rinse water as necessary. I placed the live rock on the first layer of rock that was already in the tank. I was sure to check for stability. I followed the same procedure on all the live rock, using the largest pieces first, until I had enough in the tank to fill the whole length of the tank. I did have to rearrange several times to touch each end of the tanks glass and make sure that it was stable. This was all of the live rock that I have, about 20 lbs. All rocks are touching the back glass at some point. Although , this layer is sparse, awaiting more rock. At this point, I still have 2 small rocks with Accordia Mushrooms on them. I washed them, carefully, by swishing them in the wash bucket, then in the rinse bucket. I did not, of course use the toothbrush to scrub them. I then placed them in the tank on the top layer, for now. I have also placed the various Polyp covered rocks on this layer for now. When transferring the Polyp rocks back to the tank, I dipped them from the bucket with a cup so that they would be submerged in water going back over to the tank. I then removed the Polyps from the cup, and sat the Polyp covered rock on the top layer. I did -not- pour the water from the cup into the tank. The same procedure was repeated with all the rocks that had polyps on them. At this time, I was ready to place the Corals back into the tank. I took the the bucket that housed the Elegance Coral over to the tank, and scooped the coral out with a cup. I then submerged the cup with the coral in it, into the water in the tank. I placed the Elegance on the top layer of rock. Of course temporarily, and awaiting the addition of more Live Rock. The same procedure was followed with the Leather and the Devil's Hand. The only difference , being that the Leather Coral, I have resting on the bottom of the tank, in front of the rock formation. It was now time to finish refilling the tank with saltwater. I used all the rest of the "old" water that I saved . After this had been depleted, the water line was about 5" from the top. I left the water line at this level , while I placed the power heads in the tank as outlined in the Step 1 instructions. I then placed a Visi-Therm heater and a thermometer inside the tank, temporarily until I could get the sump installed. I then finished filling the tank with prepared "new" saltwater with TAT salt, again checking the new water for temp and pH. Forgot to tell you about the timers. Yes, I have plenty of them. I do prefer the lights to go off at 9:30 or 10. Just tell me what to do, here. Also, do I need the lights to come on tomorrow, or leave them off altogether tomorrow? Jola Jola, The lights, you should start running those, I suggest, 10 hours max. a day (9 is IMO opinion enough to begin with). I will post a schedule for you but I need to know one thing, when do you want them to go out (and I will work the timing backwards from there onwards). After that we are going to put more rock in the tank. Albert Albert, After the tank was filled, I turned on the power heads. Needless to say, it looked like a Typhoon in there for a few seconds until they got going like they were supposed to. Well at this point, I had worked for a total of 5 hours and 15 minutes, exactly! I had to see our handiwork! Quickly, I assembled the light fixtures according to the instructions you had outlined. The fixtures are 2 Perfecto Double Bright Light Strips and I installed the bulbs as follows from front to back in both fixtures; Coralife 50/50, Vitalite Power Twist, Coralife Magtinic, Vitalite Power Twist. All bulbs are 48" long and are standard bulbs, not HO or VHO, and I did line the inside of the fixtures with aluminum foil. I sat the fixtures on the tank, and just -had - to turn them on just for a minute! Just long enough to see ................. There it was!!! Even though the water was pretty cloudy from all the work, you could see -very- well, which ment I must have done good cleaning the rocks. The rock formation comes about half way up the back of the tank and there is probably 6 " of bare glass showing in the front of the tank. Even though, it is a very sparse reef at this time, it was one of the most beautiful sights I've ever seen! Even the color of the various bulbs mixed together produced that "just right" appearance to my eyes! I quickly turned the lights back off, knowing the corals and such had been through enough today. Jola Albert, Current fixtures will allow 4 fluorescence (regular, not VHO) You have also got to tell me if you want me to burn the 4 fluorescent lamps or not. Jola Jola If you have 4 spaces for light I suggest you use: 2 Vitalites 1 Coralife 50/50 1 Coralife Magtinic. Albert Albert, The fixtures are 2 double bright strips by Perfecto, meaning one fixture holds 2 bulbs and can be arranged from front to back in any order. "Check" on the bulbs. Need to know in what order, from front to back, how to place them. Jola Jola You told me you wanted the tank lights to go out around 9:30 PM. Based on the set up you have (2 double setups) and the fact that you can control the lighting with two timers, here is the suggested photo period The Vitalite/50-50 set comes on at 11:00 AM and goes out at 8:30 The vitalite/Magtinic comes on at 12.00 and goes out at 9.30 Is there any light at all during the night in that room or is it pitch black in there? Albert Albert, "Check" on the lighting schedule. I would have to say the room is pretty much pitch black during the night. Jola Jola, Is there a way to leave a small light on somewhere in the room. This does not need to be a real heavy duty light. Just a 60 watt bulb somewhere. I will simulate moon lighting. P.S. I understand from the author on the books on hoglets that they too need a very small amount of light during the night. Albert Albert, No problem at all . There are 2 table lamps in the room. One is at the right hand end of the tank about 4' away. The other is directly in front of the tank, about 13' away. Which one would you prefer me to use? Thanks on the Pig lighting, I did not know this. Jola Jola, The one that is further away should be just fine. Yes the hoglet need it too so says Kelsey Wood the author. He leaves a black light on all night. I am going to try it with a similar one (got one yesterday). Albert Jola, For the record could you please state the wattage and Kelvin degrees of the bulbs you are now using. Thank you. Albert Albert, The bulbs that I'm burning are as follows: 1 Coralife Magtinic---- It is a 100% 03 Actinic bulb with an external reflector . Kelvin degree of 7100. 1 Coralife 50/50----- It is 50% 6000 Kelvin degrees Daylight , and 50% 7100 Kelvin degrees Actinic. 2 Dura-Test, Vita-lite Power Twists------ It is 5500 kelvin degrees of Daylight with a CRI of 91. All bulbs are 48", 40watt, T-12 fluorescent bulbs. Jola Albert, I could not help crying! With the tears streaming , corney, I know, but couldn't help it! . I hooked up a Magnum 350 that I had all ready with a Micron Cartridge installed in it, to the tank, as instructed by you about the mechanical filter, for a few hours to clear the water column of trash. After about 3 hours, the water was crystal clear again! I unhooked the Magnum , cleaned it and stored it for future use. At this point, I was exhausted from the days events, but so happy with the work that we had accomplished! I still cant believe that -I- actually did this without your actually being here to help me in person! Bottom line: I -am- doing it! Jola Jola, The most difficult steps are now behind and taken care of. The next step is to set up the skimmer and the KW drip. Which I understand you are doing today. Don't adjust the foam height until the skimmer starts to foam normally so you can be sure when you leave that it will not overflow. Albert Jola, Thank you for all the update messages on the tank setup. I think you really did a super job explaining it all. Sure was a lot of work. Seems simple in messages but it does take time to perform. A note from me: it may help to wear gloves to protect your hands from the effect of salt (especially if you have cuts or bruises). The TAT salt you used or any salt for that matter would sure sting if you had any cuts. Albert Albert, Now, came time for the sump, overflow box, and skimmer. The over flow box is in three pieces. The skimmer box, that goes inside the tank is about 6"tall x 5"wide x 3"deep. It has "teeth" all around 3 sides of the box on the top. To the back of the box, is a brace piece with a plastic screw. The box that hangs on the back is about 7" tall x 6" wide x 3" deep. It has a piece of PVC pipe that is about 5 " long stuck through the bottom of the box with a fitting of course to insure no leaks. This leaves about 4" inside the box, with 1" sticking out under the bottom of the box. The third piece is a "horseshoe" shaped piece that hooks into both boxes , and then , you can set the whole unit over the upper lip of the tank, with the skimmer box inside the tank, and the other box on the back of the tank. This is an "X" brand skimmer box , handmade by a man in KY. This did take quite awhile to get everything adjusted right, but it got done. I moved the heater to the sump, got the skimmer installed on the side and all running and adjusted. After I got the skimmer box all hooked up, I attached a piece of proper size flexible tubing to the piece of PVC sticking out of the box on the back of the tank. It looks like vacuum cleaner hose, and you get it at building supply stores. I put the other end of the hose into the sump, after determining the correct length the hose should be. Then, it was time to install the pump to return water back to the tank. I took a length of 3/4" I.D. flexible pressure hose, and in one end installed a spare Magnum power filter return tube that I had. I hooked it over the top of the tank, determined correct length , and attached the other end to a RIO 2100 and just put the RIO in the sump. To start a siphon on the overflow system, the "horseshoe" piece of the box, has a small piece of airline tubing that is on the top and to the side of it, its about 5" long, then it has a check valve, then another piece of tubing about 5" long. I had already added enough saltwater to the sump to cover the pump, so I was ready to start the system. I sucked on the airline tubing on the horseshoe piece of the box, until water was coming up through it, then it completely filled and started filling the box on the back, then traveling down the vacuum cleaner looking hose down into the sump. I quickly turned on the pump. After turning on the RIO 2100, it was just a -massive - amount of pressure coming out of the return! It was churning , yes -churning- the top of the water surface. It was pulling water from the sump so fast that there was no way for the overflow to feed it water fast enough. Now, the skimmer box has the plastic screw in it so that you can adjust the feed of the water to the sump, and this adjusts the water level in the tank, just by moving the box up or down and tightening the screw. No amount of adjusting fixed this problem. The RIO 2100 just pulled out the water and sent it back to the tank to quickly. I remedied the problem , by replacing the RIO with the Hagen 802 power head, which is rated at 400 gph, compared to the RIO 2100 at 568 gph. Now, the system works great! Plenty of pressure flowing from the return in the tank, and plenty of water in the sump. The titanium grounding rod is also now in the sump. I have marked the water line on the sump with a marker, tonight at 10:30 will be 24 hours and we can determine the evaporation rate. Jola Jola, It is my understanding that you now also have the skimmer and overflow working. Albert Albert, You are correct on the skimmer and overflow. Jola Jola, Next I guess will be the Kalkwasser. Setting up the KW system IS important at this time. You do need to increase the Calcium levels. Also, the KW will stabilize your pH and your KH. Albert Albert, "Check" on the evaporation, and KW drip. Will know about the evaporation rate at 10:30pm. Will have the KW drip ready today and awaiting your message on starting the drip. You need to know the evaporation rate before starting the drip, of course, right? Jola Jola, It is my understanding that you are going to use a 2 liter bottle for the KW drip system. For the siphon effect to work it needs to sit higher than the water level of course. Since we still do not know what your evaporation rate is please check that out for me and let me know. Thanks. Albert Albert, The evaporation that took place in a 24 hour span was 87 ounces. I'm all ready with the KW. Let me know if you want me to explain the way I have this set up. Jola Jola, 87 ounces in 24 hours from a 55 gallon tank was the evaporation you gave me. Let me calculate how to set the drip and I will leave another message. Jola, 87 ounces = 0.6796 US gallons = 2.752 liters = 2752 ml Given that a lab tablespoon is 15 ml that is equal to 183.46 tablespoons. 1 tablespoon = 300 drops. So the total evaporation is 300 * 183.46 drops or 55040 drops in a 24 hour period. That is = to 2293.22 drops per hour or 38.22 drops per minute. Now if the evaporation stays to same your drip system has to dispense about 38 drops per minute. Why don't you start with that and we will adjust if if necessary. You will have to let me know whether or not this amount does refill the tank up and the water back to the line you made on the sump. After that we can do the fine tuning. As I said temperature will play a role. Let start with 38 drops per minute though. Albert Jola, Whenever you go away you should make sure the KW vat contains enough water to top-off the system with KW for the time you are gone. Let's take an example : You go away for 3 days. We know the KW vat now needs to hold enough KW for at least 72 hours. At 38 drops per minute that comes out to : 38 drops * 60 minutes * 72 hours = 164160 drops. That will take care of 3 days of evaporation at the present rate (the one you indicated to me in a previous message. Now what is 164160 in gallons? 164160 drops equals that number divided by 300 to get to tablespoons That is equal to 547.2 tablespoons. Each table soon is = to 15 ml so the number of 547.20 is = to 8208 ml or 8.2008 liters. 8.208 liters is equal to 8.208 / 3.785 or 2.169 gallons. Simple right If you need further information let me know. Whenever the KW replacement drip system contains enough water/KW to replace evaporation your tank will always stay at the same water level. The only "caveat" is the evaporation rate. It can change when the weather changes. It is a good idea to double check what the evaporation is going to be when the temp in your area starts to rise and then adjust the drip rate to accommodate the additional or lesser evaporation. Of course, when the Temp. goes up the Evap. goes up too! Albert Albert, Set the drip at 6 am this morning. It is now 10 pm and the sump level is -very- close to the marked line.(day after sump was started) It has been 3 days now since the start of Jo-Bert, which was Sunday. The skimmer was hooked up and started on Monday. This is Wednesday, the skimmer is just now looking like it is getting "broken in", so the foam level is really hard to determine at this point 2 days later. I'm having to really watch the skimmer pretty close and keep adjusting it until it gets coated in the "bubble chamber" and starts to produce a more constant foam so that I can adjust it accordingly. Will post you tomorrow pm and let you know how it is running. Jola Jola, Since you cleaned the skimmer, cleaned the rocks, added new salt water etc., the skimmer indeed needs a few days to get working normally again. During that period you do indeed have to watch it and adjust it until you have it right. There is unfortunately nothing that can be done about that. All skimmers operate that way. You ARE doing the right thing though. Albert Jola, Did you ground the tanks with the titanium rods you have? Albert Albert, Yes, grounding the tanks have been done with the titanium rods connected to stainless steel wire, then to the plug in screw. Jola Jola , Well from our telephone conversation it seems you really did a super job on he set up JO-BERT. Just great! Congratulations again you reef keeper extraordinaire! Albert Albert, Yes, I'm going to "tell all"! Very proud of myself indeed! Still can't believe that I'm actually doing it! I'm going to have a reef that absolutely nobody around here could even touch! Don't you know that folks at Macna ,that are keeping up with this, will want to see the pictures that I'm taking before, during and after! Of course there -was- the Damsel screw up! I sucked him up though, without any problems. Do hate it for the fish, to have survived absolutely -everything- and then me do that! Thinking on it though, I put that fish through -a lot- today, he might have been so stressed from all the stuff , that he might just would have broke out with Ick anyway or something. Me having to kill the fish after injuring it so bad , might have been a blessing in disguise. "Reef Keeping Extraordinare". Now, that's a crock if I ever heard one! But.... I AM learning! Jola Jola , Well the most difficult part is over with. I know it took a toll on you. You sound tired indeed. I do feel though that now that you have accomplished the biggest step the others ones will be so much easier. Sending you additives today. Good you got that badly injured Damsels out. It could have led to parasites. That would have set us back a great deal. So it is really good the fish is out. Albert. Jola, We will now wait till tomorrow night to do the regular tests (please post the results). I will be looking for the evaporation rate level sometime tonight or tomorrow morning. As from now on please run the lights based on the suggested schedule. Great job. Albert Albert, May 3, 1995 Albert, Water conditions at 6:40pm are as follows: SG- 1.024+ KH- 10.5 Temp- 80 degrees Ca- 444 ppm pH- 8.55 Ammo- 0 Nitrite- 0 Nitrate- .08 Phosphate - 0 Please note , that no water changes at all have been made since Sunday's work. The Nitrate at 11pm on Sunday night were at .12ppm. It has dropped to .08. What about this? Why have the Nitrates dropped with no water changes? Jola Jola, Here are my observations : Water conditions at 6:40pm are as follows: SG- 1.024+ excellent KH- 10.5 a little high Temp- 80 degrees very good Ca- 444 ppm very good pH- 8.55 too high for the morning reading Ammo- 0 excellent Nitrite- 0 excellent Nitrate- .08 excellent Phosphate - 0 excellent You need to do something about the pH. 8.55 in the AM is too high. What I suggest is to add seltzer water to the tank, 2 fluid ounces at time, 2 times a day for a few days and take pH measurements and KH ones one hour after you have added the seltzer water. The carbon dioxide in the seltzer water should lower the pH and the KH which we really need to do. Do not perform a water change yet. Albert Albert, I'm adjusting the pH according to instructions , with the Seltzer Water. Will post results in the am of the pH and KH. "Check" on the addition of Seltzer Water. Will report to you tomorrow pm on the KH and pH. I want to tell you that the town where I live only carries Seltzer Water during the holidays! We do have a fast food place , though, the fountain drinks are mixed with Seltzer Water (CO2) through a separate canister , the syrup and flavoring being in the another canister. I stopped by there, and they were glad to give me some Seltzer! I did confirm with them that it was pure CO2. Jola Jola, Please bring the day pH down to 8.3 and then please post me what the pH is tomorrow morning before the lights come on. Albert Albert, I will be mixing 15 gallons of saltwater at one time to use for regular water changes when we get to that step . Would you again tell me how much of the TAT Salt is needed , in ounces , to mix the 15 gallons to the right level? It is very difficult to mix salt to the correct level , when you do not know this . You have to keep adding salt or water over and over to try and get it just right. Thanks! Jola Jola, The bags of Thiel Aqua Tech salt you have are for 50 gallons of water and weigh 14 2/10 pounds. 14 2/10 divided by 50 and then multiplied by 15 is equal to 4. 26/100 pounds. In essence if you use 4 and a quarter pound you will get your amount needed for 15 gallons of water. Prepare the salt at least a day before you use it. Albert Albert, The Elegance is still pretty upset. Although it does look better than it did yesterday. All of the Polyps have just went crazy since all the work on Sunday! They absolutely love the currents and conditions. Look better than they -ever-have! Jola Jola, Leave the Elegance where you have it now and give it another day or two. The high pH may be affecting it too. The stress from moving it etc. ... did not help either. For the time being I would not be concerned about it. Albert Albert, May 4, 1995 The skimmer is just now starting to operate as it should. Another day or so, it should be running at maximum performance. Jola Jola, With the rock already in the tank and the one that is coming you should have about 110 pounds of rock total. We are going to increase that even further but at a later date, maybe in a week or two. Please clean the rock the way you did the last time. Since adding rock to the tank displaces water and since you will have too much water in the tank, use water from the aquarium to clean the rock with. The exact same method applies. Let me know how the rock looks as I will obviously not have seen it. Where do you put it? Just use your decorator skills, it's that simple. Make sure though all rock is firmly in place and will not fall down or over. This is obviously part of stage 2 : building up the reef further. Albert ======================================================