What is the single best purchase you have made in Reefing?

[biggie4jets]

Clarisea filter roller

 

[Bato367]

Clarisea filter roller

Seeing a lot of peeps saying filter rollers.

 

[G Santana]

My $20 DIY ATS, gotta pull out the weed wacker every two weeks.

 

[KK's Reef]

Coral. Definately coral.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

I'm going to step out of the box a bit with this, but it really has been invaluable. From water changes to moving a tank from one house to another, I've used it in so many ways. It can hold 500#, can be disassembled/reassembled in seconds, and is practically bulletproof.

 

[navada718]

My Tank!!! IM 50gal aio used, after 2 months purchased, pandemic hit. Previous owner sells it to me for $250

 

[Dennis Cartier]

Definitely the Tropic Marin High Precision Hydrometer and High Precision Thermometer. Once you have a concrete, accurate method of testing that requires no calibration, you quickly realize how inaccurate a lot of the other tools that we take for granted really are. To the OP, get a TM Pro floating hydrometer and see if you are as impressed with the Hanna afterwards.

 

[Paul B]

My Main Squeeze.

 

[Wakenbaker420]

I have a refractometer and to dial in my tank I purchased some BRS Refracto-Juice calibration fluid. Calibrated it and it was way off. It would read 1.025 but was actually 1.020. Calibrated it, increased salinity slowly and thought I was done.

Well, I needed to verify some temperatures anyways in order to dial in my heater controllers, so I went to my LFS and purchased the Hanna Salinity Checker which also reads temps. I checked my tank salinity with the Hanna and guess what? The salinity was STILL only at 1.020! I calibrated the Hanna twice with the cal fluid and verified it! After cal it read the calibration fluid at 35 ppt. Spot on.

So, lesson learned, I cannot trust those refractometers.

The Hannah Salinity checker is the single best purchase I have ever made in Reefing, hands down.

What is your best purchase?

Since dialing in my salinity, my corals have never looked better.
View attachment 2554807View attachment 2554809

I just had the same issue! My salinity was at 1.018 and my refractor was reading 1.025. I had the calibration fluid and everything. My tank ran like this for almost a year. Never could figure out why my corals were doing horrible.

 

[Bato367]

I just had the same issue! My salinity was at 1.018 and my refractor was reading 1.025. I had the calibration fluid and everything. My tank ran like this for almost a year. Never could figure out why my corals were doing horrible.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this problem is probably more common than we think! If we can't get salinity right, we won't get anything dialed.

My corals colored up awesome after getting it corrected.

 

[Wakenbaker420]

H

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this problem is probably more common than we think! If we can't get salinity right, we won't get anything dialed.

My corals colored up awesome after getting it corrected.

How long did it take to regain colors? I have several of my old corals that may not make it. They have salt burns and some bleaching due to the fact that they had acclimated to my horrible water conditions for so long. I slowly brought the salinity up over a week and a half and now has been steady for several days now. Thanks to my Hanna checker

 

[MnFish1]

A meditation course. (I was going to say a bottle of whisky - but I wasn't sure that was family friendly)

 

[Bato367]

H

How long did it take to regain colors? I have several of my old corals that may not make it. They have salt burns and some bleaching due to the fact that they had acclimated to my horrible water conditions for so long. I slowly brought the salinity up over a week and a half and now has been steady for several days now. Thanks to my Hanna checker

Well, the corals in my Evo were in it for about a year. Then I bought this used Reefer 425 and transfered everything over. Not sure when the refractometer went off the rails but probably quite a while as their colors in the Evo slowly faded and just never "popped".

Once everything was into the Reefer, including new frags from WWC and locals, everything again looked just OK, not vibrant.

Everything was in the Reefer probably 1-2 months before I have adjusted salinity. I'd say within a week to two weeks, after adjusting salinity, that I really noticed the color come back into the corals. I now have bright colors even in my Fireworks Clove Polyps that I never had in the Evo.

 

[Dakota_reef]

Old school floating Tropic Marin hydrometer.... always float in my fresh mixed salt water before a water change.

I recently learned this is a powerful tool to compare to my Apex probe to a refractometer.

 

[-XENOMORPH-]

Hanna electronic salinity checker. Or the 2$ Tupperware 1.5 gallon tall boy. Lol.....

 

[GARRIGA]

My credit card getting declined

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Depends. In a certain light I’d say my oceanic 120 as it was the start of fulfilling something I’ve wanted to try my hand at since I was a kid.

day to day? Hard to say as I’m not done building but I think my KP rock. And the rock a friend and someone who is kind of a mentor is letting me keep in his rock system for a month to get it seeded.

 

[Trouble1375]

Roller mat filter is the most helpful thing ever. No more filter socksView attachment 2555771

Love my roller mat

 

[Trouble1375]

My $20 DIY ATS, gotta pull out the weed wacker every two weeks.View attachment 2555852

I clean my DIY ATS every Sunday. Wish I could do something useful with all the hair
algae that comes off it.

 

[EricR]

My credit card getting declined

Perfect,,, now it's your dedicated "algae" scraper!