Achilles Tang

Yup... SPS keepers should not worry excessively about calcium levels but more on the upkeep of high alkalinity levels.

He didn't say... so I am assuming its pipe to pipe! Need a photo to verify but it seems too late now.

Arrgh... getting off topic! Anyway, what alk levels are you guys aiming for? For my SPS tank, I am aiming for it to be around 10dkh - 12dkh.

The whole bottle should be exposed to light to trigger the hatching procress. Not just a little hole for light to attract newly hatched BBS. The whole point of culturing BBS is to make sure that you a very high rate of hatching and all at the same time, so harvesting will be done all at once and maximum yield with minimum wastage. Trust me, the coke bottle method is 100% effective plus you can SEE everything that's going on!

Achilles Tang (Toa Payoh)

Epoxy will harden to an almost stone like state - it seems like there's no way to remove it unless you use a chisel and hammer now!

It's quite difficult to come to a conclusion about what products are good especially when budget is concerned. I mean I will be having top-of-the-line lighting pendants vs a DIY MH anytime! Skimmers come in so many different designs with performance that comes with a higher price tag. Would it make you buy a cheap Weipro skimmer coz more people are on budget reefing and using it and can't afford to get a H&S Skimmer? There is a HUGE difference in performance and price points. For some smaller items like test kits and saltmix... its probably much easier...

That's the funniest thing I read in a long time! Bwilly, you're so farnie! Anyway, yeah, I admit that I can be quite a speedster too. Especially when I am alone... can really fly... 110km/h is my average on highway... kekekeke! I am always on the right lane!

Pays to shop around and get the rough pricing... some LFS will mark up on some items! Or they see how green you are... haha!!

Well said, hoppinghippos! Well said!

Its a non photosynthetic deepwater gorgonian. You don't need light to sustain it but frequent feedings of phytoplankton and very small zooplankton. I have one too. Polyps are extended most of the time. I feed DT's everyday.

Got this off somewhere: In studies, coral growth is supposedly judged to be alkalinity limited and not calcium since there are about 9 or more (milli) equivalents of calcium per litre in NSW vs only about 2.5 of alkalinity. Scientists measure the calcium uptake of reefs by the alkalinity depletion rate. Coral skeletons are basically a 1 to 1 ratio of Ca to carbonate so worrying about Ca is not really relevent? Morg, yeah but I used to wonder why you guys could have low alk and not want to top up with sodium bicarb as anxiously as I do. FYI, within 5 days (without topping up), my alk can drop from 12 to 5 without supplementation. A change in colour is also noticeable. Hence, I really want to get an oversized reactor ASAP to cope with my cal and alk intake coz this manual dosing is taking up my time on a daily basis. I am overdriving my Koralline reactor so much that my PH can drop to 7.9 at night, what's worse is that my evaporation rate is so slow since my Titanium chiller's doing its job well. Perhaps I should use a fan to speed up my evaporation rate so I can dose kalk more often? My personal observation is that even though cal levels can still be within the normal NSW range, 360+, growth tips of my SPS corals will visibly show less growth, body colours will darken slightly (well, enough to freak me out) when my alk drops by at least 4 to 5 dKH. Also they coincide with tissue recession on some colonies? Not too sure if its lack of light on the underside or weaker water currents? hmmm...

Just like to kickstart a discussion on the importance of Alkalinity vs Calcium with regards to coral growth. Too many reefers I know, even our senior reefers, pay more attention to calcium levels than alkalinity levels. Why is this so? I have personally noted that drops in alk levels do have a much larger impact on my corals in terms of noticeable growth and lost of colouration rather than a drop in cal levels. I personally deem alk levels more important than calcium levels. What's your take on this? AT

As long as you don't see any brown jelly infection, the other branches should be fine. The coral tissue doesn't go all the way in, just around the corallite structures ie. the tip of the skeleton where you see rows of septa.

The knowledge using cement to make rocks has been around for a long time but not pursued because they are too dense and too heavy plus a lot of space is needed + a lot of time is taken to make + cure. It's far easier to purchase light porous live rock vs making your own.

Now that's a real man's game! Fight for 24 hours, game will still not over yet! Samurai Swords - when are we gonna do that again? Wait till Cookie's free?

Ah so... Fiji corals are not allowed to be imported into SG also until the ban is lifted?

Having a small tank (and not having enough LR and DSB for natural denitrification processes) and having to use a canister will mean that you have to live with high NO3 for a very very long time. Your own solution is frequent water changes as the best means of export. Try to lessen this with the aid of a very good skimmer to help export dissolved organics. Minimise feeding and stocking. If you can, add a overflow into a bigger sump where you can try to build a DSB there and grow macroalgae ala refugium to absorb nitrates and phosphates. The increase in water volume will also help stabilise your tank with a larger margin for error should anything happen. Try to reduce your water temp... 32C is impossible to keep corals. Your livestock will have increased metabolism... and increase nitrates as a result. AT

Freshwater cousin? oh... I get it!!

Thread will be closed now. Have a nice day, folks. Hope there's a lesson to learn from all this.

DA, you should know better... pls be more descriptive in your thread title. I half-expected to see.... inside the thread : anyone playing.... masak masak? barbie dolls? police and thief?

Guys guys guys... no country is perfect and certainly no political system and politician or leader ever is. Even Ghandi couldn't please everyone. I'm glad that we are all matured enough not to bring this to a flame fest war but a frank discussion and sharing of opinions. So please do avoid the inflammatory comments like "go home, get lost" etc. The way I see it, Pospeh brought up the pertinent points and those have already been brought to a closure with SM's statements. I am sure many of us have these same questions in mind though many of us may not have verbalised it like in the other forum where you can find many other Singaporeans, locally and overseas-based not holding back their criticisms. Pospeh, although not a local, has been here and contributed his skills as an individual... so what if he is not a natural born Singaporean? He is subjected to the same amount of taxes, if not more, and have to live in the system that we created (minus the NS and all that). Singapore is a cosmopolitan country... and so is almost every country in the world now... with expats working next to locals. Going to Australia and expecting the locals to welcome you with open arms? Fat hope! They view you as stealing their jobs, taking their girls, spoiling their chances in life as competitors etc! So regardless where you are, If you are not as competent as their local talents, trust me... you'll get the sack! Let's just get along, after all, there are more fun things to do... like REEFING!!! AT

Frankly, not a lot of LR comes from Figi into Singapore. There are other places like Tonga, Vanuatu, Indo, Australia, Phillipines where LR can come from. You have to see who brings in CITIES liverock.

Apparently, the US is stopping all shipments from Fiji until further notice. That means all corals and LR. Got this info from RC: ACTION: Effective immediately, the United States will prohibit the import of CITIES listed specimens from Fiji or CITES listed specimens with an origin of Fiji until further notice. The United States will also prohibit the export or re-export of CITES listed specimens to Fiji or the re-export of CITIES-listed specimens with an origin of Fiji until further notice. Any such shipments are subject to seizure and forfeiture. Contact: U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service From the CITIES website: Renewal of recommendation to suspend trade with Fiji It was recommended in Notification to the Parties No. 2003/008 of 7 February 2003 that Parties not accept export permits from Fiji until Fiji’s coral export quotas had been verified by the Secretariat and published on the CITES website. During the 49th meeting of the Standing Committee (Geneva, April 2003), the Secretariat reported on Fiji’s enactment of its legislative bill to implement CITES. The Committee requested the Secretariat to verify the matters detailed in Fiji’s report and to issue a Notification to the Parties, definitively withdrawing the trade suspension, if all outstanding issues had been fully addressed. After reviewing various matters, the Secretariat determined that Fiji’s Endangered and Protected Species Act No. 29 of 2002 is primary enabling legislation that requires the gazetting of implementing regulations in order for certain provisions to take effect. The Secretariat, together with a representative of Australia (as the representative of Oceania to the Standing Committee) met representatives of Fiji in August 2003. At that time it was agreed that the recommendation to suspend trade with Fiji would be renewed if, by 31 October 2003, Fiji had not promulgated implementing regulations for Act No. 29 and provided details of coral export quotas to the Secretariat. In spite of reminders by the Secretariat, no implementing regulations or details of coral export quotas have been provided to the Secretariat to date. Therefore the recommendation of the Conference of the Parties that all Parties refuse any import from and export or re-export to Fiji of specimens of CITES-listed species is renewed from 31 October 2003 until further notice. Info from Walt Smith: From the inside ……. A few people have asked me to comment on this thread and I am happy to share what I know so far. It is true that Fiji has been shut down for an undetermined amount of time. Fiji has been given one deadline after another to get an important piece of legislation in place and for one reason or another that has had some difficulty getting to the table. The main reason is that the official in charge is completely incompetent and felt that if he just ignored the responsibility it would just go away. In fact he does not know how to work his email and when someone else from government stepped in to try and help he found over 200 messages that were unopened from C.I.T.E.S. warning him of the impending deadlines. This is no joke ….. that’s just how silly this whole thing is! It is no wonder that C.I.T.E.S. finally gave up and imposed their final deadline which was October 31, 2003. This is not the fault of the exporters, we did our job and supplied all of the information required to set the quota and report our exports while everything was in compliance with the exception of this one piece of paper that is supposed to come from someone who can’t even spell regulation let alone communicate about one. Amazingly enough once this person left the country on government business another person stepped in and got the job done. However, it was not done in time enough to meet the deadline but just the day before the deadline. What happens next is that today Parliament will meet to approve the legislation (reliable word has it that they will) and it will be published in the Gazette (government paper) on Friday and once C.I.T.E.S. sees this they will lift the ban. Two things can happen here to spoil this 1) Parliament may want to delay the process by asking for more time to review it, I was told that this was unlikely 2) C.I.T.E.S. could take their sweet time to lift the ban to teach Fiji a lesson, also unlikely (I hope). If all goes well everything should be back to normal next week. A few things in some of these post I need to clear up. No, I am not in Fiji right now as was mentioned and Fiji has never been shut down yet, not even for a week as someone has suggested that it happens every year about this time. One piece of good news is that my cultured rock is still ok to bring in and we have a very big load coming in tomorrow and this could be a very good time to finally take a look at some very nice rock, if I don’t say so myself (plug, plug). I hope this clears up some of your questions or prevents any silly rumors from getting out of hand like I’m in a Fiji jail eating rats for the rest of my life. Take care all and I will pray for the future of a business I have worked so hard for and the 350+ employees that have families depending on me for their daily bread. Fiji has it hard enough right now without this hitting their economy. Cheers, Walt Update …….. Thanks for kind words and concern folks. To answer a few questions and give you the latest update I have this to offer. Last night I was able to talk with the gentleman from T.R.A.F.F.I.C. (the regulatory branch that C.I.T.E.S. relies on for information) stationed in Fiji. He told me that the Parliament did approve the legislation and the next step was to get the paper submitted to the Solicitor General for publication into the Gazette on Friday (our Thursday) and the deadline for this is 10:00 am today. To say the least, it will be tight or it will not be Gazetted until the following Friday which means another week. However, there is one worry and that is he wasn’t very clear if his information was accurate since he got it second hand. If we are successful in getting this thing in the Gazette on Friday it will be up to C.I.T.E.S. to get it on their web site before our permits will be accepted. Now that you have completed “Fiji Government 101” we will move on … hopefully! Regarding other rock we still have our Tonga Kaelini rock every week and the other types of rock that come from Tonga (shelf & branch) and of course I mentioned our Fiji cultured rock is in good supply and is not affected by the ban. As I have said many times we all need to start paying attention to what is going on with cultured stuff. I am not going to get on a soap box about destroying the reef because I still defend our activities because I know personally of our commitment to establish proper reef management and accurate monitoring programs. I know it is hard to imagine if you have never been there but the reef is a renewable resource that can be harvested in a responsible manner. The owners of the reef have a right to earn a living from one of their few valuable sources of income if properly managed and this is what we are all about. However, situations like this also allow us the time to reflect on the other alternatives. I still look forward to the day when the hobby will start to be more supportive of the aquaculture efforts that are producing very nice corals and rock but are passed by in favor of “wild caught”. In our case we have more than 70,000 pieces of coral on racks (yes 70,000) that will rival any wild caught in color, shape and size yet it is still a very insignificant part of our export. The wholesalers tell me that the stores don’t want it so they don’t stock it!!! Come on guys, talk with your stores and start creating the demand from your end. I have taken this to the next level in Fiji and have voluntarily reduced our own quota by 20% per year (in rock) in hopes that we can convince the market to start accepting aqua cultured products by then. It is these kind of situations that should remind us all how vulnerable we all are and how important this whole issue is on many levels of conservation and awareness. Please don’t accuse me of hypocritical preaching because you must realize that if it were not for our harvest (I like to say responsible harvest) in the first place none of this other stuff would be possible. Ok enough said … I hope. Someone else asked where they could view our site. The www.waltsmith.com site is going under major updates and renovations right now but I think the old version is still up. However, www.pacificaquafarms.com has more up to date information on our cultured efforts and product. Even though I no longer own Pacific Aqua Farms (wholly) it still carries my name and our products and the site is full of good photos. Take care all, Walt You can follow up on the issue here... not sure how much that will affect us. AT

have you tried using a rubber gasket on both sides, the pressure from both sides of the piping should be enough to seal the hole. Can you take a photo of the joint?