Achilles Tang

Sounds like dieoff. Suggest you try scrubbing it off and siphoning before it decays further. I assume your cycling is over?

?? A nitrate test kit or any test kit for that matter... is suppose to measure certain chemical, organic, ionic or metal components in the test water. So a nitrate test kit reports what the nitrate level is in your test water. Using ammonia/nitrite/nitrate test kits will verify that your tank's biological filtration aka via bacterial processes is working/ready or not working/ready.

You are still registering nitrites? NO2 is toxic to livestock. This shows that your cycling is not over yet. Your introduction of livestock is adding ammonia into the system and your different bacteria that processed nitrites to nitrates isn't established yet to cope with this load. If your bacteria that processes ammonia isn't established enough... you may be heading for a crash. What I suggest you do is to pass your livestock to someone with an established tank or a LFS... put in your LR immediately... and wait for the cycle to fully complete.... before putting back your livestock.

Triggerfish... my wife and I are trying to round up enough people to charter a Liveaboard to Similan Island, Phuket. Going end Nov - early Dec! Wanna hop aboard our party? For that matter.. any Advanced Divers here in SRC? Good to have lots of kawan onboard...

Farmart Marine & Discus Aquarium 67 19/20 Farmart Center Sungei Tengah Road 6769 8640 Harlequin Marine Aquariums 17, Cavan Road, S(209850) Tel 6396 5659 HP 94573456 www.harlequin.com.sg Mon,Wed,Thu,Fri 1pm – 10pm Tue 5pm – 10pm Sat,Sun,PH 10am -10pm Hawaii Marine Fish 439 Sembawang Road 6754 0065 Keong Seong Fish Shop Block 22 #01-699 Havelock Rd 6272 9384 Kwang's Aquarium 7D Crane Road 6440 4550 Marine Image Block 925 #01-223 Yishun Central 1 6758 8675 Marine Life Hobbyist 178, West Coast Way, Hong Leong Garden Shopping Ctr, S(127086) Tel 6777 4047 Fax 68731178 HP 93836832 henryko@starhub.net.sg Mon 4pm – 8pm Tue – Sat 12pm – 8pm Sun 1pm – 8pm New Trio Fisheries 261 Neo Tiew Crescent (LCK110) S 718900 6898 4512 Ocean Planet 31, Oxford Road, S(218813) Tel 6294 6056 HP 97812633 Thomas Teo Mon 4pm – 8pm Tue – Sun 1pm – 8pm Pacific Aquatic Centre Lot 35 Blk D Pasir Farmway 2 Singapore 5100000 Tel:65820010 Hp:92370001 (Deon Heng) Pacific Marine Aquaria Plot 32 No 1 Lorong Halus (Pasir Ris Dr 12), Loyang Agrotech Park S(510000) 6386 0060 Reborn Aquarium & Supplier (Next to Aqua Mart) No.235 Lavendar Street Spore(38781) 6287 9335 Reef Aquarius 88 Koon Seng Rd S(427029) 6440 5508 Reef World Plot L33 MK 29 Lorong Halus (Pasir Ris Dr 12), Loyang Agrotech Park, S(510000) Tel 6584 3819 Fax 65843809 HP 96357996 Sea Life Aquarium 240 Balestier Rd S(329702) Tel 6256 4727 Fax 62563092 sea_life@pacific.net.sg 1pm to 8pm Close on Monday Silver River Aquarium #B1-K04 Bt Timah Shopping Centre 6469 3257 Superstar Aquarium NTUC Downtown East 1 Pasir Ris Close #01-08A, S(519599) Tel 6584 4288 Fax 65821833 http://www.superstars.com.sg info@superstars.com.sg Superstar Aquarium Block 476, Tampines St 44, #01-193, S(520476) Tel 6588 3833 Fax 65873833 http://www.superstars.com.sg info@superstars.com.sg Supreme Aquarium T-95 Seletar West Farmway 1 6482 3083 Wong Loy Kee Aquarium Block 4 #02-119 Sago Lane 6221 1497 6222 9763 Nature Aqurium 1no Thomson rd tel 62556051 12pm – 8pm Topic Marine Pte Ltd No. 11 Pasir Ris Farmway 1 Block D S(519355) 6583 3456 topic@singnet.com.sg Jon Au Yong (General Manager) Coral Farm 60, Lim Chu Kang lane 6F. S(718843) www.coralfarm.com.sg jon lim Tel:6 332 2928 Liquid Design 246, Tanjong Katong Road Kenneth Lim(TaoKay) Marine and Discus Aquarium Plot 104, Neo Tiew Crescent LCK 201 Lim Chu Kang Agrotechnology Park, S(718925) Tel 67698640 Fax 67698346 Seriya Lee 96730688 Lee Poh Heng 91855988 Paradiz Reef No 1 Balestier Road Singapore 329670 Tel : 65 6396 7970 Anthony/Edwin/Liew Far East Plaza Pet shop Boys 14 Scotts Road #04-78 Far East Plaza, Singapore 228213

LFS will sell you things that don't really work or you don't really need. That's why I always tell people to read up first.

Cool! Can I create a thread on Tank Photography? It will be good to archive such good info there! ps - why grey rock?

Doh... But my spot metering is on... ! How is it the problem?

It's a G2. Yes, I can choose AV. I have spot metering. (its the one with 3 boxes, right?... on the LCD, which do i choose). Do i choose light metering with the spot in the box symbol or without? Spot AE point is currently AF Point and not centre.

Predatory fish.... you have to provide live food or wean it slowly to dead food like how some people do successfully with lionfish.... use a prawn on a stick.

Did you know that you are not supposed to have any livestock when your tank is still in the cycling stages? Your livestock will be under tremendous stress as they try to cope with elevated ammonia, nitrite and nitrate levels... surprised that they haven't all died yet... especially the sea cuke and shrimps. I don't know which LFS you went to that gave you such bad advice... you should have read up and researched on your own as LFS advice is generally proven unreliable. Your LR should have been added during the cycling stage. You mean to say that you don't have any LR but you already have livestock in there?? Do you know that LR is a critical element in your tank's biological filtration system? Bet you don't... so can I suggest that you read up as much as you can immediately? Do a search on the pinned up links... or use the search key... all this info is there already... ! Get test kits for your water parameters... top priority... and report back. And can you show us a photo of your tank now?

Hmmm.... yeah, that's true.... if I had a tank your size, it would take me another year to stock up and thousands more dollars gone... but it'll be really GOOD!!! I don't mind snorkelling to aquascape your tank!!! What a challenge!!!

I did! I did!!! But for a full tank shot... how do you avoid shooting the white sandbed? Yeah... I went for a low exposure setting already! The problem is that to prevent my sandbed for being too white... I can only bump up the gamma and whiteness a little... thus my tank looks very dim and dull in the photos... Wanna come over and try shooting a nice pix for me? This is the photo info for my full tank shot... Date/Time: 2003.10.06 02:48:32 Shutter speed: 1/320 sec Aperture: 3.2 Exposure mode: Manual Flash: Off Metering mode: Evaluative Drive mode: Single frame shooting ISO: 200 Lens: 7.0 to 21.0 mm Focal length: 7.0 mm Subject distance: 65.535 m AF mode: Single AF Focus point: Image size: 2272 x 1704 Image quality: Superfine White balance: Auto Saturation: High Sharpness: High Contrast: Normal

Hi Morgan, Good to see you back in the forum! You have been too quiet! Need gurus like you to help around! Yeah.. looks packed... the kind of look I want... Danano was at my place... he still sees LOTS of room for frag placements and growth... haha... You have to view from the top to see it... front view does make it look more packed.

Simply: Soft corals are generally: 1. Cheaper 2. Requires less light 3. Requires less calcium, alk 4. Requires lesser water circulation 5. Has toxins making them incompatible with hard corals 6. Duller colours, mostly brown. 7. Less sensitive to heat. Hard Corals 1. More expensive (esp. SPS). 2. Requires much more light (SPS requires intense light). 3. Requires much more calcium, alk 4. Requires more water circulation (esp. SPS) 5. Brighter colours (all colours of the rainbow, esp. SPS). 6. Requires cooler water for long term health. This is merely skimming the surface, a lot more info should be researched from reading good books like Aquarium Corals by Eric Borneman, or researching the internet. Read up as much as you can before buying any livestock... a lot of marine livestock are incompatible with each other or have very specific housing/feeding needs. Happy Reefing! AT

I'm an electrical idiot, btw... but I am very sure that grounding is extremely important. As long as I there is some form of grounding... electricity will find its path down the earth pin (which of course must be connected!!). Power heads without a grounding wire... it's silly to put a 3 pin plug on it! I am referring to equipment which has European plugheads (the earth pin is not there).

As Tanzy has replied.... if you want a long-term stable and happy reef, and you have equipment that adds heat into your tank, and you can't provide ample and consistent cooling... then a chiller is the ONLY equipment that can help you attain a consistent cool water environment... fans have their limits, ice-in-bottles-in-sump is impractical and can actually induce stress. Unless you move your tank and house into temperature countries and use a heater instead to warm up your water! That's a reason why this hobby can be expensive for a lot of people... equipment investment.

Err... I don't find it good enough... wait till I scrap off the coralline algae from my background... turn on all the 4 lights (now only 2), and make sure that my radium is changed out for a ushio for consistency.... and someone teach me how to shoot to prevent overexposure on the white sandbed! And give me a few more weeks for some of my wild colonies to colour up!

Make sure that those 2 prong plugged equipment (esp the rounded prongs without the grounding prong (or European type plug where the ground plug is from the electrical power point itself and not on the plug)... are changed to our local 3 pin plugs so as to ensure that your equipment is properly grounded. A lot of electrical stuff from Germany and UK needs to have their plug head changed. I haven't had any shocks after I installed a titanium grounding probe a few years ago and made sure that all two pin plugs are changed to 3 pin ones.

Foxprime, cover your tank... octopuses are smart enough to crawl out and walk about.... no kidding.. you don't want anyone picking it up by mistake... or your pet dog or cat trying to bite it. (I used to use live octopuses as bait when fishing... they always walk down the boat deck from out of the pail when you're not looking!) Use a weight to hold down the cover, octopuses are stronger than they look!

For sale! $10!

Here's another purple that Spiderone can vouch that was a lot browner when it first came...

Yeah... I need spray paint. Most of my purples have turned brown. Actually, I am still waiting for my kalk reactor/auto water top from cookie/alvy... and my upgraded calcium reactor to come online... my calcium levels are dropping like crazy on a daily basis! That probably caused a lot of browning out but colours are on a rebound... Here's my purple monster with new growth that are lighter brighter purple... Sorry for the blurred shot, I shot at an angle!

buy coralline algae? I grew them! If you want them, I can scrap them off for you... I hate them!

Left side.... finally full...