Achilles Tang

Yeah... but I have still yet to see your list of practical steps to take, dude. If it's logical and workable, I'll implement them.

They should be fed regularly... otherwise, their scavenger role will become that of a opportunistic feeder... hahaha... Anyway, they help to turn the top layer of the sandbed over and help remove excess food, decaying matter quickly and efficiently. I like them!

And here's the rest of the sand gang...

Here's some of the new brood! The tiniest ones are about 1 to 2mm long.

Hi folks, several months ago, I got about 70 nassarious snails from Maxima. I heard that these snails are hard to breed but he has been able to do so with the use of mud substrates and provision of algae in his outdoor fibreglass clam tank. Also, breeding is only possible if you have very large specimens 'Queen Kong' nassarious snails, I believed he called them! To my surprise, recently in the past few weeks, I noticed the emergence of many tiny nassarious snails in my tank and it was probably due to a very large 'Queen Kong' nassarious snail I remembered seeing before in my tank. It should probably be around 3cm in size? The last time I saw it was about a year back and now it has made its reappearance again... probably due to the many suitors available? I now have about 30 or more of these baby snails of very sizes wondering around my tank and they seem to be busy wondering on rocks and the glass wall munching on algae, unlike the usual adult size ones that are usually buried in the sand. Anyway, here's Queen Kong, about 3 cm long.

No, its obvious that there is a short circuit somewhere in the unit due to water still inside. You are not supposed to allow water into the ozoniser! Funny, if your house circuit breaker tripped, you shouldn't be getting a electrical shock at all.

LOL!!! That made my day!

So your FOWLR tank's ozoniser's busted? Gee... well... IMO, an ozoniser is far more effective than a UV sterilizer. I hear that for your water to be thoroughly UV sterilized, you would actually need to run your water as a film thru not one but many many UV tubes to be effective. What is sold in the Aquarium trade is actually inadequate. An eco-aqualizer is not a UV sterilizer. I will not comment on this product but you have to make your own conclusions from reading other people's comments on the web. Now how did you get the electrical shock again?

Clownfish, I hate to be the one bursting your bubble, but heard the saying 'monkey see, monkey do'? I was once a monkey of LFS too. LFS will teach you many things but have you actually measured the water quality of LFS... they suck. The old school method of using coral chips in sump has no purpose other than to generate more $$$ for LFS. According to them... coral chips aid filtration... buffer your PH and calcium. Total C R A P! Let me explain and I hope you see the logic: Using coral chips in sumps (esp in flow-thru compartments) serve nothing more than to trap detritus and become nitrate factories!!! Having your 3 compartments of different grades of coral chips will probably make your water clear of any floating detritus but that's because they ARE ALL TRAPPED inside your coral chip compartments! What happens then? The organic detritus ROTS... and then... what do you get? Geddit? So you go back to the LFS... i got high nitrates problem... so how? No problem sir... you get this product and this product, buy more salt for water change, buy this and I guarantee your nitrate problems will be solved... yeah right! Do not confuse a DSB with a similarly deep coral chip compartment in your sump. DSBs have denitrification effects because of the anaerobic zone at the bottom. Flow thru compartments DO NOT work similarly as water and oxygen PASSES THRU the compartment full of coral chips. Hope you understand the biology, if not the logic of tank setups, because sometimes, giving the wrong info to newbies can be very damaging, so don't give them if you're not sure... or you're be no differnt from some LFS with their 'good advice'.

High nitrates are not good for livestock in the long run, especially at 100ppm. Your bioballs are too efficient at converting ammonia and nitrites to nitrates but your filtration system does not have the capability to convert nitrates to nitrogen gas. Therefore you should remove your bioballs or be subjected to perpetually high nitrates. You therefore have no choice but to do regular water changes to dilute the nitrate levels or upgrade your skimmer to remove dissolved organics/wastes right from the start. By removing the bioballs slowly, you will allow your bacteria in other parts of your system (eg. LR and sandbed) to cope with ammonia and nitrites gradually and overtime, if you set up your sandbed right or have enough LR, to have some denitrification effects working ie. converting nitrates to harmless nitrogen gas.

Geez woman!! Don't mess with electricity!! We need you for this weekend's BBQ! Are you alright? What happened exactly??! AT

Glass will be able to maintain its structural integrity for a very very long time provided no form of damage is done to it. You are probably worried about the silicon holding everything together... well, that depends on the grade of silicon used then. The showtanks of Aquatechnique has been supposedly around for more than 10 over years... and the black silicon used is building construction grade (which I am using for my own tank, and Alvy and Hon are using too). It is probably the most expensive silicon... you can ask Alvy how much he spent on it as he DIYed his own tank with it.

What I do is to put the frozen brine or mysis shrimp into a metal sieve, and rinse them thru tap water until the whole cube is no longer frozen. I make sure that the liquid turns from red to clear and no 'juice' or any kind makes it into my tank during feeding. I then use a plastic soup spoon to squeeze the now defrosted shrimps dry and put them into an airtight container. I then pour garlic juice in, mixed with Selcon, stir the whole thing up and pop it into the chiller compartment. The 'dry' defrosted shrimps will absorb the garlic juice and Selcon and when fed, should provide my fishes with good nutrition.

Get up! Get up!

Day, Thank you for complying with taking your sale stuff out of the forum in compliance with my ruling. I did not expect this to become such a furore but it's good for the club members to speak out on such issues. I may not fully agree with some trade practices/bypass of checks/laws that may have allowed some livestock importation without proper clearances. As it is, if LFS are taking the risk, it is their own perogative to do so, and have to bear the consequences of their actions. What I do not want is negative consequences to hit SRC should news that our forum was used as a public vehicle for such transactions to be carried out. While there are moral and ethical grounds that can be debated on about the supposed illegal harvesting of livestock have somehow reached your hands and into our tanks, the bottom line would still be the commercial gain which violates the rule that I had since day 1 ie. no commercial posting is allowed except by our sponsors and DIY hobbyists who are doing projects as a service to fellow hobbyists at little profit for the time and effort put in. I did not reply you on the sea lettuce and snails issue as I have not ascertain whether you have harvested them or breeding them... but now that you have said that you bred them... then there is nothing to debate about if that is the truth. Don't get me wrong... this is not a debate about the ethics of keeping a marine tank OR how you get hold of your livestock... its about you using this forum for commercial gain. If there is a need to discuss any moral or ethic issues, we should do it in a new thread. AT

This doesn't belong under the Sell off/pasar malam shop forum!! Grrr... moving out to LFS info.

No offense taken... I did in fact mention that these are available at Chinese dry goods/provision shops. It's for those who don't have the time or idea where to hunt for these except at NTUC or other supermarts!

I'll trade my nassarius snails offspring with you...haha!! I have about a dozen pea-sized baby nassarius snails... and the funny thing.. is that these seem to climb over rocks and the glass wall to eat algae.

Still waiting for your suggestions of serious steps to take, pacificbetta.

Spicyball... good question. It's not as clear-cut as they may be referring good lobangs without benefit. I will give the benefit of doubt to these people. At end of the day, we can go to anyone who makes tanks and we know the pricing anyway... with a little homework. At this moment, I am flexible with this. But of course, any tank maker who comes in here to advertise his wares will be considered commercial.

Spiderone loves Ah Lians.... he will be asking for more pix!

Pacificbetta, don't bow out before letting us know what your thoughts are... especially the 'steps' to 'rectify' things. I'm actually very curious to know what's in your mind.

Nylon cable ties are useless for hard pvc pipes! They have no grip and slide about with pressure. You have to PVC glue/solvent to melt the pvc pipe surfaces before joining them together for a permanent weld or maybe the term to use is 'joining'.

Not enough grip unless you pull extremely tight... but if you wish to cut them off, you risk damaging the hose.

Yes it is commercial. And I do not allow such commercial sales. So anyone that I am aware that are selling livestock harvested from the sea through dubious sources will be treated like any commercial agent/salesman/shop that comes into the SRC forum and profit from their sales. Hobbyists who are DIYing stuff to help other hobbyists save costs will still be exempted. The recent sale of harvested corals from dubious sources have been weighing heavily in my mind for some time. My recent posting a few posts up has more or less summed up my thoughts. I will make it official by posting it as an announcement in the SRC News Forum. All such future threads will be deleted/censored/edited to comply with the ruling. If he keeps a marine tank as a hobby, he is still a hobbyist. Just like you and many others in some ways. What drives him is up to his conscience. Rest assured that SRC will take a stand on such issues and while not everyone may see eye to eye with certain policies, I encourage lucent debates and logical conclusions rather than emotional backlashes to form certain guidelines and club objectives. Yet at the end of the day, it's also the hobbyist's personal convictions that will be important. I think the comradeship amongst marine hobbyists is rather unique and the spinoffs (like scuba-diving) could auger well for the appreciation of all marine life and the conservation of our seas. Thank you for your frankness. AT