Achilles Tang

You are NOT supposed to mix tank water with Kalkwasser....!! Woah!! You'll affect the chemical composition of saltwater if you do that!! You'll see your PH & alk go crazy, a snow storm as calcium & alk drops out of solution! Magnesium will also be affected. Always use kalkwasser with fresh water... you'll add cal and alk in equal amounts.

Did you mention you put copper in a marine tank? That's a definite No-No. Can you give more info like how large are the fishes you bought, the amount of liverocks you have? Also, I would advise against putting delicate fishes like tangs in a very new and unestablished tank. Same goes for angels. A 3ft tank may be unsuitable for such fishes too if you overstock as they can get very territorial and fight, amounting to large amounts of stress and because they are sensitive fishes, they will succumb to parasites and infections. 1 week is certainly too short a time for a new hobbyist starting a newly established tank to start stocking up so quickly. Your biological filtration will not be able to cope with a sudden increase in bioload, and the change in water parameters will again stress your fishes. I suggest you read up the basics of marine aquarium keeping pinned up in the New to the Hobby forum and to remember this saying: "Good things happen slowly in a marine tank but bad things happen very quickly". Hope you'll pick up lessons learnt from many of us who were exactly like you when we first started and be a successful and responsible reefkeeper one day! AT

No kiss for you!

My favourite coral at the moment....hehehe.... Love you back too!

Spot the heart!!

If I am not wrong, the larger CBS will turn out to be female and carry eggs which is like a green lump under her belly. The smaller CBS will be the male and if it accepted by the larger female, then everything's fine... if not...

There are some collectors or LFS who will purposely put such anemones in total darkeness for a few days until they expel all their zooxanthellae, thus turning white but retaining their purple tips... its attractive to many reefers but its actually a stressed animal... until enough time has passed for them to produce back more zooxanthellae, thus returning back to their natural brown colour. Either that... or they remain white and eventually die.

Actually, given time, coralline algae will cover the entire glass surface... or you might cover it with encrusting sps....

Looks more like cuke dung!

What do you mean by not using to its full potential? My water is already rocking left and right. A wavebox is good for making sure that the whole water column moves in a tank although movement may be max 1cm up and down/left and right at the ends. I have 3 other Tunze streams moving water as well as two return pumps. My fishes can hardly swim at times!

Tempered glass is made to be much stronger but yes, a very very hard impact on a very very small point will induced the whole piece to shatter into very small round pieces, as opposed to shattering into long shards which is even more dangerous. No one is supposed to put heavy pressure on a sharp point on any glass surface. 15mm glass is very hard, I believe you can stand in the middle of a 6ft pane and it'll not even bend. But don't try it at home!

I would have kept a DSB for its denitrification & aesthetic purposes. Even when I tore down my DSB, frankly, the dirty portion with all the accumulated detritus was only about 2.5 inches deep. Beyond that, the sand was clean! And it did not have a foul stench. Every tank would have been different. *shrug* Now I keep a BB tank, only because I have full confidence that my water circulation is now twice more than my previous DSB setup's. I also have a very large skimmer. There are pros and cons of each method. I may have to keep a very close eye on my tank as a BB tank is not as forgiving as a DSB one. Also, heavier detritus needs to be regularly siphoned out as blowing them up would see an unsightly snowstorm. Detritus tends to be processed by DSB (or sinking in). For those keeping SPS only, a BB tank is ideal due to you being able to whip up water flow without a sandstorm. For those keeping LPS & softy tanks, a DSB tank would be ideal for them, for natural feeding and placement. There is no right and wrong... just understand the logic of what you're doing and the pros and cons of each method. Coke and water both replenish the body with fluids but not everyone likes water! - Coke addict.

Are you quitting the hobby?

Wow... somebody revived this thread... and it makes me wanna go dive soon before I go mad!! Hoping to go Manado during July/Aug....

A baby octopus (not the blue-ring variety) will be excellent choice for hunting down crabs and shrimps... but then you have the problem of catching it out later! A hawkfish may not be a match for a hard-shelled pistol shrimp.

Call Warehouse Direct. Look for Daniel. Its in the yellow pages.

Pray they don't move and multiply!

Man!! That really brings home what Anthony Calfo has stressed at his seminar here! Aquarist will spend tens of thousands of dollars but not spend on backup equipment... I'm gonna make this a priority now! Yikes!!

Aiyah, not the first time lah... been featured in ST before during the publicity generated by the SRC Saving Nemo campaign! I take it as to make up for all the trouble caused by the reporter who said it was so easy to set up a marine tank and gave all the wrong info! I remember having to write a few half-page articles in ST Classifieds to give proper advice just to counter-act the damage!

This is certainly a stunning fish!

Nope, I think my bottom glass is about 15mm and is tempered, so its extra hard. I doubt if any calcareous liverock would cause so much as a scratch even if dropped from a height underwater.

Spawning of corals does happen in reefers tanks... Here's a pix taken off Reefkeeping.com... http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-04/...s/humulisLG.htm The money spent could have been much much lesser if I just kept easy to keep corals like softies instead of SPS corals and if I didn't make so much mistakes when I was a newbie to the hobby many years ago and unguided! It's also because prices for equipment were so much higher about 5 years ago.... I still cringe when I remember how much a Teco RA680 chiller cost me then!

Positive stuff guys.... Go for it!

You guys should have talked to Anthony Calfo when he came down.... he has some interesting info on Beta Glucan!