Achilles Tang

Morgan, you want my alvyfoamer 648 just for your anthia tank? I'm thinking of upgrading to a 848 double-beckett. LOL! Its going to be a nightmare keeping pristine water quality with that much bioload and 5 x a day frozen food feeding WITH sps corals! 13 anthias I have now... (5 bartletts, 2 dispars, 3 evansi, 2 truncates, 1 randall) wanting to have at least 30 or more... I must be mad... but not as mad as some reefers here!

I got a chicken Randall.... its ok. Nothing can beat my old truncate, even my male bartletts avoid it. I guess the only way to keep anthias well is in a big school, which can then form their own smaller schools which seperate themselves from the more aggressive school. These schools can then merge together as one during feeding time. Start a new tank? I wish. I really wish.

My 3 evansi anthias (from the last PR shipment) are alive and well... they are just super shy but I hope they'll come out soon in the open. My Randall is getting bolder by the day. I think I will have to upgrade to a double beckett soon if I wish to keep more anthias without affecting my SPS. Aiyoh.

Yeah.... the pictilis is a dream anthia but I have yet to see a live specimen that will justify the $###### price. The photos avail on the Net doesn't do it justice, I heard.

Good deal... it comes with a free Joe P controller! It can also double up as a fish feeder and water changer. Only thing is it needs 3 meals a day and toilet breaks. With further modification, it can also iron your clothes. Get your Joe_P controller today!

AHHH!! You managed to ID the two!! Pseudanthias parvirostris! Beautiful fish!!

The tricky thing about trace elements is that it is very hard to test for each and every one of them. Coupled with how each reef tank is different in terms of the livestocking which consumes these trace elements in different amounts and timing, the reefer is quite hard pressed to know how much trace elements are take up, what's still inside the tank in what amounts and how much to dose back. The overdosing of trace elements have been pointed out to be a factor in heavy metals accumulation in sandbeds and LR which can result in Old Tank Syndrome. Trace elements are important and the basic way to replenish trace elements is with every water change as the saltmix will contain trace elements. Bottled trace elements have been used for ages by reefers, esp. the Germans. The US reefers tend to scoff at the use of bottled trace elements.

Damn... I want this Anthias anthias !!

Pass it on to another reefer with flatworm problems.

Looks much better now with the swim-thru valley.

Cool article here

I can verify Flubberina's findings. I was there personally to observe the feeding of pellet food to her sun corals. It's amazing! She switches off the water circulation and drops a pellet in each polyp, they'll close up over the pellet and ingest it. I guess the krill content makes it a substitute for meaty foods?

I can verify Flubberina's findings. I was there personally to observe the feeding of pellet food to her sun corals. It's amazing! She switches off the water circulation and drops a pellet in each polyp, they'll close up over the pellet and ingest it. I guess the krill content makes it a substitute for meaty foods?

I don't think your figure is accurate. It's definitely not 50%. It is quite hard to quantify how much damage the hobby trade has caused the reef as much as: 1. Mother Nature: hurricanes and storms can wipe out whole reef systems in a few minutes what took hundreds of years to grow. 2. Increase in commercial sea traffic, increase in wastes dumped at sea. 3. Commercial fishing: use of nets have devastated the sea floor. 4. Sea accidents: chemical pollution caused by shipping accidents have caused massive damage to ocean ecosystems years after the mess has been cleared up. 5. Illegal fishing methods like dynamite blasting. 6. Land reclamation 7. Land pollution run-offs from fertilizers, industrial waste products. 8. Diving activities 9. Global warming is also another factor - but it's directly tied to human industrial activities. There are a few other factors but I don't have time to elaborate. The sheer volume of corals being harvested for the trade can appear very scary but there's also a lot of ocean and reefs out there. CITIES quotas are restricting how much corals can be traded worldwide in a year, in a sustainable pattern. And every year, the quota is shrinking. We all have to treasure what corals are made available for the hobby. That is why coral propagation and survivability is very important for us hobbyists. Responsible Reefing.... don't buy corals if you don't give them a fighting chance to prosper in your tank. We may one day even hold the key in restoring natural reefs with corals propagated from our reef tanks.

your topic title is misleading. Pls pm what you want it to be renamed.

I think the first foods of cleaner shrimp fry is rotifers. Anyway, these are NOT easy to breed for the home reefer.

Sorry to hear that man. I FULLY understand you, I left my job of 4 years because of new (mis)management. I must have seen more than 30 colleagues come and go in my floor alone, including 4 immediate bosses. Needless to say, morale has been rather low, not just for myself. Don't worry, something good will come along your way... as it is with me right now..

Let's see if you can get skimmate like mine!

I would consider T5s for smaller tanks or those without chillers. I hear from my overseas friends that the 3rd generation T5s are getting better and they should be the 2nd best lighting alternatives to MH. PL and FL is on the way out. Until T5s are extremely affordable, I'll be sticking to my 400w MHs! Danano keeps SPS with a bank of T5s over his tank... and so do many German SPS keepers with larger, deeper tanks (of course, they use a LOT more T5s! )... their SPS colours are equally as awesome as those under MH. This is a hint to reefers that its not JUST lights that you should worry about but its WATER QUALITY that matters more!

Hmmm... what kind of biological system are you using? Something must have died and caused the ammonia/nitrite spike and your system wasn't able to cope with it. Lionfish produce a lot of wastes and its entirely possible for nutrients to build up to dangerous levels in a new tank.

The product is American but the distributor is Singaporean. Phytoplankton culturing on the home hobby scale is not worth it for commercial sale. You need dedicated facilities to culture enough phyto (density) and in ample volume before you even see some returns. It does take time to culture and harvest and the risk of cultures crashing and cross-contamination is always there. You have to gather enough experience to know how much matured each culture is before using it or you'll be adding too much fertilizer nutrients into your tank. Buying it off a hobbyist - you gotta trust his methods... or grow hair algae!

Ron Shimek's DSB has failed him a year ago... and he blamed it on heavy metals and caused a following of people who feared the same thing and these people are the ones converting to BB. Funny how these are the ones who followed the trend of DSB in the beginning. I think for the educated reefer to make up his mind... he has to learn the logic of how each method works, the pros and cons and then be convinced by it and then look after his reef tank properly after that. Reefkeeping is not an absolute science but there are guidelines and there is logic to method. Don't be blind or hasty or jumpy and be blown here and there by rumours, hearsay, anecdotes because every reef system is cared for and setup differently. DSBs, plenums, SSB, Berlin styled reef tanks are all known to crash. The only tank that won't crash is one without anything inside. In a nutshell, I will summarize it as follows: 1. DSB/Plenums - properly setup with appropriately grained sand with a minimum depth of 4 to 6 inches, it will deal with ammonia to nitrites quickly in the short term and nitrates effectively in the mid to long term. Best biological system for NNR. Best for reef tanks as DSB microfauna will help process detritus and provide microplankton for the corals. 2. shallow sandbeds (SS) - purely aesthetics only. Not much biological function esp with regards to nitrates. In fact, the bigger grain the substrate, the higher the potential for more nitrates added to the system due to trapped detritus and other decomposing wastes. May require regular siphoning of detritus. 3. Bare bottom - zero biological filtration capacity. Requires frequent siphoning of detritus on a regular basis. More frequent water changes due to poorer biological filtration unable to cope with nutrient loads. Usually, there will be poor amounts of microfauna like copepods and worms in Berlin tanks that are good for cleaning off excess food & wastes. My 2 cents. AT

Hmmm... a 'reefer' is also a slang for those who deals with marijuana. Unless we are growing & selling marijuana, we reefers have a very legitimate hobby of reefkeeping.... Chewing gum is not illegal. Littering with chewing gum is. AT

I had more problems with tank stability when I had a SSB. It changed when I had a DSB. I recommend newbies start off with a DSB to ease their husbandry tasks and big problems dealing with nitrates on a long term basis. If you are a dedicated hobbyist and committed to numerous water changes and have invested in large amounts of LR, a very good skimmer, regular use of GAC... then by all means... bare bottom tanks aka Berlin-style can still work. AT

Depending on water quality, water circulation, ample lighting of the correct spectrum, it may take a few weeks to a year. Or maybe... never. That's the beauty and challenge of keeping SPS... its like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're gonna get! You may actually end up with a glass box of chocolate sticks! You can't. Experience will tell you what the base colour would most likely be and you will then 'hope' for the 'potential' of the specimen to show itself soon. Zooplankton or zooplankton substitutes. You have to hunt around. You can buy liquid coral food to GPs.