Achilles Tang

You should be much more careful than to chase after a light fixture that has dropped into the water... you should turn off the mains/power point before retrieving. Dry the unit thoroughly for a few hours before switching it on again. Make sure its 100% dry and no salt crystals are present. Your bacteria will be fine... and will repopulate quickly if any died.

Green wrasses and moon wrasses are extremely tough fishes... and extremely naughty and havoc-creating. I used to have them in my newbie days... they were called Satan and Lucifer. You go figure out why my wife and I named them as such.

My wifey is telling me to start saving $$$$ for a LOB to Similan Islands... Oh man... I am also dying to get back into the water!

Your skimmer must be on 24/7. Once it's offline for a few hours... skimming efficiency is greatly reduced as your skimmer has to 'break-in' again. Something to do with the bio-film drying up on the skimmer tube's surfaces and micro-cracks and thus affecting how foam can easily run up into the collection cup. As for internal water circulation pumps... yes, you can turn off at night with a timer. Anyway, there are areas of slower water circulation in caves and rock overhangs... where fishes will naturally hide away at night... so it may not really matter.

Bawater, is this observation consistent? IMO, once a certain amount of time has passed, the water and all its nutrient load in all parts of a reef system (main tank, refugium, sump) should be at an equilibrium. I don't really think that part A will be cleaner than part B such that a skimmer will be able to pull out more junk vs a skimmer just barely a meter away just because the water moves over a refugium, where in theory, the algae is supposed to uptake the nutrients... but for this to happen... the uptake rate must really be super fast and efficient... Could it be because that skimmer A (pre-refugium) has already cleaned the water... so that skimmer B has less to clean? (Assuming that skimmer A is extremely efficient). So in theory, a super efficient skimmer now placed at B will still be able to pull out a lot of gunk even if a much less efficient skimmer was placed at A with a refugium!

My stand is pretty clear. If you are getting corals for reselling... it's clearly commercial. My other reasons as stated above is also for your own protection. If you have clearly propagated your own coral frags... then by all means, trade or sell them... captive bred corals acclimatize better but you should only sell them to people who KNOWS how to take care of them.. especially SPS corals. AT

*Hoot* *hoot* I think you can leave this poll open for another year and I'll be damned if you even get 15 polls taken (barring people who are purposely out to challenge my comments!) Good luck and don't visit LFS or you'll never get well!!!

By Rex Niedermeyer Part 1 Part 2 Part 3

Part 1 Part 2 It's super chionghey... but.. good info is good info.

I use Coralife all these years and have not experienced anything bad about it. Tried tropic marine and red sea salt before. Tropic Marine seems to dissolve easiest and red sea the hardest. Coralife is somewhere in between. Perhaps the batch age can be a factor too, or bad packing.

Not really... i want a black background for contrasts. Now... with my coralline encrusted rocks and wall... my purple-coloured corals are blended right in.

You can't control anemones. It'll come out when it feels like it. Don't worry... it'll know when it's time to recharge its energy store and look for a good spot with strong lighting, either that or it'll eat one of your fishes for food.

Day... I think in future I won't allow such coral sales from now on as I think SRC shouldn't promote commercial gain from wild harvesting of corals from dubious sources by hobbyists. Especially more so when these corals are being sold to hobbyists who may not have the skills, experience and setup required and may be doomed to die in their tanks. It's also to protect you as no doubt AVA may want to enforce CITES laws protecting illegal/unregulated harvesting of corals and may come down hard on you as an example. If you are a LFS posing as a hobbyist, then my terms and conditions will apply anyway regarding commercial posts. If you are selling frags of corals that you have propagated yourself... then you have my full blessings. But from what I think is happening... you are somehow getting someone to pick corals, not for your own tank but for sale... for your commercial gain. And that I can't allow. Hope you can understand where I am coming from. ps - these concerns are echoed by many people who have PMed me. AT

I don't think yours is a carpet. A carpet anemone is also known as Haddoni anemone. The arms of a Haddoni is bubble like, very round. Almost like Ricordea Yuma.

I see... ok. DISQUALIFIED!

No... that's not the main danger. Sharing from my experience... I got the most flourescent green carpet you have ever seen in your life from the last Aquarama exhibition. Beautiful. Deadly. Fullstop. It ate at least 3 big tangs and a butterfly fish. It's an efficient fish killer. In the mornings, you see only the tail or head sticking out of the anemone. Super sticky. Even human flesh get stuck easily. Even plastic tongs can get stuck fast and you have to really give it a hard tug to pull free. Finally I had to kill it by digging my sandbed and using a scraper to dig its foot out coz it dug so deep and glued itself to the glass bottom. It ate up at least a hundred bucks of fish. It grew from a 3 inch specimen to 10 inch specimen within a few months. It's a monster IMO. I've won't keep a carpet... too much trouble.

Flub, actually, I think nassarious snails are better known as scavengers then detrivores... If you really want to clear fish dung... manual vacuuming works better... or have enough water circulation so that it is suspended in water and cleaned out by a good skimmer or filter wool.

Do you keep planted tanks? I used to. Remember what happens when excess fertilizer is (accidentally) released into the water column? eg. when you pull out a plant from the substrate? That's right... you get an algae bloom. Same thing for marine tanks... any excess nutrients/fertilizer/phosphates/nitrates/dissolved organics in the water will fuel the growth of nuisance bacteria and algae. The challenge in marine tanks, especially well-lit ones, is the struggle against algae overgrowth. It happens in the wild too... except that the fish and herbivore populations are far larger, active and mobile.... and that's why algae overgrowth is kept back in check. In our reef tanks with limited herbivore inhabitants, restricted water volume... we have to rely on very good equipment and good husbandry skills to keep nutrients in check. Hope this answer satisfies you. AT

Yup, its a carpet. What is a crown? Crown-of-thorns starfish? Hope you know the dangers of carpet anemones.

Nice tank, DeepBLue!

Phyto is what you should provide for them as I think BBS is too big.

Ignorance can be fatal. Too bad... u have to give it away.

No pain no gain. Hahaha!!! Seriously... you may be a kid or underaged... unless one of the reefers here have seen you and can vouch that you are indeed an adult AND mature...

Hi, please keep your photos to 700 pixel width.

Trust is a beautiful word. PROOF PROOF PROOF!! Email me a copy of your photo and IC... date of birth... marriage cert... whatever...