Achilles Tang

Hi Rhun, Yup, when I saw you at the Chinatown LFS, I saw what the lady recommended to you but didn't comment. I waited till you left the shop before telling you more. Assuming the carnation coral is the dendro sp., you have bought the hardest coral to keep in the hobby and doomed to not survive for long in hobbyists' tanks! I know you must have bought it because it looked beautiful... unfortunately, it's complete feeding requirements are still understudy although the general consensus is that it will survive on feedings of live phytoplankton. Even so, it will require frequent feedings of live phytoplankton such that either you have a green water tank or you have heavy skimming equipment that will allow more frequent feedings. Since your tank is so newly setup, there is probably not enough microfauna in the water to sustain these corals... sorry to say... it will begin to collapse smaller and smaller till it disintegrates. I recommend reading as much as you can before you go out and make more purchases... perhaps you may even need to revise your setup the correct way since you just started. Can you tell us your setup? Thanks and welcome to SRC!! AT

Yup all advanced divers.

Reserve the 6 places for me!! I will confirm with you next week!

That is indeed a rare event! Congratulations!!!

Really??? Uhmm... thats a really unique name... he's not related to Bugs Bunny, is he?? LOL!

if you have a dead coral skeleton... just use bleach to disinfect it. It will turn white... then soak in FW to remove the bleach... dry it in the sun and you have a nice shelf decoration... Or maybe you can return it back to the tank and use it to prop up other corals or use it as a frag base.

Welcome to SRC!!! Someone PM, who is kelvin?

Uhmm... not entirely true. As long as it gets ample water circulation and no algae grows on it.. it will be fine regardless of light. Some sea fans are photosynthetic. Regardless, they require plankton feeding or they will perish.

Chris, its 'buck' not 'bug'! dodo... coral and fish diseases do not pass on to each other! Perhaps you meant to say that the virus or bacteria or fungus spores could be still in the water? The use of UV or ozone could be used to control them. However, till this day, it is debated on the use of it for reef tanks. AT

I remember when I was at LCK, I pointed out to the fat old man (tiny) that all his 5 pieces of 'donut'/meat corals were completely bleached... as in they were completely transparent or white. And he said... "No lah! It's very rare species, comes in once in a blue moon!" He kept insisting that I was wrong. Oh well... I went back again that weekend with Morgan and Morgan said the same thing to him... and again "That is not bleached corals.... those are white colour meat corals!". Some people should just keep to unpacking LS and cleaning up the place.

Sponges are filter feeders and do well when fed with plankton and to a lesser extent... plankton substitutes. The blue ones commonly seen in LFS are photosynthetic but should be kept in an area of good flow to prevent algae/cynano growing on them. If you are afraid of air bubbles in your sponges, simply shake it, or even squeeze it slightly to remove air bubbles. Broken pieces can be wedged into LR and they will embed and grow (provided they get fed).

Ah so neh! Well, if she's still single, pls intro to TTboy...! He's single, available and very very good catch! And she kinda look very much like his ex - the chio look type! But he'll become a paedophile then! JOKING!!! ps - TTboy, how did you get her photo???

This feature is already installed but will come up together with the content management system software that I am going to purchase very very soon. It will take some time as I can only do the customization at night when I am free. Hang on folks... akan datang!

*ouch* Anyway, in the end, I chose my wife over her and another chio bu.... hahaha.... looks isn't everything you know!

Really here... but... here's the girl that I know... She bears a certain similarity... I can't remember if she went to poly.

I WANT TO GO BACK TO SCHOOL!!!!!! Woogagaga Woogagaga Woogagaga Woo!! What a sight for sore eyes! LOL! You win the best avatar of the month!

She looks like someone I knew before... used to interested in her (well a little, till I discovered she had very hairy arms)... LOL!

TTboy, That girl in your avatar... looks so strangely familiar... where have I see her before??

Okie... I'll ask the last time gang if they want to go... minus... A? hee! Dun worry, we'll find you a new one! Izzit organized by 'I married underwater' dude?

Phang.... you need colonies now rite? You know what to get now! LOL! And they will never RTN!!!! Kel.... I dun think Wisma Atria's tank is managed by AQtechnic... I remember Alice telling me it was done by someone else.

And we all know what happens when Edwin Lam gets pissed right? We bow before your fury! Heh! PEACE lah... what you don't understand? Need to talk to you soon about 'you know what', heh heh! and I also forgot to pass you the dough for the beckett the last time we had coffee. AT

I'll show you some pix of a German SPS tank using half T-5 and half MH later. You'll see the obvious difference and you'll be surprised! The higher wattage T5s (I think there are the 2nd generation bulbs) are able to provide the same 'reach' as MHs.... the european aquarists are slowly moving to t-5s to reduce electricity bills and reduce heat. However, you will lose the 'glitter lines' which makes your reef tank more beautiful (just like sunlight) as MHs are point source lights.

PacB, Sorry I must have been blind, I never noticed the use of any emoticons in your replies in this thread.... so I could never have guessed your body language. Since it's so apparent that I have somehow stepped on your toes, I am going to back off now. You are convinced that the methods of giving out pre-mixed diluted 'plankton water' is a good deal for reefers whereas I feel it would be a better deal/logical method to receive the frozen concentrated phyto paste in smaller quantities. We'll let the issue end here... after all, no point jeopardizing our common interest in reefing... and as I always say... we all learn something new everyday! PEACE?

hmmm... perhaps the use of smilies could indicate your body language, Edwin. I never intended to make you seem uncomfortable (did I?) Culturing betta frys and feeding corals, marine fry, invertebrates & other filter feeders are very different IMO. We can learn a lot from each other with our years of 'experience' and 'knowledge' in our own fields. I am a believer in feeding real planktonic food (frozen or live) and so this topic is very interesting to me as I want the best for my reef tank. As I said before, I use to feed bottled 'coral food', frozen phyto, moved on to GPs and now finally to live plankton and zooplankton. There are real differences between feeding, tank reaction, growth etc. I don't intend to take a course on plankton culturing/feeding as you suggested... I research from mostly from the web and also from my Plankton Culture Manual (cheem stuff) and other fry culture materials. I don't have access to labs to dispute or prove certain facts or practices as I am sure most of the info posted online by manufacterers or researchers and in the plankton manual have scientific credibility and makes no sense for me to deviate from tried and proven methods (unless I am intending to prove them wrong). The reason why I wanted to know more about your methods was because I was wondering about the potential loss of nutritional values arising from it. If you could point me to published information supporting your methods, then it will benefit us all to gain knowledge. Take a look at this info here, it will show that cryopreserved plankton takes a severe drop in nutritional values once removed from the ideal temp of -42C (which the home freezer cannot achieve)... and if defrosted to room temperature, the results are much more affected. Why don't you do what RW does? Give out frozen IA in small containers to your customers? Then they can omit one step* themselves and retain as much NV as possible upon feeding? *It will be no different from the steps you took to defrost what you intend to transfer to another container for feeding/storage. Besides, you won't really know how much more or how much less your customers should be feeding (they can determine for themselves by seeing how much growth is seen or when overfed coz they see cyano/nuisance algae blooms). They can then estimate how much concentrated paste they require for optimum feeding themselves. My 2 cents.

Is reefworld still selling frozen Instant Algae at one small chili sauce tub size at $10?