Achilles Tang

Bulb Freak has a 8 year supply???

I wasn't aware snitching will bring you commissions.

Actually, I think it was wolfie! I'll be dropping by your place this Friday to do the seizure.

I am totally confused over your post, Platax! I have no idea who you talking to!

LOL! Tanzy... it's been a long time since I have ordered lalas or gong gongs for seafood! Kinda mixed up the local names... My hermits are using the gong-gong shells... Blueterror.... no guarantees with hermits... even the reefsafe ones can become unpredictable. Ron Shimek hates them.

I hereby place you, Tanzy, under arrest! Under suspicion of attempting to promote gambling using an entirely unfounded, unscientific and entirely illogical method that bothers on sheer stupidity. Your reef tank will be seized and all your equipment will be confiscated. As for you, spade, due to the shocking display of how you could be asking for 4D numbers from a sea turtle... which is also unfounded, unscientific and entirely illogical, bothering on sheer stupidty.... you are hereby sentenced to serve 10 months of community service by doing water changes with a teaspoon for the Wisma Atria fishtank. However, since you snitched on Tanzy by highlighting this to me, I'll take 1 month off your sentence.

Well... I would extremely keen to make sure that every light photon is directed directly into my tank!

The inverted V looks like this.

I was thinking that the bottom could be flat to accomodate the mogul socket but where the bulb would be against.... would have a pointed angle like an inverted V eg. V O = bulb This prevents restrike (light reflecting back onto the bulb)... and the light could go somewhere else where it's needed!

Did these guys design the reflector for you? I was thinking that it could have been designed better coz the restrike seems quite high. Perhaps Alvy or Phang or Robe could give a parabolic DIY design plan?

I think its a spearer. Interesting info from a 1st person's view

Hi nleong! Welcome to SRC! You came to the right place! Erhmmm... I will be coming up with an article on setting up marine tanks for newbies in the Singaporean context. But in the mean time, there are many articles around which you should research before venturing into this hobby. It's also hard to recommend places to get stuff as prices vary, livestock quality is inconsistent, distances is a factor and we don't really know what they have in stock anyway. Also the deciding factor is budget. I hope you are prepared for it. The marine hobby is very very draining on the pocket. It is well known that the quality of your tank's wellbeing is very much tied in to investing in good equipment... and these don't come cheap. The saying that you pay peanuts you get monkeys is very true here. I rather you try learning as much as you can on marine reefkeeping, the equipments used, listen to feedback on them and then save money to get them. Too much money has been wasted on impatience to setup a tank asap... and having to upgrade because they don't work well... trust me... and save livestock from untimely deaths. AT

I suggest patience! With a commercial unit like the Tunze Turbelle Stream following on the success of the Reeftec unit (which is a DIY concept)... I am sure that in the next couple of months, the Taiwanese will be coming out cheaper clones! Unless you have a direct drive pump to measure the impeller shaft diameter, and source around for a drive dog to fit the prop onto it and fit over the shaft... it will be very much hit and miss. Especially, if you use RC air plane props, try RC boat props... these are designed to move water, not air.

How do you determine the wanted concentration ie cell count, using what method of measurement? So your algae paste is mixed in freshwater and can be kept in good condition for 3 months? How do you justify that the big salinity difference wouldn't affect the (dead) phytoplankton cells? - 4 degrees water? Err... do you mean defrost paste to room temp, mix with room temp water, then refreeze to 4 degrees? So the thing we need to be aware of is that premixed algae water will not retain more than 95% of nutritional values (NV) if kept at normal fridge temps. Once we put the algae water into the freezer, it will keep its NV but will be extremely difficult to feed as you have to defrost the frozen water? Refer to query 1. I meant that cell wall ruptures done by external mechanical forces eg. very fast stirring etc. Precisely... so... you can put 'defrosted' algae paste direct into tank right? My interpretation would be similar. I think live algae is far superior to frozen dead algae, logically. I don't see how a live phyto cell cultured at home is very much different from a live phyto cell cultured in a commercial place. The only variables are probably how well fed the plankton is and what the cell count is in a sample. A live algae cell is a live algae cell. A dead algae cell is not the same as a live algae cell. I believe you and RW get from the same sources... ie. Instant Algae from Reed Mariculture. I do agree that concentrated pastes will have a higher cell count than live culture as logically for the same ml of water, there is no way you can squeeze that amount of live cells as pastes have the water removed. (btw, the info is all available at www.instant-algae.com) So reef world is selling IA paste as it is... whereas you are handing out 'watered down' versions ie. paste water to reefers. I am just curious about the handling, lost of nutritional values and logic for this process as when I was into feeding IA two years ago, I was told to keep the paste frozen as much as possible ALL the time. It's good stuff (well not as good as live pyto! ) but needs to be kept well! Edwin, don't take it as I am grilling you... I just want to take this on a factual level and hopefully enlighten both of us and everyone around. I am sure there is so much misinformation going around and we should do justice to our fellow reefers in learning as much as possible. Both of us are definitely NOT marine biologists and even learned people like Ron Shimek has made mistakes before. Bottomline: We all want the best things for our reef tanks!

PacB, Erhm, ok, but you still haven't answered my questions directly yet! 1. Do you put the frozen algae paste into dechlorinated freshwater (is this what you meant by decontamination), plain freshwater, or in saltwater and with what salinity? 2. How cold is this solution expected to be kept in to retain at least 90% of its nutritional values over 3 mths? Why not defrost enough to seperate out into smaller packs and give out in such form? 3. It is the normal practice to put frozen phyto into a glass of tank water, stir and dissolve it before feeding into the tank. The only cell wall rupture happens is when you put it into a blender. Centrifuging phyto doesn't even rupture cell walls. Ok.. you answered this partly... so would defrosting a small amt of phyto to a certain temperature eg. around 25 degree C, before mixing with the tank water and then administered would prevent cell wall ruptures? 4. But putting frozen phyto into feeding tank and putting frozen phyto into a bottle... what's the difference? What's the cell wall rupture rates like for both? Assuming we settled the temperature issue and that by defrosting we actually may contribute to a x% loss of nutritional quality? I am curious enough to want to know more as I used to feed frozen Instant Algae and was very sold on its advantages (but remember, the manufacturers will still tout on advantages of frozen feed over live phytoplankton for marketing purposes). However, I have become a strong believer that live plankton still much better than IA in terms of nutrition, feeding responses, less contamination issues etc but that's another subject all together. I just want to know if you have found out something that we haven't and for the benefit of the Reef Club, I hope you'll clear my doubts. Further questions: 5. If you deconc (deconcentrate) cell counts, isn't that strange to do coz we want a very high cell count when we feed (live or frozen)? 6. I think dead materials tend to be skimmed faster than live plankton as they will not clump to air bubbles as readily as dead stuff/dissolved organics. So it is a good idea to turn off skimmers for a few hours after feeding plankton so they don't get skimmed out prematurely before they get consumed. What I am unclear about is your comment about bio filter, do you mean mechanical filtration ie. using filter wool? Regards AT

Liveaboard? where to? How much? My light cannon switch I think was spoilt by the deckhand during my last night dive at KK, you know the switch is supposed to turn one way only to turn off... he was must have turn the other way quite hard and broke the plastic peg that prevents going overturning... not the switch can turn 360 degrees!!! And now the HID bulb will turn on and turn off by just slight movements of the switch... not a good idea right? HID needs a couple minutes of cool down time before switching on again!

Just out of curiosity.... do you put the frozen algae paste into dechlorinated freshwater (is this what you meant by decontamination), plain freshwater, or in saltwater and with what salinity? How cold is this solution expected to be kept in to retain at least 90% of its nutritional values over 3 mths? Why not defrost enough to seperate out into smaller packs and give out in such form? It is the normal practice to put frozen phyto into a glass of tank water, stir and dissolve it before feeding into the tank. The only cell wall rupture happens is when you put it into a blender. Centrifuging phyto doesn't even rupture cell walls. But putting frozen phyto into feeding tank and putting frozen phyto into a bottle... what's the difference? What's the cell wall rupture rates like for both? I believe the act of feeding baby clams seperately is to ensure that the clams take in the phyto as much as they can, coz if they were fed in the main tank, a lot of phyto must be fed causing potential fouling of the water (if you don't have enough corals and other micro life uptaking it and a good skimmer to remove the excess before it rots as frozen phyto is dead cells). Hope you can enlighten me... first time I heard something like this.

I did a #1 sand article in the Product Review Section here. Perhaps you can get a clearer idea?

B, I did go to the Sea&Sea shop at Adephi before... the old dude there seems to be rather stiff... not exactly very helpful. Have you checked him out yet? I was hunting for a strobe arm attachment for my dive torch and Ikelite waterwater housing for my G2... he didn't seem to know what it even looks like... then we went to that Japanese diveshop at Lido remember? That angst-filled wildman really was one cheesed off dude... too bad we had to hear his long story! Preparing for dive season huh? Sigh! I am so broke... and I need to get my octopus set/regulator... strobe light, arm... AARRGGH!!!! I also think my dive torch switch got broken.. need to get Vicki to repair it... how much ah? Can you remember how long the HID light cannon is warranted for?

Hmmm.... are you Bawater's girlfriend?

Oh... I was gonna say, welcome to SRC, as some of us were quite excited about hitting the 300th member.... may I ask how long you were in this hobby and why you are giving it up?

cool! Meet Harry!

Feeding phyto is a good idea for corals and baby clams... in bowl is up to you. You can buy frozen phyto like Instant Algae from Reef World but they defrosted it (as it comes in a huge frozen bag) and scoop it into little chili sauce tubs to sell (which degrades nutritional quality) and refreeze to sell. Or you can get yours from Pacbetta... where if i am not wrong, he will mix water (hopefully saltwater) with frozen phyto and then you pour it into your tank. Hmmm.... similarly, pacbetta's frozen phyto has a short shelf life once mixed with water. A couple of days to a week depending on how cold you can keep the liquid phyto. IMO, it would be better to scrap frozen phyto and stir into a glass of tank water before feeding at lights off. That's what I did with my Instant Algae from RW before I switched to feeding Golden Pearls to finally feeding the real live stuff like phytoplankton and rotifers. AT