yikai

oh you'll be surprised how advanced the japanese are! they are reefing freaks! all the rare and gorgeous fish in the world goes to japan coz they are willing to pay.

bro is the "small sized false personifer angelfish" in the LED tanks at the front? whole thing black 1?

omg i got this exact same clown! i had it since finding nemo days!!

i think for prognathodes, the whole genus is a scientifically recognised complex. that's why it's elected into it's own genus, prognathodes. imagine if all prognathodes were actually chaetodon. then we will be classifying all of them into a chaetodon "aya" complex. but this complex will soon be elected into prognathodes.. that's why i said in my first post i dunno much about this but it's so interesting to know. so what is the clear defining line between a complex and a genus? i've spent many nights thinking about this and searching on RC. but no one can tell me the answer i think as long as the complex is scientifically recognised and backed up with proof, it can be elected into a genus level. take the xanthurus complex for example. they are being placed in and out of exornatus and rhombochaetodon on and off. how come? this is also a subgenus. but maybe because not yet confirmed by evidence? thats why they are on and off referred to as the xanthurus compelx, and not the exornatus. same for the corallochaetodon, comprising of ornate, trifascialis etc. why we don't see corallochaetodon as a distinct confirmed genus, but an on and off one? maybe coz it's not confirmed yet, so they refer to them as a ornate complex for now. same for roaops. i think the tinker complex may actually be confirmed as a roaps genus in the near future. so in future this complex will no longer be a complex, but actually a genus. chaetodon tinkeri no more. it shall be roaops tinkeri. perhaps? i dunno. perhaps you or someone here could enlighten me.

i want to track the rate and how fast it takes for ammonia to get to nitrates. wanted to do this for my old tank but never had a chance. it's more of a personal sciency thingy i wanna do. nothing tank related. skimmate? if nothing toxic was added in the tank, nothing toxic should accumulate. skimmate contains organics and proteins that are skimmed out before they are broken down in the tank. so putting it back in should cause no problem and not the extreme of "killing yourself and killing your tank" people's skimmer overflow all the time and i had countless of times where skimmate flowed back into the tank.

pardon me law for questioning your posts, i'm only year 2 microbiology so must learn from my senior like you lol..

lol. the species of bacteria that convert nitrates to nitrogen gas are anaerobic. they are rarely found in our aquarium that's why our end product is always nitrate, and not nitrogen gas. anaerobic bacteria cannot live in oxygen. they live deep within liverocks, deepsand bed, and i think biohome. these places do not offer oxygen and thus they can thrive there. you won't find anaerobic bacteria in well aerated Barebottom tanks. only deep within liverocks where there is no oxygen, and in DSB where there is no oxygen.

i miss my old fishes so many memories.. like this ultra beautiful and rare white bar maculosus

have but not alot. especially at the back. but i can't take photo from that angle. hopefully when put coral will have more hiding space. actually maybe i can put more low lying rocks just for hiding spaces

LOL! i think it's coz i turned on my skimmer for 2 days. was testing the water level and making sure it can skim properly. but i forgot to turn off lol.. i just poured back all my skimmate

and still SO LITTLE ammonia after all the 3 prawns have dissolved. grr

the water has cleared up so well now.

tank size? if too big the glass thickness too thin, you cannot use it. saltwater and freshwater bacteria are different. if you convert directly you end up have to re-cycle everything. so i just suggest you start again from scratch. won't have problems like this. i'm unsure about the problems if u convert. freshwater sand is different from saltwater sand too. saltwater sand is made of calcium crbonate in the form of aragonite or other substances. this will buffer your tank and keep pH rather constant, freshwater sand cannot.

got there's a difference of 2-4 months LOL! ok jokes aside. i think it's personal preference how long you want to cycle. as long as you hit the minimum 4 week criteria you should be fine. however long you want to cycle after that, up to you. i like to cycle more because it gives chance for little things to grow on my rocks. like pods, algae, sponge, fanworms, tunicates, etc etc. the extra weeks will let the liverock recover from it's massive die off before cycling, and re-grow into good liverock with algae, etc. this might seem rubbish to others but it's precious to me. why? simply coz the livestock i want to keep, love eating this. cycling extra time also give better water quality. in this few weeks you can tune your CR if you have not, etc, and let the equipment and water parameters stabalise abit first. then slowly add livestock 1 by 1. as for wether or not there will be more bacteria after cycling longer, who knows? but the benefits are definitely there if you cycle longer. pod growth, liverock fauna growth, stable parameters etc. patience is the key.

bingo. exactly word for word what i'm trying to prove in simple english LOL

hooooded sigh. wait so long dunno wanna wait how long more.

the phases of bacterial growth are not constant like as in the growth of a human. hmm... we cannot say at month 3, the bacteria is in stationary phase, at month 1 the bacteria is in lag phase. doesn't work like this. there can be many cycles going on at any period of time. at month 3 there could be new lag phase starting as new bacteria are being introduced, could be from air could be from dust (oh yes, nitrosoma sp. can be found in air too). but at month 3 there could also be stationary phase existing from the previous bacterial batch. this phases are also directly related to the growth of microfauna around the bacteria. i.e, whatever grows on your rocks is related to what the bacteria goes through. there are much more living things in a liverock than you can see. and it doesn't take much for a bacteria cell to survive. in reality, bacterial cells require very little sustenance to be kept alive. it is only when we culture them on nutrient rich media that they proliferate like crazy. death phase rarely occurs in nature or in our tanks, because there is always a continuous supply of food from the surrounding ecosystem. it's a matter of enough to grow or not. death phase is a term very commonly used in industrial bacterial growth. where you give them a fixed amount of nutrient you control and they just eat and grow until they expire all, and die. this is very unlikely to happen in our tanks but in actual fact, they can stay alive with minimal nutrients. this is when they are in stationary phase. meaning their uptake of nutrients is just enough to keep them alive and they can go on like this, so long as the minimal nutrient requirement is met for every bacteria. of course, many will die, but a large population will remain alive. a few weeks over the normal cycling isn't enough to completely decimate bacteria colony till death phase. that's why 8 week cycling (only 4 weeks above the normal cycling time), is still very young and will not harm bacterial colonies at all. but if we talk about 1 year, or more, than yes, probably. i don't know too. in a rock only tank, bacteria are just surviving on minimal fuel, thhus at stationary phase, when you add in livestock, ammonia build up, and the bacteria temporarily goes into log phase again. this is what i said in my previous post. yes you are right. everytime you add in a livestock, it goes into a mini-cycle. but the reasoning behind it is wrong. no matter how long you cycle, be it 4 weeks, 6 weeks, 4 years, 10 years, you still have to slowly add in livestock, to slowly let the bacteria colonies handle your bioload wether they are established or not. so then, it doesn't really matter if u cycle for 4 weeks or 8 weeks. at the end of the day, you still have to add in livestock slowly. but you have an added advantage at week 8 of cycling because you have pods there, and you have a good continuous supply of bacteria in the different phases

it will be nice to have so many anthias but will you be able to keep up with feeding all of them? when they are all settled, the dominant ones may not allow the small ones to feed. due to heirachy status. and also bear in mind, sometimes more than 1 female will morph and you may end up with more than 1 male. and lastly, will you be bored with them after awhile? having so many of the same anthias may bore you after awhile and you will have problem removing.

wash with freshwater and wipe it clean, to remove any salt residue. but don't wash with so much water, the screw may turn rusty. just use a damp cloth will do.

well...continue waiting because vanuatu shipment won't be appearing anytime soon. there's problem with supplier and island wide, vanuatu shipments won't be coming in. you've been waiting for this shipment for a long time i remember, and very well done on your patience. i too am waiting

bacteria population won't crash after weeks of cycling. you don't have to worry about that. bacterial growth goes through a few phases. if you study microbiology you will know. the lag phase, the log phase, stationary phase and the death phase. when you first start your tank, introduce liverock etc, the bacteria is at lag phase. this means they don't do anything as they get used to the tank. once gotten used to your tank, they being the log phase. where (by now your ammonia would have accumulated,), they drastically feed on your ammonia and population explodes exponentially or logarithmically. thus, log phase. after log phase, bacteria growth will be same to nutrient export. thus a balance will be created. this is called stationary phase. where the number of death = number of growth. death phase will only occur when the system is devoid of nutrients and the bacteria will start dying out 1 by 1. in our taanks, a stable eco-system is established, there fore majority of the bacteria after cycling are at stationary phase. when you add fish again and there's bioload produced, the bacteria momentarily enter log phase and then to stationary phase again. you don't have to worry about food for the bacteria. there will always be living things in your liverocks and so long as there are living things, metabolic waste will be produced and your bacteria will feed on it.the amount however, will control which phase the bacteria is at, but never at death phase. cycling for long time also increase pod count which is good.

it's definitely do-able, but it's rather you want to or not bah.

spaghetti worms

thank you. yes hope my roseafascia will serve me well as a spectacular fish. very very rare.