illumnae

What's the size? Is it an ich magnet?

The ammonia toxicity thing is more relevant to freshwater imo, where most of the fish we keep in fresh water are usually in water with low kH/buffer and hence CO2 in the shipping bags may cause the pH to drop below 7 quite rapidly, rendering ammonia non-toxic. When you open the shipping bag and CO2 escapes, pH rises and the ammonia converts into toxic form (in pH > 7). For marine, most of the time kH is high and so is pH (both 8+), so it is unlikely anyway that the pH would have dropped to below 7 due to carbon dioxide. This is especially less likely in the very short trip (few hours max?) between the LFS and your house. Hence, pH would always remain above 8 and any ammonia would be instantly toxic to the fish anyway. I believe this is one reason why marine fish ship less well than freshwater fish. In any event, again in the short trip between the LFS and your house, any ammonia from fish waste (assuming the LFS tanks are cycled and thus ammonia free) would be minimal and would not affect your fish to any noticeable extent.

Sealife usually has weekly shipments...I heard their last shipment was last Thursday late afternoon.

My wife has had her powder blue tang for over a year, very stable already. She got it from Marine Life.

You can try C328, they carry a range of Atman pumps

If they can't get farm space, where do they store their live stocks? Malaysia? Whether online or not, they still need a holding area for the live stock. Going online doesn't solve the problem

I was at CF yesterday, took 1 and still got 3 left

I would beg to differ on the need for a canister filter for this tank. Aquaroche rock is supposed to be as porous as live rock, so it should be conducive enough for bacteria to colonize and act as your bio filter. For a nano, especially with a good skimmer and perhaps use of some biospheres in one of the compartments of the HOB filter, your tank should be all set. If not using biospheres, then just do more frequent water changes to reduce nitrate levels.

If you're not feeding anything and your nitrates are skyrocketing, it either means that your live rocks have not cured properly and you are going through lots of die off at the moment, or it could be that the water you are using to mix your salt mix is high in nitrates. Also, in relation to your comment about cycling longer - if you are already seeing nitrates in your tank (and high levels of nitrates at that), it means that your tank is cycled already. Waiting longer wouldn't have helped you much. You already have sufficient bacteria to convert so much nitrates. Instead, you should be looking at ways to reduce nitrates such as more frequent water changes, skimmer, biopellets etc.

Take note that having a skimmer in the return pump compartment may lead to other issues. Return pump compartment usually water level not constant due to evaporation. Unless you have an ATO, the irregular water levels may cause issues with skimmer tuning.

Rio pumps are pretty good workhorses, but I've heard that they tend to run pretty hot (meaning your chiller will need to work harder) and many people have given feedback that it get can rather noisy after awhile. You can consider Eheim 1260/1262 or Jebao DC pumps - the former is more expensive but has a great reputation for reliability and silence while the latter is electricity saving and silent as well, but reliability not so proven yet (though Jebao has made some great products recently). My wife's 322 is using Eheim 1262 for return pump (chiller run by a separate Eheim 1250). My 422 is using Eheim 1264

TFC flamebacks still have plenty and they look very fat and healthy. At least a few of them are already attacking pellets (boss showed me a few before i picked one)

Very cute scorpionfish. The one i bought already eating market prawn off feeding stick. What fish is this?

I'm using Skimz 203 DC version for my 422, very happy with it. For my office nano, will be switching to the Skimz SH-1 and BR-80 biopellet reactor. I'm quite impressed with the build quality of Skimz

Follow up from last week's update thread. The wrasses at CF are not Christmas wrasses, they are Halichoeres melaranus. A few females are in the display area, males are in quarantine.

Is the Christmas Wrasse at CF Halichoeres claudia or Halichoeres ornatissimus?

Amazing range at iwarna today! Was there over lunch

Ah Beng getting in quite interesting predators lately. Last week there was a red Rhinopias scorpionfish (wasted, I missed out on it!) and this week there's a red soapfish.

Deaquatic showroom has a prototype as well. I'm looking forward to trying it out!

Yay! Looking forward to it! This week is a very quiet week

Whats the locality of the fish youre looking for? I have been approaching many lfs and farms to locate the fish i want too. Most of our farms and lfs primarily import from Philippines and Bali, some have more diverse suppliers like maldives, red sea, hawaii and Australia (e.g. tfc, lck201, ac, sealife, marine life, etc). IME, most diverse is iwarna followed by cf. This is what has been advised to me by other farms and lfs as well when i approach them. Aside from locality, sometimes the fishermen used by the suppliers that our local importers use just dont catch the fish we want. For example, I've been looking for a particular fish from Indonesia and another from Hawaii. Indonesia shipments come in weekly for many importers and hawaii shipments maybe once a month. However, the suppliers just don't have the fish i want on their stocklist, even though they have been appearing in America regularly.

Tagging on for Christmas wrasse sighting! The one I'm looking for is Halichoeres claudia (since there are a few wrasses with common name "Christmas wrasse")

Any sightings of harlequin tusk fish?

Confirm 2 seen at Iwarna today. Not pro enough to sex them but based on the pics above got chance to be a pair

There was a bright orange frogfish at MarineLife, not sure if it's wartskin but it should be still there. There was also a white/red wartskin frogfish at CF on Sunday, call to check if it's still there.