Gouldian

PO4x4 is made from polymer and not supposed to be as "dusty" as compared to GFO. I have used it only once and find the re-generation part too time consuming not to mention hazardous - especially when I have kids running amok at home. "How to regenerate: To regenerate 250 ml of PO4X4 , slowly dissolve, in small steps, 150 gram / 5,3oz of regeneration powder in 4L / 1 gallon of water. Important: The regeneration solution contains corrosive compounds and we advice to handle with care and wear protective clothing at all time, such as rubber gloves and goggles. After dissolving the powder, add your PO4X4 pellets and incubate at room temperature for 24 hours in a closed bucket. Subsequently, wash the pellets thoroughly (5-10 times) in a large volume of phosphate free water until the effluent has a pH of approximately 8. The pellets are now ready to use for seawater aquaria. For fresh water an additional wash step with 20 gram / 0,7oz Salt in 1L / 0,25 gallon of water is required to lower the pH to approximately 7. Incubate the pellets for 2 hours at room temperature and subsequently wash 5 times with large volumes of phosphate free water. PO-X4 Regeneration Salt warning: POISON! DANGER! CORROSIVE. MAY BE FATAL IF SWALLOWED. HARMFUL IF INHALED. CAUSES BURNS TO ANY AREA OF CONTACT. REACTS WITH WATER, ACIDS AND OTHER MATERIALS. Precautions: Do not get in eyes, on skin, or on clothing. Do not breathe dust. Keep container closed. Use only with adequate ventilation. Wash thoroughly after handling. First Aid: If swallowed, DO NOT INDUCE VOMITING. Give large quantities of water or milk if available. Never give anything by mouth to an unconscious person. In case of contact, immediately flush eyes( lifting lower and upper eyelids occasionally) or skin with plenty of water for at least 15 minutes while removing contaminated clothing and shoes. Wash clothing before reuse. If inhaled, remove to fresh air. If not breathing give artificial respiration. If breathing is difficult, give oxygen. In all cases get medical attention immediately." Source: http://www.po4x4.com/Site/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12&Itemid=26

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

Ya... but I doubt it will be as bad nowadays due to the internet. I think the worst example of unscrupulous LFS popping up is the Luohan era, I still can remember almost every HDB estate will have at least 2-3 shops.

GFOs usually messy do to dust created during production process. You will need to rinse through. I have never witness any significance difference in dust with the several brands that I have used before.

Check this out - http://www.qualityma...shes-(07/10/09). I tends to agree more with this article. However, do note that small crustaceans are never safe with trigger.

You can try liquid phos remover, definitely less messy.

Maxima are found on shallows thus their light demands is high, if using LED, I will keep them higher than on the sand bed. Anyway, Maxima are usually found attached to rocks in the wild and thus prefers to be on a sturdy rock vs on the sand bed. Try to have a minimum photo period of 4-5hours in full blast of your LED. I kept mine in 8hrs 400w MH and 12hrs of T5 Actinics previously. Hope that helps.

That's what I call advance planning. lol Anyway, I personally hope that this time, we will be able to provide sufficient knowledge and assistance to eliminate the ill-prepared hobbyists with 1/2 heart-ed commitments.

Congrats Will I Am.... Oops I mean William.

Hi guys, I believe most of us has 1 point or another been inspired by Find Nemo which debuts in 2003? In fact, the movie was so successful that most people automatically call clown fish - Nemo and Regal Tang - Dory. Anyway, the 3D version will be coming to our shores the coming Oct to Nov - http://www.cinemaonl...ndingnemo.14211. And I am sure we will foresee a influx of newbies in SRC. Herewith is a quote for a columnist on the movie: "We adults deserve more movies done with the wit and imagination, the skill and creativity, the joy and love, that Pixar regularly puts into these movies “for children.” Source: - http://moviecitynews...inding-nemo-3d/ Herwith is the movie trailer: - http://movies.yahoo....-nemo/trailers/ For those who do not have kids and want an excuse to watch it, please PM me, my boys are on loan. lol

Hi guys, Just wanted to share a blog by Alvah Simon who confesses on damaging corals in his was younger. In this article, he has shared some points which I think is very valid to us. "I can't stand it anymore. I have to come clean. I am a mass murderer. There, I said it! I didn't mean it. I was young - in the wrong place at the wrong time. But none of that mattered to my thousands of innocent victims, destroyed, dead, gone forever. It was Belize, 1976, home to the second longest barrier reef in the world. I was too anxious to see my first coral reef after reading Claire Booth Luce's description, "What fishes like flowers, what coral cathedrals that dwarf in their majesty even the grandest edifices of Man." So I came, I saw, I crushed. It wasn't wanton destruction. I just didn't think when I let slip that anchor. Nevertheless, the effect was akin to the carpet-bombing of Dresden. If I was to return to the scene of the crime today, lo these many decades later, it would look much the same, for it can take centuries if not millennia to heal such an atrocity. I have since spent uncountable days in the water, exploring one of Earth's most spectacular environments. I have read volumes regarding the formation of reefs, the amazing biodiversity they harbor, and the global threats they now encounter. In the same vein as the Blues lyrics, "Mothers, tell your children, not to do what I have done.." I thought if I could share even a small amount of that marine miracle with my fellow cruisers it might give them cause for pause before they hit the down button on their windlass. Our tropical reefs range from the equator to approximately thirty degrees north and south. Although they can grow in depths down to 300 feet, the vast majority of hard corals, soft corals and sponges do not thrive below 60 feet, coincidentally the maximum depth most boaters seek when anchoring." Full Story: - http://www.stuff.co....a-coral-crusher

Hi Lulu, Welcome to SRC. Great set-up, your wife made the right decision to encourage you back into the hobby! Thanks for sharing!

Nice work Steven. Christmas tree worms are not easy not to mentioned the Porites that they are living on. Good to see that they are doing well!

If you have already made up you mind to stick with a 30g, then just go for the 280.

Just wanted to share what I saw at Fish Channel display tank yesterday. Its partner A challenging fish to keep

If I were you I go for CL650 due to: high rating means i will be able to use it if i intend to add more lights or upgrade my tank it takes the 650 shorter time to cool down the tank thus its does not means that the 650 will consume more electricity

In an ironic twist, scientists, fishermen and conservationists are urging that hundreds of dormant oil rigs be left standing in the Gulf of Mexico, arguing that a federal plan to remove them will endanger coral reefs and fish. While environmentalists might more typically be expected to oppose artificial intrusions in the marine habitat, those seeking a halt to the removal want time to study the impact of rig destruction on the Gulf Coast's economy and to catalog the species, some rare and endangered, that are clinging to the sunken metal. "I am not supporting oil rigs. I am supporting fish habitat that just happens to on petroleum platforms," said Bob Shipp, chairman of the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of South Alabama. U.S. Department of Interior officials say the federal "idle iron" policy, updated in 2010, makes good sense after storms during the 2005 hurricane season toppled 150 defunct oil rigs, causing considerable damage. Source: - http://www.reuters.c...E88A1EY20120911

Coral reef communities in waters around Kenting, southern Taiwan, have slumped by over 63 percent in the past 26 years due to climate change and bleaching, Taiwan's top research institute said Tuesday. The coral reefs in waters around Kenting's Wanlitung region decreased from 47.5 percent in 1985 to 17.7 percent in 2010, with biodiversity there becoming what Chen Chaolun, a research fellow at the Academia Sinica's Biodiversity Research Center, described as "monotonous." Since 1996, the reefs around Kenting have been in decline as a result of typhoons, particularly Typhoon Morakot in 2008, as well as global sea-surface temperature-related worldwide coral bleaching that started coming to attention in 1998, Chen added. From 1999 to 2005, during which there were no major disturbances, coral cover managed to return to 1987 levels. Coral species from the genera Acropora and Montipora have almost disappeared from the reefs, whereas corals belonging to the genera Favia and Heliopora have maintained their presences at steady levels, which has resulted in fewer habitats for other species in the coral ecosystem, Chen said. The disappearance of hard corals indicates that the health of the area's coral reefs is in jeopardy and that diverse reefs are declining, he went on. "When a city changes, the citizens there change as well. With overfishing, now what snorkelers see is only a vast area of coral reef covered by green algae," Source: - http://focustaiwan.t...ID=201209110041

Thanks for sharing. For nano fish ideas, you can always pay Henry a visit.

Nice...

Rhodactis sp are supposed to be sessile. If they move frequently, it may be a mini carpet anemone (Stichodatyla tapetum)

Top pic looks like a green rhodactis - Rhodactis spp. Bottom pic should be a Black Sun Coral - Tubastrea micrantha

On 13 July 2012 Roger Bradbury (Ecologist, Australian National University) wrote an article in New York Times titled A World Without Coral Reefs. In it he pointed out: "They (World Corals Reefs) have become zombie ecosystems, neither dead nor truly alive in any functional sense, and on a trajectory to collapse within a human generation. There will be remnants here and there, but the global coral reef ecosystem — with its storehouse of biodiversity and fisheries supporting millions of the world’s poor — will cease to be." "Overfishing, ocean acidification and pollution are pushing coral reefs into oblivion" "The scientific evidence for this is compelling and unequivocal, but there seems to be a collective reluctance to accept the logical conclusion — that there is no hope of saving the global coral reef ecosystem." "Governments don’t want to be blamed for disasters on their watch, conservationists apparently value hope over truth, and scientists often don’t see the reefs for the corals." Source: - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/14/opinion/a-world-without-coral-reefs.html?_r=1 On 20 July 2012 Stephanie Wear (Marine Scientist, The Nature Conservancy) wrote: "Bradbury’s piece is somewhere between a surrender flag and a suicide note for conservation." "To someone not acquainted with recent coral reef science, Bradbury’s arguments appear to have a ring of truth — and he does make some superficially valid points. The threats to reefs today are severe and growing. Caribbean reefs are a shadow of what they were a few decades ago, and many other reefs globally are changing." But Bradbury is dead wrong that we should abandon hope and our work — dead wrong on the science. In fact, rapidly developing scientific research in places across the globe is showing the surprising resilience and adaptability of coral reefs to changing conditions — resilience that can be boosted with proper management techniques." "ICRS brought together 2,100 scientists from 82 different countries, and the science presented there made an overwhelming case for hope and solutions grounded in data." "The reefs of the future will still provide critically important services to the people that depend on them. We know reefs are changing and, given all that we have done to them, they will be changing for the foreseeable future." Source: - http://blog.nature.org/2012/07/coral-reefs-roger-bradbury-stephanie-wear-nature-conservancy/ What are your thoughts reefers?

That's a good one!

I am currently using it, I like the convenience. IMHO, it is best to remove the content into a larger container to properly mix with RO/DI or distilled water. This I feel will prevent precipitation. Overall, I feel it should be able to maintain good values in a sparsely stocked tank but will need more support if you are using in a heavily stocked tank with high calcium demands.