bawater

Eggs hatched,swam out of tank & then eaten by everything including going into overflow. (within an hour of hatch) Don't worry, you should have another batch laid in a week. Raise the larvae outside the main tank. This is the best choice. Black rubbish bags are your best friend. Buy some & a small plastic goldfish tank, wrap it with trash bags (see bottom for example). Prep: Get ready a torchlight. Fill the small tank with main tank water on the day of hatch, start bubble 1-2 bubbles per sec. You can hatch them artificially like you tried but I find it a pain (to get them to hatch at the same time) I rather let them hatch in tank, you are looking to catch a few so catching only around 50% is fine. (half of a few hundred is still a lot) If you have shrimps – once you start the torchlight, you have around a 20mins window of collecting against the feeding shrimps/fishes & corals. Maybe you will even get to see 1-2mm baby bristle worms swim & catch larvae. Everything knows its hatch night!(not only you) Before lights off – cover entire tank with trash bags, switch off all wave maker & pumps. Relax,watch some TV or Have a Shower. (if you run MH- switch off lights before you cover!!!!) Come back 45mins-1hr later and remove a small window at an area you want to collect. Use torchlight,shine straight down to concentrated larvae & Scoop them out in a bowl with some water, transfer to small tank. (the scooping takes a little time to get used to but you’ll get used to it by the 3rd or 4th batch) The on to the next stage of rotifers,changing water,bbs etc etc.

Hi mag, pls keep pics at 800pixels wide (easy to view), any bigger & it stretches the screen making posts difficult to read. A sponge is a very simple animal. They are basically a mass of cells. They posses no nervous, digestive or excretory systems. When you get your sponge home you should acclimate it to your aquarium very slowly. Sponges are not sensitive to temperature, but do not like drastic shifts in salinity. Add a little bit of tank water to the bag containing the sponge every 10 minutes for about one hour. This will enable the sponge to slowly adjust the changing water conditions. Place your sponge in an area of the tank that has good water flow and minimum lighting(somewhere low light but not dark). The good flow will bring food to the sponge. As caleb has said, removing most reef sponges from the water even for several seconds will kill them. If you remove the sponge from the water, airlocks often form in their channels and there is no way to force that air out of their body. Trapped air causes those cells in the area to die, and as they decompose they produce gas which makes the problem worse, and the sponge starts to decay. The best way to deal with a dying area in your sponge is to cut that portion away in the water and discard it. Feeding your sponge is fairly simple. A Phytoplankton supplement on a regular basis. The other foods like diatoms, dinoflagellates, organic matter, bacteria grow naturally in the aquarium. The main point is that you do not get too large a sponge. A sponge the size of a golf ball can filter over 2 liters of sea water an hour. Do not put many sponges into one aquarium, and keep your sponges small. If you keep sponges well fed, they will grow according to the water conditions. You may find it difficult with 3 or 4 sponges in your 4ft (with typical LFS sponge sizes). Silicate in your tank water does help in growth - regular water change with saltmix & Tapwater will do. Sponges are easy to grow if given the right conditions. Sponges will not affect water quality - its the feeding that does, but as you are with a Fowlr it should not be much of an issue. If you find you are having problems with your sponge in a few days or in 1 or 2 weeks - You may find the need to stop your ozone. Ozone oxidizes organic matter (which bacteria grow on which is a part of the food items for sponges) and most probably kills some free floating diatoms and dinoflagellates.

Members have a right to be a little sensitive on this topic - although you have a right to feel happy paying $25 for a Sarcophyton leather coral, many other hobbyist who visit the shops know very well its way beyond what they would pay. You also fail to mention the weekday $20 9am-3pm delivery charge (making your leather hmmm$45), of course if you want it on the weekend its $40 additional. Now that's becomes $65 for a leather coral. There is no coralmarketplace registered in the singapore business directory http://www.acra.gov.sg/general/directory.html maybe it is not registered under the above name - if so a business reg number should be provided somewhere on the site especially when its a online shop (which can be here today-gone tomorrow) The website payment options only have Internet transfer or ATM transfer & contact details are to a Hotmail account. If this does not raise questions in yourself, you have no one to blame. I would suggest that if you really want to buy from them - do so only cash on delivery. If it doesn't turn up- you loose nothing. I have not mentioned anything about commercial or the terms used on the site which raises a lot of brows .

They may, percula/ocellaris hybrid pairs do happen and do spawn. What they produce is a different story A.percula takes over a yr to develop 3 stripes while black A.ocellaris takes oooh ard 20+-30day for stripes & 6mths-1 yr to colour.

A lot of the marine fishes look different when they are young, a few of the clown species are also the same. They take quite a while to develop. The black pigmentation start in the fins when they get ard 3 months then slowly in the bodies by the time they reach 6mths. (they are still a dark brown at this age) From then how fast they go jet black depends on water quality & space. Usually full black at a yr. nothing much exciting now, just watching them grow, fight & colour up. 6mths 8mths

It does depend on your preference of viewing time (maybe you work late so you don't want to come home to see a dark tank everyday) As long as you have a set schedule - the animals will get use to it. And lighting duration depends on your inhabitants- whether its full of light loving corals, lower lighting animals or just fish. You can follow nature and go with 10 or 12hrs a day. You can run different lights at intervals that total up to 15hrs a day too (stimulating dawn-dusk) e.g - a T5 or 2 on from dawn to dusk with MH or more T5's running 8-9hrs in the middle. Usually reef recommendation at 8-9hrs of lighting. Just 2xT5 would rather just be for viewing(unless the tank is 8-10"deep), you really need about 4 tubes or more for keeping corals in the long term.

Hi mansiz The layer is a crust of carbonate (when kalk reacts with carbon dioxide from the air), the CO2 in the water will also react when mixing and will settle with the remainder of the kalk powder at the bottom. You use the clear liquid which is already 100% saturated and throw away the sediment at the bottom. In an open air container - kalk mixed water will last around 4days. If its air tight then more than a week like what nakazoru has posted. You can drip in the mornings (this is usually when pH is at the lowest)

Hi Serene, welcome to the forum - To answer your question, Spirulina is a blue green algae which has been dried and can be found as a green powder. It is used in fish food as a supplement (not on its own) usually not more than 5%. It is high in Beta-carotene which is a carotenoid. Carotenoids are the major pigment compound and it also helps the immune system as well as detoxification processes. Yes it works on freshwater & marine fishes. You can find many brands of fish food that contains spirulina in most fish shops, just look for it in the ingredients. If you are able to, rotate a few different foods - this is good for the fishes and you will get the vibrant colours.

Hi Jun, We don't just change water to replenish elements - there are always additives to do that. It has much more benefit than that. For a FOWLR tank with tip top filtration & low bioload - it will minimise or prolong water changes (depending on you filtration/equipment/capacity - to once a month,once every 2mths,once every 3mths or longer) of course water changing is a chore - to someone who keeps a 4ft,6ft or 8ft tank but for a 2ft - it can be done in less than 15mins. That's 15mins per month Bacteria populations will never over populate bio-load , it will always stay in proportion to the bioload(assuming enough surface area is available). A major factor for water change in a Fowlr is nitrate reduction (by dilution), Fishes can tolerate nitrate but only up to a certain point before getting stress. With no NO3 removal and accumulation of hundreds of ppm in NO3 a yr down the road, you may end up with OWLR (only with live rock). With or Without water changes, you need basic additives for sure - KH & pH will drop. You just need the basic like kalkwasser and an alkalinity supplement,Do not dose without checking. For the amount of Fish you want and if they are not 10 eviota gobies- you are overstocking, nitrate will be an issue for sure(10 fish need a lot of food). For your low maintainence/less water change with current filtration in a 2ftx1x1.5- you're looking at 2-4 small fishes (taking into account fishes grow- safer to say 2 fishes) If you want to utilise the NO3 reduction & filtration factor from Liverock - you need the equation of half Kg of LR per 4ltr of water. In the specs you provided (2ft+2ft sump) you are looking at ard 25gal or 100ltrs, that's 11.25kg of LR(problem is leaving no space for fish). The biohome + LR you have now will do fine for the ammonia & nitrite part. Hope this helps

Ferrous Sulphate is used in the medicine industry as ###### iron supplements, but usually iron tablets also contain Manganese Sulphate and Copper Sulphate. It is not as efficient as the FE products on the market today. Ferrous Sulphate is also used as a Fe plant nutrient supplement or fertilizer. As a chemical, if it can be used will bond with phosphate and will need to be siphoned out of the aquarium(or removed somehow). Iron media available are granular ferric oxide (GFO) or Granular ferric hydroxide (GFH): symbol=Fe2O3 . Their working range is between pH2.5 to 12.5 They were developed primarily for arsenic removal in water and is employed in water treatment plants around the world(In fixed bed filters). In high pH ranges it was found that Phosphate and Silica interferred with arsenic adsorption hence how it found its way into the hobby as a PO4 removal media. It is the crystaline structure of the GFO that helps in higher adsorption rates and can be used with kalkwasser dosing. Once PO4 has adsorb into/onto the media- you just change to new media. It is safe to throw the old media away as GFO conforms to landfill standards around the world. hope this helps

yes it is fine. Same media,same tank, no difference.

Hi francis welcome to SRC, At the moment your tank should have a lovely ammonia and nitrite peak which can kill fishes. This whole cycle process will take on average 30days. Although the LFS may have told you shop seawater won't need to cycle - Your new filter needs to cycle! Which they failed to mention. You have to leave the tank alone for another 2-3weeks before adding anything else. Your 1.5ft with a hang on filter will be able to hold around 3-4inch of fish max(3-4 small clowns max or a single pair of clowns). This is taking into consideration filtration/water movement/oxygen content. Clowns don't need an anemone - but if you do get one, you will need strong lighting (which will push your temperatures up)and regular feedings to it. You will also need quite regular water changes.

Howdee GrooveMeister, Yes you can use distilled water straight from the bottle to the tank. Distilled water comes from steam. The purity of the steam and the temperature at which this occurs would make drinkable water as is. Steam is produced and cooled and the condensate then put directly into a sealed sterile container. Storage would require no chlorine. Even if chlorine or other purifying agent like ozone is used it would be absolutely minimal. You may want to try it first. Distilled water has a very flat, bland taste.

If the livestocks in the tank show no signs of distress, i would rely more on the hydrometer reading 1.025 for now. plastic hydrometers are usually calibrated at 25c, so at 28c the actual reading is around +0.003 or +0.004 or more. (1.015 can be actually 1.018 or 1.019 if you use a ATC refractometer). Using this water it will most probably bring down your SG to 1.023 or 1.022 measured by the hydrometer which is still ok and of no concern. (Marine parameters of 1.021-1.026 allows you this margin) The only concern is the probe - maybe re-calibrate it again, the extra 0.100+ reading is way off. If it continues to drift then its a probe problem.