vagabond

Hey guys, Can anyone advise how should I go about keeping Goniopora? Cheers.

Anymore uncommon and nice Tangs to be found?

wander who else selling...

If you guys drop by ML, trying looking out for Henry's giant emerald in his show tank.

Have no problem with that.

Err... wat's the black thing at the top?

Hi guys, Would like to share with you a product which I recently bought. It is a small bottle but with huge amount of concentration. This product is a very concentrated micro algae paste feed. It comes in 30ml a bottle and cost about $10+. The paste is easy to scoop out and the amount needed is very little. Only 1ml of paste per 100 gallons of tank volume and best is that 68 billion cells per ml Can't imagine how much we can save in long run as compared to using the current favourite products. I am in no relation with them and if you are interested to know more, I think the website as printed on the bottle is Aquaz. Cheers.

The last time I went hunting for it, cannot find or very small leh... Which LFS is selling it at this moment? As for black cuke, yes provided I have a way to stick to the sandbed, then I will get. Guys, thanks for the help.

But everytime I drop by ###### is as if the shop has been raid leh.. close to no stock one. Btw, is it Brittle Starfish you are mentioning?

Eherm.. gentle as in on sand dune or bomber at the end of the day.

Hi, I am looking for hardworking but gentle sand sifters for my sand bed. Can someone recommend me one?

Can CookieMunster or SeaHorse. They should have some to sell. Cheers.

Why not just buy from CookieMunster? Looks good too.

deepblue, can you recommend which brand is reasonably good and where to get? cheers

Below as quoted by: About cycling process. heres a simple cycling 1 2 3 on starting a tank. Assuming its a 4ft x 2ft. 1) You'll need a deep sand bed in the main tank of at least 4 to 5 inches. Use all grade 0 if possible. Don't need to worry about sand storms as once the rocks are in, they block most of the force of the current. (smaller sand more effective as DSB). A DSB becomes mature in about 6 months and it is used to remove or reduce nitrate in the water as bacteria in the oxygen free sand bed breaks it down. In order for it to be an oxygen free area, it has to be very fine sand. For 4ft tank, I used 120kg and it barely made it to 4 inch only. 2) Remember to wash the sand. Use a super strong magnet(those magna scrubber placed in a ziplock bag will do) to remove all the iron fillings and particles as these will give you problems in future as iron is fertilizer for algae. 3) Mix salt and dump it in. I recommend a sg of 1.025 which is ideal for corals. They love high sg. 4)Let the dust settle. Should be very fast if you washed it well. It took mine 3hrs. 5) Place at least 50Kg of rocks (for 4ftx2ftx2ft). Try to use as good quality as you can afford. But these days, good quality rocks is only at most $6/kg (can buy at farm mart). I hope you dun go splurge all on super expensive tonga rocks. You just need 4 or 5 good pieces of tonga for decoration and the rest of base rock can just be normal live rocks. I didn't even use any fiji tonga rocks. They cost $18/kg by the way. The live rocks you use will have dying sponges, crabs etc which contribute to ammonia. This is what starts the cycling process. Once ammonia is present, a kind of bacteria which feeds on ammonia will start to grow. These break ammonia down into nitrite and then another kind of bacteria will grow to feed on these nitrite which is then broken down into nitrate. Hence you detect high levels of ammonia which means cycling is starting. The moment you test that ammonia and nitrite is totally and completely not present (which usually takes about 2 weeks), cycling is balanced but not over. It means now you can safely place fish and corals slowly into the tank. Slowly because your tank is not stable or matured yet and with every new introduced fish or coral, you need to give the bacteria time to grow and adjust to the new bioload. I recommend max of 5 corals each week and max of 3 fishes per week. It is best to introduce these rocks as soon as possible as cycling cannot start without live rocks. Unless you used prawn meat or live sand. Basically you need the rocks to be present for the bacteria to grow in. If you have a wet dry tower, most of the bacteria will grow there hence it is a good system for high bioload (breaks down ammonia into nitrite and then into nitrates from the wastes alot faster than simply relying on live rocks...however, it traps wastes in the long run and hence becomes a nitrate factory.) I rely solely on live rocks, good skimmer, deep sand bed and refugium (algae) in my system. Its the most natural and least maintenance. A tank is only considered stable and matured after it has not had any major crash in a year. During the year of a new tank, you will encounter cyano or diatoms (nuisance algae) which is normal. These usually happen in the 2nd month. They will last about a month if your tank conditions are good and you know what you are doing. But this is another topic already. Hope the above will clarify some doubts or helped to make the cycling process easier to understand. Happy reefing.

Boss sorry lah. Me got read up lah, only this time too anxious about new tank and worrying it might fail. That's why are questions. Cheers.

I found something interesting was that, while NH2/3 and NO2 are both 0 but NO3 was getting rather high as each day goes by. How come?

I understand that there are many sites explaining this. However, I would like to know how you would advice newbies in cycling a new tank from this forum. Cheers.

But in my case, I have only the water running through the system without any live rocks or stock leh. However, I did added a bottle of Fritz bacteria a day after I added the water to the tank. Does that contribute to my high spike in nitrate in an empty tank?? Wat will happen in a few weeks time when I add live rocks and stock? Exceed the scale for NO3?

I have a couple of questions to ask and hope someone could help me out: 1) I have a tank filled with just sand and water and have the system running with bio balls and bio home for few days. I carried out the water parameter test and found out that NO2 is 0 but NO3 is above 12.5?? Can anyone explain why is it so? 2) I have tested the same water with SERA, TETRA and SALIFERT. They gave me reading like 20, 12.5 and 25 respectively. So which is more accurate? Cheers.

Was at a LFS and was interested in their buttons but realised some tube like ceature having feelers sticking out from the tube. Can anyone tell me wat are they? Are they harmful?

I think Wave2K more real, although I only see it work at Marine Life.

Any pix?

Wow! Are your SH with Kriss Flyer? They could have clocked lots my mileage points by now.

weileong, wat you have mentioned is part of Curing, right? dont't this kill other organism in the rock? cheers.