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I’m beyond excited to share that my first book, 𝑴𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝑫𝒊𝒔𝒆𝒂𝒔𝒆 𝑫𝒊𝒂𝒈𝒏𝒐𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒔: 𝑨 𝑷𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒂𝒍 𝑮𝒖𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝑨𝒒𝒖𝒂𝒓𝒊𝒔𝒕𝒔, is officially launching! At 372 pages, this book was written specifically for home saltwater hobbyists who want a clear, easy-to-follow guide for identifying and treating the 16 most common saltwater fish diseases. No more guessing or scouring forums for unreliable advice—this book breaks down symptoms, causes, and proven treatments in a way that’s both scientifically accurate and easy to understand. 𝐓𝐨 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞, 𝐈’𝐦 𝐠𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝟓 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐞𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐤 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐬! The giveaway will run for two weeks starting today!!!, and after that, the book will be available for purchase on my website. Whether you're battling ich, velvet, bacterial infections, or mystery illnesses, this guide will help you quickly diagnose and effectively treat your fish—because healthy fish mean a thriving reef! 𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐧 𝐚 𝐟𝐫𝐞𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐩𝐲? 𝐂𝐥𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐫𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫! https://www.mantasystems.net/pages/sweepstakes

WAMAS is hosting a 25th Anniversary & holiday party / potluck lunch for club members & their family! WHO: WAMAS Club Members & Family WHEN: December 14, 2024 Time: 12:00 - 3:00 pm WHERE: Green Acres Center, 4401 Sideburn Rd., Fairfax, VA FOOD: Potluck lunch WHY: You read that right, WAMAS was founded by Dr. Michael Gerdes in the late fall of 1999 & has been serving the greater DC area for 25 years. From our roots at the first meeting in Glenn Rosenbluth's basement, WAMAS has grown to be one of the larger reefing clubs in the United States. WAMAS previously hosted the 2005 & 2015 Marine Aquarium Conference of North America (MACNA). In addition, the club is a registered 501(c) non-profit education society, and has supported many reef-related events and causes over the years such as the establishment of an endowment fund at NOVA Southeastern Univ. to support a marine biology scholarship; donations to: Coral Restoration Foundation; Great Barrier Reef Legacy & Forever Reef Project; Coral Morphologic Labs, as well as numerous smaller grant awards to support local teachers, students, and other scientific research. - Zoom call with WAMAS Founder Dr. Michael Gerdes - Potluck lunch - Special WAMAS 25th Anniversary items - Door Prizes - First 50 guests get a $10 Reef eScape livestock gift card (upgradable to $20 by signing up for their newsletter) - 50/50 cash drawing (benefit WAMAS) - FREE Frags - White Elephant - frag exchange gift table (bring a frag(s), get a frag(s) - bring frag(s) & get extra tickets for chance to win frag(s) from frag tables Come celebrate with us at this event. ** INTERESTED in helping make this event a success - please send an email to officers@wamas.org or send a message to me or any of the officers and let us know you are interested in helping. Thanks to these sponsors for supplying coral frags or gift cards for the event:

Jack, came in this morning and the basslet was out. Fourth time I've seen him in over two months. I keep thinking he's got to be dead for sure. My room is very quiet. We are a small program with small class sizes (for a multitude of reasons). And even when the students are in here they are quiet and stationary. I was able to swing by Isaac's place this weekend @YHSublime, and through his unbelievable generosity we have some more fragging to do. Won't be until after Thanksgiving break and we do jump into SOL season here in VA (yay standardized testing!), but we'll find time to get together at least once if not twice before winter break. I'll make sure to update with a complete account of what we are doing and what Isaac supplied us with. Thanks again, Isaac! And if Tiny (and Sandwiches) ever need a babysitter, I'm your guy.

Gatortailale, things are great. My tank is (I think) 54 years old and all is well. I eliminated a bunch of invasive, encrusting, photosynthetic sponge. Just had a back operation and need another minor one. I published another book, not about fish that is on Amazon. It's about my time in the army and Vietnam. My birthday is coming up Christmas day, and almost all is well.;

No one knows algae better than algae! lol

I have mainly LPS, anemone and soft corals, I am not sure about the clam or SPS. But turning the light off for 3-4 days was the most effective way for me, without using chemicals, to control Cyno. I have done it few times without losing any corals. Foxface and 2 bar fish and 4 tuxedo urchins eliminated the bubble and hair algae A good person to reach out to is Richard Ross, last year speaker, who encouraged me to use the light method.

I just wanted to thank everyone again for all the love and support you have shown the store while we had our saltwater department. If we can ever help you out, we will still keep frozen foods, salt water, RO water, and pods in stock though. Chris

Down to one larva of this age, have four that are about a month longer, but today is day 100 post hatch, and this is from a couple days ago:

A little reminder to support our longtime sponsor Blue Ribbon Koi and Marine. Whether you are in the market for quality saltwater fish and corals for your aquarium, equipment, or looking for koi for your pond, BRK has it all. Make plans to visit their showroom soon and feed the koi in the holding ponds outside - great fun for the entire family. Indeed, spring is a great time to head on over to the store and see all the new koi they have in the sales ponds outside the shop, and you can bring the kids with you to feed them. Likewise, BRK was a big sponsor of the club's Holiday Party and donated over 80 coral frags to the event. Thank you BRK for your support!

I bought some orphek lenses for my iPhone. Took a bit of messing around to get what I wanted, and not there yet, but brats breaking out the DSLR…

Expensive is relative. You're going to pay more for QT'd, especially prophylactically treated fish. I honestly don't know how anybody can do it properly with a brick and mortar overhead, and make money. - I agree with Miggs, Reefescape is doing a great job. Visited the store for the first time last month, and it's one of the cleanest shops I've been to in a while. - Capital Exotic Fish is in the process of breaking down all their saltwater stuff in DC, might check with them and see if they have any fish left. - Exotic Reef Creations I think has slowed down/possibly stopped all together on their fish. As far as I know, they were the only local place that was doing a 100% proper QT. I also don't know very many hobbyists that properly QT everything that goes into their tanks anyways, don't know how important that is to you. - Blue Ribbon Koi, but I have not had much interaction with them since I moved to MD 5 years ago. - Supreme Reefs does fish, but I have not had much interaction with them since I moved to MD 5 years ago.

One thing I don’t do on these builds is take my time… The tank was delivered on March 19th and had 2 WAMAS members help me move it. This tank was much lighter than the last! I wasted no time cleaning it up and getting the RODI going. I replaced my pre-filters in hopes of providing the cleanest water I could. It took 3 and a half days to fill it. once it was filled, I ran some carbon and GFO in a reactor for about 12 hours to soak up anything left in the water or from the tank it’s self. After that, I added salt, let it mix over night then added the rock which has been cooking for about 3 weeks or so, along with some live sand. after I started noticing some pods and life running around the tank, all from the rock, I added a big piece of rock from my 38g. This will add more life, and has some corals stuck to it which will be a good indicator. It’s a rock I’ve had for about 10 years so full of coraline, sponges, brittle stars pods etc. it also has some Zoas and blue pavona(?) on it that will be my test corals. placement is not final, the center will be mostly open. I will add a little more rock, mostly lower stuff to keep LPS and Zoas off the sand bed Next week I should have my first batch of fish coming from ORA and helpfully my lights will get delivered.

Been a while, never fully stopped though. My methods and equipment are pretty dramatically different (raising in a bucket, feeding mostly artemia nauplii), but while I had had some batches get to about a month old before, I've got two which are a month and a half old! This is the larger of the two, and they are VERY lanky

I’d recommend two separate circuits (separate breakers), if you can. Both gfci. Keep your critical systems split between them, so if one trips, your tank survives long enough for you to notice and fix the problem.

It brings me great sadness to announce we are closing our Saltwater department. All of our fish/ inverts will be 25% off starting Friday til they are gone. All of our corals are 40% off and whatever is left will be even greater discount at Reefing USA. As far as dry goods goes, I will be letting things go at cost to clear out our inventory. Don't sleep on these deals before everything is gone for good. Thank you for being such an amazing club to us and appreciate all of the support you have shown us but sadly it never took off and we are struggling to keep FW fish/ plants in stock and can use the space better.

Back in business

WAMAS Platinum Sponsor Avast Marine Works is donating a Plank Automatic Feeder to the Winter meeting raffle. Thank you Avast Marine Works for the many years of supporting the WAMAS Club - It's great to have a local manufacturer of quality reefing equipment in our area.

I’ve had various iterations of backup batteries in the past, but went whole hog a little over a year ago and installed a whole house generator. 😁Now all the livestock in the house stays happy. 😃

Thanks again to our great local vendor sponsors that helped make the party awesome! Few more video posts from Facebook: BRK: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1BE7PpkVKo/ Coral Candy: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/14JLb35bKo/ BRK: https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1DBTKpJWTu/

Sorry... was in a rush while on a shuttle. Dosing *silica* will feed diatoms to outcompete the dinos.

Good news is that your nutrients haven't hit rock bottom, so you have a fighting chance against dinos. Don't let them drop.

This is a really quick version of the coffee filter Dinoflagellate test... Pull a sample of the offending grossness, and put it into a container of water with a tight lid. Shake the container of grossness really well, until it is soup-like. Setup another container with a funnel and coffee filter, so that you can filter the contents of the first container into the second. Strain the liquefied grossness through the coffee filter. The second container should fill with clear-ish liquid. Place the second container in high light for about an hour. (Throw out the first container's contents, if any remain). If the second container develops a blob-snot-like mass, then, I'm sorry, you probably have dinos. They clump together in high light. If it doesn't, then you may still have dinos, but not the super miserable ones (there are lots of types). Hope that helps.

I need to get a new FTS but was able to get this quick top down shot! Not a lot of space left to grow...

Time: 2:00 PM - 5:00 PM (Speaker starts at 3:15 PM) Where: Green Acres Center, 4401 Sideburn Rd., Fairfax, VA WAMAS members get in free. Guests are $10 each (paid at the door). Join WAMAS at this link. Refreshments provided by WAMAS. Agenda: 2:00 Sign-in / socialize / frag sales 3:00 Club business 3:15 Speaker - Todd Gardner 4:15 Break 4:30 Raffle! Directions to the Green Acres Center: Green Acres Center is next to George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. Here's a map from Google Maps: https://goo.gl/maps/neGSWGJ2G8APuh5k8 Todd Gardner is a professor of Aquaculture at Carteret Community College in Morehead City, NC, and manages Biota’s NC facility where he raises Gramma dejongi and other aquatic specimens. His life and career have both been shaped by his passion for marine life and he has written numerous scientific and popular articles about his research and experiences collecting, keeping, and culturing marine organisms. Todd’s professional background includes work on a National Geographic documentary, commercial aquaculture at C-quest Hatchery in Puerto Rico, and an 11-year term at the Long Island Aquarium where he spent much of his time developing techniques for rearing marine fish larvae. To date, he has raised more than 50 species. In 2013 Todd received the prestigious Aquarist of the Year Award from the Marine Aquarium Society of North America (MASNA). In his spare time, Todd dives with his son Finn, photographs marine life, runs marathons, and plays in a blues band. Sponsors On Site, Selling Coral Candy Aquaculture:@Coral Candy Aquaculture Blue Ribbon Koi Vendors On Site, Selling Jason Fox Signature Corals The Mushroom Man Capital Exotic Fish Combat Corals Members On Site, Selling @gws3 @jhOU @wildcrazyjoker81 Raffle Prizes: HYDROS Minnow Controller ($249 value). 1 chance to win! $50 Gift Certificate for Reef Nutrition products (with $40 bump-up for shipping). (2 chances to win!) $100 Gift Certificate for Reef Nutrition products (with $40 bump-up for shipping) Sicce XStream SDC pump. $249 value. 1 chance to win! Supreme Reefs - $70 Mystery Coral Pack. Pickup at store. $100 Gift Certificate (off dry goods) by Exotic Reef Creations. 2 chances to win! $50 Gift Certificate for Champion Lighting & Supply. 1 chances to win! DI color-changing resin media by Air, Water, & Ice. 1 chance to win! Chemi-blue nano (15-pack) by Boyd Enterprises. 2 chances to win! various coral frags Special thanks to theses sponsors. Please support them & say thanks next time you shop with them. WAMAS Platinum Sponsors - Air, Water & Ice - Avast Marine - Blue Ribbon Koi - Champion Lighting & Supply - ChemiPure (Boyd Enterprises) - Coral Candy Aquaculture - Exotic Reef Creations - Frank's Tanks - Reed Mariculture (Reef Nutrition) - Reef eScape - Supreme Reefs WAMAS Banner-Only Sponsors - Bulk Reef Supply - Cobalt Aquatics - Coral Magazine - Jellyfish Art - Maxspect - Two Little Fishies

Well I just got a notification that Hanna has 20% off for Memorial Day so just ordered the Phosphate ULR, Nitrate HR and dKH.

I stocked up a LONG time ago right before Dr. Foster and Smith was acquired by Petco. They had 20' rolls for dirt cheap. I'm glad you started this thread because I'm actually down to my last roll.

I just went through this and pulled all my fish from the display and treated them with copper in a QT tank and went fishless for over 76 days. Velvet usually kills things quickly. Polylab is supposed to make something you can treat in the tank, but I did not go that route. Wrasses have a slime coat, so they do not normally show up with spots. I would treat before adding any more fish or they will get it as well.

BowieReefer. I wrote two books. One is a reef book "The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarist". 100% of the profits go to MS research in my wife's name and I wrote a book about my time in the army and Vietnam where 100% of the profits go to "Wounded Warriors" or "Tunnels To Towers". Amazon.com: The Avant-Garde Marine Aquarist: A 60-Year history of Fish Keeping eBook : baldassano, paul: Kindle Store Amazon.com: From Brooklyn through Vietnam and back: A Soldier's Story of fun and disaster. eBook : Baldassano, Paul: Kindle Store

Nice pics!

When I messaged exotic reef creations for fish a few months ago he had gotten out of the quarantining fish business. I use Reef Escape now.

So, the tank has water in it, tested everything so far except the ATO and my old Apex Lite. I actually have some living critters (mainly worms, but also Gary the snail and at least one piece of plate coral (barely hanging on)) from the sand and couple inches water that the seller left from two weeks ago. He also left a couple bags, 1 Rox and 1 chemipure elite in the rear chambers which I assume I should leave for the couple/few weeks till cycle is complete. I'm curious if I should add the skimmer I just got from trade now of wait for cycle to be complete? Also, since I clearly have some living stuff, should I get a small CUC pack this week (<15 snails and hermits) or should I also wait for cycle? I have yet to test water. Lastly, I've generally always used Rox, should I add chemipure elite to the mix, or is there something else I should use alongside Rox that's either cheaper or wildly more effective than using chemipure bags every few months? Keeping it simple in the two back chambers, no reactors.

I don't get accused of that too often.

Let's put it this way, I'm skeptical of any measuring device in the aquarium trade, but I'm willing to bet if I bought another tds meter, I wouldn't necessarily put much stock in one reading 001 and another reading 000, so I'm going with this reading, lol.

Nems gonna go where it wants until it’s happy!

Under $1k for two lights means ReeFi, Quanta, Nicrew, Smatfarm, or other brands that offer similar or better spectrum/power offerings for less. Consider that Quanta also offers dimmable bars with three different fixed spectrums to give you what you need. I don't align well with the big name lights, and I will no longer purchase Ecotech, AI, Kessil, etc. I have comparative data on many lights; the spectrum and distribution of light. Let me know if you need data. Jim

If you do sand, a Links goby from biota does an amazing job keeping the sand clean. They stay on the smaller size and sift all day long. I’ll be getting another soon

End up being similar or cheaper to light a big tank compared to radions since they can cover more space but yeah, they’re pricy. Should last forever tho since they use 5w LEDs but only drive them to 1.5W max, which keeps heat down too

Thanks everyone for your feedback. I appreciate the honest responses. Will reconsider how to move forward.

Wow. just cleaned the glass. Had my hands in the tank for the first time in maybe 5 years?! Felt good. Did some water changes a couple weeks ago and now see two corals coming back from the dead. I think I may be coming back from the dead also. Just hand fed my 30 dollar yellow tang 😎 Any of my corals still out there? I’m going to join up Wamas and buy them back

Thanks! Don't forget I've got a chunky Bill Murray for you! Thank you! Still working on it! How could you have known, IME, every purple tang has been a jerk, luckily the angels are also jerk'ish, so they all seem to get along.

Yeah, seems like the purple tangs have something to prove! I also wish everything came in at once for you, that can be a real bummer, but I've heard about it happening more frequently than not. Tinkering with the tank became a necessity, I was already losing a ton of coral to warfare, and it made sense to start getting after it during the slow times of the holidays. I'm not done yet, but really happy with how it's shaping up again. It's crazy how slowly, but so fast, everything happens! No FTS, but couple of shots to close out the year:

Looks awesome, Issac!

Welcome Paige. If you are available to attend the holiday part on the 14th in Fairfax, the club is giving out some free coral frags including some Zoas frags among other corals.

Welcome! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Welcome!

Yes, as long as at least half the corals are looking good and growing well I am happy. One day I may end up with 3-5 big colonies of the things that do well in my tank, and I would be fine with that.

Tank has been running since May. Moved a few anemones in few weeks ago. Added clown pair last Tuesday. Still a work in progress but I'm happy with this start.

Hey Everyone, We finally got in some more of those VERY long tentacle elegances that everyone has been asking about and with a few new goniporia and wall hammers. Below are the fish we got in this week as well. CB Yellow Tang Royal gramma Yellow Coris Wrasse PJ Cardinals FireFish Bellas sandsifting goby Small Foxface Emerald Crabs

Looks like a cabbage leather coral (if soft) or turbinaria (if it has a hard skeleton)