AquariaUSA

Hey Victor! The red table...that was the one you picked up from us months ago? If so, man has it changed color! Where did you get the ORA frags from? *still looking for tape measure

Wow! Thanks for the kind remarks Glad you liked it! I have made a few others locally like that same cabinet. Actually have to make a bowfront ensemble for a show by this weekend, wish me luck! hehe

We do a lot of custom work, but I cannot guarantee we can do anything locally for non-clients until about January-March. We have a few versions of cabinetry for stand-alones from the following grades: 1)Basic (above aquarium manufacturers standard cabinets) 2)Midrange (about the same as upper grade aquarium manufacturer cabinets but with more detail work) and 3)High-end furniture grade which I usually farm out to 2 high end cabinet makers (the pricing is very high, but they use rare woods, dovetails, etc.) What are you looking for? Types of mouldings? Door styles? I can give you an estimate based on what we have done that is similar, to help you shop around

An EV-120 would do fine on a 75 softy/lps tank. If you plan to go the route with SPS later on, you may want to go with the EV-180. The EV-240 would be serious overkill, and would be hard to work into a small sump.

ooolala! Wow

IMO they are hands down the best skimmer out there for the money, size, pump requirements, and skimmate production! I have been saying this for quite sometime, even if I am biased I have about 45-50 of them on client systems right now, and except for the air inductor getting clogged once and a while, they do run like a charm. Glad you like your skimmer, be sure to send AquaC (Jason) a nice email on how well you like it! He is a good guy that stands behind his extremely fast growing company!

Adding calcium can help other things in the system, but will have no bearing whatsoever on the Rose BTA, Xenia, or Ricordea. Frequent water changes can usually make up the iodine deficit, but if you keep on the every six week program, you may want to look at the iodine supplements. Be careful not to overdose, for that too can wipe out many soft corals, especially xenia. Xenia has been known to be the "weed" in many systems, but can also be a great indicator of contaminents in the water. Are you using RO/DI, tap, or well water? Some corals are able to adapt to metals/solids/contaminents in the water much easier than others, depending on their captive history.

The main supplement I use (other than fish waste and frequent water changes) is Selcon made by American Marine. It is a great food additive and for direct feeding filter feeders IMO. You mentioned that you do a 20% water change every six weeks. What salinities does your tank run during that time? Also, any possible way to just do a 10% every 3-4 weeks? I am guessing you are using low TDS water from an RO/DI unit? There could be something building up in the system that has a deleterious effect on the anemone, ricordea, and xenia. It is odd that the other species of mushrooms are doing well, but your ricordea are not. When you first added the ricordea to the tank, how did they fare? Also when the anemone went wandering 6 months ago, anything major happen in the tank to make it more? The species usually will stay put once acclimated, unless stressed. When you add xenia and ricordea, where do you get them from?

Nice pics Tony! I like the efflo too! What lighting are you using again/tank size? The plumbing is sweet too!

Lighting is not always the issue with anemones (depending on species, and collection). Some of you guys have seen our Ricordea florida and yumas under 80 watts of standard lighting (powerglo, and a marine glow), and more recently under a small Coralife 2x9watt powercompact (10 gallons) in one of the systems. Ricordea are able to adapt to various types of lighting, and a key to getting them to open up just right (2-3") is good but not overpowering flow, and supplemental feedings (1-2 times per month minimum if you want them to split). What type of anemone are you having issues with besides the mushrooms? Water quality more often than not can affect anemones, and sometimes they can be found in tanks that haven't had a water change in years! Overall though, lighting is not the sole reason for weak extension. Bubble tips (entacmea quadricolor) are the best option for captive aquarium husbandry, but selecting healthy specimens is critical to success (retraction, nematocysts, coloration, oral disc, etc.) I would avoid any other species at all costs if possible, and try for the captive bred or "clone" bubbletips. The VHO lighting you are using is more than adequate There are many coral farmers across the country that use VHO strictly for their growout tanks, and they sometimes outgrow their halide tanks Unless of course you use one of David (Chidelots) special sakis (still want to see the tank!)

If you have trouble finding a retailer to sponsor, give me a call or email after a few weeks. I will see what we can do. Thanks, Rich (AquariaUSA.com)

Nope :( All of Diamond's old wholesalers only listed the lumenarcs as patent pending, but a few years ago I remember someone from Diamond telling me the Patents were approved. Will check around. Thanks

I think we got the last from them, but may have more hidden under other stuff. There was another hydroponics store as well in Texas that had 2 of the larger ones a few months ago, but I think those are far gone as well. I asked before, but does anyone know any good patent lawyers? This may be something to look into.

If you find any, let me know We ordered the last I could find last week, and several of our old suppliers have been out of them for months now. Anyone know of a good sheet metal fabricator? I have about 15 bids right now that quoted the Lumenarc3s, and I think I am about 50 short :( hehe

There was a slight increase in freight charges since 911, and a few security taxes ($2-5). Considering a lot of what Rs brings in is transhipped, that is where some of the increase is, but you are looking at much cheaper corals per piece (almost 1/3 to 1/4 the cost versus WSI) with the added Indo cargo charge ($50-150) per 100lbs. with repacking. I would think there are other reasons for the increase (perhaps demand and customer flow has picked up) and when retailers can make a profit (and realize it) they will jump on it, with good reason. I too am appalled at some of the prices seen at some LFS and the online guys regarding some easy to grow soft coral species. Certain "rasta" leathers and other species of sinularia or neptheids have not really changed in price on the lists, but the markup has been outrageous for a few years (sometimes 5x or more above cost). To my knowledge I have only seen two wholesalers charge more for these species than the majority of others for the same quality. This is clearly a coral species (or group) that can be easily propagated, and should be, thus lowering the costs, and need for wild collection. However, you tend to see tanks full of them priced at $50-100 a pop for Medium/Large specimens! And most of the size is water Some online vendors prices have gone up, and others (mainly online shops who are PartTimers looking for a quick buck as a second job) are selling for rockbottom prices to try for volume. IMO they should not have been given wholesale account status for most of them claim they only sell corals "as a side thing, and not their full-time job" which means they are more hobbyiest then business. The others are seemingly getting into the unethical business of "chop-shopping" where they purchase wild coral for sale as "captive frags." I was on a site the other day that was trying to sell A. efflorescens or solit. frags from a wild colony, and they called it aqua-cultured. Most that know these two species, know they are not very easy to frag without causing excess mucous production (which can wipe out some neighboring corals) and tissue recession on the bowl. Propagation is best done from corallite stands that grow out from the main bowl. I know of at least 5 online retailers like this, which is unfortunate, because if it continues everyone in the neighborhood will be on eBay, Yahoo, and online selling chopped up corals for pennies on the dollar, which will only increase the wild collection of corals that should have been kept in the ocean! They are already doing this with quality live rock, although they are making like $.50 per lb. without ever touching, screening, or curing the rock. You pay less, but the rock is far from good quality (although still seeded), and the environment definitely suffers. What corals were you looking to buy for under $30? I think pricing depends totally on the species (how hard it is to get), the overall quality/coloration, and the demand (zoos and ricordias are pretty hot again, which increased prices across the board). What sites? When all else fails, be sure to look locally first, especially for captive bred corals!

Love #2! Nathan is totally right! Now if we can just get the wholesalers to stop taking Montipora digitata off the reef, we may start winning the battle No sense in taking it off the reef, considering almost 75% of sps hobbyists already have it in their tanks, but you still see it on the lists.

Ouch! Nathan, it is sometimes best to let a gorgonian adapt to the new water for at least a couple weeks prior to cutting it. If you don't this may increase the tendency to shed its skin down to the gorgonin faster, especially if entering one tank, being cut, then going to another tank. I usually let them acclimate at least a week, and if any damage is apparent on a stem, I would prop/cut only due to the damage. From then on, I cut new growth (stems,branches,arms) which makes it captive propagation versus wild clip and frag. Either way, hope it works out well for ya! BB, don't forget to skin about 1/4" to 1/3" at the bottom of the cutting to affix into a small rock and glue. This will ensure a good fitting, and that the tissue will hopefully regrow over the superglu in good time versus shed due to stress.

Try placing a few small rocks in the substrate and bury the sinularia bottom on the rocks about 1". In a few weeks it should attach to one of the rocks, then you can place it wherever.

I won't get into the anglo/islamic debate For I am sure there will be enough typos below! I definitely do not think there are enough cultured corals out there, if this were the case, the prices would have bottomed out long ago, and they have only seemed to rise, and attract "clip and ship" operations (those that frag wilds as captive! grr!). Point in case, how many large (really large) operations are there outside of Harbor Branch, etc.? One or two medium sized greenhouses is not really large considering the time it takes to achieve sustainable growout. Imagine if you were growing a basic montipora. You can fit maybe 50 decent 1-2" frags into a 36x18" tank. If you were the top retailer or online seller, how many tanks of this size would you need to keep running weekly, monthly, etc. to support the US demand alone? Then think about how cheap you would have to keep this coral (it is one of the faster growing species) to justify the expenses to grow the specimens. enough of this, kinda off course but relates directly to the idea above! The mention of wild-caught clowns vs. ORA (or even Proquatixs) is an excellent issue! I really do wish people would demand the LFS and online retailers to leave "Nemo" in the sea and buy his cousin "Misbar." Most of the captive bred/raised fish species are far hardier than those wild caught. The cost difference for us at least is about 4x more than what it would cost us to do wild caught clowns. However, we are tying to do everything we can to avoid the purchase of wild clownfish, and for the past 6-7 months have done so. However, does this justify the LFS or online retailers ordering in fish that DO NOT do well in captivity? Tons of anthias species, moorish idols, hard to feed rare angels, etc. are sold in stores across the country, imagine what the mortality rates are on the fish!!! I doubt that the collection of wild caught corals will cease anytime soon, reason being this has been debated since the early 80s. The major issue that needs to be addressed is CITES and how effective it is in regards to restricting collection. Micheal put up a post a while back about the trade, hopefully many of you read it (I am still reading it due to time) to understand the implications of the trade we have all grown to love. Years ago we watched Florida close its doors to the collection of natural live rock, and especially ricordea florida. Now the trade has blown wide open with maricultured rock, and new sources of ricordea. Companies like Walt Smith International and several others have been doing their part to try and increase responsible collection and farming of wild coral for regrowth, etc. but what about the airliners? I see this as a major problem!!! Most wholesalers ship general freight to save costs, and gain benefits/kickbacks, etc. A few months ago we had a small fish shipment (3 boxes of reef safe "hardy" fish) that got re-routed through an air carrier several times. Ended up in Chicago (the worst place to go IMO) and somehow missed several flights. 24 hours later the shipment arrived after countless phone calls/net checks (in which I should have been on the road visiting clients!) and virtually 75% of the species were DOA. Some of you that know us (me and Flor) would understand how upset we were. We did not have to order the fish that day, or that week for that matter, but each time we do we take a serious chance regarding the lives of net caught fish that were perfectly happy in the ocean. Our running mortality rates on fish (once received from cargo) are generally under 5% per month which is unheard of (from what I have seen, heard, read), but that one shipment alone can drastically elevate that number. I have worked with several retailers over the years and have seen plenty of DOAs, unfortunately. Most owners think about the costs associated with the loss (how much business they may lose), but we should think about the implication this causes the reef (very similar to the curio trade...take alive, and kill). I was seriously contemplating forgoing the purchase of reef fish on a regular basis, unless I found another way to justify "next flight guaranteed" (what they usually ship vital organs on), but knew I could not pass that extra cost onto our customers. Even if we chose to do NFG, it is not guaranteed the orders would even go on the plane (mistakes do and will happen!). This to me is one of the most important things this hobby needs to address, in addition to increasing the effectiveness of CITES and MAC. Captive propagation of corals is another wonderful opportunity to decrease the impact on the wild environment, and should be a major focus of any/and every aquarium society. I think many of you in WAMAS (&CMAS) have done an excellent job here, but what about the LFS? Months ago we read about the hobbyiest trying to sell xenia for credit to buy livestock from the areas retailers. Many of us have been down that road at one time or another! 15 years ago, I remember taking my first batch of 30+ .5" Kribensis cichlids to the LFS, and being laughed at (mind you the health and color of the brood was far better than anything I had ever seen at the LFS). Xenia is very easy to propagate (depending on species) and should be seen in every retailer across the country (perhaps under locally bred Xenia label?) for a modest but reasonable price $15? Not the $30,40, 50, and even 75! I have seen and heard about. Pay the hobbyiest $3-5 per healthy stock, and buy monthly! man it's late! back to the original idea and my opinion/answer: Education! Educate the hobbyiests through clubs, magazines, and the LFS. This is the only way we can keep the hobby alive and respectable. The day the LFS and online retailer stops seeing markup on a marine fish or wild coral as an avenue for revenue growth, and that the hobby loses the mentality "try, try again (indefinitely)" is the day we will have succeeded. Andy made an odd, but really important comment that first struck me off guard...but someone asked how we can educate, or who to educate...and his response was "talk to your neighbors!" how many times have you been asked by a friend or neighbor about an aquarium issue because they knew you were really into fish and corals. This is where the education and responsibility begins, with us. On an aquaculture note...although not Fiji or Palau, I would really like to see myself in about 10 years on a small island in Belize or somewhere similar using saltwater from the sea to propagate corals. Trying to convince my wife to spend our retirement money on that island is going to be the key Anyone else want to work a timeshare kinda thing? You stay, you work! hehe

Just wanted to thank everyone for a great meeting! The attendance looked awesome! I must apologize for being the tardy one though, sorry for interupting while we set up the tank :p (I always did that kinda thing in school, unfortunately it stuck, and we were at a school!). I had an appointment that ran over, but hope you guys liked the stuff we brought out. Keep me posted on how the gorgonians, clams, corals and inverts do in your systems (we strive for less than 5% mortality rates!). I big thank you to Micheal and Craig for setting me up with some super frags! Can't wait to get the new frag system up and running to help get those frags into everyones tanks!

Not really sure who is bringing what...but freshly made RO/DI saltwater can tick off corals to be fragged (depending on variances in salinity), although water taken from systems can also do the same depending on salinity, NO3, etc. Basic finger leathers/sinularias etc. are best fragged once they have extended (kinda hard to do when they are shrunken). SPS frags are easier, but then stress can cause RTD/RTN after the fact. If there is any doubt, just drip acclimate all corals to be fragged for about 30-45 minutes to lessen stress and mucous production. Or if you bring a coral to frag, bring 10-20 gallons with a small tank to keep separate. Having fresh saltwater (not fouled during fragging) to put frags in afterward is highly recommended. Calfo normally takes water to hold the specimens, water to frag the specimens, and then a small container of water to hold the frags. When we do new installations under 200 gallons (which have corals from day1), we bring all of the water from an existing system plus about 35-50 gallons of freshly made RO/DI salt water for dillution purposes. To date very few coral stresses have been recorded using this method.

Hi Marshall, How old is this AGA tank? On the bottom it will show the manufacturer's date. The backsides are drilled or the bottom? It would not be that much of a pain for me to drill if needed, for I have a press. I am mainly interested in using this tank as a sump, and depending on the condition I pay the standard going rate for used tanks which is not all that profitable for a seller It might be easier if you can put a listing what you are willing to sell the tank for. If I can't pick it up, I will pass it around to others that may buy it from ya. Thanks As for overpriced fish stores, one thing that I always tell people is that they may seem overpriced in comparison to online retailers, but they are paying anywhere from $3000-$15,000 in rent each month, electricity, insurance, etc. which is the reason their prices are higher. Perhaps their rent is higher than the others due to location, but I am not a lfs owner so I will let them take that up

Hey Tony, I will be bringing a 40 breeder, and probably an extra bucket of RO/DI saltwater. I will also have a dolly if anyone does not want to lug buckets across the woods, down the river, etc. *Just need the dolly returned (I never leave them outside, they get grabbed quick!), for my ankle has been a bit gimpy these past weeks*

hehe

Hi Marshall. I can be there tomorrow if you are willing to help me pick it up? I have a dolly. Feel free to call or email me tomorrow. DIY tank? I know my OCE 200 weighs 420 empty, but is this tank going up/downstairs? Thanks, Rich watson@aquariausa.com 704-904-2022 443-310-7095 What are dims?