Black Mammoth

Thanks. That would probably work for an over night or possibly a 2 day package. I'll probably just resort to dry ice for my other goods that are going ground. I'm sure that the pack will work for the corals though Thanks!

Usually I ship corals in moderate temps with styro....how do you guys ship in hot weather? I'm interested in this for a few reasons. One, I would like to know for shipping in hot weather...duh and two, I'm interested in this for shipping other temp sensitive products. Dry ice is an option for the other products, but I was looking for something that may work that might be a little cheaper. Thanks

I'm going to try and make it. It really depends on how the well or bad (half full...half empty) the previous night goes If I make it, I do have a home made 20L sump and 600gph overflow that I could sell or trade. I will also be making my first appearance

All of my fish have survived with my star (it is brown...run of the mill). However, I suspect him eating my hermit crabs and a shrimp. One day, in the morning, the star was out (I was feeding) and there was a hermit crab on his back. He was riding the star like he was in a rodeo. I found it quite funny. I gathered up my food and put it away. By the time I came back (no gone but a minute or two), the crab was missing. Normally, I would chalk it up to him finally getting off the star. Except the body of the star was double to triple in size. It was a very odd shape and it actually looked like a hermit crab! It appeared that it swallowed it whole. I can't think of what else it could be. I don't really trust him, but all my fish are around.

They also sell them at Fins and Feathers. Or you can just buy them online from Boston Aqua Farms.

I agree. I think everyone that works at Marine Scene is fantastic!!! That's why I would go there even if they were a little more in money. It's worth me to pay them more to get good and valuable knowledge and help. Plus, the livestock always seemed like it was in good condition. As for the policies, now I know. It's not a problem anymore since I stopped going there because of those policies (not the coral one, but their fish ordering policy). FWIW, I've never met a rude or dishonest person there. I'm sure I would have fun hanging out with any of them

I grew up in Hamilton...kind of funny. Pets Etc is no longer and I have not heard of Total Pets, I'll have to drive by that address. It is interesting that you like Aquatic World. They have horrible prices and are incredibly rude. There is one young guy that works every once and awhile and he's nice. The owner is a jerk. Sometimes he's nice, but he's very rude and condescending. I usually find a lot of dead fish in the tanks and there is no reason. There is usually someone sitting at the counter reading a paper (usually the owner)....they could remove the dead fish. The owner doesn't seem to keep up to date with anything. I asked him about a Tunze and he was like what's that? Anyway, I stopped going there for multiple reasons, but a big one was how he yells at everyone. He does have a cool lagoon and 220 above it.

I must have miss understood my LFS. I have some just like that pic. Is there a designer name for "Eagle Eyes." I thought "Eagle Eyes" was the designer name and they went by watermelons if they were sold under the designer name.

Well it is really hard to say how much more electricity you are going to use. I don't know what you have and what you are going to. Your biggest power jump will be your lights. You can probably go with 6x80 T5s. Then it depends on what you want to do for flow. I would just do 2 Tunzes and that's only 36watts. I'm guessing maybe an extra $20 a month for power....maybe. I think RC has a calculator on their website. Then salt and water is probably your next big expense. Water is pretty cheap, so that's probably in the noise. If you change the same percentage amount for water changes...then it should be a linear jump. I have a 90g and I just ran the power numbers on my tank. I'm running around 447 watts with the lights on. That number does spike when heaters kick on though, but that shouldn't be much. That's relatively low power and I have quite a bit hooked up. I think that's about it for month to month increase in costs.

Noob alert. Why is that?

It looked like it would be a cool store. I was there the week it opened. They didn't really have any fish out yet. I went out there to pick up a new tank. I got my 90 AGA RR for $189 out the door. It was a bit soon for me to pick up the tank as I wasn't ready for it, but I couldn't pass up the deal. It sat in my garage unit I moved. The place is quite large. I'll have to stop by again to check it out. It's a bit of a hike for me, but I always like checking out LFS

The circuit that the fish tank was running on...does it have an arc fault protector? I'm going to guess that there was some build up that was causing the wires/lights to arc. There are a few short comings of arc fault protectors, but I was just wondering. The fire could have been sparked on the first arc fault. If that was the case, there wasn't really anything you could do. Even if you don't have an arc fault protector on the line, the GFCI should have tripped. Did it trip? It may have after it was too late though. Well I'm glad that you guys made it out OK.

It kind of looks like a watermelon zoa

You would be fine with Schedule 40. The problem is that most big stores carry everything in 80. Usually I can't find all the parts I need in 40. To give you another idea, your water lines in your house run around 60psi. Most lines are either CPVC or copper. Your drain lines are out of PVC.

Cool! IMHO fake snakes don't work. My parents have a Koi pond. They had birds taking their fish. So they thought it might be a good idea to put a fake snake around the pond. That work all about a day until they say a bird swoop down and pick up the snake! My parents tried another one and it was gone with in the week...LOL

It is kind of hard to understand that....but if I understand correctly. You can cut an eggcrate many ways. My personal favorite is taking side snips and cut a path and break off the extra tabs. For some reason I enjoy doing that. You can also use a Dremel type tool or any fine saw (just take it easy). You can get an eggcreate for about $11 at Home Depot. They are often referred to as Light Diffusers and you can find them in the lighting section; specifically by the florescent lights.

Here is my problem. Thousands of businesses give estimates every day. Because MS is a fish store doesn't mean they can't do the same thing. The fact that they gave me the same price for a 2" frag and an 8" "frag" tells me that they don't really care about the size. They both were the same wholesale price. I gave them the info they need to give me a ballpark estimate. They can say well if the coral is healthy and of average quality, we typically give around x to x. It works like that every day in every other business. Think about a used car. You know given the car model and year that you will get between x & x on a given condition. When you go to trade it in...it's no surprise what they are going to offer you. If it is a surprise, 9 times out of 10 it's because you were dumb and you're going to be unhappy anyway. I don't care what they want to give me because that is their business...but just let me know so I don't waste my time & gas. I mean I send them pictures and asked for a ball park number....couldn't get anything out of them until showing up....even though they knew what they were going to give me. I feel that is pretty crappy. I find it funny that people think it is unreasonable for ball park estimates...but think it is crappy service if they don't open up after hours for you.

Tell me that on the phone when I ask!!!!! I asked how much I would get per frag on the phone. They told me I had to bring them in to get appraised. They could have told me the price over the phone by looking at the wholesale number. That is my point! Don't waste my time if you already know the answer. I don't care about not getting something better than wholesale...just tell me the price so I can decide whether or not it is worth trading vs selling private party. This was about 1.5 - 2 years ago. It may have changed since then. But what you described is what I'm talking about. The Bellus is on their list of fish on their website...so I'm not sure what falls in to their "normal" list of livestock. I have to agree with you about their livestock. The fish they get in are very nice! I haven't been disappointed in them. The one thing that I've had a problem with is that they don't QT any tank bred livestock...at least that was their policy back then. I had some issues with some clowns I bought there...but other than that, no problems.

I've heard of a few...but I don't have personal experience with those. The one that I experienced was what made me stop doing business there. I wanted a Female Bellus angel. They look totally different than the male's. They told me if a male came in instead of a female, I would have to take the male. I told them I don't want a male and it should be pretty easy to get a female instead of a male because they look completely different. They said that it didn't matter and that I would get whatever came in. Well I don't want to spend $100 on a fish that I don't want! I tried asking a few other times and they all gave me the same song and dance. So I was calling every week to check and see if they got a female Bellus in. I think that it was a pretty dumb move on their part since every order form I've seen asks you to specify female or male. Maybe their supplier doesn't do that. I just felt that it was wrong for them to force a fish on me...and how many male Bellus fish do I have to buy and resale to get the female? Anyway, I went elsewhere. Oh yeah, there was another stupid policy about trading frags in for store credit. I told them what I had and tried sending them pictures. They said that I would have to bring them in for them to look at them. So I made the 45min trip there to find out that they just give wholesale prices....why couldn't they tell me that on the phone? Also, some of the frags could have been sold as grown pieces. I wouldn't have wasted my time if they would have told me on the phone. I was upset that I had to bring them in to get appraised when they could have told me that they always give you wholesale price.

No doubt...Eheim. They are pricey, but they are worth every penny. They are extremely reliable, efficient, and quite. If you have a 600GPH overflow, then I would get the Eheim 1260. That is what I have. You might have to change the adapter because it is metric, but it is very easy to do. Geez...it is very quite...that's worth the money itself!

You forgot to put the sarcasm tag around their prices Anyway, I sent the original poster a PM with some tips. Just to weigh in real quick. I really do like Marine Scene. I think their staff is friendly and willing to help/give advice. I've found their livestock (not corals) always to be exceptional. I stopped shopping there because I found F&F. Sean there is as nice (actually I would say nicer)...not to mention his prices are great. On top of that he has some of the most beautiful corals in the area. I do have to admit though...Exotic Aquatics does have some really really nice & rare live stock. However, I can't pay $50 for a Ocellaris Clown! On the flip side, their dry stock is pretty cheap. It's a drive for me, but it was cool to see the place...anyway, I think I just veered of topic..doh! Yes, Marine Scene is a nice place. I do like it a lot. The prices are a little much for me. I didn't mind paying that much because the service & people were good. I started looking elsewhere when the started stupid policies.

I had hair algae twice...one in each tank. I got rid of it both times very fast. Here is what happened in both scenarios. First Tank: I was a newbie and didn't know much. I had algae issues and after tweaking and changing stuff around, I got it to go away. First, I didn't have a good skimmer, the water changes weren't enough, and the flow was too low. Also my cleaner crew was insufficient. I updated my skimmer, stepped up my water changes, and added a Tunze. The biggest difference was the cleaner crew. I had a couple emerald crabs, blue and red scarlet crabs, turbo snails, margarita snails, cerith, and nass snails. The stuff disappeared pretty quickly. All of it disappeared except for a little that grew on one of my snail shells Second Tank: I was in 3 weeks in to a cycle and then my holding tank crashed (stupid cat). Anyway, I had to add my live stock all at once in to my main tank because I was going to loose it all. Anyway, I had diatom bloom. Mind you my cleaner crew is almost obsolete because of the tank crash. Then somehow my PH got out of whack (must have dosed 1 part twice by accident). Then I started to see a lot of bubble algae, hair algae, and cyno. It was getting out of control. I was doing 1/4 to 1/3 water change the first week. That helped a bit. Then the second week I added a UV Sterilizer and did another 1/4 to 1/3 change. That pretty much killed all the algae & cyno in the tank. I then scrubbed the rocks. The next day everything was gone and white. I'm still waiting on a cleaner crew. With a tank as large as your tank, I don't know how much scrubbing the rocks will help. I wasn't going to do that, but I had to get a sick fish out. So I had to take all of the rock out anyway. I thought I would scrub it to remove some of the dead algae. After I did it, it didn't look like I did much. The rock still looked green, but the next day, all of the rock was white (or coraline).

Nice addition! You probably don't remember me, but I was there when you stopped by to check on it....or maybe it was the first time. I was there talking to Sean about my Bellus When I was there I was looking at your angel. I was thinking, man if I had a bigger tank that would go well with the other angels in my tank I'm determined that one day I'll have a tank big enough where I can just make it an angel tank Anyway, good looking angel! Sean seems to be in the business of getting hard angels Hmmm....that seemed to start after I requested the first Female Bellus from him

Oh...that's the guy I talked to. He acted like he ran the place, so I thought he was the owner. Yeah, he was really cool.

I've been to Rick's a few times. I haven't been overly impressed, but I'll still go there time to time. I've only bought a Bulkhead from Rick's. It was a little on the pricey side, but I didn't mind too much. It was about the same price after shipping from the internet. The owner (I believe) sold me the bulkhead. He was really friendly. He asked about my setup and gave me some plumbing suggestions. He seemed to know what he was talking about since his plumbing suggestions already matched what I had installed :wink: As for customer support, I really haven't had a problem there. I've only been a few times. Some of their stuff seems overpriced and not that great looking. I can't really say for sure since I spend my money elsewhere. I know when I go to Frederick for aquarium junk in general, I hear a lot of people recommend Rick's. I might give them another chance if I were you. Also, I would ask for help next time. Sometimes people fall asleep at the wheel if you know what I mean Also, sometimes people don't ask because they know people don't like to be harassed. Now, if you look like you needed help and they didn't say anything, then that's another story. The fact that they asked you on the way out tells me that they noticed you, but were giving you space. They just failed to recognize that you needed help earlier.