lanman

Not much pressure against that end of the tank... I have a baffle - so if I don't top off, eventually that end of the tank (where the pump is) dries up... I figured to drill it when it only has a few inches of water in that end. Good idea on the particle-catcher inside... should be easy to rig up. bob

Here's what my flatworms look like: Although I can't find any recently... bob

I am changing the way my system works... would there be any reason NOT to drill a hole for a bulkhead in my ACRYLIC tank while there is still water running through the system? I will be drilling above the water level (output side of refugium - I can just let it evaporate down a gallon or two). I mean - the bits of acrylic that might fall inside the tank should be very few drilling from the outside with a hole cutter. Will it hurt anything? bob

Judging from Emissary's pictures, you don't really need to. They seem to get along pretty well Take bigJPDC's warning to heart. They are toxic. You can search the WAMAS boards to find out how NOT to deal with them. Wear gloves and goggles and keep your mouth shut... the best way would probably be to take a very small chisel and chisel out a piece of the 'rock' that it is attached to, then super-glue it to something. For small operations, on reasonably soft material, I use an x-acto knife with a chisel blade. Some of them propagate themselves very well - to the point of becoming a nuisance. bob

I think perhaps it's a little confusing... favia's usually grow by themselves; create their own rock, so to speak. When freshly fragged, they have a bare spot on their skeleton, but they eventually cover that with polyps. If you have a paly growing on the skeleton that the favia is going to cover, I would suggest removing it to another location. Although - a favia with a palythoa growing out of the middle of it might be interesting. Favia's are somewhat aggressive, putting out 1-2" sweeper tentacles at night; so it might very well kill the paly before it ever becomes a problem. bob

How squishy is the one on the left? Does it have any substance to it? The one on the right looks a lot like dragon's breath macro algae. The one on the left looks like a montipora digitata Okay - it has the SHAPE of a montipora digitata. They are probably both macro-algae's. Someone would probably like to put them in their refugium. bob

Yeah - back corner; and I am placing corals now, and it doesn't look like anything is going to need to go there, so I may just let it propagate up the back of the tank. Easy fragging! I WAS going to put it a little further forward where it's easy to see. But I suppose once it's grown up the glass a ways, it will be plenty easy to see. bob

In the long run, it won't matter; you'll have to do it over and over. Whenever you get frags, inspect them closely, but you'll still eventually miss some. Same with aiptasia - about all you can do is control it. bob

I think Jason lurks a LOT... bob

My turn! I had a frag of a monti-digi that about 2 weeks ago turned completely white. I tossed it down at the end of the frag tank with the empty frag plugs and small rocks I use for mounting frags. Today - it started opening up polyps! What's scary - last night I drastically increased the flow-through on that frag tank. I wonder.... bob

I think the 'darkness' of the blue isn't as important as the 'sparklies' in the stems. At least that's the idea I've gotten from searching for pictures on the web. Speaking of xenia - my pink pulsing xenia has been a perfect tenant, until I stuck him back in a corner for a couple of days while arranging my tank. Now he's stuck to the glass in about 4 places....I'm going to have to scrape him out of the corner. bob

What would be the absolute minimum amount of rock one could have in a system and still have good water quality for corals - given good, over-capacity skimming. I know with bare-bottom tanks, the objective is to never HAVE any nitrates by getting rid of all the organics before they can become nitrates. bob

Me, three! I want one for my tank! bob

Sometimes, especially if the rock is soft - you can just kind of pluck it off, or pick it off with the tip of an x-acto knife. Other times, it's a real bear to get loose. If you break them, the little pieces float around and create new ones - so when possible, it's best to do it in a container of tank water, and then get rid of the tank water. bob

And STN is Slow Tissue Necrosis... at least with STN, you can usually salvage frags. RTN can happen between the time you go to work, and the time you come home. And it seems to be caused by any number of things. The only experience I had was when a mushroom zapped a little spot on my staghorn. It seemed fine for a couple of days, and then overnight it was dead and white. bob

Don't forget, if you're parting out - to put it in For Sale with some prices. AFTER you run out of PM's of course. bob

Po4 on all three systems is 0 or 0.3. Measured No3 in the nano, and it is 10ppm. But it's always 10ppm. The nano doesn't have a skimmer. It's been lower - 2.5 sometimes 5 ppm - but it's usually 10ppm. Alk is now finally down to 3.5 meq/L (about 10 deK). Mind you things have changed since the pictures of my fuzzy brown algae. That was the 45-gallon tank, which is sitting in Grav's garage now. I have had only the faintest bit of brown algae in the 58 - and what's odd is that the frag tank/refugium from the 45-gallon system, running by themselves, don't get any algae, either. The refugium has a decent sand bed, but the sand bed in the frag tank is still only about an inch or so - and it probably only has about 30 pounds of live rock (total system is about 50 gallons). It now has the T5 light which was over the 45-gallon tank, and the 58 has a new 6-bulb T5 fixture. So while I'm still sure SOMETHING isn't quite right with the nano system, I don't know what it might be. I wouldn't call my salinity and alk swings 'rapid' - I lowered the salinity from 1.033 to 1.027 over the course of about 3 weeks, with 1.022 salinity water changes, and the occasional half-gallon of tank water in exchange for a half-gallon of RO/DI. The alk was up to 4.5 meq/L - and two weeks to get it down to 3.5. Rapid enough, perhaps, to cause some trouble. bob

He listed two from you... the first and second ones. bob

Cool - definitely an idea; width and depth of box would determine how big the 'wave' was going to be, too. Size of pump filling the chamber would determine frequency of wave, etc. Very simple, straight-forward design. I like it. bob

Dave - did that surge device keep on working, and stay together all through the couple of years you had it set up? Did it do a good job? Seems simple enough - I'm guessing it empties into the tank using a siphon action. Did it cause a burst of air bubbles at the same time? I don't think a 58 would be a bad choice for a frag tank. Now a 45 is DEEP; a 58 is just deep. I have short arms, and I can reach to the bottom of my 58. When I had the 45 set up, I almost had to take a swim to get anything off the bottom. bob

Just got to thinking - I've never posted any pictures from my 24-gallon tank before. The pictures you're thinking of were probably the 45-gallon tank, in which I was running a bag of Rowaphos, and cutting the photoperiod back to try and get rid of brown algae. I moved everything into a 58, and have MUCH more water flow in it - and so far so good. In the 24, my eyes tell me that the 70W MH HQI light is a lot less bright than it was when I got it in December. And I didn't run it much until January - long, nasty cycle with fresh live rock only. So it's only been running regularly for 5 months. Do some MH bulbs just lose a lot more light faster? Could a weak light bulb contribute to 'bleaching'?? bob

If cleaning the glass is an indicator - THAT tank doesn't require that I clean the glass but maybe a touch here and there once a week. And that's usually because someone is coming over to see my tanks. Stays clean very well. The 45-gallon tank needed to be cleaned almost daily. So far (fingers crossed), the 58-gallon tank I put the 45 into is staying clean as well. I'll track No3 and Po4, and see what it looks like. But not tonight - I have a date. Thanks! bob

I'd have to measure them all, but I do know that the Salinity was high - on the order of 1.033 for quite a while; until I got a refractomer. It is now down to 1.027. Alkalinity has been higher than I like to run it for several weeks - on the order of 4.5 meq/L. I've gotten that down to about 4.0, and working on 3.5 (which I like). I haven't measured in a week or so, but CA has always been around 400. Just measured pH (with test kit - didn't feel like dragging the meter up there) and it said 8.0 (lights haven't been on since last night, except to take that picture). Knowing my test kit, the meter would say 7.9. That is one of my oldest frags. I think I got it in January - and within days the 'blue' had been replaced by a red background. I'm not SURE this is from the same colony as pictured above - I got it from Leishman, and it was a 'rainbow monti' - the frag of which was just sitting on a frag plug on the bottom of his tank - in the front. I think I paid $40 for it. I was SO new, that I didn't know what a rainbow monti was supposed to look like, other than it had multiple colors - and I liked it. I believe you that something is wrong with my water - even though I can't really pinpoint it. Things live and grow well in there - nothing has died; and my monti cap has grown over an inch in every direction since I put it in there in January - my first coral, even before the rainbow. However, I've never been happy with the growth of certain corals in there - especially zoa's. They live, and they grow, and they spread - but much more slowly than in my other tank. The blue zoa's grew from 7 polyps to 9 polyps in two months. The ones downstairs grew from 10 polyps to 30 polyps in the same time frame. A 'green' monti cap has grown very slowly (at the edge of the bright area), although a tiny piece of the same monti has been growing quite well. They turned from green to yellow-green when I put them in there, and have stayed that way. Some pink/green palythoa's have not thrived in there - having about the same number of polyps as they have had for months. So I agree there is 'something' wrong - but all of my numbers are consistently within guidelines, except as stated above. Maybe someday I'll figure it out. Meanwhile, nothing dies in there, and eventually it grows enough to frag it and put part of it in the other tank. That rainbow monti, while it hasn't retained its color - has grown very nicely - much more than doubling its surface area since January - probably more like quadrupling. If you have clues, hints, tips, or suggestions - I'm all ears! bob

Okay - I guess there is a little yellow left... but not very yellow. bob

Rik - if that's the same rainbow I got from you - it looks completely different in my tank (12" under a 70-W MH on a 24-gallon nano). When it first started growing it was all green on red (the blue disappeared almost immediately). Now that it's down and spreading on the rock - it's all red polyps on a red base - no green left at all. In about another month, I'll be splitting it, and half will go under my much brighter T5's. Be interesting to see what it looks like then. I'll get a picture today when the lights come on. bob