Lee Stearns

Majano-slower but just as painful as buble algea.

I used to keep a large textile cone in my tank in Hawaii and in Japan to solely eat the cowreys that I wanted to keep- very efficient hunters and eat the the flesh without any dammage to the shell. Neat to see them track down and home in on a cowrey- then they have a hollow tube hypodermic needle like that they inject thier poison with. They usually use once and then grow another. The cowrey limps off and then the textile cone would follow the slime trail for his meal when he caught up. Might seem a bit sadistic- but it is just nature and really neat to watch.

Jason- Think about this long term with the tap water. If you are replacing evaporated water from your system to maintain salinity, then over time the chlomides and other heavy metal toxics build up. No matter how many water changes you do dilution can not get you out of this. It is like Magnesium in reverse, If your system is using some magnesium - you can never get back to the correct balance (without 100% water change all at once)- (not advisable or feasble for the critters). your only answer is add the trace element. (Note that with Magnesium- if you have low Salinity it will be difficult to raise magnesium if you are testing for it.) I have taken down too many 3-6 year old tanks that were essentially pickled and not able to maintain anything but the hardiest of critters, aptasia, majano, some crabs and snails that were using tap water long term. Most of your LPS and SPS corals just need more pristine water than that. Your experiment, because this hobby is more art than science, but giving anyone setting up the impression that they can or should follow suit is wrong. Regards, Lee Stearns

Agree that at some point a SPS heavy tank will require either daily dosing or a calcium reactor. The testing indicator for this move is when you can not maintain your alkalinity. Some rapidly growing corals such as the green bali slimer may actually start to die without alk and calcium maintained at thier proper levels. Once a good Calcium reactor is set up and tweaked right, it is really as much of a fire and forget peice of gear as this hobby has. If you do not want this type of set up - I would go more heavily into LPS and softies with only one or two SPS specimens.

hopefully the battery air bubblers wil get me through if power does take a hit.

the first issue I look at for a bleaching event is normally a heat event- usually tooo hot, but rarely it could be too cold. Note temp gages are notorious for going bad over time- good idea to have two gages and maybe a glass thermom to back them up. I would also note that it takes a significant amount of time for the corals to recover from a heat driven bleach event. I have had a sunset monti, and pavona take two months to recover from a heat bleaching event when the tricolor acro had recovered at about a month and the digitatas, and plating never were totally effected, just lightened up. Phos can create a bleaching event as well but less often, and corals recover from a phos spike a bit quicker after you bring down the phos.

yep I have had my pair for more than 5 years and there are ties they disappear for up to two weeks, even when I had them in a 12 gallon nano (they are now in a 54 corner)- It would be strange if they both died simutaneously with all other tank inhabitants doing well. how the corals look are a key first indicator of water parameter problems.

Aquairum coras by Eric Borneman. Selection, husbandry, and natural history is tough to beat

I started the same way thinking balance PH by running fuge on reverse cycle of the main tank lights. It works as my son conducted a high school lighting experiment on cycles using two nano cubes as closely mirror stocked as possible. Of note copepod production is a bit better with some lights off time. I actually run my main tank's fuge reverse cycle but maybe 18 hours. On my 54 corner and many other tanks I have seen the fuge lights are run 24/7. It can not hurt as a step to bring down Nitrates- but one must keep their chaeto trimmed back to allow room for it to grow. When it gets too thickly matted it slows down its growth. You can add a bit of calurpa which grows much faster than chaeto, but is not stable and should be used sparingly for this purpose in the fuge. I also run a bit of carbon which is not just for Nitrates, but believe that carbon can be and often is over used, which is why I do not list it in my things to lower nitrates. Nitrate sponges are also effective if you are fighting a large algea bloom due primarily to nitrates. Purigen is one that I favor if that is the case- It can be recharged using bleach then thouroughly dried and reused several times. But I would not like to depend on it long term. Just MHO Regards, Lee

sounds like a group buy on a good set would be in order

yes that is what I would call teh green hairy

1)use nothing but RO/DI for top off 2)good skimming, 3) macro algea in a fuge growing 24/7 4)top off water goes through a kalk reactor of some type to keep PH up 5)and of couse calcium and alkalinity balanced in appropriate range 6) DSB(6inches or more) is more of a preference and IMHO should be relegated to the refuge if desired. 2-3 inches seems the mixed reef standard for most peoples viewing tank. It and works well a a buffer, bio diversity area, and nessecity for many wrasses and gobies. These will keep the nitrates in check in order of priority that I would install them- I am talking the 0-3 PPM range. If you are running any bio balls I would list slowly removing them at the top of the list. I have not come across a mixed reef tank that will not balance out in the 0-3 range doing the above. Water changes will move the tank in the right direction if made with RO/DI.

I have many green hairy and a few blue hairy of the same species. the green out grow the blue ones of course- I have only seen the blue ones in a few members tanks in the area.

I always have rotifers as well if you are in my area. I used to grow green water But Reed mariculture's cryopreserved algae as ctenophore says is much much easier. Just PM me if you need some

I concur with Garret- If it is in a tube it is probably a snail- but acts more like a tube worm, the two antenae are actually the feet of the Vermetus snaill which fishes for bacteria with its mucous lines- reels them out when the tank is stirred up and then reels it back in to eat.