mogurnda

A couple of thoughts. First, based on my experience with pod infested tanks, and from the literature (which I am working on tracking down again), most small arthropods (cope-, amphi-, and iso-) have a relatively high survival rate going through centrifugal pumps, so I would not worry as much about that. Second, if you don't believe me about the first statement, an airlift will indeed do the trick. In trying to devise a slug-friendly circulation system, I have played a lot with airlifts, and you can get substantial, gentle circulation with just an airstone and a length of PVC pipe. Two issues, though. One is the obvious salt creep from the fizz. The other, which is kind of obvious when you think about it, is that a length of tube with bubbles traveling upward can become a protein skimmer. Not necessarily a problem, depending on the arrangement, but you can have a contraption that periodically belches out brown glop if you aren't careful. I dare you to share an idea that is half as dumb as some of my experiments.

Dang, Chip, you must have been 4 or 5 years old at the time. Did you have an adult help you build it?

What a fantastic use of resources! Good job.

I will need to sneak up on them some early morning. I am at UMd now, but they have some pretty nice facilities in College Park. Still, it's hard to convince them to let me use it without coughing up money.

Great images, Dave. I always enjoyed working with the EM, because you can just keep turning the magnification higher and higher, and you keep seeing more stuff. At some point, I need EM of the teeth of an unidentified (to me) slug species.

Old ones. They were so bad, I swore I would not waste more money on Red Sea products. Looking at the prices of the Pro line, I don't see a reason to shift from Salifert.

+1. I keep trying other brands of kits, but always go back to Salifert. Generally easy to use and read. Never tried Hanna, but my experience with Red Sea has been uniformly negative.

That's tricky. Hopefully, the seams will not have been damaged at those points. If it were me, I would cake silicone there. I would also test fill it for a few weeks after the silicone has set.

As if things were not bad enough for T. gigas, the reduced supply of elephant ivory has driven the Chinese market to using giant clam shells for decorative objects. The link is a summary, but the full article is a good read for anyone who has access to the journal. Not only are the harvesters overfishing the clams, but they are tearing up the reef to do it. Science: Clams on the Brink

Dang! It's a sick feeling when you hear the crack. What she said. Elbow grease and attention to detail.

One thing that seems to make a huge difference is sewage. So many islands, including many of the Florida Keys, use septic systems. That makes little sense when you live on a limestone island with porous rock. Nitrogen and phosphorous move rapidly into the ocean. One of the things the Dutch government did when Bonaire went back to being part of the Netherlands was to install a proper sewage treatment system. We have been amazed at how much better the reefs look after a few years, especially the Acropora. The reefs are subject to many insults, as people have described above, but the nutrients from untreated sewage can have a large impact.

Excellent. Time to figure out what to post to get this thread locked

Had not considered that. Excellent info, and definitely not a derailment. Fired up the generator this morning. Works great, but I hope I don't need to use it.

Thanks for the offers, Scott and Alan. I guess it's moot at this point.

Hi All, I would really like to give some Ochtodes and various corals away at the meeting, but I need to work that day. Would anyone be willing to carry them to the meeting? I can drop the box by your place, with everything labeled for the new owners.

Nice looking setup. My experience is more like Squishie's. My anemone is dinner plate size or bigger (depends on mood), and has only split once in about 8 years. At that time it was massively stressed due to partial system failure while I was away. It produced about four progeny, the last of which finally got re-homed last night. Now I am back to just one (yaay!). From what I have seen and read, there seem to be at least two kinds of BTA, one that gets really big, and another that splits often and makes big colonies. People who keep multiple kinds of BTAs will probably have something more intelligent to say about that.

What he said.

I have re-used sand quite a few times. If it's still live, I give a thorough rinse with clean SW to get rid of debris. I always expect some sort of algae bloom whenever a tank is disrupted and gets out of equilibrium, and keeping the sand does not seem to make a difference one way or the other.

I think it's also unusual for someone to have a lifestyle stable enough to keep the same tank for that many years. I had my first SW tank in 1984, but life got in the way: 8 moves from 1986 to 2000, in 4 states No time 1986 to 2000 (grad school to the end of 2nd postdoc) No money 1986 to 2000 (same reasons). I always kept at least one FW tank, but SW had to wait for marriage, money, and mortgage. What I see when people leave is usually a change in lifestyle. -Kids arrive, and priorities change -Moving -Divorce -Too much travel for work -Lost income I am lucky that I have had the time and resources to automate as much as I can, so that the tank will watch itself when I am buried by work or out of the country. I am even more lucky to have a wife who does not divorce me when a derecho sweeps through when I am off the grid in Baja .

Never rinsed. Seems like a waste. The sponges agree with me.

I suppose it means I should get psychological help, but my first thought was "Mmmm, pretty. I wonder if the palys in my tank could sustain them."

What they said. I am not really sure where one crosses the line from "clean" to "dirty." I have always fed my tank with a shovel, and have learned that, when things get out of whack, you can still get heavy SPS growth with NO3 up to about 50, as long as there is adequate light and stable Ca and HCO3. However, (again, my experience only) growth comes to a screaming halt when PO4 gets anywhere near 1 ppm. Usually, my heavy growths of sponge and macroalgae keep NO3 and PO4 below measurable levels, and I don't see a lot of difference in growth or color between "somewhat dirty" and "clean". Light seems to have more of an impact. When I shifted from halides to LED a while ago, growth slowed considerably, but almost all the SPS showed more interesting colors. The growth may also be slowed somewhat by the fact that I added a small school of coral beauties at about the same time I changed to LEDs. PE is minimal on some of the corals because of the angels' occasional nipping, but I like the fish too much to even think about getting rid of them. It turns out corals can survive and grow just fine when their polyps are retracted a lot of the time. Chasing numbers and micromanaging seems like a bit of a fool's errand. My goal is a stable, manageable system that looks like a real reef. I have seen a lot of members come and go on this forum, and it seems as though the ones who follow the Big Trends the most closely tend to have the shortest half lives.

Love the gorgs and the fat turtle! I can't wait to be back in warm water.

Thanks for posting. I always wondered if this was a real problem.

Bicarbonate is cheap, and my pH is high enough already (8.3 to 8.4), so I do not want it to go any higher. This is for the macroalgae tanks, which consume CO2 and carbonate pretty rapidly (use a Ca reactor on the reef). I used Arm&Hammer for the last batch because that's what was sitting around.