astroboy

I have a reagent bottle that's been open perhaps 12-18 months 12 months past expiration date now and I suspect it's giving me bogus results: every measurement is around 110-120 ppm regardless of adding around 50 ml sodium bicarb every 3-4 days. There's a youtube video where a guy compares readings between a stale and brand new reagent and they give the same readings.... I'm out of reagent so I'll be buying more but I'm wondering if anyone has any insights into how long a reagent bottle is open/how long past expiration date affects measurements.

That's surprising to hear, since you can't take a bottle of water or a tube of toothpaste through screening (last I heard). I guess Homeland Security figured that anything with a live fish in it is harmless.

FWIW, three years ago I flew with a quart jar with two 2" clowns in it from Dallas to DC. The jar was in my checked luggage. In the bad there was a note from TSA to the effect that I was a bad boy but good luck with the fish. It is illegal to have live fish in your checked luggage, I'm sure that's true for carry on.

If you're lucky it might be lymphocystis. Look it up! No way to treat it except to make sure water quality is good but it's rarely serious. I had an established tank with nothing introduced for a year and a couple of fish suddenly showed up with ich-looking white spots; something must have stressed them. They had the lympho spots for a month and then it went away never came back. Their appetites were fine and they swam around as much as they usually did the entire time With ich that probably wouldn't have been the case. So if they're eating and swimming you might have dodged a bullet. Good luck!

Fairfax county uses chloramine. In theory chlorine removers like Prime will take out chloramine if you use enough of it but I've had no end of freshwater fish gradually dying and I think it's because Prime doesn't really do that well. I've gone to RODI with Equilibrium added for the fresh waters and haven't lost any fish in the last few months. I'd never put a chemical like Prime into my reef tank water. BRS sells an RODI stage that removes chloramines which seem to work fine as far as I can tell.

Just touching base, I'd like to buy the clownfish. Thanks!

Twin's Ace Hardware in Fairfax city will cut glass to whatever size you want.

I've only got a 90 gallon, I expect it's too small, thanks, Mark

How big are the tomato clowns? Thanks, Mark

Redid the move from SW to FW, pH monitor was off by 2, perhaps it's just my probe or meter but I thought I'd mention it.

Is it just me? I calibrated my pinpoint pH meter two days ago, read 8.2 in the reef tank which is within .1 of what it had read before (for weeks). I moved it to a 60 gallon barrel in which I mixed RODI water (ppm=0) with Equilibrium (3dkH) and seachem acid & alkalinity buffer to get a pH of 7.1, as measured by the pinpoint monitor. Left it there for a day, moved it to the reef tank, and now it measures 9.5. I had added some BRS soda ash to up alkalinity a bit, and that has raised pH from about 8 to 8.5, but 9.5?? Since this has happened twice, and since everything the reef tank looks fine, I'm guessing the monitor is at fault. I'm wondering if this a 'normal' occurrence in switching for SW to FW and back, or perhaps my probe is bad, or some other problem specific to my monitor.... Some online comments say you can do the switch, others say there's a chance there could be issues but no reasonable explanation why. Anyway, has someone else experienced this? Second point, this is more of a FW observation, about three years ago Fairfax county starting putting chloramine in the water. I figured that like chlorine it would evaporate but it seems like it hangs around more or less forever. I would top off my FW tanks with tap water and it never did any harm, I thought, but then I started losing fish here and there. Hence the move to RODI with Equilibrium. I also lost two elegances I had for years when my RODI went to 7ppm (undetected). I think now that was due to chloramine slipping thru the RODI process as opposed to a less than optimal RODI itself. BRS has a discussion on this. I did use Prime last year for a water change on my daphnia colony which was wiped out the next day. Prime is supposed to remove chloramines but I suspect that's not entirely true, even though my el cheapo test kits claimed no chlorine/chloramine. Just thought I'd mention it in case anyone is not aware of the switch to chloramine.

Thanks! I'm just wonder if someone could say "I've had 100 cherubs and never had any problems". I've had a few dwarf angels that are supposed to be 50-50 but they've all been good citizens. Anyway, if I do get a cherub I'll keep it in QT for a month with some expendables and see if they end up as lunch.

Thanks. I moved it a few days ago, hopefully that will work.

I've got two fox corals I've had for six or eight months. Recently, a hammer coral has grown enough that it's sometimes in contact with one of them which is looking pretty bad: the whole coral is dying off, not just the side near the hammer. The other, which is out of range of anything is, is more or less OK. I've had problems with alkalinity which I'm fixing which perhaps contributes. Anyway, does anyone know anything about hammer vs. fox allelopathy? Thanx! Mark

I'm thinking about getting a cherub angel (again) had one 15 years ago, stunning fish, and it never picked at corals (LPS) at all. I'm wondering if anyone in the club has any first hand experience about it *really* being reef safe or not... I'm not sure I trust everything I read on the internet but I've always gotten good information from WAMAS members! Just in passing, around that time my house lost power for four days during winter and aquarium temps got down to 49 degrees for 24 hours. I was able to move all the corals to a warm house when the tank started to cool but I couldn't snag the cherub. But it lived for at least six months afterwards with no ill effects that I could tell until a brittle star had half of it for lunch (unpleasant surprise). So, apparently at least some tropical marine fish will tolerate those temps for a short time, FWIW. Thanks to WAMAS I've since built a back up power system which has worked great. Thanks, Mark