astroboy

Hello. I have a bubble coral that's outgrowing its niche so I have to remove some of its neighbors. I'd like to replace one of them with an acropora, perhaps. Does anyone have any experience with what corals are resistant to bubble stings? Thanx!

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding here. Are you saying that the auto topoff keeps the sump water level constant enough that you can keep the skimmer tuned OK? But that after you refill the sump it goes haywire? On the occasions I've drained my sump and refilled it with new water I've had to run the skimmer at bit for the correct surface tensions to reestablish themselves. We're talking maybe an hour or two here. You do have to turn off the skimmer while the water level in the sump changes.... From the sound of things, I suspect your return pipe is too far below the water level in the sump. Any sort of significant backpressure (or buildup in the air intake/venturi) will make turning much more difficult.

The outflow from the euroreef skimmers is supposed to be above the water level of the sump. I used to have mine 4-5 inches below the sump water level and I found that it was alot more finicky. I trimmed the output to be 1/2 inch below the water level and I haven't had to adjust it hardly at all. Possibly that's a factor.

I had what was sold to me as a green crab, and when it got to be about 2.5 inches across I had some small fish turn up dead with large chunks bitten out of them, but otherwise completely undamaged. As soon as I got rid of the crab, no more fish with pieces missing..... I think the jury would convict...

Oh, I certainly didn't mean to imply for an instant that your measurements (and other people's observations) weren't correct or well thought out! If it sounded that way I apologize! I was getting hung up on the notion that having water in the tank would probably let more light out. In my job for the past year we've had alot of things that we thought were minor effects come back and bite us big time months later, so I've just gotten into the mode of nitpicking everything to death without any regard for reality.

As Brian said, generally the thick edge of the grating is down, which will tend to scatter the light sideways (and out of the tank). If you put the thin side down it will tend to reflect beams going "sideways" "down" to some degree. As you say, you'd tend to get a (slightly?) more uniform illumination. You're right, this is a diffusing effect, although the increase in uniformity comes from light that would have lost thru the front and sides of the tank. Of course, the crate itself blocks some of the light, and the more I think about it the more I'm sure there's a significant overall loss. It sure looks that way to my eye, for my tank. However, just eyeballing the rock wall at the back of your tank to judge its effects might be misleading. This is a really squirrelly problem.

I checked out the egg crates I use on my two aquariums and all happened to be thick side down. I had a look at thick vs. thin side down. Overall, its hard to see any difference. However, I could see that a few dark spots in the tank, such as the corners and some nooks and crannies between the rocks were significantly better lit with the thin side down. I need to know a little optics for my job, and a few calculations indicated that having the thin edge down would tend to channel the light downward, as Calfo noted, so on paper it seems reasonable. I found a website somewhere that cites him as saying that thin side down increases brightness by 25%, thick side down decreases it perhaps 10%. The eye detects light logarithmically. That is to say, even though the sun is 400,000 times brighter than the moon, the eye perceives it as only about 13 times brighter. An increase in brightness of 100 is seen by the eye as a 5X increase in brightness. This allows you to see pretty well in both very dim and very bright light. The eye is quite a piece of engineering. A 25% increase in brightness would be hard to see, unless you were doing a side by side comparison. On the other hand, channeling light straight downward would likely light dim areas between the rocks quite a bit and you'd probably be able to see that pretty well. Having said all that, it seemed to me my tank was overall dimmer with the eggcrate than without. Obviously, the eggcrate is going to block a certain amount of light since its rather opaque, perhaps 10%, so you've lost some right there. However, without the eggcrate less of the light is directed straight down, consequently, some of the light towards the front of the aquarium will be directed backwards, both from the bulbs and reflection from the front glass. This would tend to illuminate the face of the live rock more than just having the light directed downwards. So, your live rock wall might get more light without the eggcrate, but at the expense of the dark corners. So... Calfo might be right. It would be interesting to see some actual measurements, including the amount of light coming out the front of the tank.

Greetings coral comrades! I have a 75 gallon tank, 360W compact fluorescents, of which 120W are 10K, the remainder are actinic03. I have some bare spots in the live rock, 8-10 inches below the bulbs, which are just begging me to put acroporas there. Does anyone have any insights as to whether the lighting is sufficient for acros, or are they most likely just to brown out and not grow? Thanks!

I float the coral in tupperware in the tank and over a 2-3 hour period swap the old water for the tank water. From just general reading I have the impression that a 1-2 hour time is generally sufficient to acclimate corals, e.g., the acclimation instructions on Dr. Mac's website. I used to do a slow drip but of course the water the coral was in would cool to room temperature. Floating the coral and changing out about 10% of the water every 15 minutes seems to do fine.

I float the coral in tupperware in the tank and over a 2-3 hour period swap the old water for the tank water. From just general reading I have the impression that a 1-2 hour time is generally sufficient to acclimate corals, e.g., the acclimation instructions on Dr. Mac's website. I used to do a slow drip but of course the water the coral was in would cool to room temperature. Floating the coral and changing out about 10% of the water every 15 minutes seems to do fine.

Greetings coral comrades! Ten days ago I bought a long tentacle plate coral and a small duncan from one of the more reputable LFS. Did the usual 2-3 hour acclimation, at the end I did a 15 minute dip in Lugols solution, probably twice the 40 drops/gallon that the bottle recommends (accidentally). Since all my other corals are fine I presume that it was the dip that is the problem. I'll mention that I've done Lugol's dips in the past with mostly no ill effects. I think now that 40 drops per gallon is too much, I think I've lost a few LPS over the years because of that. 15-20 is probably best. The duncan seems to be coming back, the tissue that survived is expanding a bit in the last 24 hours. My question is about the plate. About 25% of the skeleton disk is naked now, with the surviving tentacles about 50% somewhat expanded, the rest only minimally expanded. Doesn't seem to eating at all, shrimp, mysis, or ORA pellets. Does anyone have experience with plates coming back from the semi-dead? Any advice on how to help it along? Or should I just chuck it before it becomes an elevated nitrate reading? Thanks! Mark

Hi. A toadstool leather I've had about 18 months and which has doubled in size during that time is in the process of sloughing off a fair-sized chunk of the cap. I mean, one of the cap "lobes" is in the process of falling off. Is this a normal method of reproduction, or is something wrong? All the other corals and fish, and the toadstool itself seem happy. I did do a 30% water change yesterday after running Slime Away (antibiotic to get rid of a minor but irritating red slime algae problem), also upped the Mg from 1125-1200 this morning. Thanks! Mark

On the Lugol's bottle it says the ingredients are potassium iodide and iodine. I've read more than once that inverts, especially shrimp, require iodine to molt (or possibly iodide, I'm not sure offhand). I've been dosing my 75 gallon with three drops of Lugol's per week for the past year and my shrimp molt every 3-6 weeks, happy as clams from what I can tell. In the entire year prior to that when I wasn't dosing with Lugol's I think they molted once or twice. In any case, adding Lugol's seems to be doing no harm to anything....

I'm thinking about adding Lugol's solution to my 10 gallon kalkwasser reservoir, which is hooked up to an automatic top off system, to get more even levels of iodine in my tank. Does anyone know if this is OK? I wondering if there's some exotic chemical reaction between iodine and kalkwasser compounds that I've never heard of..... Mark

I try to feed the plate very small pieces of shrimp which will easily fit in its mouth. Its always been on the sand, in a medium current. I had another plate in the same spot which loved it there, so I'm inclined to think the conditions can't be that bad..... (I've since moved that plate to another tank where it continues to do well).

Hello. I've had a plate coral for a couple of months now and in the last two weeks I've realized it's on its last legs. There's very little tissue around the skeleton, to the point where I'm not sure if it can swallow anything. Everything else in the tank is doing well. Looking back, I can't recall it actually eating any of the small chunks of shrimp I've fed it, although at the time I assumed it was doing so. Now I'm thinking it must have been stressed enough that it stopped eating, and now its emaciated enough I'm afraid it can't eat even if it wants to. This evening I shoved a small piece of shrimp into its mouth and so far it hasn't expelled it. Is there anything else I can do, anything to feed it that plates find irresistible? It's really a beauty, I'd hate to lose it. Thanks.

This is great! Thanks very much.

Hello. I need to bump up the Mg in my tanks, and the jug of Tropic Marin Bio Magnesium that I have says to add such and such a number of scoops to up the Mg by such and such amount. Somehow, I've managed to misplace the scoop and darn if I can find anywhere how big it is. Can anyone give me some idea? Thanks!

I have the capacity to store about 100 gallons of salt water, and I'd just as soon stock up before the winter: no basement in the house, have to mix everything up in the garage, which during the winter means freezing problems with the water in my RO/DI unit. I don't want to find that after six weeks all the calcium etc has precipitated out, so I'll have to waste the money and time to fiddle with additives to get the pH and chemicals back where they should be. Better just to mix up a 2-3 week supply during warm spells.

Hello. I was wondering if there were any problems with keeping salt water around for a couple of months in a sealed container before using it. I'm using Tropic Marin with RO/DI, aerate for 48 hours, put in the mix, circulate/aerate for another 48, then siphon into 7 gallon plastic jugs and screw the top down tight. Do things tend to precipitate out after a long time, say six weeks to three months time frame? Thanks, Mark

Thanks Brian. I'm doing a run to HD this evening so I'll pick some up. I have some aquarium sealant, but I'm very sure it won't work for what I want to do.... Thanks everyone!

Well, to be more specific: I want to make a chemical filter out of one of these clear plastic containers with a white screw top: in this case, a one-liter container that held seachem ph buffer. I want to attach the output nozzle from a rio 600 pump to the white cap, I'll drill holes in the other end of the container and fill with chemi-pure. (A crude version of this idea works amazingly well with activated charcoal). Super glue doesn't work well in joining the nozzle to the cap, neither does plastic cement, (the kind you use on airplane modes), nor does the stuff you use to cement acrylic together. So, I thought I'd give loctite epoxy a try but I'm having second thoughts about possible toxicity. Better safe than sorry. I guess enough people in the hobby fiddle enough with PVC that PVC cement must not do any harm. Does any know otherwise, or have any other advice? It would be much appreciated! Mark

Hello. I'm gluing together some plumbing parts that will go into my sump, using Loctite Quick Set Epoxy. It's one of those epoxies that come out of a double plunger that you mix together. Does anyone have any experience with this stuff; will it kill everything in my tank? On the directions it says: "Will not bond to polyethylene or polypropylene products, or prolonged immersion in water" Hard to tell with the poor grammar, but this sentence seems to imply the epoxy will eventually leach into water.... Thanx, Mark