Integral9

that's bad. The large pincers are strictly for defense. CB shrimp (and many other crustaceans) have little pincers on the ends of their front legs that they use to carry food to the smaller arm like things by the mouth which act as food stuffers and stuff the food into their mouths. I don't know if they have those smaller pincers on the back legs. As long as the shrimp can get food to the arm like things by it's mouth, it should be ok. If it can't do that. it's probably doomed.

I kept a mandarin in a 55g with a 20g sump / fuge for several years. I had about 50-75lbs of LR. Fish included: coral beauty angel, scopas tang, black clown, green chromis, purple firefish and randal's goby. Also had a randal's pistol shrimp and a blue indian coral banded shrimp. The fuge was a pod factory and my mandarin was never hungry. All fish will eat pods. It's like candy to them. imo: keeping a dragnet goby requires an established tank (1 year or more and stable) and a refugium for a pod factory. Otherwise, there is a very good chance the dragnet will probably starve to death slowly. Size of tank doesn't matter too much. They key is providing enough food for it as they are not competitive eaters (they will not get into the feeding frenzy with other fish) and prefer to only eat live food. I also kept a red dragnet in a 29g with a 3g (iirc) hob fuge + protein skimmer for about 2 years. With him i had a naked clown, green chromis, griessingieri goby (flaming prawn) imo: most important thing is to have a refugium to grow pods. I recommend seading the fuge with tiger pods or some other kind of live copepod product.

Crustaceans can regrow appendages. Typically this happens with the next molting.

Oh man, my mouth is watering. I'll bring the hot pepper sauce and chow-chow (not the dog). I'm pretty sure I can resurrect my deep frier and make some fried okra too.

Thanks, I was going to try and airbrush poly onto it with my hobby crafter airbrush. I figured it would require some kind of coating to protect the tank from aluminum poisoning. But good to know what you used.

I like your beer can. Next time I find one at the beach, I'm going to bring it home and put it in my tank. :-)

Tank personality wars: 1) We want a tank that kicks ass. 2) Shut up. Don't listen to him. He doesn't know what he's talking about. I want a tank that's conspecific. 3) (smack) Don't listen to him either. He doesn't what he's talking about. I want an fish only tank filled only with inhabitants from Palau. 4) (hits w/ a frying pan) Don't listen to him either. He's an idiot. That will limit our stock choices and make us have to spend huge money importing rare stuff. Just do a Fiji tank. 5) (thump) Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. I want an Atlantic only tank. 6) Hey look at that SPS, that's looks great. I want that. And that LPS, and that, and that, and then... That's how I envision how most people's tanks, myself included, have evolved.

My cat loves to eat buttered peas. I'm pretty sure she'll eat anything with butter on it though. After all, butter IS the secret to life.

Hehe. Kinda looks like Daffy Duck when he's mouthing off. Nice pic.

That's the worst looking & most awesome looking hippo I've ever seen. Wow... I agree with the HLLE diagnosis. Try stopping the chemical filration, do a large water change and see what happens. I think you should start to see improvements in a week or 2. http://www.advancedaquarist.com/blog/activated-carbon-affirmed-as-causative-agent-for-hlle-disease I was checking out your sump in your pics and it looks like there is room for the GAC to fluidize (move around). Fluidized GAC, imo, is the cause of HLLE. I would take out the reactor to determine it though, rather than trying to stabilize the GAC. Once the fish are doing better, then I would think about using the GAC reactor again. But only if I could firmly hold down the GAC so it won't move about . btw. Is that a can of Cheesy Poofs you are using for a Kalk reactor?

I'd keep the sump and just plumb in the 55 so the sump is the common area. On my old 55 I used a Mag7 for a return from my sump / fuge. You could get a pump to feed your deltec from the sump, but I think you might be better off getting an in-sump skimmer.

I don't mean to poopoo all over this in the vendor forum. This is very cool. The price is just high imo. Considering I can get a Roomba for $400 and it also has a vacuum motor, collection bag and more intelligent mapping software (to avoid furniture legs), this is just priced too high, imo. I think a more appropriate introductory price would be $199, with a price drops to $149 after the year or so. When the next generation comes out, price drop again to $99. A few questions though: Does it leave tire / tred tracks on the outside of your tank? What happens if it falls or your kid pulls it off the tank? Is it water proof in case I spill over my tank? Can I turn off the blinking light?

I can buy a lot of snails for $300.

I always have problems with my camera focusing on the glass, not what I want to take a picture of. So to get around that, I put the lense so close to the tank that it cannot focus on the glass (usually right up against the tank). After that I pull the images into Picasa and do a quick white balance / contract balance and post it. assuming I remember to take the images off my camera..... edit: I miss being able to manually focus a camera.... a camera that doesn't cost an entire paycheck.

Refractometers are sensitive devices. The mirror (I'm assuming) is set on a spring with a screw to change it's angle. Dropping it, bumping it hard or just even shaking it can cause the mirror to move around and thus loose it's calibration. Keep your refractometer in it's foam box and don't drop it, shake it, or even give it a stink eye, and it should last a long time. Hydrometers are error prone due to micro bubbles sticking to the arm. In addition they require regular use to be consistent and accurate. I think hydrometers are good for people who test their tanks every day or are in the service business as they test several tanks a day with it. Keeping them wet and letting a bio film build up is key. But if you are like me, and I think most people are in this case, and don't test your SG very often and mainly use it to test your water change water, the refractometer is what you need. Just need to be careful with them or they will fall out of calibration. fwiw: My refractometer has seen more than a few years of work, been dropped, banged, shakin, etc and should probably be replaced. The paint is peeling off and the aluminum housing is oxidizing. When I look into it, it produces a blue area, and then a thin blue line. The thin blue line is the correct reading I've discovered after comparing it's results to what Johnny's digital hydrometer read out at BRK. I think the mirror is cracked or something, but since I know where to look, I just go with it.

I made 3 of them for my tank. If you get / have some extra corner peices, you can make the frame go around the openings. It doesn't make a perfect hole, about the smallest you can do is 3" x 3" sq. as you are limited by the size of the corner peices. If you choose to cut them down (which is fine) you can make smaller holes. To go around overflows, over the top return lines, etc, you have to flip the corner pieces over so they will make an "inside corner", as opposed to the outside corner they are intended to be. This presents 3 problems. First, the pieces are keyed, so you will have to cut off the part that is the key so it will fit into the frame w/out using a hammer and deforming the frame slightly. Second, the bottom side of the corner that has a little notch for the spline to go through, is now on the top. No solution for that. Just leave the spline the way it is. I don't recommend cutting it as it weakens the grip the spline will have on the screen. You could super glue it in place though. Last, the additional sides on the frame make it difficult to stretch the screen across and keep it taught while you insert the spline into the groove to secure the screen. My advice is to start with the long straight side that will be the front. Get that on the frame straight then go to the opposite side and work from the middle to the edges doing a little at a time. hint: Use the squares to make sure the screen is on straight on the first edge you do, that will help you line up all the other sides. Leave the screen material intact until you finish pushing all the spline in. Then use a razor to cut away the excess. If you are uncomfortable with the size of the openings because of the corner pieces (3" x 3" is kinda large), you can super glue some egg crate to the screen frame to close the gaps a bit. Alternatively, you can just make the screen a little short so it doesn't quite reach the back (so it won't interfere w/ your overflow and you don't have to modify anything) and then just super glue some egg crate to the frame to extend it to the back wall and cut away the pieces that interfere w/ your overflows.

Well, since I don't (didn't) tumble the carbon (I don't use carbon anymore and am switching to biopellets), I found the smaller sized particles from the 0.8 micron ROX to be more problematic as it clogged up my reactor faster. It literally only took a couple of days before the flow through it was reduced to a trickle. Yes there is a difference between the various carbons. Some carbons have large holes, some have small holes. The large holes trap the larger bad stuff, but miss the small stuff. The carbon with smaller holes, traps the smaller stuff, but misses the larger stuff. ROX carbon has a good mix of both types of holes. So it's very good carbon and traps both kinds of contaminants. It's also much lower in dust compared to the other carbons. I just don't like it because it because my reactor clogs up quickly. BRS has a good video and explanation of the different types of carbons on their website. How long have you been tumbling it?

I feel carbon is a use as necessary option. It is generally good to use, but if you let your reactor get clogged up you just create a problem. fyi: You generally don't want the carbon tumbling in the reactor. It is supposed to be packed like you would pack DI resin. The tumbling causes bits to break off eventually they get into the water column and that is what is believed to be the cause of HLLE. I think the jury is still out on what exactly the issue is, but I think there is evidence that shows a correlation between tanks with reactors that have carbon floating around and fish w/ HLLE. In the same experiment, the fish in tanks w/out the carbon moving around the reactor and fish in control tanks w/out any carbon, did not develop this problem.

It's the scientific term for Iron (Fe). The word Ferrite is usually used when describing just about any iron (ferrous) magnet. Which is a bit of a misnomer since ferrite magnets are typically an iron alloy. fwiw: Koralia informed me that they use neodymium magnets (at least in their 1400s), which have a plastic casing around them. Once that casing cracks or if it has a bad seal, salt water seems to oxidize it well.

+1 aka, Hot Tub.

The pools I dealt with that had stains, never shut their pumps off either. The minerals just drop out of solution anyway. Circulation may help reduce the amount of stain build up, but that just means more excess minerals are in solution. We used to treat the pools with a chemical that made the iron molecules clump and then the filter would remove them. I doubt a similar solution is reef safe. There are some sort of "hokey" solutions out there though, like magnets that clamp on to piping that may or may not do anything.

Hello haters. I've been expecting you. 1h 22m. Good response time, but you all can do better. What if this whole movie is about Dory escaping captivity? Maybe that's why she is so <bleeped> in the head. Do you think that would have any effect on people putting tangs in small uncycled tanks?

sounds like we aren't going to have marlin or nemo in this one. Which is kind of a bummer imo. I felt Elen and Albert Brooks played off each other very well.

If that is the case, then it's probably excess minerals being deposited after the salt + rodi reaction. You might be able to clean it with straight muriatic acid. Take the vat outside first. You don't want to stick your head into it and breath the fumes. You may not come out. edit: fwiw: Muriatic acid is what we used to clean mineral stains off of pools.

Finding Nemo Sequel coming in 2015: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1704879/finding-dora-movie.jhtml