SeanCallan

I have a chocolate chip star but he is food for the Harley

So, I picked up a Harlequin to find out she had a rather large clutch. Right now I'm not suited to care for them but I would be willing to give it a shot. I know how to set up a tank to care for her and her clutch but I lack the food sources necessary for the little ones once they hatch. I did a fair amount of reading today and found that people have very high mortality rates with brine and prefer to use copepods. If I wanted to move her to a dedicated tank and try to care for them, where could I find a large supply of copepods? Do any of the LFS sell them?

If you don't have the facility why not see if someone does. Maybe they could survive!

Conchs and sand sifting stars may help.

Why don't you spice it up a bit? Why not take some thing to think about what you want out of the tank and doing an overhaul? I'm sure theres plenty of people who could help or give you advice. It might just be as simple as reaquascaping.

Not sure what you're referring to. I handcrafted these rocks from sand and love. I only have my cell phone camera, I'll try again night, but it's usually really washed out and the reflections are bad. I need to dig up my old digital camera. I'll take one tonight after I make my new additions

I would try a new LFS to be honest. Bring a sample of your water with you to one of our sponsors and have them look at it. Explain your situation to them and what you're trying to do or what you had in mind. They're all very insightful (some more so than others) and they should be able to help you get your tank back on track and rekindle your love for saltwater. Where in Alexandria are you? I'm out that way if you need a hand with things on the weekend.

You mentioned the tank has only been running since the summer. The rock in my tank came from a long time established tank but I have so few pods I can't find them to count them. Just because rock is old and a tank has been running for a few months doesn't really dictate the size of a pod population. Especially if there are other fish in the tank, they may be eating the pods as well. Mandarins are not the only pod killers. It's always worth a try, but be prepared to take action if the pod population goes away and he is left without a food source.

+1 Without a refuge he could eliminate a pod community in a few weeks or days even. Safest bet is to find one thats already eating prepared.

I'm on my second week of Prodibio and I'm seeing good results but I decided to kick it up a notch. I had a little bit of algae left (visible in one picture) that I could not get rid of so starting 01/06 I started dosing VSV (1/2 teaspoon) a day. Today (01/08) the algae has almost entirely withered away. This weekend will be my third dosing of Prodibio and I will also start using Zeovit Sponge Power, Brightwell Amino Acids, Brightwell Marine Snow, and potentially Brightwell KoralColor. There is one new addition to the tank a Red-spotted Sandperch.

I probably have some stuff you can have. If you want to swing by some time you can go through my box of loc lines. Actually, you can go through all my extra aquarium stuff and take whatever you want (I don't have a lot, but there may be some things in there you want). That much less I need to worry about.

What parts are you looking for when it comes to 3/4? I definitely have 3/4 pliers you could borrow. I also have a hydrometer you can have.

What kind of Loc Line are you looking for? I may have some extra I would be glad to donate. Also, where are the pictures? You should know better, you can post a tank build thread without pictures.

There was a thread on here a while ago with a few people looking for Mini Carpets so I figured I'd let you guys know that there are some for sale on RC http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...hreadid=1540433

Structure and growth patterns work most times

Good deal. I was just reading a thread on the zeovit forums about the guys running wet and most of them check salinity twice weekly now. Just an idea if you want to continue to run wet :D

Hey James, It's rated for an average load of 80 gallons so you should be OK. If/When you're going to get back on Prodibio or VSV you'll start to see increased skimmage. I would look on the equipment forums on RC about getting it to run dry. With your tanks currently situation you want to be careful running wet as to prevent any rapid decrease in salinity which will have a big impact on coral health. There are a couple of threads about guys running wet on SPS tanks to drop nutrients only to have sudden drops in salinity and lose a number of SPS. If you're really concerned about it maybe another member has an extra skimmer rated for a smaller tank that you could borrow!

Not to further hijack but do Harlequins prey on sand sifters too?

Gem Tang's are on sale only 2,699.99! http://www.liveaquaria.com/diversden/ItemD...&ddid=48106

wow, for some reason I figured getting scratches out of glass would much less hassle. I'm going to go ahead and set the tank up since the whole point behind it was a small cheap tank that could support an anemone. I filled it with water and turned the lights on last night and you can see the scratches, but they aren't HORRIBLE. So it'll do for now

That stuff is neat! I've been thinking lately that I want to dedicate some DIY time to building a USB 600x microscope so I can play around in my aquarium. It would be fantastic to see the kind of bacterial cultures that exist in Zeovit, NeoZeo, and Prodibio. Theres always been a debate (with Zeovit at least) that there may not be any.

Sweet setup! I've always wanted a mantis tank

I love to sit around and watch Blue Planet The Deep and Planet Earth. When you start to look at the numbers we know more about space than we know about the bottom of the ocean. It's amazing the things we continue to find in these environments. Extremophiles are AWESOME!

Wow, thanks for all the information. The scratches are very very shallow. You can only seem them if you look at a certain angle. I think in my early aquarium days I may have used something like a dish sponge to clean the tank and ended up with the little scratches. I guess it's not really worth worrying about. I'll give it up with water and see if they're bad and go from there! Thanks

So I gave my JBJ 12 a vinegar bath to clean it up but that exposed the extensive scratching on the glass. Is there a straight forward simple method to remove scratches from glass?