Mich
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Posts posted by Mich
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I started a 156 gallon reef back in february of 08 with the intention of making it mostly inverts and coral with a sparse community of small to moderate sized fish. The original two inhabitants were a royal gramma and a sixline wrasse; later I added two juvenille maroon clowns. While initially, all the beligerance in the tank was purely maroon on maroon, things ultimately changed as the two became quite friendly and also sexually dimorphic. The female in particular is getting quite beastly, and as of last week she's killed the royal gramma (the first fish I put in there). The sixline's been gone for a few months and now my entire 156 gallon is a two fish tank.
My main issues are; I don't want much more than 4 or 5 fish, I don't want anything large and dirty (I.E. Tangs). Whatever I get must be small or medium sized, non reclusive, reef compatible, aesthetically pleasing, and most importantly; not likely to incur the rage of my female maroon. Keep in mind my maroons are still pretty small (the female in still under 3" and the male is right about 2") however they're right about to that point in their relationship where they're begining to blossom into monsterhood. I would really appreciate some input from anyone out there who keeps mated maroons with other fish. I fear that if I wait too long I'll miss my window, and adding anything else will be impossible.
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nice build, keep us posted as it gets filled with eye candy.
Will do.
Also, I just realized the link for my video isn't working anymore so I'm going to try posting it again;
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseacti...ideoid=57641402
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The theory which makes sense to me is that many sps corals, particularly many table forming acropora are genetically pre-programmed to self destruct. They grow to excess until they receive the right form of environmental cue, then they die off and become substrate for other organisms to grow on. What these cues are specifically are probably varied. I would imagine in the wild that a colony that becomes so dense and massive that sufficient current or light can't penetrate it's interior, then it might reailze that it's served it's purpose, and shutdown.
In aquariums, inadequte flow and lighting likely trigger a similar response in much smaller younger colonies. In my experience when spontaneous die off occurs in aquaria where lighting and current are ideal, it often involves a small peice of rock or substrate geting lodged within a colony and smothering the polyps directly underneath it, or algae or jelly is growing on the exposed skeleton where damage has occured or a frag was recently taken. I've also seen a couple weird cases of algae or vermetid snails taking up residence in spaces where coral barnacles had died, also apparently triggering an irreversible chain reaction. I think a lot of sps just don't tolerate prolonged contact with foreign material.
What ever the worm algae is; if it was wedged in there somewhere for a long time and nothing blew it away it might have aggrevated adjacent tissue enough that their cells blew the apoptosis horn, but hopefully not. Is the dead spot still spreading?
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Neomeris annulata; I had one growing on one of my trochus snail's shells once. I thought it was a worm too. It looks a lot like the leuchloridium sporocyst that forms on land snails.
No idea about the tissue loss though, it cold have been anything. Sometimes a more fragile sps will get damaged in just the right way and all the other polyps in the colony go through reactive apoptosis and die. I read a lot of people throwing out the term "Random Tissue Necrosis" as a vague description of rapid causless die off. Best thing to do is keep the Neomeris away from the affected colony and wait too see if the dead tissue continues to spread. If it does and no parasitic or pathogenic culprit can be identified you may have to pull out that colony, maybe see if you can frag off and save the healthy bits.
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Looking Good. It looks kinda empty in there...are you planning on getting anymore live rock?
Thanks. When I initially moved all the rock over from my 55, I was shocked at how little space it took up. I went from a tank that had entirely too much rock, to one that looked like an underwater dessert. However, over time the more I thought about it, the more I sort of like the extra space. I have lots of open surface area on the sand bed for gas exchange, and I have almost no difficulty at all in accessing the glass for cleaning. Ultimately I think see the system continuing to be a mixed reef with the same minimal amount of rock in the main display, I'll have a few colonies of hardy fast growing staghorn that over the subsequent years shouldl utlize the abundant vacancy for verticle growth. If over time this presents biological / nitrification issues then I likely will add more, but ideally to the sump and not the main display.
Nice Set up.If your into DIY, you could probably replace those existing CFL's with T5's. Maybe a more cost effective approach than buying another MH/T5 combo.
Btw, Lol on your signature
I thought a lot about gutting my Nova Extreme and swapping both ballasts and all eight tombstones into the aqualight, instead of the two CFLS. Assuming maximum luminous efficacy, the difference between 192 W putting out 14,400 lumens (current CFLs) versus 208 watts putting out 20,800 lumens(T-5s) is about 38 %. While that definitely seems worth it I have to remember that originally I had only two lights being applied for actinics which was only producing a maximun 10,400 lm. So, effectively I've still already increased my actinic luminosity by 38% with the new fixture. And considering that my metal halides are are putting out a likely 57,500 lm on the 10k side, I'd say that the fixture is adequate as is, if not a little spectrally imbalanced. It might make better sense to switch to 15Ks and leave the compacts the way they are, but I've already hurt my brain with this enough for time being, and my Nova Extreme has already been commited to lighting the bluegill tank in my office. I guess I could buy icecaps or comparable retro parts instead of tearing apart a perfectly good fixture though, but then that would involve spending more money.
Thanks, I think I like snails almost more than coral and fish. They're both delicious and fascinating.
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Update; It's been about Eleven weeks now and my only major change has been the ligth fixture. I got rid of the Nova extreme with the T-5s and got a Coralife Aqualight Elite with two 250 watt 10k Halides and two 96 watt actinic CFLs. I really wanted to go with a t-5/halide combo like the outer orbit, but most of those were a little more money than I'm willing to spend right now. But, so far I'm happy with the Coralife (which cost less than $500 on clearance from Drs. F&S). Here are some pics;
I've also been adding livestock gradually over the past couple months. Inhabitants include, but are not limited to;
2- Paired Maroon Clowns
1- Royal Gramma
1- Sixline wrasse
1- E. quad (hosted in by the Maroons)
1- Mystery Open Brain (sold as "Wellso")
1- Brown Staghorn Acro (looks lik A. intermedia)
a few- zoanthids
a few- mushrooms
1- T. maxima
lots- snails
lots- red leg hermits
lots- Emerald Crabs
2- peppermint shrimp
2- Serpent stars
This is a link to a little video I made, breifly going over some of the stuff inside;
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=57641402
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I definitely reccomend gettng a new one. These are one of my all time favorite reef tank fish since there very active and can frequently be observed grazing pods and other bugs off the rock work. They are often very good at controlling many types of marine flatworms as well.
While it's possible that giving it too much rich frozen food could have made it overly satiated and less inclined to eat flatworms and other micro fauna, it will still feel inclined to eat them when it gets hungry again. Just make sure your husbandry practices are good, the new specimen is healthy, and your adding it to an appropriate system.
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What a bummer that place was so convenient. Just a five minute drive down Briggs Chaney. I hate to see them go. I geuss I'll stop by on my way home from work and see if there's anything left. Does anyone khow how long the liquidation sales been going on already? Is the SW livestock completely gone?
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Pros of Mauna Kea: summit bragging rights, amazing views of nearly the entire island, a completely foreign version of "typical" hawaiian landscape, and the possibility of snow in the last place you'd expect it. there's also a nice side-trip to a lake near the summit. relative solitude on most days. neato astronomy buildings at the top.
Cons: you start at 9000ft and go up to 13000+ over the hike - so if you're not used to altitude, you're gonna be feeling it a lot more than you normally would. the temp swing is brutual. last time we were there, it was 85 on the beach, and snow flurries at the summit. As with most high points, the view is often obscured by clouds. Probably a day hike, but you won't do much else that day.
You can, of course, just drive up there, assuming they haven't blocked that off for some reason. Hawaii loves to do that. Not quite as adventurous, but less time consuming and views without the alitutde sickness can be a big plus.
Can't blame you for going on the cheap. Wish I had connections out there to get some cheap lodging. Don't even get me started on the chicken problem. Only on Kauai...
Thanks again this has been really helpful. I'm pretty sure now that we're going to do Mauna Kea. If per chance you run into those notes of yours, or remember anything else let me know . Like I said, I've got a whole ten days.
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Three tables on the north shore is a great dive but the north shore is only flat in the summer. In the winter the surf's up!
But that's in Oahu, isn't it?
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any tips for Kauai? Heading there next week for 5 days.
'The Dolphin' in Hanalei has some of the best ahi I've ever tasted, and you can order a whole steamed artichoke as an apetizer. I didn't do any diving or snorkeling while I was there, but the waves on the east coast were awesome.
Also watch out for the wild chickens which cross the road and the people who are strung out.My Step-Brother caught one...
A wild chicken that is, we steared quite clear of the strung out people.
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talk about old thread bumps...
If you're doing the summit trail hike to Mauna Kea, it's worth it imo. Also, check for stargazing opportunities at the observatory. Careful on Saddle Rd, the locals drive like nuts and many insurance companies don't want you to drive parts of it.
If you haven't done Thurston Lava Tube, you should consider doing the hike to and through it.
South Point and the green sand beach east of it are worth a visit.
A quick hike is Akaka Falls. Boiling Pots are a neat stop.
It's been a while since we've been there, and I spent so much of that in VNP that I have trouble remembering much else. Kauai is my favorite of the islands, so we mostly go there. I'll have to dig out the old trip notes and see if there's anything else I really liked.
Thanks so much. We did Thurston Lava Tube last time. However, the people I'm going with this time have never been at all, so it's likely something I'll do again. I'll make it a priority to check out everything else you've mentioned as well. It seems like 75% of the people who go reccomend the Mauna Kea summit, what would you say are the specific pros and cons?
I think Kauai is probably my favorite island too (so far at least). However, I have a free place to stay for ten days on the Big Island, and unfurtunately, cheapness has a tendency to often be the deciding factor in determining where I go on vacation. Anyway, on the big island I'll probably get to sleep in later without the 5 am cock-a-doodle-dos which are typical of kauai.
No Maui??? Everytime I have been to the Hawaiian Islands, I have had the best time on Maui. In my opinion, I think it has the best combination of adventure, nightlife, and solitude.I've never been to Maui, but I'd love to check it out. I had a co-worker who went recently and said it was great. As soon as I'm provided with a convenient and affordable opportunity to go; I'll be gone.
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Do you have any recommendations for the big island? I went island hopping the summer before last; four days Oahu, three days Kauai, & three days Hawaii. This time though, I
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I agree, if you have a newly setup display system that's been sitting idle for a few months without fish, there will likely be no cryptocaryon or other ich causing species of cilliates within. If you have an established QT system that's setup all the time with hyposalinity and otherwise pristine water quality and you hypo treat every new addition that goes into the main system without fail, then that would most likely be an effective way of preventing protistan parasites from entering your main display. However, this obligates one to constantly abide by a very strict quarantine procedure.
Also, while it seems to me that this is an effective means of preventing marine ich and other white spot protistan diseases exclusively, it does not help the specimen being quarantined from contracting secondary bacterial and fungal infections from stress induced by multiple acclimatization periods. That being said, you are only endangering one quarantined specimen and not your entire display community.
I don't think there is much of a debate about whether or not hyposalinity works, it definitely killls the bugs. However, I'm new to this community and prior to joining WAMAS and checking out these forums I didn't have much contact with other serious hobbyists. I'm finding it very suprising how certain topics like hyposalinity have such a universally accepted consensus. Not that hypo is not effective if applied correctly in appropriate circumstances, but to me it seems like a lot of people are misapplying it and at the first sign of white spots they're dropping their already sick fish into inadequately sized, poorly established systems and sealing their fate.
I'm very sorry for cabregos loss and I hate for anyone to have to deal with the death of multiple, beautiful, expensive pets. However, it suprised me that the majority of responses to the original post mostly advocated putting the tang back into hypo when it had just been recently removed from a hypo system prior to the onset of ich. I've found that if the fish is still eating and the water parameters in the main system are ideal, then nine times out of ten it will beat the ich (I have seen the one in ten a couple of times though). In eleven years of keeping saltwater aquaria I've never had to deal with a break out of ich in any of my at home personal systems and I almost never quarantine. I've found that if you maintain reef quality water parameters and buy healthy looking feeding specimens which have already been pre-quarantined at the lfs (always avoid mail ordering) and are adding them to appropriately sized and stocked sytems, you generally wont have any issues.
Granted, this advice is mostly applicable to smaller scale hobbyists like myself, who are only running a couple medium sized systems in their homes. If you're a professional running a retail business and you're unloading boxes of ten dollar, atrociously infected, yellow tangs from Segrest Farms every week, you have no alternative but to quarantine aggressively. But, then again you're also less likely to be as emotionally affected by the death of three individual fish.
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It also makes sense when you want to keep your display tank free of ich, which is typically a good thing for people who value the lives of their other fish.
Lowering SG enough will kill all the reproductive stages of cryptocaryon, just as it will kill most other marine invertibrates and protists. However, removing an infested animal from a display system and putting it in a seperate hyposystem is really only treating the animal and not the display. You'll be killing the tomonts on the animal in hypo, but your display will still be full of free swimming tomites. Waiting for the tomites to die of starvation can take in excess of several weeks or months. Do you really want to keep a fish in hypo that long? You might think that UV sterilization will expedite this process, but in my experience it doesn't. These things hug the rock and the substrate and only a minority of them are getting pulled into the plumbing.
Consider that most people slap their Hypo Tanks together over night using small aquaria and minimal filtration. Stress tends to be the factor which causes fish to become suceptable to infection in the first place. It seems only reasonable that the stress of putting an animal in this type of system is only going to exacerbate the pre-existing stress which facilitated the original infection. Unless one has a constantly setup, loaded, large, fully cycled, +six month old hypo system, then it's not likely that this technique will yeild high levels of success. I think for the most part, I tend to agree with Zygote on this issue.
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2' could you imagine? especially if it was a smasher like smithii, wennerae, and the like. Forget 'thumb splitter' more like a skull 'crusher'.
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Check phosphates and silicates. Do you have a TDS meter on your RO unit? You might need to change your membrane or catridges? Usually diatoms preceed bryopsis in a new system's sequence of algal succession.
Also, I'd reccomend adding about a dozen astrea snails. Usually if you have a persistent film of any type of micro algae it's due to the presence of some form of decay or leeching. Excess nutrients that are being produced are assimilated by the micro algea at a rate equal to that at which they're being introduced into the system. This is why tests for these nutrients usually prove negative. Try to maintain a population snails that can keep up with your rate of nutrient import and microalgal growth. Some snail waste will contribute to the growth of more microalgae, but a fair amount of it will also become skimmate or be utilized by the chaeto in your sump. What micro algae does persist will keep your snails from starving to death. Add more snails as needed until you find a balance.
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This is what my clownfishes have been doing for the pass couple of days. I hope they dont end up eating each other.
HAHAHA... "Mucho peleo los nemos". Lo siento, entiendo como esta...
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Match up the wattage and the S number and you should be fine, the electrons overseas are still part of the same quantum universe as the ones here, they shouldn't know the difference. You probably want to replace the capacitor as well, as these usually go bad more often than the ignitors. Buy them from a regular lighting company and each should cost less than $15.
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I have two M80 ballasts that power the 250 watts in my coralife elite fixture. From what I can see the fixture only has the mogul base sockets built into it with hot and neutral wires. It appears that the ignitor circuits are built in to the ballast as is typical with pulse start MH fixtures. In addition to the magnetic steptup transformer there is an ignitor and a capaciotr, either of which (probably the capacitor) could be bad. Did you buy it used?
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I get flatworms often. Usually they last for 3 or 4 months and finish eating whatever is sustaining them and dissapear. If you have so many of them that they're shading out your lps, you could throw in a six line wrasse. Most will eat flat worms in my experience.
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from what I understand, purple up is basically calcium with some other trace elements such as Mg. Just be sure you're testing for whatever you're dosing. personally, i would return the purple up and continue on your old regimen - keep your Mg around 1300, your Ca around 450 and your Alk around 9 and you'll get plenty of coraline growth.
Thanks, right now I'm hitting those numbers almost dead on. My coraline also seems to be adequately prolific. I'm just somewhat attracted to the notion of fewer bottles to keep track of. I'm looking for some personal accounts of someone who's used the product. Can I put my iodine bottle and magnesium sulfate to rest? What about things like essential reef elements, strontium and molybdenum? Has anyone ever used just the purpleup with a carbonate buffer for an extended period of time with positive results? Is this a recipe for disaster?
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I just bought a bottle from petsmart on an impulse. Anyone have any experiences (positive or negative) they can impart on me? Does anyone know exactly what's in it?Do I still need to dose calcium and Iodine seperately?
It says it has "10 Micron Aragonite" which adds stontium and magnesium... I usually add essetial elements, Iodine, and strontium molybdate when I add calcium (usually when I'm below 400 ppm). I add epsom salt solution when my Mag tests less than 1200. How does one reckon purpleup might impact my dosing regimen?
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If it's the typical 36 X 18 X 21" then 6" of water would be about 16 1/2 gallons, or a hundred and forty pounds or so. You'll still have about 350 lbs of water in there plus rock, glass, stand and hardware. So maybe 500 lbs? I'd say it can probably be done, but I wouldn't try it without some help if I were you.
Suitable tank mates for a Beastly Pair of Maroon Clowns
in General Discussion
Relatively speaking, all fish are dirty. Tangs tend to get big, and require that I clip big sheets of constantly disintegrating Nori and the like to the interior of my system. Which makes them dirtier than most in my mind. Not that they're boxfish, but they do tend to be messy in my experince. With the kind of system I like to run, one tends to think of a protein skimmer as backup redundancy. To have very large or very numerous icthine inhabitants in my system would require a good bit of redesign.