FearTheTerps

Yep, Pacific East is great place, Dr. Mac and Kyle wont steer you wrong. The shop is amazing, its mostly coral but they do have good prices on fish as well.

Welcome to the club. As Doug has already said it really is worth it to join the club as a full member. Since you dont currently have a set up you could probably find a complete system here for sale. Seems like someone is always upgrading or getting out, you are sure to find a great deal and make back that 20 bucks very fast.

tank size?

Wow, thats a strong reaction. Travis wasnt trying to be a jerk, he was just stated what most of us were thinking, I too find it hard to believe that an emerald crab took down a healthy tang. Even with the crab grabbing ahold, the tang should have easily been able to knock him off and swim away. Travis is one of the good guys here, he was not trying to hurt anyone feelings. Lots of people in wamas are good friends in real life and not just here on the boards. Without you knowing him you might take his sense of humor the wrong way. Just be glad that Rob hasnt posted anything here yet

Really? You're recommending a puffer fish for a noob? To the OP, easy to care for fish that dont require any special feedings or problems with other tankmates Clownfish - many different species to choose from. Generally its good to have 2(buy them at the same time- except for maroons which for a noob i would avoid to start with) Gobies - again many different species and color variations to choose from. Cardinals - PJ Cardinals and Banggai cardinals are the most popular. They do good in groups of 3 or more. Hawkfish - The flame hawkfish is my favorite fish, lots of personality and a very vibrant red color. Wrasses - Good addition of color in a fish only tank, but they are prone to jump, so a cover or canopy is neeed. These fish can also be troublesome when first added to a tank, they tend to hide for long periods of time. Blennies - Very good at eating algae in the tank, active and fast growing. If you dont have algae you should supplement their diet with some nori (algae sheets) Dont add all the fish at once, its a good idea to wait several weeks in between adding fish. Fish to avoid. Tangs - For that size tank its too small for tang, they need lots of room to swim, a 4 foot long tank is too small for most tangs. Damsels - Sure they are cheap. but they generally mean and very hard to catch when you need to remove them. Puffers - did I mention that already?

At least it wasnt a toilet

Looks awesome Travis, great job. When you said you were making a canopy I was wondering why you doing that for a rimless tank. Never would have thought about making a floating canopy for the light fixture. It gives it a very clean look which goes great with the rimless tank. Will have to do this if I ever get the rimless cube I want so badly.

local hardware store, jusy buy glass and they will cut it to size, shouldnt cost more then 10 bucks for a few baffles.

My thoughts are why does it have to be so detailed, does TOTM really need to be that involved? Interviews? Photo sessions? Do we really need that? Make the interview a questionnaire like the Who's Who in the newsletter. As far as the pictures go why doesnt the tank owner just take the pics. We dont need a pro to come and take photos for every single winner. This frees up alot of the time that everyone seems to complain there is not enough of. Its just a simple contest where nothing is really won except bragging rights. Heck, dont even call it a contest, call it a show case. Select someone at random and just let them talk about their tank. doesnt even have to be a pretty tank. To me, a simpler or watered down version of TOTM is better then none at all.

Get a 5 gallon bucket, fill it with tap water and dump into your container. Do this 8 times so you put 40 gallons in your 44 gallon container. Mark the waterline with a Sharpie. Install Float Vavle at water mark. You dont want to place the water mark at the very top of your container, Leave room for water to splash around when you mix your salt,or for displacement if you need to reach in the container when its full.

As far as POTM goes it kinda lost interest, and I got a little frustrated with it because of that. We have tons of people in the club, but we only get a tiny handful of people that make a submission. I think the last month it was done there were only 3 submission for the entire month, the month before that we didnt even have as many votes as we had submissions. This seems to happen every year, the same exact thing happendend the last 2 years about the same time of year. We get busy with summer activities and the traffic here to website starts to fall off a good bit. When it got really slow I took a break for a few months and then started running it again near the begining of the year. This year I really tried to get as many poeple involved as possible, making the topics pretty simple so that anyone with any amount of experience could participate. I also tried to push the fact that we give away raffle tickets for the meetings, for nothing more then to try to lure people in with a prize. That seemed to work for awhile, and it was great meeting members at the meetings. Im open to any suggestion any has on how to change things, and as always please send me topics you think we should try. The last few months we had were all topics that people suggested. If anyone also wants to help I wouldnt mind that either, Its not really that much work, only about 30 minutes a month, but someone with fresh ideas couldnt hurt.

Like Tom said the open top of the container is the "vent", but if you want to be able to clear the line you will have to add another vent. If you dont add this second vent when you close the valve at the bottom water will be trapped in the pex tubing. Even if you installed another valve at the top on the storage container water will not flow without the second vent on pex tubing because of the suction created. Think of when you place your finger over a straw in a glass of water, the water stays in the straw when you remove it from the glass, the water doesnt flow until you remove your finger. Of course none of what I said really matters if you dont care about clearing the tubing. I'm guessing if you have a 75 gallon container you are making pretty large water changes. The tubing will only be holding about a half gallon water and shouldnt have alot effect on your water changes.

Sorry Paul, I reread Plaster of Paris twice lol. Very interesting ideas.

Ive been in the market for a few banggai as well, I have notice the last several months there havent been many for sale ( at least in the places Ive looked) maybe this was just a coincidence though. At least there are fairly easy to breed in the home aquarium. Anyone in the club still breeding these??? I know sharkey18 was before she had her tank crash and lost all her fish.

it says the voting ended today, probably sometime this evening

With the proper filtration(and acclimation) I dont think you would have a problem keeping 2 clowns in that tank. Ive seen lots on instances were breeding pairs of clowns were kept in 10 gallon tanks.

If it were me i would put everything into the holding tub until you have the new tank ready. No need to acclimate the fishes twice, moving from one tank to another can be stressful enough.

Unless you want to breed them you dont really have to do anything, just enjoy watching this new behavior your fish are doing. The eggs will just become some really good food for your other fish. In the future if you plan to raise some theres a great book that will give you alot of the information you need to do so. Look for Clownfishes by Joyce Wilkerson. Ive read the book 3 times now from cover to cover and still havent bred one fish yet. Theres also alot of memebers that have or are breeding clownfish, Im sure they would be more then willing to give you whatever information you need.

Seaclone Mods Step 1 Place seaclone in large bin. Step 2 Place large bin next to curb that night. Step 3 Retrieve empty bin from curb next morning.

First of all, thanks to everyone that contributes to the newsletter. I think all of the articles have been great, I look forward to reading many more. The only thing that bothers me is that the issues are so far apart. I read the entire issue when it first comes out, and probably only read it one more time until the next issue comes out. Have there been any thoughts of increases the number of issues? I think bi monthly would be great, its only an increase of 2 issues per year so it doesnt seem like much more work (although I dont know how much work you guys put into this, and no Im not volunteering either sorry) Another idea I had would be to have out meeting speakers write up a short article about what they are coming to talk about, could get some more people to the meetings to hear about a interesting topic.

I dont have a splash guard on my t-5 tek light and I regret not having one installed. I had lots of spray on the bulbs and the refelctor even with having it hanging 8-10 inches above the water. Now my reflectors are very dull and spotty looking from corrosion. Im not that worried about my fixture since its a 6 bulb over a 55 gallon( overkill just a bit) but if I ever put this fixture on another tank I think i will have to replace the reflectors. The tek light came with the splash sheild as an option and I was too cheap to spend that extra 50 bucks, now its gonna cost me double that if I ever replace the reflectors. If you already have the shield I would just use it and clean it often, it might be a pain in the butt, but its alot easier to wipe down the shield then it is cleaning all that salt spray off the bulbs and the inside of the fixture.

OMG too funny, when I watched the first vid I had no idea that was Snorkel Bob, Ive read his rants and everything but never seen him before. Needed a good laugh today, thanks.

+1 on the cerith snails, they are the only clean up crew i have in my 55, but i have a few hundred of them. they keep everything pretty clean except for the bubble algae Im sorta battling now.

Bump, will keep open till sunday night

I wanna know why Doug keeps scheduling the socials on the same day as Maryland home football games