Matt LeBaron

Cheap netting top kits from BRS. Pays for itself the first time it saves a fish, I highly recommend it.

My daughter was kind enough to add the random "b" to the beginning of the topic of this post but it doesn't appear that I can change it now... Ah well...

So it occurred to me a couple of weeks ago that I hadn't taken any pictures of my tank in a while and my SPS colonies are finally getting to a good size now so I took some and thought I would share. My tank newly setup after we moved into our new home in September of last year. (2012, if your reading this in the new year) And then the tank this October a bit over a year later: I added a bunch of frags over the year but you can see the green Milli poking out of the rock on the left in the first picture and how big it has gotten in the second. The pink Palys and my Pipe Organ coral have also both exploded. The Gorg has filled out a lot too. That green Milli I was talking about above 3-19-2013: And then it on 10-20-2013: Couple of other Acros that I have, they're all small frags that I picked up over the year that are all growing well now: And some of the macro shots I took, my first attempt at it and honestly I really should let my wife who went to college for photography do this stuff: Bonsai: Blue Milli: Green Milli: Red Planet: Purple Clove Polyps: Pipe Organ: And just because I had a good shot of them and really love when I see them my gobies and pistol shrimp:

And fewer tolls, seriously I know you can likely get around some of them in Virginia but if you're not familiar with the area (like me) you end up paying like $10 in tolls making the rounds to stores there.

Frederick is a bit closer to me so I'm actually kind of happy to hear that. It's tough in MD to find good stores like A1 in the more northern area of MD.

If it really starts to become a problem then you basically have to manually remove as much as you can being careful to not break the bubbles (or better yet removing the rock, cleaning it, rinsing it off and then putting it back in) and doing it on a really regular basis to basically remove it faster than it can grow, eventually you can over come it for the most part. Having said that though you need to improve your parameters like ridetheducati outlined but I have found that even then it still manages to grow a bit. I have a real problem with it and have gotten it under control but it seems to grow when almost no other type of algae is growing in my tank. I guess it's better at nutrient uptake than other types or the available nutrients in my tank suit it better than others.

Basically there are two types of dimming, PWM and Analog. From what I can tell you will need a ALC for your ReefKeeper to control the lights and it uses an Analog signal. So on the RapidLED site you will want to get the "D" version of whatever driver you decide to get. The "D" drivers use analog, while the "P" drivers use PWM. The letter for the type of driver is at the end of the name, so "Mean Well ELM-60D" for example.

If you want an easy DIY option check out Rapidled.com, you can opt for their solderless LED's with a predrilled heat sink; it's a cheaper alternative that is very easy to put together. I have a quick build thread from when I put my kit together here: http://wamas.org/forums/topic/56428-rapid-led-75g90g-led-kit-build/?hl=rapidled I couldn't be happier with the results either, it's funny I took a look at the tank picture I posted in that thread and my green acro on the rock on the left side of the tank that is barely poking up over the rock there is now so big that it's about to break the waters surface, so the lights work well.

Very interesting article on Seahorses by the BBC. Check it out here! If you've had seahorses you've heard their "snick" sound when they eat but this is an interesting article. My goofy seahorses are "ferocious and ingenious"? Not so sure.

They cater to people who have more money than sense. I stopped watching the show after about the first 6-7 episodes because I was so disgusted but you'll notice most of their customers are companies or some type that likely just replace the fish as they die rapidly. The two episodes that I watched that stand out for me the most was the one at the casino, where at least as far as I could tell they just used tap water to fill the tank and then tossed in the salt mix and then less than 12 hours later the fish. According to the show it all happened in a single night. The other one, which was just animal cruelty as far as I was concerned was the half pike tank they made for the skating company, because I'm sure those fish appreciated having the noise and movement of skate boards flying over them constantly. I was at the Annapolis Mall last night, the tank looks like it is doing ok, I think most of the fish in it were there the time before I was there so I think they're taking care of them now.

Really seems to good to be true... This just seems like to much of a leap to be true.

Thanks for posting this! I think I may put one together, I'm always hedging on whether I want to buy a backup but just could never spend that much money on one. With it being this cheap and being a bit of fun DIY work I think this would be fun.

My wife and I are also members of the national aquarium. It would be nice to maybe see more tanks there with live corals. If memory servers there are only two right now.

Welcome aboard, glad to see more people up north a bit.

I have a filter sock in my sump where my DT and frag tank empty into but judging by the fact that I have to clean the bottom of my sump every so often I don't think it's really catching everything.

Was doing some tank maintenance today and I was blowing a bit of my rock off and noticed a bunch of gunk/dust/whatever fly out of a couple of places. I have some minor algae growth right now and I'm wondering if it is because of a bit of build up on my rock. My tank is low flow in much of it (near the bottom) because of keeping seahorses so I was thinking about buying some type of canister filter, really stirring things up and hooking the canister filter up to the tank to assist in getting all of the stuff out rather than just letting it resettle. I have a couple of Rena Canister filters that I kept after I went to the salt side from freshwater years ago but even filling them up with filter pads I'm not super confident that they would do a great job in removing this very fine sediment. And because of that I figured I'm post this asking if anyone had a better suggestion for how to go about this? Thanks,

Just because I've cared for them for years. Seahorses: Young/Juvenile will eat small mysis (Hikari) and brine shrimp Adult: Brine Shrimp and larger mysis (PE Mysis) Brine Shrimp need to be enriched to have any nutritional value and I only use live adult brine shrimp that I gut load ahead of time as an occasional treat. Frozen Mysis, whether small or large should be soaked in Selcon or something similar every once in a while before feeding to round out their diet. When the seahorses are younger it should be done more often as they are growing quickly.

My opinion on them is about what Squishie89 said. In a very shallow setup it might be ok for SPS but when I had one over my 90G I wasn't super impressed with it, but I had mushrooms on the bottom that grew well under it about 22 inches down though. I had supplimental lighting for my SPS when I had it.

Where in OBX where you when you caught all of them? I'd rent a house near there the next time I was there just to be able to observe them for a while. Always wanted to get some pipe fish but never wanted to have to go through the effort of deworming them so my captive bred seahorses wouldn't potentially get infected. Would be cool to be able to just float around near them and watch them in their natural habitat for a while. Thank you for the post, really cool.

Not sure how it compares to their LED kits but I got their 90G LED Kit for my tank and have been exceedingly happy with it, as have my corals. I went with that kit over the Evergrow fixtures for the same reason, I wanted my ReefAngel to be able to control my fixture.

Pipefish are very similar to seahorses and require similar care. Not difficult but you do need to have specialized care with them though, a frag tank with A LOT of flow is not an ideal enviroment, pipefish swim better than seahorses but still prefer a bit less flow that some people have in their tank.

Same here Treesprite, taking 4 hours of leave to take off early Sunday so I can attend.

My first WAMAS event, really looking forward to it.

Very interesting, when I got my Pajama Cardinals a couple months ago my firefish started hanging out with them a bit, they seem to be ok with it too. When I got my two gobies and pistol shrimp years ago he tried to hang out with them too, much to the disapproval of the pistol shrimp and eventually gave up after a couple of wounds and torn fins.

That is awesome. My wife and I love firefish, our little one that we named Vince was our first saltwater fish we got and he's still swimming around 4 and a half years later. Keep us posted on whether there are any aggression issues.