Matt LeBaron

I'll be picking up Cupramine after work today. Freshwater dip seems needlessly stressful to an already sick fish to me.

New Pajama Cardinal I have in my 10G quarantine tank has ich. I went to a little local pet store and they recommended Kent RX-P, which after I got home and read a bit about it is a pepper based treatment that recommends a protein skimmer and strong biological filtration. Some quick google-foo doesn't make me feel a lot better about it either. Does anyone have a recommendation? I have 3 more Pajamas coming Tuesday and I'm giving some serious consideration to buying another 10G to house them in unless I can feel confident in treating the ich that this one has. Thanks,

Guess I'll wait and see what the options with the dimmers turns out to be. Bit more comfortable building my own setup but honestly it's darn tough to pass up saving about 50%. Kind of wish the D120's were a bit bigger, not entirely sure that two will be enough for my 90G but I guess I could always build a strip or two of DIY LED's to suppliment if I need to in the long run. Has anyone else used the D120's over a 90G? Right now I'm thinking of basically copying the layout that ReefBreeders uses for their D120 as they claim it comes out to about a 14K look, which is really what I am looking for. There any obvious issue there that might concern me?

If we can get confirmation on being able to order controllable dimmers I might be interested. Working out prices now to see how much more it would cost me to build my own setup from RapidLED, the Evergrow fixtures will be way cheaper so the only thing holding me back is lack of intergration with my Reef Angel controller. I know that CREE LED's are a bit more efficient than the BrightLUX that EverGrow uses but does anyone know how much and can anyone really notice a large difference? If I were to build a fixture from Rapid LED it would have about half as many LED's and I doubt that the BrightLUX are that less efficient. Does anyone have opinions on the optics for the supplimental colors like UV, Green, and Red? Keep the same optics (90) or go for 120 so the spread is better since they're really just there to bring out colors in corals? And would two D120 fixtures be sufficient for a 90G? Thanks for starting this DaveS.

Just saw this on Reef Builders: http://reefbuilders....rive-water-lab/ This could be really huge. Even if it was a bit expensive it would definately be something I would do from time to time just as a sanity check to make sure I'm not goofing any tests and to make sure all my testing equipment is calibrated correctly. Hoping that some of our LFS's get these when they come out and looking forward to more details.

Considering getting the 90G RapidLED Retrofit kit here: http://www.rapidled.com/standard-solderless-90g-tank-dimmable-kit/ I was wondering if anyone has any opinions/experiences with it? As much as I like a lot of the LED fixtures on the market I just cannot justify spending the 1200+ it would cost to light my 90G. Right now I use Ecoxotic Par38 LED's as suppliment lighting for my SPS coral but I've got several frags and a new colony that I want to put into my DT in the coming months and I'm looking for a more permanet solution for lighting. (The Ecoxotic PAR38's are awesome but provide a very narrow area of light, I need better coverage.) Going solderless so that I can change or add LED's to it without it being a chore and I have a Reef Angel controller so I'll be using that for dimming control. Price seems good to me but I'm a bit wary too as it is so much cheaper that most other commercial fixtures. Will it be sufficient light for SPS corals? Just trying to do my research and get input before I spend the cash. Thanks,

He's a safe one Coral Hind, looks exactely like you describe. And I drove an hour and 20 minutes to get to BRK Chad, totally worth the drive. Gotta try and get a picture of the colony today or tomorrow and get it posted. I cannot wait to get it into my DT.

Finally made it down today and wow was it worth the drive, even with all of the tolls. (what is with Virginia and all of the tolls?) Picked up a jaw dropping colony, a small frag, and some of Jan's Reef Blend. Seriously folks if any of the colonies above even make you mildly curious, go take a look, as John said the pictures just do not do them justice! And when I got home I found out I was lucky enough to get a colony with one of the acro crabs! Really cool but it means I'll be quarentining it rather han dipping so I don't hurt the crab.

I have tomorrow off and will be making a trip down. Going to try and get there as near to opening as I can and hit a couple other LFS's on my way back north. Life has conspired against me this past week but I will make it down.

Wow...that is kind of terrifying for some reason.

Great pictures! Thanks for sharing, put a smile on my face this morning.

Welcome aboard, bunch of very good people here.

Well nuts, thanks for the heads up.

Life conspired against me Friday and I couldn't make it but I work much closer than I live so I think I'm going to take a couple hours off work to make a trip down tomorrow. Any of these colonies still left? Going to come down regardless to take a look and hopefully pick up some of Jan's food.

One thing I have done in the past if get some of the vinyl gloves from cvs for medical purposes and put a few rubber bands around my writs to seal it off. Slowly cuts circulation to your hand but unless you're planning on doing like 3+ hours of work I've never had any problems. I usually do this when I have a cut on my hand like you do. Not necessarily for paly toxin but I've gotten some annoying infections in the past from sticking my hand in with a cut.

Yeah, it really is, really well encrusted too.

Just to expensive. I use two two liters to grow out green water and one old container that I think had fuge mud in it originally as a holding container once my two grow out soda bottles have consumed all of the miracle grow I used to get them started. All of that with the miracle grow likely cost me less than $10 like Chad said. Add in the air pump, clip on lamp from homedepot, and cheap CFL bulb and the total cost is still less than $40 total.

Making it so hard to resist... Likely see you Friday. Especially since your stock list shows you have some Pajama Cardinals in stock and my wife and I have agreed we want to get a small group of them.

I have to agree with Decadence here, if there were any easy one and done solution to maintaining good water chemistry, everyone would be doing it. I think people need to experiment a bit with what works best for them and how their tank runs.

Hrm...might need to make a trip down when I'm off work Friday. Bit of a hike for me but some nice colonies there.

Yeah I've done some shopping there at Today's Pet for both live goods and dry. I got a FANTASTIC deal on a huge pipe organ coral when they first opened. I think I paid like $40 buckets for it, I kept waiting for someone to say it was mislabeled or something as I would have easily paid twice or more for it. Also picked up some emerald crabs from them. Decent coral tank there too, lots of neat stuff but mostly along the lines of things that can sting so I haven't paid really close attention since I have seahorses.

Red Spot Cardinals are tough. I've ordered 15 total over the years from LA DD and currently have 1 alive. They are very poor shippers, even with the insane care that Divers Den ships their live stock with I lost at least one from each shipment within 3-5 days. They are also jumpers, I know people say that about some fish but these guys are simply amazing at it, you need a really good mesh cover of some sort. I had 4 left before I moved 6 months ago but 3 didn't make the move. I've given up on them because I don't believe it is fair to keep trying at the cost of their lives. I can keep seahorses no problems but successfully taking care of the Red Spot Cardinals eludes me.

I think the important things to note from this study is that the coral density was reduced at a higher phosphate level, which cannot be good for the coral, the study was only done over 4 months, which IMO is not really enough time for slow growers like Acros, and the article brief (full length one might mention this) does not mention coloration at all, which is a big thing for those of us in the hobby. VERY glad to see research like this though.

+3...

Sorry that this happened. I had one of my heaters die on me a couple weeks ago now that caused me some bleaching problems also. I've heard of some people just outright replacing their heaters yearly and I am honestly giving some thought to the idea now. I hope everything recovers.