KingOfAll_Tyrants

Thought about putting this in the FS forum instead, but since I'm not the seller and am just saying this PSA I thought here would be better. (main motivation in posting is hoping someone who will appreciate and take care of them will will get them) Petco in Fairfax has I believe a pair of LTAs with hosting clowns as of this evening. One has one hosting clown, the other has three of some variety of ocellaris. If I was in a position to do so, I probably would have taken them right there.

Blech what an awful time for such a mistake to happen! I think aerating was definitely the right decision, and I really can't blame you for not wanting to immediately do such a big water change!!!!!!!!!! You didn't lose anything?

Sorry to hear about this mistake! I hope your tank will be OK, and I can't offer much experience. (though my sense would be that if you're OK after 72 hours in the way you described you're probably OK, granted you should probably let things take their course and not generally otherwise mess with things for another week or two) One question: why do you think you should not want to do a big water change? I don't mean this to say that I have a reason to say you are wrong, it's just that my instinct if there was some major problem like this would be to do as big a water change as possible ASAP (50, 75, 90% would all be fair to my mind) and I am very interested to being educated as to why doing that might not be best!!!!

Thanks, this is really interesting and those are really cool corals.

DaJMasta, Intersesting proposal with the drip valve. It seems to me that.... If Jason's total volume is really .5 gallons (1.9L, or 1900ml) If daily evaporation for a reef tank in an average household (room temperature and normal household humidity in air conditioning) is roughly 1% a day. If one drop is 0.05ml Then this is theoretically easily solved. Daily evaporation would be 19ml, or 380 drops. That's 15.8 drops per hour, or (round down, for a 5% inaccuracy) one drop every four minutes. Real world, you could try this. That said a) I'd under drip and once the water gets to 36ppt I'd add by hand a little bit of extra rodi to get it back to 35 b) I'm told that the reliability of the drip method reduces over time due to decreased gravity/water pressure, so one might want to keep it fairly full. ymmv. Intriguing question, though.

I've had good experience with FL live rock (from KP aquatics, from the keys) and live sand in my former display tank. Much more stuff - coraline, etc. - and stable than dead rock. We did get a mantis shrimp but we got it out easily and gave it to someone who wanted one. I'd definitely recommend it. Note that very few vendors these days are (still have licenses to) ship sand, so if you find someone who ships sand please let us know.

How did this go? I'm sorry I have no experience or useful WAGs for you, but I am curious.

It may partially depend on the species you're using. But I used to have Pterogorgia anceps, the "purple sea blade" or somesuch. I fragged it exactly as these folks described with no issues. Having/drilling a hole in the rock to glue it into is also super helpful, even for sand-dwelling species like P. anceps. (in which case I drilled it into a small rock i mostly buried in the sand)

This is a bit OBE, but I had a good experience overall with them. They don't look terribly real by themselves (though integrated with other rocks I think they'd be fine). Do note that at least the ones I have are hollow, and so if a tiny hole appears detritus-y water (i made that word up) can accumulate in a very anaerobic area. So I'd recommend checking its structural integrity every so often, and either repairing any breaches or drilling a decent size hole or two in the bottom to allow at least some water flow.

Thank you for this thread!

what is this anemone? It looks like a Magnifica to me? (not in good shape at all to my eye, very unfortunately, but not surprisingly) FYI, this is in the Fairfax Petco.

If you still need it, I have a box from KP Aquatics. Styrofoam inside cardboard. Overall dimension is 13 X 12 X 12

if it's not too late - I had one for a while, not a fan. Mine also deteriorated over time. I also had an aluminum problem, though i don't know that Marinepure was the source. They adamantly say it's not. I've seen enough anecdotal experience to be doubtful (lots of good threads on this on R2R) And most importantly, IMO, the marine pure nitrified just fine (as it should), but did not denitrify. I switched to Seachem matrix and after about a month they started nitrifying and denitrifying extremely well. I generally prefer Matrix over marine pure.

These folks make AIO inserts for this kind of tank. In about two weeks, I might have one available for you. Quality is OK, just be sure NOTHING could possibly break it! https://www.ebay.com/i/123726348711?chn=ps&norover=1&mkevt=1&mkrid=711-117182-37290-0&mkcid=2&itemid=123726348711&targetid=935065066267&device=c&mktype=&googleloc=9016792&poi=&campaignid=10877432047&mkgroupid=112821775411&rlsatarget=pla-935065066267&abcId=9300402&merchantid=6296724&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI6d2K2Jbv6wIVkIbACh3lEAyPEAQYASABEgKPoPD_BwE I like the idea. I am thinking of doing something similar: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/your-vote-wanted-deep-or-shallow-acropora-reef-slope-nano.751162/ But when I actually get it set up who knows. maybe I'll forgo the acros in favor of, say, an RFA garden or somesuch.

Thanks folks. Yeah, sunlight isn't so much the issue, it's the temperature swings. I'm aware of people who handle it (to include Pacific East, which grows their SPS in a greenhouse). The kicker is that this tank needs at least two heaters IMO with a decent backup power supply. It also probably should have a fan to come on when the temp goes about like 83 or so. I'm not so sure if they are willing to do the latter, in which case they should adopt some kind of more accomodating FW fish. Besides, I saw the table they proposed putting it on last night, it probably can hold a 20g but it's a bit wobbly so I don't know how big a tank I'd recommend to them............... It's a shame, IMO the sunroom is a pretty good place overall.

So someone put forward the idea of putting a reef tank in a sunroom. That's fine, I told the person, but beyond the algae problem (really more of a "nutrients go up algae will grow with all the sunlight to a degree not as obvious if you're in a basement with actinic lights, IMO"), this person keeps the sunroom windows open all the time summer and winter. So, the temperature has gone up to 86 several times this summer during the day, and down to 71 at night (which happened as recently as this Wednesday). Further, in the winter the temperature in the room can easily go into the 50s, mostly because they don't want to close the windows (and to say nothing about their $100s in electricity bills, but they don't pay for it and so they don't care) I'm told them that's not really a good place to keep a tropical tank especially with corals; even if you put more heaters than normal in the tank (to compensate for the winter), having the air temperature vary so dramatically IIRC is also a big problem. Is my understanding right, or am I off base here? Thanks!

Good initiative, even if there are differences apparently within species (to say nothing of the fact that only 0.1% at most make it to adulthood in the wild). I'll be looking forward to your final list (I can't help with direct experience, but if you'd like me to do further internet research for a few categories of fish please PM me)

Thanks! That (should use more than a square foot) is good planning feedback. I think I will then go for the full sandbed. The motivation was not really for coral, it's just that the required amount of sand (for four inches in a 24x12 system, 60 lbs according to the marine depot calculator, using I believe relatively fine sand?) is a lot and I'm a bit anxious about a number of husbandry things. (but then also anxious to get this started- i want my jawfish and cardinal fish!!!) But I think I'll be fine.

Thanks! My impression is that seagrasses generally need a good amount of light, maybe on par with corals. (though planted tanks are usually 8000k versus the 10-20,000k usually run in coral tanks. Even the latter is supposedly mostly for looks - there are people who swear that 6500k is, probably not surprisingly, best for shallow water acro growth. Me, I don't have the experience to judge). I am going to go with planted tank spectrum for purposes of this tank. And actually, at least at first, the non-seagrass half, if I go with this, may not have any coral at all.

Bringing this thread back from the dead....... (no tank yet because we're still planning out a massive renovation of the living room of our 2BR2BA. That said, I am thinking of starting this as a small tank in one of the BA but I'm not 100% decided yet......) What are people's thoughts of a partial deep seagrass bed? That is, part of the tank (say a half of a 20high) is a DSB with seagrass, the other half is just a normal live rock reef tank? Will I be setting myself up for any problems? It would seem not, since people feed their seagrass systems from their DTs. Thanks!

Best of luck to you! What's the book going to be about?

Yeah my impression is that this is a bit hard to do on a mass economic scale. Otherwise they are very easy fish to keep and the big breeders (ORA, etc.) would breed them like they do the various clownfish or cardinals. But then you could say the same about royal grammas which are not captive bred in the U.S..... though I think price plays a role in that (really easy to get them from the Caribbean to the US market)

$31.49. :D. Still, it's over half the price of my current standby, regular Red Sea. One practical question for folks: (and not looking to derail this thread with the well worn IO vs other salts debate) one of my two hangups is the fact that IO mixes to 11 DKH. I guess most people just accept that number? (some people use one or another chemical to lower the KH; IMO at that point it's not worth the hassle)

no idea, but I'm interested too.

I do have most of an 8oz bottle that i won't be using in the next few months and that i can definitely part with please pm me (OP gets first dibs)