KingOfAll_Tyrants

Congratulations on maintaining her this long. I'll keep an eye on this thread, it's interesting. What are the cardinal-tetra like fish she's housed with? Finally, I disagree strongly with the idea that this hobby is inherently destructive to the reefs. (Even though poor commercial collecting practices are definitely destructive). BUT, that's a topic for another thread. maybe I'll start (another) thread on that subject in a few days, when I get home and don't have to type on my phone.

One other thought - Marine Depot and especially Bulk Reed Supply have made excellent contributions to the hobby in some of the things they've put on YouTube. They have the net profits, equipment, space and expertise to give a semblance of testing to many common reefkeeping questions, and I've learned a great deal. That counts for something in my book. This doesn't necessarily mean that I'll buy my apex from them, vs various LFS's......

Interesting discussion. I figured small local stores are getting hammered by the online stores and by Petco/Petsmart for basic drygoods. I would have thought the numbers of saltwater fishkeepers is decreasing, precipitously. (Just look at the aquariun supply section at Petsmart/petco and compare them to the dog *clothing* section. To say nothing of the bewildering variety of big name and botique dog and cat foods). However, I'll believe the posters in this thread know what they're talking about. . (Maybe it's an hobby enthusiast thing - where profits in a hobby industry are driven by hard-code enthusiast segments, while the more mainstream segments are commoditized, or even collapse -e.g. photography) I can totally believe the "fish store" of the future could be basically a (mall?) show room for a service company. (Maybe they could have 4-5 different tank types to display). Or maybe someone's "home office" (ie fish basement) where they do botique fish sales for local service providers, aquarium clubs, and special orders. There are some benefits - we can have animals go straight from collector to consumer now. Not that I hate Capitol Aquarium or any of the stores I grow up with - but just from an ethical perspective since even with the best collection, wholesale, and shipping practices it seems to me fish sales are unavoidably a livestock hot potato game. But I still agree with those who think that something will be lost in the process.

Thanks, BRK for posting this. I seems that the amended version of the bill (original was fairly innocuous), but the final one bans new permits or transfers) would be a victory for the anti-aquarium folks there if the governor signs it. Many people (I don't know what percentage, but enough to start a political movement. Ref: the Collective Action theory we were subject to in PolySci101) in Kona (and fellow travelers elsewhere on the islands) have a shocking level of sanctimonius extremist rage against fish collecting and aquaria in general**. I think the Hawaii Civil Beat sums it up fairly well: http://www.civilbeat.org/2017/04/lawmakers-may-put-brakes-on-hawaiis-aquarium-fish-industry/ That being said, I'm sympathetic to the fact that (as I understand it) most of the Yellow tangs in the worldwide aquarium trade are from Kona, collection numbers have gone up a lot year on year, to the order of hundreds of thousands a year. And that I'm sure most of those collected die in the process -> they go, at minimum, from collector, to holding tank in Kona, to holding tank in Honolulu, to holding tank in large distributor in LA, to Petco/LFS, to purchaser (and who knows how well the purchaser can take care of the tang. Even if s/he abides by the Tang Police ) IMO, the situation on the island is conflict between classes (the Humane Society + rich activists + tour operators vs. generally lower class, generally longer term residents of varied ethnicities employed in aquarium collection) and industries (collectors vs. snorkel/scuba tour operators looking to fix blame when days are bad). The sanctimoniusness means no side really wants to work together, and the aquarium collection industry IMO is not big enough to withstand a strong assault. Coral/LR collecting went the same way - hard corals are illegal to own in any form there (note that black corals are very rare at scuba depths, but there's no ban, presumably because of the jewelry industry. Any no one cares about deep water gorgonians anyway). Hobbyist scale fragging and mariclture of the already limited array of Hawaiian corals won't harm "Hawaii's Reefs". In fact, IMO it would build appreciation, since there'd be at least some people besides scientists who understand local corals. Anyway, Kona is the hotspot I think for global anti-aquarium extremism and it seems to me that they're on the cusp of a major local victory. Most people won't care, except for the declining number of fish owners in Hawaii (who will inevitably be inconvienienced) and the collection businesses. ** Snorkel Bob's op-ed in the Huffington post, and his general comments on aquaria, are a good examples of the extreme, black or white part of the movement. i.e. anyone who does not agree with him is evil and a shill for an Evil MultiBazillion Dollar Industry (while ignoring the fact that tourism and development are unavoidably the worst offenders against Hawaii's reefs). And I do think he's a true believer, not just putting out rhetoic to advance some financial or political gain http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-campaign-to-end-the-aquarium-trade-in-hawaii-surges_us_58a38fcce4b0e172783aa1ef

I was there a few weeks ago. I liked the small tanks the best, though the Elegance and the big coral tank were pretty cool. Sharing for those interested:

Thanks for this thread, and for the review of Neptune's customer service (I had thought that the consensus was that they were excellent - which they may be, as long as you buy it from the right people...... %/ ). I may still get an apex, but I'm definitely thinking twice.

I'll second origami here. Highly simplified example: Let's say you make the coolest bestest reef light in the world. Your price is $100, the price at the LFS is $200; net profit for LFS is probably around $50 once shipping, labor, etc. is factored in. You'll advertise it, and all the LFS in the US will buy it from you to sell. In total they buy say 1000 a month, divided among 100 stores. At the same time, BigBoxOnlineVendor.com wants to list it as well, and they not only have a more efficient business model, and have a higher sales volume (say 2000 a month), but also want to buy in more profit margin. So they walk in, and say "hey we want 2000 this month, but you need to sell it for $80/piece". They will almost certainly sell it for less than $200 (say $150) and make more net profit because their business is different from the LFS. You can tell BBOV.com to pound sand, but at the same time they're by far your biggest individual sale. When you're expanding, maybe you can tell them off, but when other vendors are making similar products (and there are bad clones on ebay), you need the sales to keep your business operating. If you let BBOV.com do that, then the LFSs will either drop your product (and push other products which are as good/almost as good as yours). Note that if this happened for every product the LFS will go bankrupt. In either case, then BBOV will be your only purchaser, and they can cut even further into your profit margin. Not good. So MAP and the like gets around this. I would argue that, at least in its usual form, MAP is actually good for consumers in the long run, lest the entire market for a product turn rapidly into a race to the bottom each time a new type of product comes to market - with the resulting reduced quality from both manufacturers and retailers, poorer customer service, etc. Especially in a hobby like fishkeeping (to say nothing of reef keeping), lack of scale +lack of profit margin = lack of good stores = worse for us all.

I heard stories about people eating leather in extreme situations (e.g. German soldiers besieged at Stalingrad). But that was in the days before chromic acid. Fish do not have civil rights, as they are not participating members in civic society. But, if you believe in animal rights, they certainly would have those. Seriously, these days I believe most commercially purchased fish are frozen basically once they're caught out of the ocean, and sit on the boat for as long as several months before they get to port and begin their trek to our freezers. (fish markets often just defrost frozen fish, I'm told - yes? - unless they have access to a daily catch). In the end, it's about as humane as using the freezer (anyone want to defrost and eat my extra clownfish? :) jk) Also, I have no sympathy for any non-exclusively-herbivorous marine creature - they all have eaten animals (or protozoans) alive - multiple times in their lives, which die being suffocated and assaulted with harsh stomach acids. That being said, I would generally prefer my crustaceans, bivalves, etc. be frozen prior to cooking/consumption.

Mari, welcome! I'm a beginner too, and have been planning a tank for several months. (in this sense, you're well ahead of me ). That being said, I will make a tank thread once I have a tank and all my stuff......

Thanks, all. FYI, I was by Quantum Reefs (for the first time) - they have a large bucket with many different sizes of coraline-algae encrusted live rock. But dried rock is what I was looking for......

Hey all, I'm starting to 'scape a new tank. Does anyone know a local store that has a good supply of dry rock people can sort through to pick the pieces they want?

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but I was curious about this issues so I did a search, found this, and decided to look in Arlington. Lo and behold...... https://water.arlingtonva.us/water/water-quality-treatment/ I think Arlington, DC, Falls Church, and parts of FFX co get their water from the same source, and I'd imagine all said jurisdictions use choloramine.

Thanks, L8 2 Rise. I didn't know there was a reef friendly 4" cuttlefish. maybe someday........ KoAT

Thanks again to all the warm welcome. I very much like the 24X24X12 footprint and that's I think what we can have for now; though I admit the 40G breeder type or even the deep blue 80G are very interesting. However, the next obstacle is corner overflows: this is one of my wife's preconditions. But fortunately Deep Blue has reef ready systems with those overflows, to include the 24X24X12. Bruleyii: agreed. I think first will be thourough research about the setup, then setup, then a basic check of the system, then WLR, then FOWLR, then slowly adding easier corals. Several months per stage.

Ah, too bad. Inspired by both your post and the overgrown ship in one of those threads, I'm actually thinking of throwing one of these into my reef tank. (Heck, maybe even something like the so-called Yonaguni pyramid. Except they would get covered by coral real soon). But yes, real estate is an important consideration - you don't want something too big!

I always thought these were a bit tacky, but my experience of them was ceramic ones in FW community tanks (divers and UFOs, greek columns with neon tetras). That being said, when I read your post I was kind of intrigued by the idea. I can't help you with whether or not its toxic, but I'd imagine unpained polyresin (which I presume this is, ie this is the original color of the plastic) is no more dangerous than any other unpainted plastic (like used in intakes, filters, etc). I did a google search and found a thread or two about this*. That being said, maybe ceramic ones (if you can find/ebay them) might be more suitable? * http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1980243 I also like the corals growing over one of these dudes' fake sunken ship (but note the caveats in the thread): http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1336064

Thanks, Blank. Funny, he made the same post at RC, which I'm going through (all 80 some pages.....). I do like this one from his article (justifiably famous), and may use a more basic form of this as a starting point: http://www.reef2reef.com/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fi6.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fy232%2Frevhtree%2FR2R%2520Site%2520Images%2Fcpfarm_zps43ffc087.jpg&hash=1e1b29819b54428f8409e7642448b3f7 And Alan/Blank, I did think of a larger tank, and for all I know maybe we'll get one in the end (like the 24" cuble). Mostly for management (i.e. more space = more organisms and lesser likelihood of temp fluctuations, apparently) but also because of the point that it's a bit of a specialized arrangement, and may be hard to adapt to a display tank.

Thanks, all. Should add another thing: my wife loves a 24"X24"X12" - 30G design, and that fits my FW-keeping biases to a T, though I fear it's too small. (I've read about and pondered "nano vs big" for over a decade while I was petless) I've also been cautioned that such a set up is not as good for side viewing as a conventional tank, something I'll have to think about. Anyway, thanks for the pointers and the welcome. Blank, I think I will do a build thread, once I have a plan in mind. Key things my mind is focusing on (now that my previous Amazon tank that I was planing for a month is out the window) are 1. aquascaping 2. biomass selection/management 3. making sure I've thought through all the management things - sumps managment, sufficient light, water quality, etc. (we will have a sump and PS)

Getting back into the hobby. On the deep end. My dad was a serious aquarist, and I always grew up with fish. Around 8 years old I decided to pick up his (1970ish) copy of Innes Exotic Aquarium Fishes (lots of cool color pictrures) and I was hooked, reading it several times and in the end memorizing a lot of common names, regions of the world, scientific names, etc. This led to me being interested in biology and species. I read every issue of TFH he collected from 1980-1988, as well as a whole list of books (including the binder Exotic Tropical Fishes). I loved going to our largest pet store (Clark’s Pet Emporium in Albuquerque NM), and kept several fish in my dad’s 100G, as well as several livebearers in my own 10G, and a marine aquarium in another 10G. I made a science fair project twice abouy guppy genetics (getting as far as state) before I got to AP Biology, and for better or worse stopped after too much biochem. During college and the first eight years after graduation I lived in a no-pet situation. But, even so, I’ve always been interested in a reef aquarium, and have bought some excellent books during that interim, slowly reading them and ReefCentral. I also picked up a few books about “natural” “biotope” freshwater aquaria. Anyway, I’m now in a pet-friendly situation, and my wife wants a tank. I spent several weeks thinking not starting out with a reef, and planning out an Amazon biotope. The Mrs. (who has not aquarium experience whatsoever) goes to a certain local store, and falls in love with the reef tank and wants that (she wasn’t interested in the discus L ). I tell her a little bit about how much it will cost (WAG: $2000 for a 50G-ish system) and that it will be a lot of work, she says its fine, she loves how the tank looks. So, I’ve suddenly found myself in a “we will soon buy my first reef” situation. I’m rereading all the “how to start a reef” literature and threads I’ve saved up over the years.