KingOfAll_Tyrants

I presume she means Springfield, VA. But the joke is that there’s one in every state. Thus, the Simpsons are from there. :D I’m not much better than a beginner myself, and I won’t be able to come anytime this week. But, if you’d like someone to come and do some guesswork next week, do let me know.

+1!!! Awesome new store, and congratulations on an apparently successful grand opening!! Please post your regular hours when you know what they are.

I highly doubt that anyone is breeding them commercially in the area. I’m also a bit doubtful that anyone is doing it as a hobby and will have fry ready available right niw, but I could be wrong. Honestly, I’d just get it from ORA. You can either have it drop shipped here through live aquaria. Or, Petco and I know a number of other local shops get their stock directly from ORA as well. https://m.liveaquaria.com/product/3465/orchid-dottyback-captive-bred-ora-reg?pcatid=3465&c=15+1500+5141+3465

Thanks for hosting this, BRK! I'll be will be coming, looking forward to it. I'll be looking to pick up a pair of ocellaris clowns, which I assume won't be a big problem. For everyone else, I'll have a few (petco supply type things) for sale: - eheim gravel vacuum $30 (lightly used; it does not work well with my tank because my substrate is too fine) https://www.eheim.com/en_GB/products/accessories/cleaning/quick_vac_pro - Coralife power center: 2 day, 2 night, 4 non timed plugs $15 https://coralifeproducts.com/product/power-management/ I might also bring a jebao return pump DC-9000, for around $60 A LOT of freeze dried mysis - still trying to figure out how to divvy this up into generous portions..... Following for $5: Kent Marine Kalkwasser Omega one small marine pellets, 4.5 oz API tap water conditioner (4oz) API stress coat (16 oz)

Thanks Rob. Yeah, I thought those might make sense. Water quality fluctuated on monthly scales before, but the coral always grew fine. Moving the coral, or setting the lighting back to its roughly original state, didn't seem to do anything. Again, the only thing that changed is the introduction of the BTA and the acclimation mode for the lighting. I've never heard BTAs stinging corals via chemicals (the coral was well away from the BTA's touching distance). I would not buy the gorgonian hypothesis either, save for the fact that the guy on R2R claims from his extensive gorgonian experience that at least some species of photsynthetic gorg will sting war corals (and he used war coral as guinea pigs for this, since they grow back so easily). AND both that guy, and an experienced aquarist who is taking care of the coral now, both say it looks like the coral was stung. Either way, the coral is the hands of an experienced aquarist now. When it gets back, I'll isolate the palys and the gorgo in a coral QT tank, and see over two weeks (?) if the war coral is OK. After which I'll add back the paly. And two weeks after the gorg.......

http://wamas.org/forums/topic/83784-rodi-alternatives/?hl=%2Brodi+%2Balternatives :D Reef Escape in Fairfax and Blue Ribbon Koi in Manassas both have water. RE now has some sort of "you must only use the containers we like" policy. (which they conveniently sell, of course); in previous months it was RODI+Omega One. BRK uses IORC. (PM me on prices, if you want). Unfortunately, Petco's water, the most convenient option, has gone up in price. :(

Don’t have any direct experience with this. But funny enough, I was just reading a thread on R2R about this: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/can-my-floor-hold-my-aquarium.382299/

Well, Dan, you told me before that BTAs are generally very hardy. Glad to see more evidence.

Interesting. Is there a link that describes this on a bit more detail? Also, per the r2r thread, the person alleges that he used war corals to test gorgonian toxicity, so I am much More inclined to believe that this might be the cause.

That's fair. But even a clownfish can have quite a wide range in the wild (though of course nothing compared to a tang). I prefer having a decent size tank for the fish; so for tangs I'm in the 6ft+ tank crowd. A tank dominated by a big coral head, or a big tabling coral, would be an awesome idea, I think. On the surface, a preference for captive bred fish makes sense. But I think in the end it comes down to the fish. Some species - damsels, clowns, banggai and PJ cards, for instance - are very easy (i.e. economical) to breed in captivity and rear because they have a short larval/pelagic stage, which grown in shallow, protected lagoons. Others aren't - I'm thinking of fairy wrasses (I'm not seeing anything on the Marine Breeding Initiative about captive breeding attempts), tangs, firefish, etc. They have long pelagic larval stages which open ocean type conditions to grow well. VERY hard to simulate this. And maybe in all but very large aquaria the male and female will often kill each other. Finally, some are easy to raise in captivity, but the demand for them is not strong. Yellow headed jawfish are one - on paper they should be as popular a fish as damsels, clowns, cards, etc. (save for the 4" of sand necessary for them). I'm not sure that demand for them is economical enough to breed. And again, properly collecting post-larval stages of common fish in sustainable quantities is perfectly environmentally sound. I again think of kpaquatic's collection of the jawfish - I'd imagine their total annual sales is 1-2000 fish. They can only collect them maybe 6 months a year. I don't see any reason to aqua or mariculture this fish under those conditions. I again chose them because I could order directly from their holding tank to my door in 24 hours, which I like. (same thing with certain aquaculture shops, of course).

I'm all for this. Many fish we keep come from similar environments, or are adaptable. But some may prefer lower or higher, lighting and flow, depending on where it came from. I'd imagine corals are even more particular. I read someone speculate once that sometimes chemical warfare problems can be compounded due to keeping corals from different areas or parts of the globe together.

John Tullock's book "Natural Reef Aquaria" or somesuch divides fish (especially commonly kept fish) by biotope. I can ID corals and fish from Hawaii by depth/reef area; I've been meaning to write an article on R2R on that. I have sort of expanded that to some corals from the pacific and caribbean. I actually kind of like finding that out for unknown species. So, if there's something you're interested in, feel free to ask. The World Catalog of corals, fishbase.org, and the IUCN database are very valuable resources for this. But you'd best know the scientific name.

Interesting idea, scooter!. What fish do you keep, then, and why? ( I don’t mean this as a challenge. I’m just interested, and want to hear more)

So, I my war coral (Favites pentagona) is dying, I don't know why, and I'm a bit desperate and don't know what to do. Suggestions welcome. I am thinking of removing a possibly attacking gorgonian. I am also thinking of isolating the war coral (since I will be gone for a month in a few weeks, probably the only way would be to, separate from this thread, beg a WAMAS member to put it in their QT tank). My only alternative is to let it sit and see how it is when I get back. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VC5CCpUr6NQ [more pics in the R2R thread below] The story: - was growing excellently, under like 80% intensity of a Kessil 360, until about 2.5 weeks ago. 3 weeks ago, I added a rainbow BTA. I started the "acclimation" light setting on the Kessil controller, so light went down significantly right after the BTA was added. - 2.5 weeks ago, I started noticing a small dead area and white spots on the coral. After posting on R2R, I decided to run carbon and moved the war coral to an area with modest flow and lighting. - the situation has gotten worse, and about two days ago since it was happy in high lighting I decided to move it to an area in the main tank which is somewhat shaded and somewhat protected from the flow in the rest of the tank. - this weekend, I've seen no indication of change. It's hard to say if things have gotten better or worse. - everything else is fine: BTA, gorgonian (Pterogorgia anceps), green implosion palys (Palythoa mutuki) are all well and growing. Fish and shrimp are all fine. Theories: - Someone on R2R suggested that it looked stung and it might be chemical warfare from a gorgonian. I am thinking of removing the gorgonian for at least a week or so. I kind of doubt this. - the easiest inference, IMO, is that the BTA is waging chemical warfare and the war coral is a casualty (or, less likely, that the BTA had some sort of hitchhiker or bacteria in its water that had a parasite for the war coral). BTA is doing fine, it seems, opening up comfortably and I believe growing in the past three weeks. It's definitely fatter than when I got it. - parameters have swung in the tank. When I first got the war coral a few weeks before xmas, parameters were like 20ppm nitrate/0/25 phosphate. (I try to keep alk at around 165ppm; I use PPM because my hanna checker reads in ppm. nitrate is measured by salifert, phosphate and alk by hanna. I run GFO, seachem matrix in a seperate box in this sumpless tank. I dose white vinegar). Around Easter time and after a cyano outbreak, I had finally gotten parameters down to ~2.5ppm nitrate and 0.1 phosphate, with the cyano gone. Around the time the BTA was introduced, water parameters swung up to 15ppm nitrate and 0.20 phosphate. In the past two weeks, cyano came back somewhat. In the past week, I've reconnected the skimmer, started skimming heavily, added chaeto, did a 20% water change (which I try to do biweekly, though I have been remiss since Easter), and sucked out a lot of detritus. Water parameters were like 5ppm nitrate, 0.07 phosphate as of last nigh I am inclined to think this was not parameters, since it was growing well all this time until the BTA came in, in all kinds of conditions. But, maybe it was too much parameter shock. - maybe the thing that got the pocillopora got the war coral. A few weeks ago a pocillopora colony RTNed on me. When I got it its base was dead, but the top 60% or so had polyps. It had grown, even covering up some inadvertent damage, in the subsequent two months. But at about Easter, the same time parameters went down and cyano disappeared, the pocillopra started RTN/bleaching. In like a week it went from decent condition to entirely white. I'm inclined to dismiss this hypothesis. The full, detailed history can be found here: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/war-coral-trouble.383866/

Not directly. The field guides to a specific region usually have this info. Also, fishbase.org generally has this info. Are you looking for info on specific species?

Thanks, Tom. Yeah, that bullet was not meant to mean only wild caught specimens, of course. (as you can tell, I didn't proof read perfectly ) That should read "when buying wild specimens, we will buy hand caught specimens". This has been something I've thought about for many months now, but it was actually your thread plus the recent string of bans that got me actually writing this down. Yeah, again captive breeding is an important part of this. Learning how to do it is a must. Unfortunately, sometimes people I think say that "captive bred/aquacultured must be better", which I don't think is necessarily a shut-and-dry case. I tried to address that in the second set of bullets, which honestly is more personal opinion vice anything that I think everyone would necessarily agree on. I also worry that 100% captive breeding - e.g. via a ban - would not only dramatically raise the price of commercially available specimens (with the danger that the local frag market would undercut any decent scale coral aquaculture), but also potentially decrease the quality and diversity of what is available, which I think is a loss for the hobby as a whole. That being said, captive breeding has many benefits - e.g. someone in the DC are buying a wild ocellaris vs. an ORA, Biota, etc. one. FYI, I don't think I posted it here - a Smithsonian magazine article that touches upon the ups and downs of wild harvest vs. cultured. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/why-you-can-walk-store-and-buy-nearly-extinct-animal-180968892/

I also posted this elsewhere, but I wanted to post this on my home board here at WAMAS. This is sort of inspired to origami's post on price being the bottom line (?) as well. I almost put it in the conservation subforum, but decided it's a bit broader than that. The talk about bans - Hawaii, Fiji, a possible ban US ban on the sale of giant clams a few years ago that was shot down, and the hullabaloo in Indonesia - and the like got me thinking. What kind of principles could we agree on? I was thinking about something that could be kind of like a manifesto for political defense, but that’s too much for now I think. I’m just thinking aloud for now. I think lowest common denominator stuff I think most people could agree on include: we will care for our purchased animals (and plants!) for life as much as possible. We will give them a good environment. We will give our fish ample room in our tanks. (harder for corals because most corals, if well cared for, will inevitably outgrow the biggest aquarium. But they can be fragged easily) We will keep their water clean. etc. we will buy hand caught wild specimens, which do not employ cyanide, explosive, etc. in the collection process or which otherwise damage the original environment. If we buy wild corals, we will buy them from vendors who carefully, responsibly, and sustainably frag them. We will buy from shops who treat their animals well, who do not simply “flip fish before they die in a few days”, and from vendors who minimize fish deaths from collection to retail store. (comment: I read an article a few weeks ago that a well managed saltwater aquarium fishery can reliably have loss rates around 1-2%. https://reefs.com/2018/03/14/sobering-new-data-on-aquarium-industry-survival-rates/) we are interested in and care for the wild populations and their environment. (comment: many of us snorkel/dive as well) Some things that I think that not everyone may agree on: I do not mind catch or harvest limits if an area’s fishery is of questionable sustainability. I do not, from a philosophical/ethical POV, really care if, given all the above, an animal is wild caught (with all the caveats above), maricultured (raised in controlled areas in the sea), or aquacultured (for these purposes, raised in commercial aquaria in the country of sale). I do care from a practical point of view. I want my livestock to come as directly from the source to me as possible. I have worked directly with a collector, kpaquatics, to send fish directly to me by fedex. I would prefer to get my clownfish, if not quarantined by a retailer, directly from ORA. I am told that the mortality rate from non-aquacultured corals, for all but experience coral keeps, is much higher than for aquacultured ones. I also believe that a healthy source location saltwater aquarium collection/mariculture industry will help the locals who love their reefs take care of them, and make those who don’t care value it more than they otherwise would (and hopefully they won’t use explosives to catch fish for industrial food fishing, or dredge up their lagoons to build stuff on the land, or cut up corals heads and live rock to serve as construction mateirial, etc.) I also believe the poor aquaculture or mariculture can have negative environmental impacts. The case of Banggai Cardinals becoming massively invasive in Thailand due to aqua/maricultured invidduals being inadvertently, we hope, released - while being critically endangered in Banggai is an example. I believe that learning how to do captive breeding for each species, as well as an appreciation for, and knowledge of, the local environment your pets come from, is an inherent part of the aquarium hobby. These breeding attempts (which for reef fish generally require bio-lab or public aquarium level facilities) also are the basis for future aquaculture. I think this way because that is what Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine was when I subscribed to it in the late 1970s. All the time there were reports from the field about where fish lived/were collected. As well as articles lionizing people who made the substantial effort to be the first to breed all kinds of things, especially odd things like the wood cat (Trachelyopterus fisheri) or bichirs (Polypterus ornatus), and even freshwater needlefish (the first breeding and fry raising attempt in the 70s sounded like quite an effort for that TFH writer, talking about running around everywhere trying to get other fish fry to feed the needlefish fry). The recent successful breeding of corals at the Horniman museum, and the prospect of ornamental genetic engineering of coral larvae, is exciting.

https://marchfortheocean.org/partners/ This is interesting. In theory, it would be nice for WAMAS as a group to register and show up. Just to show the flag that aquarists care for the ocean, and counter the anti-aquarium narrative. (also note that I'm not aware of any anti-aquarium group participating, except possibly Greenpeace). I say "in theory" because I won't be here that week. :( I could help with some of the planning/admin for a WAMAS effort, though, if there was broader interest.

RSCP for me. Mainly because you can mix it in half an hour, and the price is roughly competitive with IORC.

Here’s an online source that I’ve used before: http://www.aquaculturestore.com/Salt-Water-Invertebrates/ It’s expensive, and I would order mysids rather than brine cysts. But maybe it would work?

No go for QR. Just called them. :(

Origami's OP is spot on, I think. For me, I add animals slowly (about 1 every few months) and I'm at capacity in my 29 gallon (I have not gotten a new fish since November, my third fish). Even though I intend to get a bigger (~75 gal ish) tank, I only intend to keep maybe $400 of livestock (at live aquaria prices, and mind you I'm not talking about live rock), which I will also add slowly. I don't intend to flip them or any such thing. Frankly, if every reefer was like me, there'd be no way you could keep a retail business based solely from livestock and drygoods sales, even if your prices were the same as BRS/LA. I will spread ~$400 value of livestock over 12-24 months. AND I live in a somewhat cramped apartment. That gets to the main point: I want small, healthy livestock that will grow (but not over grow :D ) my tank. I don't mind paying a premium, and I'm putting my $$ where my mouth is: I'm paying $100 for a pair of well quarantined basic ocelaris in July (compared to $40 for the pair I saw at Petco today). I simply don't want the risk, or put up with QTing. And I agree with Mari: now that I'm married I don't have the option of finding extra space for a 10 gal QT and the associated stuff for the one fish every few months that I may get. (I do have to figure out what to do when someone get sick, admittedly).

They were as of about 3 weeks ago. Call them befire you make a special trip, of course.

Not a participant -I couldn't make the meeting where we got these, and besides I thought at the time I wasn't ready for more livestock. That being said, I do want to brag a bit. Had two green implosion Palys about the time this started; got them from around Thanksgiving. They grew a bit since then, but things have been insane lately. The biggest Paly grew much taller (maybe doubled in height, stem maybe from .5 inches to 1.5 inches now, and the disc expanded maybe 60% in your contest period. The smallest also grew a lot. But I'm happiest about is that there was one, and in the past few days, I noticed a second new paly. Sorry for the thread hijack. Dan, congrats on such great growth! And thanks for everyone for sharing their experience.

If you have apex gyre code you like/recommend I would be interested.