Valab

Tubatraea may not need sunlight, but I've seen huge patches of them that spent their whole life within inches of the waterline and in direct tropical sun. Forget about lighting, you should put it where it will be easiest to direct feed.

I bought a couple of the Pepsi plant 55 gal drums a few years back. Trouble with them is that I could not get the smell of Mt. Dew (?) out of them. I even scrubbed hard with a soapy Brillo pad and it did little good. The smell had infiltrated the plastic I guess. I was afraid to use them for fear they would leach some lemon-lime toxin into the tank.

It doesn't have to be in the shade. It just doesn't need to be in the light. My advice is to put it wherever it will be easiest for you to target feed directly, or to take out of the tank to target feed.

The thing that I don't like about PE is that it is freshwater shrimp. Maybe they supplement with HUFAs, I don't know.

I picked up 3 diphruetes one month ago. I think they were part of the second big batch available from BRK. When I got them home I tried to do a freshwater bath in RODI water, but the bath lasted all of 15 seconds. At the 10 second mark, one of them looked ok, another was tilted sideways at a 45 degree angle, and the third was flat on the bottom. It looked like something was going very wrong and in a panic I dumped them all directly into the tank. So much for acclimation. They started off being kind of picky at feeding time. I tried pellets, flake, live brine, frozen mysis, and 'mini' freeze-dried krill. The only things they would take were the brine and mysis, and with those they would eat only small pieces, spitting out more than they actually swallowed. I'm still giving them live brine once in awhile, but now they are eating whole frozen mysis and mini krill. I feed once in the morning, once around 5 pm and again at around 7 pm before lights off. They spend a lot of time poking around rocks during the day, sometimes even upside down, looking for food. I'm going to try again with the pellets pretty soon. One of them lost its 'banner' at about week 1.5. First the 'feathery' part of the banner fell off and it was swimming around with just the boney 'pole'. The pole broke off a couple days later. A new banner is growing in and is about an inch long now (pretty fast regrowth). They are the only fish in the tank. I haven't seen any bickering between them and they stay pretty close together when they're in the water column. They don't hide in the rocks to sleep but hover close together a few inches from the rock in a low flow part of the tank. Besides rock, all I have is a small colony of pink zoanthids and two nickel-sized palyothas, all of which they ignore. So far so good with these guys.

I'm not up-to-date on the status of the Salifert Alk test kits, but it should be possible to use Arm & Hammer baking soda and RO/DI water to make a reliable alkalinity standard. I suspect that quality control on A&H baking soda is darn good since it is 'food grade'. On a separate note, www.armandhammer.com has one of the most annoying splash pages I've ever seen. Even after hitting 'skip', Jill continues to pester you!

I remember when this guy first started selling on RC: http://www.saltyunderground.com/

No chance I can make it to VA this week. Maybe I'll get another chance in the future.....

Copps,

I

Looks like the air tube is attached to a silencer at the top. So I guess it is venturi air.

I've been wanting some diphreutes for awhile. The only two places I know of that sell them are vividaquariums.com and coralreeffarm.com. The pict aobve looks like a acuminatus to me, but it is hard to tell the difference when they're really small and I'm no expert. Ooops, just noticed the website says it is acuminatus. This guy is a wholesaler in Hawaii. Last time I checked with him was in the Fall of '06 and he didn't have any diphreutes shipping past about Chicago, but he may be supplying East Coast LFS by now. william@pacifictropics.com

These two are large and are located nearby each other: http://www.seadwelling.com/ http://www.qualitymarineusa.com/home.asp

would it pay to visit a LFS while out there? If you want to stop in to any of those places to pick out a specific invert or fish, or if you have time and just want to go site-seeing at different facilities, then it would be worth it. Vivid has a nice facility, but it is not loaded with lots of different fish or coral. I think most of their stock is purchased in LA, brought in as needed to fill orders, quarantined, then shipped out. It is not like a LFS. Also, Vivid is a long way from Irvine. Never been to fragglereef. Jeff's Exotic Fish's warehouse location is in Gardena and close to the freeway. I've been their three times and there is always a lot to look at. It would be easy to pick up a coral or clam from them and take it on board the plane. If anything I would look into visiting a couple of the LAX-area wholesalers just to see what a big operation looks like. If you do make a visit for heaven's sake take picts and post them.

This is not an easy to implement hobby for sure. Moving and resetting a tank is no simple task even for the best of them. Something always goes against the plan. This guy, who's name most everyone on this board would recognize, recently lost all of his fish in a move, and he's an expert! (http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2006/7/aaeditorial). Before you decide, get a club member (or two or three) over to your place and hear what they have to say about what you're in for, then decide. If you have any trouble getting someone to come by quickly, offer food. We men will do anything for food!