gastone

Bob, glad to hear that your ricordeas are healing nicely. The yuma that I split two weeks ago is doing just fine, and I've done quite a few floridas here in the past few weeks. They heal very fast. I'm thinking about starting a Chip-style ricordea farm. Garrett.

Dan, thanks for doing this... however it seems that now AWT is saying that the samples were in fact callibrated to 53mS, meaning your table is for naught and the original values posted are the ones we should be using. http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.p...13#post11834713 I think. Or at least I think that someone else thinks this, or I believe that someone believes that someone else thinks this may or may not be true. I'm confused all over again. I think I'll just use morton's for my next water change. Garrett.

No, can't be too big. It is just a resevoir, that's all. Saturated limewater is saturated limewater, I don't care how big of a container it's in. Set up your pump on a digital timer (or controller) to mix it up for a minute or two a few times daily (I do 1 minute intervals 8 times per day on a digital timer). I feed using an aquamedic dosing pump, kicks on for 1 minute every 12 mintes during the winter, during the summer I have to adjust to about 1 minute every 14 to account for less evaporation. Good luck. Garrett.

Some of those values were crazy. TMPR had mag readings of 1000ppm from one sample and 1600ppm from another. This occured not just with the Tropic Marin but with all of the salts tested. Either buckets had stratified (assuming they didn't shake up the samples beforehand and I gotta believe that they did) which is easy enough to solve by jostling up the buckets when we get them and every time we mix up a new batch of water, QC is off at the manufacturing plants (easy enough to accept, just look at what's going on with RC lately), the sample group was too small (2 per salt just ain't enough, and we can't expect a "independent" (won't even go there) lab to test 50 or 100 or 10,000,000 buckets to get a more accurate mean or median), or AWT's labs aren't up to par. I'll continue to use what I've been using (IO mixed with oceanic - was going to switch to RC until...) and adjust the values according bucket to bucket. Sucks to have to supplement calcium, alk and mag, but that's the price of consistency IMO. G. Edit: of course my supplementing bucket to bucket is contigent upon the awful little home testing kits that we have at our disposal. Edit: just read the commentary, apparently they didn't shake up the samples well, and to boot they didn't mix all of the samples up to NSW levels. They just mixed them at 7g per 200mL H2O, so that the salinity differed in all of the samples. Now if I want an (somewhat) accurate idea of what the measured parameters were I'd have to extrapolate the data to 35ppt. Yuck.

Carla, everybody loves a Gigas. Robbie, thanks for taking those pics. I've been waiting for Carla to give up a FTS. Garrett.

How close to your kalk effluent is your ph probe? The ph spike could be localized to where the effluent is. If you dose in the sump, put the probe in the display and then take readings for a few days. Could be that the display never spikes at all. .4 is a bit much for a spike. If you find that the display is spiking by this amount, a different delivery method may be in order, either James' method or my method, which is a dosing pump. Comes on every 12 minutes for 1 minute. No spike. Garrett.

Doug, you got pics? I got merlettis. Acans and wellsis me likey. Garrett. Will also have a few of these ricordea floridas for trade/sale. $15

The frag tank looks great BTW. Completely different than the jungle that I saw just a few weeks ago. G. Edit: Yeah, I think I'm one of the lucky ones with my anemone. I'm glad that mine has maintained its coloration as well.

Chip, I've got a RBTA that I've had for a few (3 1/2 +/-) years ago. It has kept its color quite well (though it has only split once). Do your "clones" maintain color, or do they lose their color and turn brown? Garrett.

Welcome. Just around the beltway you'll find Roozen's. For the experienced reef keeper it's worth the visit IMO. Garrett.

Chip, have you ever tried toothpicks or skewers to keep them in place? G.

Also have this red rock anemone (epicystis crucifer) for trade/sale. I've had it for a few years and I really like it, but I believe it ate my six-line last night. The pic isn't accurate. This was under my old VHO only setup. It is much brighter under hallide/t5 lighting. BTW, as you can see it is a male (the white stuff is sperm when it was spawning) I'll try to snap a better pic later. Garrett.

Two line of 36" bulbs, or stagger 60" bulbs, or if the tank is 24" wide you could do up to 24-24" bulbs run front to back as opposed to side to side. Garrett.

Congrats Phil and good luck with the rearing. Garrett.

Though not Chip (thank goodness) and certainly not Scott I'll give it a go. 1. My suggestion is at least 6 months, preferably a year before adding an anemone to a new tank. I say this out of experience as I did wait 6 month and then promptly killed a quadricolor clone. I think there is something to be said for the tank itself being established, matured, aged... as well as the reefkeeper. 2. Clownfish and anemones have a symbiotic relationship. The anemones protect the clowns from predation (and vice versa in some cases), and the clowns inadvertently feed the host. I doubt this is a nurturing behavior, more like squirrels hoarding their food, except in this case the "pantry" eats the reserves. 3. Size is not an indication of overall health upon initial purchase IMO. Look for a gaping mouth, tattered tenticles, feeding response, color (as in does it have some, is it unnatural). A general recommendation would be an anemone that's diameter is at least 3x the length of the female clown. Smaller and it might get battered to death. 4. Different anemone require different supplemental feedings. I used to feed my quadricolor whole silversides (soaked in selcon) until I noticed that often times it would expell undigested remains. I have since switched over to smaller foods, mysis and mush. I hear that haddonis prefer expensive tangs. Here is a good start: http://www.carlosreef.com/AnemoneFAQ.pdf 5. If you are having large parameter swings I would recommend holding off. Garrett. Edit: I was putting together a response as when both Chip and Scott posted. Feel free to disregard.

Yeah, all my research leads me to believe that floridas recover much faster than yumas. That and the fact that I did some floridas last week and they are completely reformed. To boot, after slicing the yuma friday night I did more floridas. The floridas have already reformed into little mushrooms. I'll probably wait another week or two and then hack the floridas up again. The yumas... gotta see if they make it first and if they do I really think it will be at least a month or two before they see the knife again. G.

Heck, I might split if dropped into skimmate. When mine were about to split the foot would twist up, almost like a dish towel that's being wrung. G.

Blane Perun's site says two months! Ouch that's a long time. Gonna have to wait it out. Don't worry... you still get the first survivor. G.

Icecap reflectors are top of the line IMO. I buy me T5 stuff from reefgeek.com. If you are close to BRK I know that Johnny carries T5 retrofit stuff as well and you don't have to pay for shipping. G.

Gotcha. FWIW the "bornemans" split by pedal fissure as well. Was accidently aquascaping last night and ripped one in half (oops). We'll see what comes of it. Thanks for the heads up on the crucifer. I'd be temped to pick up a cheap one (they can be had for a few dollars) and slice at it, but not this one. G.

Chip, I've got a ballast for you if you go. G.

Ha. G.

Day 2. Both halves have attached to the tupperware container and are doing quite well... or so it seem. Pics from the morning after I cleaned their "bowl". this is the one that has reformed better IMO. this is the other one. Not quite as completely reformed but attached none-the-less

Here's an old pic from a few years ago. At the time the crucifer was hosting an Amphiprion ephippium. The crucifer was spawning at the time and she was feasting. Sorry bout the pic qualitiy. The white balance wasn't set on the camera. The colors are quite nice on the anemone.

Daniel, you've got to update your sig to include the new anemone. I've got a nice orangeish/reddish rock anemone (Epicystis crucifer) that I've had for a few years. If you ever want one, let me know. I've never split it (and never heard of it being done), but why not give it a shot. If you are ever down in the area, let me know and we can do it. Garrett.