davelin315
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Posts posted by davelin315
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I used to have some shots of it, maybe in the education forum?
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Actually, and this is simply a guess, not even an educated guess, I think that siphoning at night would be best when it's less active. That way, you miss less and it's not actively growing. I looked at it under a microscope before and this stuff, even though it looks like a "slime" is actually composed of tiny hair like structures that actively wave back and forth. It's ability to move and grow is incredible, so catch it when it's not moving and growing and I would think you'd have better success as far as getting rid of it.
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Here's a bit of background on cyanobacteria. It's a moneran and it's one of two kinds of monerans, bacteria being one kind and cyanobacteria being the other kind. It's actually quite a beneficial organism when you think about it's role in our planet's life. It's theorized to be the original primordial soup organism that began to eat the noxious chemicals that were present on the planet's surface and then began to produce oxygen. It's also thought to possibly be the original blueprint for chlorophyll. Anyway, fast forward hundreds of millions of years and you get to the point we're at now, it being a nuisance "algae".
Again, it's not actually an algae, as all algaes are protoctists, so even though the way it survives is very similar, it's also very different. As a moneran, it literally can grow exponentially over time. Unlike an algae that will have a steady growth, this stuff will double, and then double again, and again... It's photosynthetic and also uses nutrients in the water to thrive, so when these are present AND available to it, it begins to grow. That means that if you have other forms of life that outcompete it it'll waste away. So, how do you combat it? There are several ways to do this.
The first way is to use an antibiotic. An antibiotic such as erythromycin will kill off the cyanobacteria just like it would kill off a bacterial infection in a person. The only problem is that the antibiotics, since they generally prescribe a broad spectrum antibiotic for this, can kill off other bacteria, too. You know those warnings on possible side effects when you take antibiotics? Same can happen to your tank (OK, it's not going to get diarrhea but if you think about how that affects your body, killing beneficial bacteria that help to process food in your intestines, you can think of the impact it could have on your biological filtration and the impact on the digestive systems of your inhabitants, etc.). Theoretically, and this is my making a stretch, it could also impact on the symbiotic relationship that corals have with their zooxanthellae as they might possibly share a historical link with cyanobacteria.
The other way is to make sure that conditions are not right for it. Turbulent flow in the aquarium keeps detritus and organics from settling and keeps them suspended in the water column where they can be removed. This can also prevent cyanobacteria from gaining a foothold as it needs calmer water to grow. If you keep your pumps going with alternating flow this will help to make it harder for cyanobacteria to get a foothold. If it can't stick, it can't grow very well. If you have other organisms which are more aggressively using up the nutrients that are needed by the cyanobacteria, you'll also prevent it from growing as well. This is especially true if you have some organisms such as clams that will eat up the nutrients whether it's light or dark. The last method of control is to simply have the appropriate light. If organisms have good lighting they will outcompete the cyano, which actually thrives in lesser light conditions. The better your light, the less likely it is to grow where there's light.
A couple of ways to manually control this are to kill the lights for about a week and let it die off and then change your water, simply pulling it off on a daily basis, the sugar technique (I tried it and don't like it, had too many unexplained side effects), or getting something that will eat it like a conch or certain crabs. Good luck, the best way to get rid of it, by the way, is simply by being persistent. You'll eventually beat it!
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If you are going to do it, I'd go to a real camera store and use their demo models (I went to Best Buy since that's where I had the credit and didn't have a great impression because I was using cameras that not only had tons of wear and tear on them, but that also didn't have the equipment that I was going to use on them). Also, bring along a memory card that will fit into the camera (my guess is that they've mostly gone to SD as it seems like all cameras are using that form of memory now), one for each if you have enough! That way you can see how your pictures actually came out once you get home versus having to judge based on what you see in the store on the small LCD. Steve's advice, by the way, I totally agree with. Even if you have a thousand options for making your pictures better, unless you know how to use them and actually take the photo, they're no good!
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OK, thanks for the feedback! I got the D80 body today and now I'm looking at lenses. Got a good site for these? Last time I bought camera equipment online I went with digitalfotoclub.com. They had the best prices online that I could find for what I was doing. Suggestions are welcome!
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Just went through the same thing after returning my old camera back to Best Buy and having them refund me the original price. I used to have a Nikon Coolpix 8700 8.0 megapixel (I think it was actually 8.3 or 8.6) camera that had problems ALL of the time. It took awesome pictures when it was working, but when it wasn't, ugh. So, anyway, after getting hassled over and over again I finally contacted Best Buy corporate and they sent me a gift card for the value plus shipping plus a little extra to cover the pain in the rear that the store and customer service had been.
In the meantime, I asked lots of questions, read reviews, and did a lot of research on different cameras. Lots of people liked the Nikon Digital SLR cameras and I only found one or two bad reviews on the D80. The one common thread with them was that the lens in the package was not a good one and was inferior to other lenses. SO, that said, I bought a D80 without the lens (I bought from Best Buy since I had a huge credit there) and am now looking at the various lenses. Chris Thomas (gadgets143) had suggested the Sigma lens and I'm browsing the online catalog for those.
Last time I bought something online I bought from digitalfotoclub.com and they had very competitive prices. That's where I'm looking at lenses but haven't decided which vendor to go with yet. I'm still trying to figure out which one is best for me or if I should get two lenses that specialize more... we'll see how the pocketbook holds up since the camera based on sunken costs ended up being about $20 (not that I didn't spend this money before!).
By the way, I found one review from a Canadian company that reviewed the Sony, Nikon, and Canon cameras head to head to head based on them being hobbyist cameras and the D80 was the one that they said was the best as well.
Here's another review that goes into tons of detail on different facets of the cameras. It says the Sony is the best overall one while the Canon can be upgraded. It ends, though, with saying that the Nikon is the overall best quality one in terms of being upgradeable and also usable for professional settings as well.
The bottom line, it seems, is that you have to know what you want to do in order to choose the best one for your purposes. The D80 has the highest ceiling performance wise while the Sony is basically everything that you can get in one package already. So, money wise, if you have enough funds to buy the right equipment and want to get really specialized, go with the D80. By the way, I don't even have a lens for mine yet so I can't tell you from experience which is the best! Only from reputation and reviews!
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Stop pumping water!
You've got to run the water through each stage of the carbon first to rinse the carbon out (one stage at a time) and then you need to run this rinsed water through the membrane. The next step is that you need to let the membrane rinse and then rinse your DI cartridge with this as well. If you run it without clearing each stage you'll clog and waste some of the life of each stage.
Also, if you're using well water, you will probably need to add a booster pump. The ideal pressure is in the 70PSI range for a RO membrane. Also, if it's cold, it won't run as well. The ideal temperature for the water to pass through the membrane is around 74 I believe.
If you're only getting a trickle, that may not be a bad sign if you have a low gpd membrane, it may simply be the amount of water that you're going to get, but I would watch out for what the actual part that broke is. I'm not sure which one it is, but there is a flow restrictor on the waste line that will make sure that the water flows through the membrane rather than around it. This also reduces the effectiveness of the membrane. I know you said it's the auto shut off, but I'm not sure where this would be.
Good luck, and if you didn't rinse the carbon stages (one at a time) before running the water through the membrane, you may want to do a reverse flush on the membrane with water that runs through the properly rinsed carbon filters (not sure if you add chlorine to your well water, but chlorine will be the death of a RO membrane).
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Hey Jamal, I'll take both! We actually have one green brittle star that is in a sump already waiting for me to finish off a touch tank so that would be great! Where are you located in DC?
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Mixing them is way past my area of expertise as I know absolutely nothing about their reproduction other than they lay eggs. My layman's opinion is simply that this is a trigger going through its change. My guess is that someone will drop the $299 on this guy and after a couple of months in a healthy environment will wonder where their ugly trigger went and see that they really simply bought a clown trigger for 8x the price!
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I agree with Bob. IMO, the neon dottyback is your primary problem followed closely by the Clarkii. The neon dottyback's will eat any inverts you have and the clown will most likely eat any shrimp that escape from the dottyback (I have watched a sebae clown, not as aggressive as the Clarkii, slam shrimp when I put them into the tank and basically rip them apart).
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Hey Jake, I'm home and have an extra one that you can borrow temporarily. You can also borrow my regular one if you want. I'm just down the road.
Dave
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Hey Jamal, I'll take him for school if you can catch him. There are lots of methods to try and catch him, but with damsels like that one method I have found that works well is to get a small dead coral head and put it in the tank. When the fish goes in, lift out the coral head and you've got it. It'll stay in the coral in order to stay away from harm. You can also use artificial corals.
By the way, the yellow tail blue damsels are one of the least aggressive damsels in my experience. I always kept them in my reef pretty much no matter what and often had breeding pairs.
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I'd be more concerned about the sea horse eating the pistol shrimp. Sea horses, despite the tiny "looking" mouth, can really suck in quite a large shrimp. I've had them before and watched them devour shrimp that were as big as their heads by sucking them in and snapping them into pieces as they were sucked in. They have a powerful "gulp" and I think that they'd make a meal out of almost any shrimp in the long run.
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None of these links will display the picture, but here's a list of sites that have good pictures that show this is really nothing more than a changing clown trigger.
Here's a picture of a maturing clown trigger (actually, it says it's Steve Howard's clown trigger, wondering if that's our own Steve Howard).
http://saltaquarium.about.com/library/phot...amclowntrig.htm
Here's another one. You can see that the spots are still covering the whole body rather than being isolated to the lower half of the body. This is a sign of an immature trigger.
http://homepage.mac.com/wildlifeweb/fish/t...erfish01tfk.jpg
Here's another nice photo of an immature/changing clown trigger.
http://calphotos.berkeley.edu/imgs/512x768.../0664/0096.jpeg
Here's a shot of an immature/juvenile clown trigger. Notice the presence of the spots all over the body and the lack of a well defined yellow spot near the spine.
http://www.daveharasti.com/nelsonbay/fish/...onspicillum.jpg
So, again, this is simply my opinion, but that's an ugly changing trigger... it'll look fantastic when it's all done changing, but it's basically going through its gawky puberty stage...
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I can't say for sure, but size alone does not dictate the change. The way they change is that they have the spots all over their body, then they begin to migrate down towards only the bottom of their body, and then they only have the spots as adults on their abdomen. I tried to look for a picture but they only show juveniles with the spots everywhere or adults. I'll keep on looking for a picture. I have seen clown triggers that look like that before and they were simply in the changing phase. I don't know if the ones I have seen are rare, too, but to me, it's like selling an angel that's halfway through its change and saying it's a hybrid. Could be wrong, though. Let me see if I can find pictures to back it up.
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I think you may have it confused a bit. Sinularia is a soft coral while Seriotopa (sp?) is a sps coral. Yours, actually, looks like a Seriotopa (commonly known as a bird's nest) as was stated above. The polyps look to be similar to those of one and the structure of the coral do, too. I wonder, though, if the cause of the RTN is the epoxy you used. I have had a coral recede from using epoxy putty to mount it before. By the way, when you frag something that has RTN, typically you want to frag it where there is only healthy tissue. Not sure where you fragged yours, but make sure you clip it off where there is still tissue. I also agree on the nasty stuff it's next to. GSP is brutal - I have a Long Tentacle Anemone in a tank at school that has its tentacles all shriveled up where it touches the GSP in the tank.
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Hmmm... this thread makes me wonder. I have never had sensitive skin to the water but recently my thumb has had nothing but problems with tank water. It's always cracked and dried out unless I keep my hand out of the tank for an extended period of time (I'm talking a couple of weeks or more). Anyway, I wonder if there are undesirables in the tanks that are doing this. Some protozoans come to mind that could have this affect. Anyone know how to test for these guys other than simply looking through a microscope? That may be the problem as well.
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Mike, I've got some in Herndon but I've kind of let the tank go with the fact that I'm breaking it down to use as part of the 300 when it's up and running. Not sure if there are worms in it or not anymore.
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I would avoid the Achilles until you get some more experience under your belt. Unknown deaths in your tank basically spell disaster for Achilles tangs. They are very difficult to keep. Also, the sailfin tangs are not as aggressive as an Achilles and also have different body shapes. Typically, the tangs will spar with anyone for dominance but will settle into a pecking order. Tangs of the same body shape, however, sometimes have more difficulty in establishing an order.
I've had a couple of Achilles tangs over the years and have NEVER been able to keep one happy and healthy. Lee Stearns has a nice looking one, maybe pick his brain about the difficulties of the Achilles. From my understanding they are planktivores and do not do that well unless you really feed a lot. The sailfin, on the other hand, will graze an awful lot on algae in your tank. By no means am I an expert on Achilles tangs (except in the respect that I am expert at not keeping them well), but I do know they are tough!
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Only the changing pattern... I think that the babies and adults look awesome - just ugly when they're in the middle of the change like that and all mottled and faded looking. Clown triggers have always been a favorite.
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Ummm... looks like a juvenile trigger to me, in the process of changing. Could be wrong, but they go through a ton of different patterns. The babies are awesome and the young adults are ugly, kind of like that one!
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OK, so now I'm short one ballast, 3 bulbs, and (this is by far the smallest thing) a stand and wall to put the system on. Of course, I also need all of the room to be constructed with venting, fuse boxes, etc., but that's the easy part! I hope to find some time soon to actually finish off the stand so I can work on the floor around the room and I'm still on track right now for 2 years!
As far as the mesh mods, I have heard that with the mods the impeller life is significantly reduced and then the pumps go because of the imbalance. Obviously, the impeller is not that big a deal, but if the pump goes, too, I'm wondering about that. I think I'm going to have it recirculating, but as of now, I'm going to test it out when I get things set up and then decide from there on further modifications.
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OK, after multiple recommendations and doing some research, I am buying a Nikon D80 body only camera. Now, I need to get a lens to go with it! I'd like to buy one with the abilities to do catch all of the action with my children so I'd like to get one with an effective zoom and high quality lenses as well as one that can take some nice macro shots as I'd love to document my 300 when it finally gets up and running.
I have gotten a couple of lens brand recommendations so far but unfortunately, I didn't write anything down and can't remember what brands were recommended to me.
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Cyano will feed off of more than simply phosphates, although those are typically a trigger for their growth. They eat any crud in the water, really, and their presence can be related to many different factors. Besides your water quality, you'll want to check out:
- age and quality of lighting
- lighting cycle itself
- water flow
- feeding regimen
Basically, the wrong spectrum of lighting or insufficient lighting (can be a factor of bulb age) coupled with insufficient flow allowing detritus to not only settle but to build up and become a water quality factor (this includes food) will all encourage cyanobacteria to grow. Also, since it's a photosynthetic bacteria, it's not as easily conquered as a true algae. Can it be beat? Sure, but you have to be diligent in correcting the factors that allowed it to grow in the first place.
- age and quality of lighting
Ready for some help
in General Discussion
Need to know more about lighting and whether or not it's been moving around your tank or is staying put. Also, what do you mean by "sensitive"? Is it completely closing up or is it doing something else? Is it still sticky or have the nematocysts lost their fire power?