F&Fmgr

mag 1.9, its a pond pump that has some head to it, or one of the smaller eheim universal hobby pumps. Sean

ceramic, glaze free and sparkle free...like the ceramics that are made to look like marble

F&F has it P.S. - this isn't Sean, its his brother

I love reef octopus Sean

its funny that 49.99 is a deal when alot of shops including ours charge around $50 bucks, H-E-double hockey sticks I even discount if you spend a few bucks, no shipping charges and we even carry to your car for you. we dont make much money on salt. rather we carry it for more of a customer service thing. Davjbeas your in reston, chris youre in sterling...youre telling me it costs you more that 6.99 to drive out here? I'm just wondering what the thinking is Sean

Okay, so after minor delays, we finished the plumbing. At the last minute, Sean decided he didn't like the right end of the scaping, so we moved things around to make more surface area for corals. Then, we had the baby stand on a sturdy rock to take a mini mermaid shot We filled the tank with water, and turned on the skimmer. Within an hour of its first run, it started pulling dirt!

youre funny sam Putting a damsel in a 5 gallon won't stress it out or make it worse just because of the move Its unlucky though that the cells are on the body, if they were on the fins it would be alot easier to scrape or cut it off. Funny enough, under a scope it does look like lil brocoli/cauliflower buds, almost like tadpole egg clusters. Best of luck! Sean

If it's lympho (which it looks like) then it is a virus that is untreatable. I've had luck with scraping the cysts off with a razor blade and then dipping the fish in formagreen to prevent bacterial infections. Angelfish and their cousins are very susceptible to this. IT IS VERY CONTAGIOUS, but if the other fish are healthy, they should not catch the virus. Sometimes it will go away on its own after the virus has run its course, so QTing is a possibility, or you could listen to master of the universe, i mean zyogte... Sean

Here's some more of the plumbing and the skimmer under the stand. Hopefully we'll be putting water in this today! Angelique

Finally got the skimmer. This one's all Sean. He decided on the Reef Octopus 5000: Sorry...couldn't help myself

id recommend a forma green dip, bacterial infections can be secondary( and usually are secondary) to some sort of ectoparasite. Try Aquarium products quick cure, I usually use 1mL per half gallon. dip for 3-5 minutes in tank water and quick cure. while you are doing observe the fish though, b/c forma green can cause respiratory problems if you over do it. Sean

Thanks guys... Evan, Jacy is too prone to throwing things in her mouth for me to want a mermaid shot in there...but leah is welcome. We'll even set up a baby hammock for her As far as fish go, Sean wants me to do a variety. All I have designated right now is a mature powder brown, but I would like some colorful fish like anthias in there. I also want a diamond goby (girl's best friend). As I figure out which fish I want, I have to check all the compatibility. Sean could easily tell me, but he wants me to do my research As far as corals go, I think Sean wants to put in larger pieces. I hope no frag plugs, though, since drills and I do not get along well. There is pink sand in there, but no it does not show up well in the pictures. It's not all pink, but it has pink flecks in it. Angelique

For those of you who don't know me, I'm Angelique, Sean's "wifey". We used to have a display tank in the store (80 bowfront) which crashed while we were at the hospital having our first child. So, we scrapped it and decided to get a 180. This tank is going to be used as a display in the store, but is fully out of our pockets. At first, we were toying with a smaller system (since this is my first tank), but decided a larger system might be more stable while I stumble my way through a new tank. Sean's lending a MAJOR helping hand, like guiding me with the plumbing, but most of this is on my own. I wanted pink sand so Sean suggested we go with the Samoan Pink #1. I put 12 20lb bags of sand in there to make a 3.5"-4" sand bed. I was really excited to place the rockwork, so I put a mix of Tongan & Fiji base rock as well as some of the really nice Polynesian rock in the tank. The scaping took about an hour. I did the left side myself, but the right side required some help from Sean. I'm obsessed with tunnels, caves, and bridges, but Sean wanted some room for corals (of course). Next, we plumbed the closed loop. Sean showed me how all the pieces should go together and then let me glue most of it. That's about as far as we've gotten so far! Since this is my first tank (and we still have some time to change a few things), I'd really appreciate any input from the WAMAS family. Thanks! Angelique

You keep feeding it, it will grow medium to high flow, the more nutrient rich water that passes over the dendro the better not tot argue, but I have propagated them in the past with foods that aren't alive(mostly frozen) by broadcast feeding after lights out and then once the polyps extend, I blast them with small micron food(whether phyto or zoo). Sean

Thanks to everyone who came out! Wayne, it's a Strawberry dendro. We had a lot of fun and were very pleased to see some new faces. Raffle winners will be posted later on today. Sean, Gloria, and Angelique

I talked for a very long time with Ecoxotic, and I do agree with you Rob, they can't possibly duplicate the VHO spotlight effect you want. I also asked them if changing the fixtures optics to 45 or 60 degrees would replicate a halide and they said it would be around a 250 watt 15K. On a sidenote Rob, I'm glad to see your taking something seriously

I agree that the wider the optics the less par and better coverage you get. secondly, from Ecoxotics-"We use 120 degree reflectors which spread the light much wider - giving it a much different look. The PAR levels are not as high, but light is spread throughout the tank, not just in one area. We do also have some hobbyists who purchase our Panorama Modules separately and install 60 degree & 45 degree lenses into them. It penetrates deeper and focuses the light more, but hits much higher PAR levels. The PAR from a Panorama Module with 45 degree lenses at 12" is 450+." - These are available through the group buy for a little less than the PAR 38's at wholesale. Oh yeah and the preachy part is bull.... you know it, I know it, and so do alot of people here. And if you dont know that your naturally preachy and you come off sounding "your way or the highway to H-E-double hockey sticks" then maybe you should see a shrink about a possible GOD complex

+1 I plan to do that soon by using a 60 cube( Ive wanted one ever since I sold Rob his) and lighting it with LED only and tying it to a 120 so they share the same water. I plan to have all of the same corals in both tanks.

rob those pics show about 1/8"-1/4" of growth of montiporas in two weeks. Under PC's when i first started the store i would get that same growth rate at 13" tank depth plus 6" from light to tank (19" total). The color improvement is great(which we both agree on) but the growth is normal IME. "You're basing this on what?" I'm basing this on the 1watt LEDs as after 20-24" the 1 watters lose par to the point where you wont get enough growth in SPS, however i think LPS and softies still grow well in 60-100 PAR. Also im basing this on the fact that your tank is 24" deep and those montis are on the bottom and getting what I consider normal growth. The acro growing that you posted a pic of had considerably fast growth(was the growth over a month or 2 weeks?). That impressed me. but what depth is the acro at? you said 12" I think(correct me if I'm wrong). "I know for a proven fact that the PAR38's penetrate all the way down to 32" At what PAR do they penetrate to 32"? I mean VHO's and VHO T5's penetrate to around 30". In my experience you don't need a ton of light to grow monti's like that. What I am impressed about is the low energy consumption and the colors displayed by LEDs. Regardless of make or model or wattage used, LEDs give unprecedented PAR vs power consumption. I'm not trying to argue with you whether or not a higher wattage lamp puts out more par than a lower wattage one. We all know the answer that. But you seem to think that the PAR 38s are a better value. Each bulb costs 120, you have 3-4 bulbs. thats anywhere from $360-$480. and because of the angle of your reflectors the light is more concentrated, giving higher PAR readings, but the light does not cover the entire tank. Don't you think that with a wider angle reflector youd lose PAR the deeper you went at a faster rate than with the 40 deg. lights that "spotlight" your tank? Also consider the cost of lighting your whole tank with the par38 40 degree bulbs how many more would you need? 1,2,3 maybe 4? Thats potentially hundreds of dollars more. So if you needed 6 bulbs, lets say, to cover all surfaces in your tank thats at least $600 not counting materials and time to fabricate a light rack. Or, the other option would be to have wider angled reflectors from which the PAR would diminish at shallower depths than the 40 degree bulbs. I am going to contact Ecoxotic and ask them about their optics angles and reflectors. they responded to my questions about PAR saying that at 12" tank depth and 6" between the light fixture they reported the PAR around 180-200. I think thats a pretty good par reading for that depth when compared to 250 watt MH 20Ks Sean

"handheld, filter-based lux meters may be inexpensive and convenient, but are notoriously unreliable for measuring

im going to implement some LED into my basement farm...you talked me into it Rob!

Injected Kalkwasser also works. There's a product called aptasia control that has the syringe & the kalkwasser. Just shake thoroughly and get it right in their mouths

"In over 20 years of collecting this coral, there have only been a handful of people worlwide that have been able to keep it alive in a captive aquarium." I know of several people that have kept/are keeping them for years now in their closed aquariums. I think a handful of people in the world is an overstatement. "It's one of the most over harvested corals in the trade" Consider the harvesting of zoanthids and acroporas. When I first started our shop, I always saw the Green Plowerpot Gonioporas for sale on distributors, tranship lists, but I never ordered them b/c i had remembered a talk with Dr. Mac about their poor success rate. Eventually i started to see those dissappear from stocklists probably from a lack of ordering an the storefronts part. which is a good thing. I rarely see the red gonioporas available, and when I do i order them. I have never had a problem with one unless it was shipped poorly. Ive had some get stung by a falling zoanthid and survive, and b/c i wouldn't sell it it sat in the tank for a while only to regrew portions of the lost tissue and polyps. The first thing I tell someone is that they a "naturally plankton rich environment". What do you mean? some ask. I politely say " if you have to ask that question than this isn't the coral for you". This coral really does need nutrient rich water with alot of copepods, amphipods and mysid shrimp larvae available as natural food. Without it they only last so long. I wouldn't however be in opposition of a ban of this genus, because they are so hard to keep. I just know that there are people who can care for them and those are the people I want to sell them to. I also see where youre coming from because they have not been successfully propagated in the trade. Sean

Welcome to WAMAS! If you're looking for tank drilling, there's a place in Sterling that will drill them for (I think) 10 bucks a hole. As far as skimmers, the easiest way for you to decide what you want on your tank is to do research online. Aqua Euro USA makes some nice skimmers, and there are plenty of ways to mod them. As mentioned before, lighting is generally the most expensive part of a marine aquarium, and the type of lighting you need depends on what corals you would like to keep. Good luck and have fun! Sean & the Team