hazymranch

So, my wife and I noticed last week that out male Banggai was looking a bit full but hasn't been eating anything for the last several weeks. Upon closer inspection it was pretty clear that he was brooding a few fry in his mouth. Late on Christmas Eve he finally spit them out and the only ones I could find were trapped in the overflow weir and I'm feeling pretty lucky that I managed to find and save at least those two. I moved the 2 survivors to the refugium where I have been feeding them a steady diet of baby brine shrimp. Anyone have any advice on how to keep them alive? I don't really have the capacity or know-how to set up phytoplankton or zooplankton cultures or even to enrich the brine shrimp but am willing to give it a go if it isn't incredibly involved. I would be beyond pleased if I could actually raise these to the point where I could release them back into the main tank. Cheers

Yep, my male banggai was holding fry in his mouth until he spit them out late night on Christams Eve. I managed to save 2 of them from the overflow and moved them to the refugium where I have been feeding them on a steady diet of baby brine shrimp. I think I'll start a new thread and see of anyone can tell me how to keep them alive.

Mine managed to jump through a 2cm hole in the cover where a few cords exit the tank. I refused to believe that it could have done it...until I found its dried carcass under the sofa across the room.

Did you raise those Banggai from fry? My male has a mouth full of them and I am pretty sure that I don't have what is required to raise them, but it would be interesting to know what it takes.

Amazon.com You can often get multiple book deals (ie. the Borneman and Fenner books, or both of the Pocket Refs) and even with shipping it is often cheaper than what you can find around in the shops. Only problem is....waiting for it. But that will give you practice for your tank as there is a lot of waiting involved if you do it correctly.

Scott W. Michael wrote "Marine Fishes" and a similar Pocket Reference book on Marine Invertebrates was written by Robert Shimek. Both are great reference books. Borneman's book on Aquarium Corals is a great book to read and also have around as a reference. Can't go wrong with anything written by Bob Fenner, Eric Borneman, or Anthony Calfo. For the anemone you will need good lighting and water movement.

Unless the bottled water is distilled water, I wouldn't put it in your tank as there are all kinds of minerals added to bottled drinking water. You can get RO filters and DI resin from a water purification company like Taylor (If there is one there). Just look under "water filtration" in the yellow pages and call around. You can also go to a place like MasterTrade and bring the setup with you to show them and they may be able to get you sorted. The brown algae will sort itself out if you get your water quality in line. Using activated carbon will help a bit, as will the RO/DI water, and keep the protein skimmer running full stop. Since there are no fish in there it should be easier to sort out since you aren't feeding it. Poor lighting will also feed algae blooms. So you want to take a look at that as well. Keeping fresh bulbs of the right temperature (Kelvin rating), coupled with good water movement throughout the tank will help keep the algae away. Nuisance algae love low-flow areas. The best advice anyone can give you is to read, read, read. Wet Web Media http://www.wetwebmedia.com/index.html is a great place to start as it is authored by many of the experts in the hobby. "The Conscientious Marine Aquarist" is also a great book to start out with. I think it is written by Bob Fenner, who is somewhat of a Guru. Good luck and ask lots of questions.

Hey Oliver, I'm in Dunedin and I would be more than happy to help you out as much as I can, especially with sourcing stuff locally. I have made more than my share of mistakes and have DIY just about everything on my tanks. PM me and we can go from there.

There are things just like that for sale in the US by companies like Kent Marine. They call them Kalk reactors but basically they are a container with a slow stirring mechanism in the bottom and an outlet somewhere near the top 1/3 of the vessel. From what I have read, they work well enough but are prone to calcification, as you would imagine.

That's what my original thinking was too, but then I read a bit further and came to realize that those instructions assume the concentration of the supernatant without the precipitate but I am adding the precipitate as well so the working concentration will be higher. I am beginning to realize that I will simply have to ramp up my dose over a few days until I zero in on the right one. I'll use the supernatant concentration dose as a starting place and then ramp up from there. I'm glad you said this as this is basically what I do to avoid burning any corals. I mix the kalk in 15mL of vinegar, then mix and top up to 250 mL with RODI. Then the prepared slurry goes into the sump return where the eheim 1262 does a mix on it before shooting it to the tank. It seems to work pretty well but I am becoming a bit concerned about causing ca deposits in my pump. I'll have to keep an eye on it.

I have used 5000mcd x 4 on a 700mm tank and it looks pretty good. I also have 2x 5000mcd on a 2ft tank (more shallow) and it is a bit better. I also have 3x5000mcd + 2x3000mcd on a 4ft tank and it is a bit scarce (deeper tank). My preference is for the 5000 mcd lights. Get the largest spread you can to avoid spotting. For the price at Dick Smith's (around $4 each), a viable alternative would be here: http://www.lc-led.com/View/itemNumber/64 They seemed like good bulbs (30 degree spead as opposed to the 18 degrees for the DS bulbs) and the price is good even with shipping and the exchange rate. A good site I found was http://www.kaotica.com/frag/diy/moonlight/ Good luck

I understand that. I used SeaChem Advantage Ca steadily over time on alternate days to Kalk and it has been pretty stable at around 400 to 420. I would like to use Kalk to maintain this level and help balance Alkalinity in the bargain. The low volume of topoff required vs. the higher Ca demand in a tank with so many frags undergoing a fair amount of growth simultaneously pretty much rules out a Kalk drip as a method of maintaining Ca. However, I have been reading a bit on the slurrly method and it seems that it enables greater solubility % of the solution allowing Ca delivery to exceed the volume limitations of the drip method. It advises the addition of small doses of a slurry into a highg flow area, causing immediate dispersal and dilution. This is to be repeated until either a pH change of 0.2 (1.5 would be safer) is noted (by electronic measure, ideally) or the calcium level has been raised to target (or at least an adequate but stable). After sifting through the Wet Web Media FAQ it seems that the Ca part of that equation is meant to be detemined by trial, ie. add 1/4 tsp one night and test the next day to see what the new level is and ratchet in the dose over the next several days. My original question was an attempt to take some of the guesswork out of it. That's pretty much what I have been using to figure out what my dripping concentration should be, but apparently the slurry method is a more efficient means of delivering Ca via kalk in that there is none of the undissolved precipitate at the bottom of the drip doser because it all gets sent to the tank and dispersed in the water column. If Kalk is 55% Ca (by weight I'm assuming), and if all of it becomes soluble in the tank water then I need to weigh a tsp of kalk and see what 55% of that weight is and do my dilution from there. I was just hoping there was an easier way. :-? I was hoping that someone had experience with using a slurry instead of a drip and I really don't have the cash to buy Calfo's book to get the step-by-step, as he recommended to almost everyone who asked about it in the FAQ. Maybe put off thesis writing for a while and DIY a Ca reactor. :roll:

Now that my tanks are taking off and with the addition of heaps of frags to them, I have noticed that my calcium needs are outpacing my topoff. So, I have been reading a bit about Anthony Calfo's kalk slurry method. What I gather so far is that I test Ca and then don't dose for 3 days and test Ca again. Divide by 3 and that is my daily Ca requirement. Then, I am supposed to start with a 1/16 tsp of kalk and mix it in 20 mL of RODI then test the pH too make sure that it doesn't transiently raise the pH by more than 0.2. Then, keep increasing the amount of kalk in the same volume of water in successive doses until I satisfy my Ca requirement or hit the 0.2 pH change threshold. What I don't get is how to figure out how much Ca is contained in each tsp (or fraction thereof) of kalkwasser. (I am using SeaChem Kalk). Am I missing anything else? Is anyone else using this method?

Those pics are magazine cover quality. Catches all of the subtelty of the fish coloration perfectly. What settings are you using?

Hey JDM, you have to check out the link to his website and see the build. Awesome stuff. The progression is incredible and displays how great a nano really can be. Simple and beautiful.

Dude, You have a lot of free time, don't you. BTW, good luck with the $25000 auction

I have to agree with Michael and advise going with a canister filter. I love to DIY too, but building an overflow weir is not as easy as Marc Levenson (Melev) makes it look and without a table router it is even harder. Bending the perspex is also a real challenge. That said, I built two of them and they work pretty well. If you plan on going ahead with it, PM me and I will give you a few tips and hopefully you can learn from all of the mistakes I made. If your tank is pre-drilled, then you won't have to build any weirs, but the return pump (a good one anyway) will cost you as much as a canister filter. Depending on how much water you plan to move, a Resun King 3 or 4 is a (relatively) inexpensive option and will pump heaps of water against decent head but they are pretty noisy. A Laguna pump is a much better option, but pricey and they discontinued their Utility Pump line. I have a Laguna 6 and it is an brilliant pump, but ran me a few hundred bucks, for which I could have bought 2 CF1200 filters.

It's completely silent now, but I have to adjust the ball valves to get it that way , which means that if the power goes out and then the return pump restarts again it will overflow the main tank a bit until the weirs equilibrate with the pump. I'll try it this weekend.

Aaaah, I see. I have sponge filters over each inlet so they can't get blocked and less crap gets into the refugium where they drain to. I clean them weekly. I like the idea of having one inlet running full out and one unused at a higher level as a safety. I'll give it a go. Thanks.

I have them both as full siphons. If there are 2 holes in the weir then how would I keep water from draining down one of them? I would have to see a picture of what they are talking about.

Hey Tim (or Chris), What do you mean by this? I have 2 outlets in one of the 2 weirs I have going to my sump. How do I set one up as a siphon?

My nano My lounge tank Kitchen tank All taken 2 months ago and have since been stocked with heaps of stony frags (thanks Cookie). Taking more pics soon.

If you put a ball valve on the weir output then you can eliminate bubbles and that awful sucking sound right at the source

I just got a bunch of frags to replace a shipment of ones that died over the winter. All frags except the montipora are doing beautifully. Overnight shipping in warm weather with good packing should be OK. Plenty of mail-order frag companies in the US do it all of the time.

The CHC importers also supply most if not all of the South Island. It's hard enough to get stock in Dunedin, I can't imagine how difficult it must be down in Invers.