rossco

Be grateful Wasp - at least you can still see it! :lol: :lol:

Although fish like to get cleaned, especially if they have ich or similar, shrimps don't always oblige. They are also most active at night so can still clean up your fish when they are 'sleeping'. Shrimps also keep under cover more after a moult as they don't have hard bodies straight away.

The product I was referring to is "EHFI Karbon" put out by Eheim. "Binds harmful substances such as heavy metals, detergents, medications; ideal for initial aquarium set-up Heavy metal-free, ph neutral For fresh water only" I assumed it would be safer to use than the 'non-branded' products!

I was browsing a local supplier's shelves and noticed that a german activated carbon product said 'not for marine' use. Why would this be??? :-? How do we know if the generic brands aren't similar?? Just wanted to know if there were differences we should be aware of.

That's not a real emperor angel :lol: - this is: Yours will get there one day soon...

Heck Wasp - ya must have too much time on your hands to worry about what might go wrong. Now ya got me worrying too - just when I thought I had my tank running 'sweet'! :lol:

Having not had one of these things going before, but getting there, I would have imagined that it would have taken a bit of time for the reactor to get enough CO2 going through it in the right concentration to produce the desired result. So the reactor is responsive enough to crank up again every 12 hours or so when you use the solenoid? :-?

Great result! Smiles all round! That little blue tang ain't so little any more!

Hey Ben Couldn't ya find any fish ya woulda liked to have in your tank at any fish shops??? :lol:

I think Wasp was able to stick it in a tank by itself for a while until it learned to eat. Its hard if everybody else beats them to the food before they learn the taste of it!

I've had one nearly a year. Sorta fed it with fine frozen mix but wasn't sure whether it retracted cause of physical stimulus of food on it or because it was feeding. I think it eats such small micro plankton stuff its hard to feed and it thrives in a 'dirty' water column.

Define 'long term growth' !

How do you manage to 'smell him' ? The more you 'play' with it the more it'll try to find a place where you CAN'T !

Most dry rock is pretty dirty anyway so provides plenty of food for bacteria to start with. My advice is to let it do its own thing for a few weeks and then add a bit of mussel or something to increase the capacity of the system. My philosophy :lol: is that the more we intervene in the natural process the more we have to keep intervening (says the man with a whole heap of stuff bought to reduce the amount of manual intervention!).

I've never had a problem with roving BTAs stinging corals. Usually it is the other way around. The biggest problem is the 'impression' their big feet make when they walk over corals.

Yup. But as often said, you can only generalise behaviour for the fish species as there is WIDE variation within the species and tank circumstances.

He's got a fish or two, or three, in there!

Because for every 'doom & gloom' experience there is a happy one like having a sailfin tang who has appointed himself the duty valonia (bubble algae) inspector and remover every time I put something new in the tank!

Yup, there is a purpose for all of us! Only trouble in a reef tank is feeding enough to keep all the desirable inhabitants happy without encouraging undesirable ones to flourish. Haven't got many acros but always seem to end up with phantom hitchiker even after close inspection. Some say the crabs will nibble on ends of acros if they get too hungry.

Geez Craig he might not have enough money left after buying your tank :lol: - but I hear their property market did better than ours!

Youse guys in town is lucky. You have lightning speed compared to us country hicks! By the time your photos have downloaded PuttPutts acros have grown another two inches!

Yup, its pretty hard to collect pure 'rainwater' - always seem to get some contamination. With my new tank set up I used mix of old rock, 'cooked' rock, and a bit of new rock. Used totally old tank water and RO/DI water for new tank set up. Still had a diatom bloom as soon as new MH went on over new rock (and even some of cooked rock). Thinks its an evitable part of the cycle...

Tangs, especially ones like the Achilles and Powder Blues, are the kind of fish that inspire the comment: "You couldn't have painted it better colours and patterns even if you designed it yourself!"

But they live closer to us than the mainland states - maybe they would be cheaper here! :-?

My tuppence worth: In most tanks whitespot is endemic but the incidence is below 'visible' presence. Even though it can remian dormant for 4-5 weeks in substrate, it must be finding some host in order to keep the reproductive cycle going, just below the radar for us tank keepers. If this is the case, on any one day there is likely to be a stage of whitespot looking for a host to keep their reproductive cycle going. The resistance of the potential host fish restricts this. The debate would be about whether a WS theront would be capable of latching onto a fish, burrowing into the skin, growing, and forming a lesion visible to our eye, in a matter of hours. Plenty of other stuff to throw in; some writers believe theronts/tomites are most active at night which is why fish can seem clean in the morning (theronts have exited fish/ cleaner shrimps have had a better chance to clean fish) but infected later in the day when previously invading theronts have developed lesions. I think there is a degree of support for your view HazyM cause we probably all know of fish that have 'developed' whitespot within a day of being put in a new tank. The question is how long it was already developing on the host fish.