rossco

9.30 am to 7.30 pm. (10 hours) I know a lot of you folk have tanks in living areas where natural light will come in to the tank regardless of when you turn the tank lights on. Is there any harm in the fish potentially being active from 5 am (summer) to 10 pm or later???

Hey Ira, why do finger leathers do that? :-? (happened to me too) What happens to the toxins they have in them when they disintegrate? :-?

Looking great!!! Looks like the fish are beating the whitespot...

Wot, youse fellas are just over the hill from one another and this is the first time you have met?? :lol: When you see his tank make sure its a Sunday so you witness the way he 'drips' his additives for the week.... :lol:

Cheers. I'll look at both options!

My fluidiser has developed a crack around one of the fittings (don't ask!). I would call it 'plastic'. :oops: I think it was when the angel bumped into it.. What are such things normally made of and what is the best glue to get a really good bond? Don't some 'glues' almost melt the broken bits together...if you know what I mean...and give a strong bond?

Not sure about emperors. Haven't been there for a while. Got the impression they are still 'topping up' with fish once in a while. We went to Aussie a few weeks ago and went to 'Underwaterworld' on the sunshine coast. Saw how badly some displays can be done. I suspect they were limited by the local water temp in the big tanks so had the hardier type fish and corals. Many of the tanks I have seen over here would still beat their's for colour and visual impact.

Kelly Tarlton's must love amateur reefers growing new stock for free...

Thanks James. You will be one of the first on my list when I have to start chucking out my corals...! :lol:

By mussy I presume you mean blastomussa thingys? :oops: Thats cool, can't grow them properly anyway. I thought at first that by mussy you meant mussel. He likes them already! And eats whitebait whole in one gulp. So much so that when we have fish and chips we have to order an extra person's share for him! :lol:

He gets a bit...but he's real good friends with the shrimps! :roll:

How are they going Duke? :-?

We have a big blue fish in our tank...

But it IS still true that our Slappers has a golden angle on most things! :lol:

I have tried Stop parasites. For me, it helps ease the severity in less severe cases, it is not a treatment as such. Copper can be pretty harsh on fish. Good ol hypo will control WS within a day or two of getting salinity down. Trouble is, don't leave it too late or else your fish may have been too exposed through punctures in its skin to bacteria and infection etc... There are as many views on treating (or not) WS as there are on what additives you should use for your tank. Back a horse and go with it, the worse thing we can do is change horses all the time and not know what works, or doesn't.

We have two BTAs. One 'likes' mussel the other doesn't. They both like whitebait. Head first please...gets in our mouth quicker. If they are ready to eat their tentacles should wrap around food very quickly if you 'wiggle' it against them. Our clown doesn't like mussel so does its best to pull mussel out if I feed it to the anemone. I target feed (usually a whitebait) ours at least once a week. Clowny looks after the rest of the week. Touch wood, the BTAs haven't shifted in months.... I reckon its hard to tell how 'big' an anemone is or how much it has grown since the majority of it is water. They expand/shrink to suit their environment on a daily basis. :-?

Where do they normally park themselves? What corals are their favourites and what is their effect on them?

Its great having a female input to the threads - otherwise we might just see cold fish and things responding to physical and chemical stimuli!

Bulb - 14k Aihua. Came with Atman unit.

Over the last few weeks I haven't been happy with the behaviour of some of my corals. You know - they just didn't sem to show their normal exuberance for life! Also noticed a bit of brown hair/slime algae on some rocks creeping in. Decided to shout them a new MH bulb. I only have one 150w over my tank. Within a few hours they were 'smiling' again - bit more polyp extension and colour (especially in LPSs). Main indicator of definite difference was bubbles appearing on rocks like when I first put MH over tank (extra photosynthesis happening?) Didn't think it should have needed it as bulb only been used for 7-8 months (thought I should have got closer to 10) and looking back there was quite a rapid decline in coral happiness. Even noticed a drop in use of calcium and alk. Anybody else experience something similar or have I been staring at my tank too long?

Yes, you do - its called your old tank! You won't need a lot of water in it if you do need to use it as a hospital/QT tank in emergency. My understanding is that for true WS you can't really see the critter (parasite) well but you can see the site where they bore into/under your fish's skin and create a covering over itself. It looks like grains of salt but half the grain is INTO your fish. I would say in the circumstances though WS would be a prime suspect...

99% seem to be okay - I got the 1% that aren't! A few months back had a problem with what I thought was a bristleworm eating chunks out of my leather. I liked that leather! Problem stopped whenever I put a worm trap in the tank. Saw him choping it a couple of times at night but they are real quick when you try to catch them! Eventually caught him a couple of weeks ago when he had his head (and a quarter of its body) down the shell of a coco worm. I had noticed the coco worm was losing its 'feathers'. Detritus eaters are fine but when your tank gets cleaner they get hungry and move onto something else!

Auckland's electricity supply problems! Your circuit board should do it! :lol:

So ya gonna extend your hyposalinity time accordingly? I am asking cause I know from my mine experience of huge frustration at WS coming back after doing the initial hard work but not maintaining the process.

I wouldn't have thought you should detect 'whitespot' on the butterfly if your hypo is working? (but it will be if you have maintained it at the right levels )