rossco

I would be aiming for a dKH of towards 8 (by adding baking soda over the ourse of a couple of days) - wadda ya reckon guys?

Rely mostly on water changes to keep water 'clean'. Watch pH, but perhaps more importantly monitor alkalinity. You'll probably need to add bicarbonate of soda every water change at least.

One thing I have learnt in this SW thing - "one that is cheap" isn't usually found in the same sentence as "one that will do the job". :lol: We call Jetski and Reef our saltwater genie's cause if you rub them the right way they can make anything you want appear!

Around $60 - 70 for a small to medium. Slappers gets them cheaper cause they know he always comes back for more! :lol:

Yup, EXACTLY what we told ourselves (and our spouses) when we first started!

Get used to the funny looks if you want to be a real reefer!

Hi Penejane Here's a thread about a few of us who had similar thinking - judge for yourself! :-? http://www.fnzas.org.nz/fishroom/bulk-order-from-de-lighting-vt10336.html

Yup, that sounds like our boy!

Yup, tried that. Like the proverbial pig, sailfin tears big piece off one feeding rock, eats this on the way to the second rock, same again, back to the other rock and so the cycle goes. Same result as one rock except slightly more swim time in between They aren't really that aggressive towards each other so far. PBT even pulls food out of Sailfins mouth when it can't swallow any more! The are both putting weight on, just the sailfin a lot more than the PBT. Just trying to achieve the impossible feat in reefing - well fed fish in a pristine tank! :-?

I used an Eheim external canister filter in the 'early' days (about 9 months ago ). Kept the ammonia et al under control and mushroom corals and few hardy fish reasonably happy. As much as the %$$&* go on about flow in our tanks when I added a stream, and then another, I started to get real change happening in the tank. I now use most of the original gear on my QT tank so it doesn't feel at all wasted. You obviously love the fish hobby, so sure, start the way you are but plan how you are going to upgrade which you enevitably will!

Don't do it Penejane! Look at all the horror story posts! Your husband is so right (isn't he always????) Your life won't be the same staring all night at a fishtank rather than a TV!

You're just trying to sell me a Mg test kit....

I have the great pleasure of having two neat tangs in my tank. A Sailfin and Powder Blue. Sailfin was first in and the bigger fish. PBT comes off second best in any scalpel duels but only got relatively minor nicks in the first few days. Sailfin eats like a pig but PBT picks at food 'graciously' - doesn't swallow sheets (slight exaggeration) of nori at a time like Sailfin. So when it comes to nori feeding time sailfin eats until its bursting and PBT gets the edges. I want to keep the PBT well fed. He gets a fairer share at mixed food feeding time as they are smaller pieces. Can you 'overfeed' nori? How much go you guys feed? (If you guys say you can feed as much as you like do you know where I can get some outriggers for the sailfin to keep compensate for his stomach ) How much should we intentionally leave some rocks with a degree of algae on them for the benefit of fish like the tangs (and angels) to graze on naturally between feeding times and reduce the likelihood of them having an investigative taste of corals? (So stuff like Vodka should be used minimally) And oh yeah - what is the meaning of life????

Hi Tel Earlier this year I lost a really nice PBT and Butterfly to WS. Yup, a lot of learning especially too many fish too soon. Once you get too much damage through perforated skin you leave the fish wide open to infection especially if WS is not reducing enough. My PBT took 2 months 'to die' from WS but die it did. And just when I was hoping we had turned the corner and using Stop Parasite, and garlic, and cleaner shrimps, and a lot of hope. I took the bit between my teeth and dragged all my fish out of my main tank and put them in a QT tank for 4 weeks (plus 1 week for bringing SG down and up at the end). I followed the regime as per Wasp's link. It has worked a treat. Fish cleaned up their WS well without any further intervention. Fish never looked happier when in hypo. Since then I have put Sailfin and PBT into main tank without any sign of WS and after a mandatory fresh water dip on arrival and 3 week QT(its difficult to type while rubbing my fishy talisman furiously! No rude comments now!). Make sure you use a refractrometer (swing arms vary too much) and you can't go too far wrong. Stick to the schedule. You shouldn't get too much evaporation this time of year so shouldn't be too hard to keep SG right. Just fill up to the same line every time and any water changes with the same SG obviously. I had live rock in the relatively small QT tank and it seemed to have kept working (as the experts say it should) as long as you reduce SG gradually. Keep testing for ammonia, nitrites etc. Makes a lot of greeblies jump out of rock though! Good luck Charlie Brown!

How goes the whitespot Tel?

Hey Cracker, I'll let you in on a secret. Your tank has been nominated by all the other forum members as the 'experimental' tank. We encourage you to try lots of wacky things and then stand back to see if they work. When they do we rush in and do it ourselves. Its called being at the leading edge...(sometimes known as the bleeding edge)

I know salties are way outnumbered by freshies but have you ever noticed how the sick fish posts are almost always freshwater? Probably because there are only two states of health for SW fish - alive or dead.

I might just do that. Would have to borrow your skimmer though!

If you want to hear the motor struggle try plugging a kettle in..! :oops: Gotta keep the caffeine levels up!

Hi Tel Doing the double dose option? Seemed to be worthwhile for me. Its the old story - its hard to know how effective something is when you don't definitively know what would have happened if hadn't treated!

How many lettuces a day do you have to feed it??? :lol:

Hi Tel How goes the WS? I got a bad dose earlier this year - lost a couple of great fish. Treat WS with HUGE respect now... Some more thoughts..why did the shrimps die? I used Salifert SP and it certainly didn't affect mine. You need those little critters to help reduce the incidence of clinical WS. Are you sure about your salinity? Checked with refractrometer thingy? Don't trust swingarms - they have huge variance. Stop Parasite seems to help a bit. Not sure whether it helped me or the fish feel better. Hard to tell as WS naturally goes in cycle over 3-4 days. How many corals do you have in your main tank? Is it worth removing them so you can treat your whole main tank with hyposalinity? Others might disagree, but should keep your nitrifying bacteria going as long as you do it over a couple of days. Hypo is the way to go for WS. You KNOW that you are breaking the cycle if you keep it at the 1.009 level. Clowns are naturally tough critters. Their natural anemone resisting mucus helps resists WS but they can still get it in their gills, eyes and fins.

Yo - Jimmy lives!!!!

Alastair should work for Sea World - he can train CBBs to eat granular fish food!

Have you got anything that you can put over it to restrict it movements - something like gutter guard Is is 'flat' (BTA) when its not stuck or does it have a significant stem? The stemmy ones mostly stick on the bottom of the foot only. The BTAs can morph into any &%^& shape they like! You need to keep it roughly where you want it but still give it adequate light and current. I used some old branches of calaustrea to play battleships with mine. They are great escape artists but will have to stick with its foot to do so. First achievement! Our BTA walked round the tank for a week before it has stuck for 5 days now (touch wood) 10 cms away from where I first put it. The like to move at night so every day is a new game of battleships!