Pies

I disagree with Reef about DIY, and he uses a DIY skimmer himself!... Many people here use DIY equipment, some DIY lights, some Kalkwasser stirers and others skimmers (Reef!). If you have the skills, patience and access to the tools you can get some fantastic results. DIY on some equipment is a very good way save some money. www.reefcentral.com has a DIY section with step by step instructions on how to build everything, from skimmers and CA reactors to tanks and lighting. The also run workshops from time to time. Don't discount DIY, but often you do get something much better for similar money if you shop around. I use a 'hybrid' Berlin method, live rock & skimmer. I also have a sand bed and a DSB in the sump (berlin method has no sand). You don't need a MASSIVE skimmer, but you do need a skimmer (check Eric Bournemnans article in last months reefkeeping online magizine on reefcentral). More rock is better than less rock. You need lots of water circulation. Metal halide lights is a must for keeping many corals and is very cost effective over the long term (power consumed vs. light output). Water changes should be performed OFTEN! Some don't bother, but most do, FAR more important at the start of a tank then after it reaches maturity. I run a large calcium reactor. I dose Kalkwasser (lime water). Good, cheap and few disadvantages. I use carbon in a sock 24/7 (changed fortnightly), and p04 absorbing resin. No mechnical filteration, no filter wool, no bio-balls or siporax or anything else. Rock, skimmer, water + light = reef (just as coral and fish). I run heavy coral stocking but low-medium fish stocking. Fish are the major cause of polutants and organics in the tank so I am keeping my numbers lower than I could (coral is far more insteresting that the fish anyway!). Good luck Pies

Sounds great, thanks! I will take anything Capnella grows well in my tank, have fragged it out a few times. In fact the same with Xenia, I grew a bit of Xenia from a spot of white smaller than a half a finger nail. Its not as big as 3 fists and has been fragged and given away to 5 people. I've been pretty lucky with corals so far with only 2 losses, 1 was a damaged trach, the other an elegance coral from a doomed batch, suffering from the exact problem as described by Eric Bourneman in his recent 'project'. Send it all, I have a home for it Or at least will when my have my overflow box laser cut (what are the changes of meeting someone with a perspecs laser cutting business that has 3 MASSIVE marine tanks? Pretty good as it turns out I don't think my system is high in nurtrients, its skimmed well, has little algae and Acropora growth is obvious and my colours are good (not great but better than many I see). Give the Xenia heaps of current, HEAPS, it loves it. As for the Capnella it seems to grow anywhere in any condition. Not sure, try some Natural Sea Water There is no going back once the tank has tasted the 'real thing'. Pieman

Well I’ve been thinking about using a large remote sump for some time. However I have decided that, for now, its impractical for what I am trying to do. So I have decided to add a small frag grow-out tank instead. The tank is 980L x 450W x 600D. I want to use some existing 3ft T8 fluro ballasts and end caps I have hence the tank being just over 3 ft in length. I am also looking to source a single 150watt (or 250 if the price is right) halide pendant for the tank. It has 3 holes drilled. 1 for the standpipe 2 for returns. I am going to run an SCWD for a return on an Ehiem 1062. This will help with some random current. I will also have a single 3000 litre an hr power head on the tank. The tank will be driven from my existing sump as the thought of having 2 ‘tanks’ to maintain is too scarey! So I figure 1 skimmer, 1 heater, 1 water parameter to worry about should be fine. My CA reactor is designed to run a 4000 litre tank, so no problems there. My skimmer a 1600 litre tank (1000 litre heavy load). The entire system will be close to 1050 litres not counting displacement. I also plan to reduce the water level in my sump slightly, removing about 60L of water, this will add a reverse siphon safety factor for spillage I don’t have at the moment. I will run a dusting of sand, no more than 1cm thick. It will have approx 25kg of live rock. 1 fish. I hope to grow xenia, mushrooms and softies in there. It will also house the corals that are messing up my sand bed in the existing tank. But mostly is will be just extra water for the system and a MASSIVE feeder refugium (as well as my sump/refugium). I will also have it reverse lit with the sump, helping maintain PH balance. So anyone with corals for my new system best get hold of me, cause its going to look VERY bare for quite some time… Pies

Hehehe. You know what a power head is? I explained it on the other post in case there was some confusion between power head and filter. Closed loops - Simple but effective. Its just a pump used to circulate water. However insted of putting the pump in the tank, were heat exchange is a problem, as well as it looking ugly and being hard to clean the pump is fixed out of the tank. Plumbing is run from the tank into the pump, then again from the pump back to the tank. It doesn't matter if the pump is on the floor, no power is lost as the 'closed loop' pumps as efficiently as if it was in the tank (not quite but almost!), but with none of the in tank disadvantages. Also pumps are often much more powerfull than any power head. Many people also used closed loops as they are safer for the live stock (anemones especially). Check out www.reefcentral.com for more information. This is the best site on the net for information from some of the worlds formost experts on reef keeping, and lots of helpful articles and pictures. Hope this has helped. Pies

I think its highly likley that the fish were bred with steroids and hormones. Don't blame the local shop though, they just buy them from the importer (Brooklands most likley in the north island, rewoods in the south). I don't think it reflects poorly on them either, its more the species of fish than anything. COST. Money drives everything. Captive bred clownfish cost about 50% more than wild caught ones, not many people care of how they get this, they only care how much it will cost them. Same with Clams. Dollar drives it all, quality takes 2nd place to price. Pie

How about this acro? Its showing promise. White polyps, yellow/green.

Here is a picture taken of this coral today. I thought some may be interested as if you look at previous posts with this coral you can see how much its grown and over what period. Layton - Getting closer to a size that I can frag for you

Caryl 1st you should state the fish. 2nd the reason why many fish are sterile is because of the process used to breed them, not the food they feed them on. Breeding stock is fed steroids to bring them into condition artificially, and there are many processes to fertilise the eggs. Any livestock from these fish are sterile. This is not don't on purpose (although many a conspiracy sais it is), but a side effect of the steroids and hormones used. Often the only way to breed these difficult fish is using this process. Hence the reasons you can never get many fish to breed, e.g. Loaches, Arawanas etc. Its a shame but many argue that its better than depleting the wild stock. I also belive that often the parent stock are killed duing the insemination process (minced?). There was some state in the US that tried to pass a law that all fish stock should have papers proving its ancestory and retailers would have to publish the information (e.g. wild caught, lab bred on steroids, naturally rasied) but it never happened (I don't think, can't even remeber where I read it). Pieman

You put draino in your tank? I thought that method was for people who were treating the Aipstasia then rinsing off under a tap before returning it to the tank? If its so potent that you need to rinse if off your hands, whats it doing to your water and inhabitants? I'll stick with my kalk... Steve. How about some photos of this Aipstasia eating monster? Surley a fish that eats brown pest anemones much be pretty ugly IRA - Like Steve said, no they are not Aipstasia or Aipstasia like. Pies

I don't dissagree, Ehiem stuff is VERY expensive. The problem is one of durability and longlevity. I know someone with Ehiem pumps running submerged in saltwater for over 7 years and run 24/7. Still going as well as the day he brought them. Other brands don't have those claims (or no were near as regulary) like Ehiem does. Sure you can get 2 via aqua for 1 Ehiem, but over 10 years you may need 6 via auqa to do the same as the 2 Ehiem, this the Ehiem does work out cheaper. It is a gamble though. I brought ALL ehiem for my marine setyup, 7 pumps in all, 12 months not a single problem so far (fingers crossed). Pieman. PS: Anyone willing to swap a via aqua filter for a ehiem PM me

Does it move? It looks like some sort of sponge or sea Squirt. Hard to tell. Cool what ever it is!!! Good photo too. When you post I think you need to click the tick box that sais BBCODE (or untick it) to ge tthe photo to link. cool! Pies

Via Aquas the best out there? NO. Experance from person to person is often different but Ehiem have it, easily. I doubt you would find a person with a Ehiem filter that would trade it for a Via Aqua, but how many with Via Aqua would trade for an Ehiem... My 404 has been running for over 18 months without problem and I would consider buying one again but I would probably get the Ehiem and be done with it. Pies

Aipstasia. My area of expertise Kevan, these things really are the spawn of satan and must be delt with. Those who know me know I have been fighting Aipstasia from day one. I started with about 120kgof live rock, and it was infested with Aipstasia. I did nothing and thought it would sort it self out. It won't. You must get in there and do it yourself. Copperbands work sometimes, as do some wrasses, but other than that there are no real predation options in NZ (there are some shrimp and some nudi but none are available here and the importers can't be bothered trying). I actually killed some more last night. I have the numbers in my tank down to single digits. Infact I am only aware of 4 in my tank after last night, but I am sure there will be a few more. The trick is to kill them weekly. I often killed heaps, then left it for a month, giving them enough time to breed and spawn and create more. You need to keep pressing the attack, making an effort to get each and every one until there are none left. I have been doing this since christmas, started of killing dozens a night twice a week. Now I get less than 10 every 2 weeks. And I hope soon less than 5 once a month... How to kill them? I have tried everything, lime juice, hot water, copper wire and Kalkwasser. I havn't tried hydrochloric acid but some do use it. I needed a soultion that I could use in the tank. Ultimatly the Kalkwasser paste works best for me. How to use it? Get a small glass (I use a shot glass) and put some Kalk powder in there, then mix in some RO/DI water until its a thick liquid, not quite paste (I find this works the best). Not really runny, but not as thick as say toothpaste. Just a very thick liquid. I then have a 10ml syringe with a piece of plastic hose on it (the stuff from hospitals they use for drips, but any hose thats thin and will fit the end of the syringe will work), its about 2mm diamater. Suck the kalkwasser mixture into the syringe. Turn off ALL circulation pumps and wait for 5. Get lots of towels and rags Depending on the size and configuration of the tank you may need help, my partner Jane often acts as a spotter for me as it can be hard to do both. Locate aipstasia. Squeeze a little kalk out onto the aipstasia, it will eat it, often wrapping its tenticles around the paste and drawing it into its mouth. Depending on the size and position of the Aipstasia I try and cover the little bugger with a lump of kalk. This stuff burns the aipstasia to death melting it away. WARNING - If the kalk mixture touches anything else, clam, coral, sponge etc it will burn it too so be carefull. I use a turkey baister on standby, if I drop some on a coral I use this to blow it away. Continue this method until there are none visible. Repeat every week. If you have an infestation like I had, limit the number you do in one sitting as the PH will spike very high with too much kalk mixture in the water. I use no more than 2 10ml syringes per sitting in my 900 litres of water, this spikes my PH to about 8.35 from 8.3. If you can use some filter wool, then put some in before turning the pumps back on as the water will be milky for a few hours. I often kill some before a water change. So I kalk them, then I use a syphon to suck out the lumps of kalk before I put fresh water back in. Just helps stop the PH spike. This method works 14/15 times. Ocasionally you have to attack the same aipstasia twice. I have killed hundreds of Aipstasia and am confident that I now have them under control. Not sure if I will ever be free of them, but I will get their numbers so low I will only need to kill a few once a month, which won't be to bad. Good luck and if you need any more help let me know. Pies PICTURE - I typical piece of infested rock in my tank. You now need to look VERY closely to even see one Aipstasia, I am only aware of 4 which I will kill this weekend.

I second this, don't buy cheap that is. It works out far more expensive in the long run to buy 5 filters before finally buying the Ehiem one, easier and cheaper to get Ehiem to start off with. Pies

Not sure what coral gravel is, if its dead porities (finger coral) then its made of the same stuff as the rock (larger) and the sand (smaller). So I suspect it will be fine. Let us know how you get on. Good luck. Pies

Yeah I have seen that one. In fact this may be the thread that started my skeptisim. Several people who have done it, all with varing results. Also interesting that RHF has tried it and dismissed it. However I am still interested to see what eventuates. What will win? Sugar? Vodka? Zeovit? None? All? Interesting. Pies

Just got home and thought I would update. Six Line Wrasse is alive, well and eating. All other fish accounted for. I am going to work on some sort of "fish kepper inerer" thing to try and avoid it from happening again. Pies

If you don't get a hangover from drinking vodka then I put it to you that you simply just ain't drinking enough. I am very interested in the plankton thing. Anything I can do to help just ask. Pieola.

I use a 1200VA APS UPS. The only thing connected to it is one pump, a return pump. If I can get a larger 2400VA or 3000VA I will grab one. Mine was free. You just want to run the tank so it can survive. I know heat is not going to be a problem (beside a 300watt heater will drain a UPS fast). I run 900 watts of light so thats off too! So just run enough equipment to keep it alive. For me thats 1x 55watt pump on 24/7, everything else is not important for small periods of time. We had a short powercut on Saturday night, UPS kicked in and everything was fine. A huge relief. I don't bother for freshwater but if I did I would just power my air pump to make sure there was oxygen in the water. Everything else will be fine, even for a day or 2. I saw a post on here recently with someone saying that their canister filter will die within 4 hrs. Based on recent experance 30hrs is fine. YMMV. Pies

JackJackJack I see a fewupdates and new photos. Cool mate. Keep it up, I am reading your updates so keep at it. also I see you updated the Favia photo, much better Keep it up Pies

I would hold off! I for one would be VERY interested to see how things work out. Remeber it takes months though, well the Zeovit system can take up to 9 months to show results, so I assume the vodka/Sugar method is the same or similar. I agree with what you say about goniopora but the not sure about the Zeofood. You only feed this during the initial 14 day start up period. After that, its just added (by the drop) to control colour. I think this food is for the bacterria not the coral, not enough of it is added to benifit the coral. The Salifert coral food does contained vitamins and ameno acids for sure but I don't think thats what is in the Zeofood, but could be wrong. The white spirit vs. dark spirit thing is a myth. Belive me you can get hangovers on both. Its the alchol thats a problem and it doesn't discriminate on colour Often the colour comes from barrels of oak etc, so yeah it makes sense not to add these to your tank, joking around more than anything. I would like to see Randys thread, i have looked around but couldn't find it, but he does post a lot. I too have some zeovit/zeofood/zeobak sitting in the fridge and am very close to trying it. Reef was using it and singing its prasises for a while but not sure where he is at with it now, Reef? I would like to get a small helofungi and goniopora to try once i start with the zeovit system (if?). Also off thread a little. We need to find a source of plankton (live) that we can feed our corals. Any thoughts on where to get it from? Pies

Well just got home after being at a BBQ at a friends house (Chris Downs for those who know Chris). So I am watching the tank, enjoying the fish in the evening, halides off, blues on. Fish are flying about, searching and foraging for food as they do before the lights go off. Then I hear a splash, and then a sound I can only describe as a fish flapping around the back of my tank. F#%k! A moment of panic, then listening while doing a count. Hrmmm. Call for help "jane!". There ain't much room behind my tank, make jane squeeze in and have a look. Six Line wrasse. F#$K! Grope around for a minute before resucing the wrasse. He is looking bad, covered in fluff and saltcreep from the towl on the floor behind the tank. F%#K! Check him in. Watch in horror as he floats up-side-down in little spirals into the anemone! F%#K!!! Then he falls to the sand floor, upside down, covered in fluff and salt. Not looking good... Wait... A few minutes later he turns over and lies face up, breathing but looks bad. Then a few fish visit him and decide to eat him, or at least bite him! CAN IT GET ANY WORSE? Fend fish away with Hagen stick. Watch a cleaner shrimp grab him, YAY!, and drag him towards the back of the tankm HRMMM... Six line then swims away and hides. After a few more minutes Six Line joins the other fishes and is swiming around, although not looking great, looking pretty good given the circumstance... So I guess the big question will be if the poor little bugger will be their tommorow. Anyone else managed to save a fish after a few minutes flapping around the floor? Wish me luck Pies

Yeah I think thats what he means by refugium, but then its not really a refugium. He should say your algal scrubber or calurpa export system will crash, but not your refugium. Hence my question or more accuratly observation. I would be interested in reading that Randy Homes Farley post, the only one I have seen it where he shows the chemical makeup of the carbon in Vodka with no reference to sugar. The Zeovit system is still a bit of a mystry to me but why does the Zeovit system use Zeolite + other (Zeofood, Zeobak, Zeostart)? Why not just a bottle of 'remarked' vodka or even better a few cubes of sugar? Why all the drama with Zeolite, and why do you need to replace the zeolite? I was under the impression that the Zeolite absorbed the po4 hence the necessity to remove and replave it over time? Or is this just a sham? Also many reefers are having success with corals like goniopora and helofungi (which I would love!) under Zeovit systems, that other are not (unless feeding lots of plankton). Is this the same deal with the vodka/sugar method? Vodka. Layton, you say ethanol will do the same as vodka. What about other liquor? Beer (it has c02 in it, so you could run it through some media first and get your Ca up at the same time . But seriously why vodka? Why not white rum? Or like you say, ethonol? Burbon? etc etc etc. Have the Zeovit people confirmed this to be true about their product, or is it just speculation? And finally from my last post. Why are the corals in the Zeovit systems looking so good, do the Vodka/sugar systems look the same? Or does the Zeovit system do more than just the removal for P04/n03/n04? Piemania

Interesting that they guy in that article claims your refugium will crash. I wounder what he means by that? For me my Refugium is just the same as my tank with different lights. Why would the refugium crash and everything else be OK? Sounds strange, unless he means the microalgae will crash if being used which is different to a refugium from my perspective. I would offer a word of warning, until someone like Randy Homes Farley, Eric Bourneman or Bob Fenner get in on the act and offer some more scientific advice, I would be cautious of the addition of vodka. This thread started with Layton using sugar, not vodka, claiming the same results, however the reason for vodka is the way its distilled with carbon and has nothing to do with sugar. I am very tempted to try Zeovit out simply as a method to reduce po4 and no4 & no3. Its not that expensive and its a bit more tried, true and tested. However if it turns out that Vodka is as good or better than the Zeovit system then I will most likley convert I have a few bottles of Vodka in the cupboard and I own a part share in a still, so maybee I will make some special stuff up BEWARE. There are many people out to debunk products to as they are always looking for cheap options, from you post JackJackJack thats what this guy is saying. Be very interested to see how this one plays out. If the 'Vodka method' has been around for so long, how come no-ones tanks look as good as those running Zeovit systems? Pieman