Pies

50/50

Never lost a fish or a coral Cracker?

KP - Lysmata amboinensis is the full name. Until today I have never heard them referred to as Scarlet Skunk Cleaner Shrimp, just 'another' name, red+white shrimp is equally as accurate and meaningfull. Pie

I was hoping to get a pair of Blue Throats for my reef. What say you on their reef compatibility? Looks great, got a whole tank pic? Pie

You mean Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Ninja Turtles are lame. Pieatello

Shame man its a nice piece. I have a pink poc, if you loose it you can have a frag of mine when things return to normal. GL. Piezilla

The first film is truley a great 10/10. I would have got three: Donatello, Michaelangelo, Raphial and the other one. Leonardo? Should have phoned a friend man. Pieatillo

Try an after dark feeding of cyclops too, the coral love it.

Duke - I am with Feelers on this one, i've read in a dozen or places that small shifts in salinity can kill crustations.

Hahahahahha awesome man, must suck to be you

I was under the impression that you shouldn't put carbon under too high flow as it strips the water too quickly. Personally I stopped using carbon about 12 months ago...

Thats pretty much the same as me, about 3/4 a cup a week, but I probably have twice the water volume and a lot more fish than you. Our systems are very similar (skimmer, light, coral, fish load per volume, ca reactor) so i'll tell you what I do. I have the CA reactor running 24/7. I top-up freshwater with kalk (sometimes) every night. Other than that I feed several times most days, never on other days. Otherwise thats it. I have lights on for 12hrs a day, lots of water movement. I have sand (tick tick tick) and lots of rock. Pie

Is it OK to say ********? If so I am going to go ******* (I assume ******* is OK too?) and say ******** a lot. Infact I am going to say it **** loads. Mod = Warren: Sorry, BS is not ok - I wish it was in this case but rules are rules. Have modified the offending words.

How is your alk/ca/mg ? How much does your PH change overnight? How much is your ALK/CA fluctating. Your coral growth (monti in particular) looks odd. I have the same coral, mind grows nice thick branches with bushy ends. When its stops growing its almost always low CA/ALK. As for the algae, its just normal algae attaching to dead coral, I think this is simply a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. Skimming enough? How much skimmate you pulling? One other thing could be, are you starving your tank of nutrients? I was reading a while back that your not feeding much at the moment? Maybee try and amp up the feeding for 2 weeks see what happens. Screw the phosphate, leave that for Layton to argue about, load the tank with food, cyclops 3-5 times a day, see if it makes any difference. Are you dosing anything (i've seen people latley dosing strontium, remember its a poison DONT DO IT!). If you are, STOP. As for comments about you changing lots, I was under the impression you change things with your tank far more than 1 once every 3 months, but I havn't been watching that closley. The advice given was good, take it slowly, stop tinkering and let it take care of it self. Good luck with it!

Yeah traffic sucks. I left work today at about 4:50pm and didn't get home until at least 5:05pm, and its only a 17km drive! Traffic is a problem everywhere Note to all Aucklands - Stay there. Pie

Yep I suspect I have between 7-10 of those funny acid yellow/green ones, about 10 of the stripy ones (brown/brown) and a few hairy black ones, 2 red ones and 2 yellow ones. Funnily enough, the 2x carpet anemones in my sump ate the ones that used to live in there.

Ok.

WOW!

? I don't waste all my time reading the posts on here, didn't realise it was a pre-requistie. As for the brittle stars, they are scavangers. Just becase you see a brittle star eating a fish does not nessessarly mean that it was the cause of death. So I am still lost on your point. Or are you saying no-one should import anything that can eat fish? Or should we just not import things that eat fish that you don't know about? Pie

I don't follow you? What does a brittle star have to do with things? Who has removed them? Not me.

If you had researched your purchase you would know. Buy a book before you buy a coral (there are pics of a mushroom eating a fish in Eric Bournemans book), its not exactly a big secret. I don't follow what you are saying about brittle stars? Are you saying they are bad? I hope not, I must have at least 20 in my tank, some are MASSIVE. All the litrature I have read shows that green ones are a problem for being fish predators, the rest are just scavangers. I've never had a problem. Again , I did research before I made my purchase. Take responibility for your own decisions, don't expect someone else to do it for you. Pie

Have to agree with JoBlog 100%. You take responsibility for everything you put in your tank, no one is twisting your arms. Why do importers bring it in? Easy to answer, because people buy them.

i use 2mm coral sand. If I was setting up a tank again this is what I would use. White.

Aye, shot in the eye by a giant clam, it happens.

I pulled mine out a month or so ago. Its reasonable large and the shell was covered in colver coral which was annoying me. I removed it from the tank and put it in the sink. I ran warm tap water over it and scrubbed it first with a pot scrubber then with a stealo pad (lemon scented). Sweet as. One thing, don't do what I did and carry it, put in it a bucket with a lid. I got half was accross the lounge and it did a burp or hicup or something and sprayed saltwater everywhere. also wear gloves, I didn't and got a few infected cuts on my hands. Pie