Pies

ALoiiiiiissssssssss, not sure why you did this to my name, I assume it was supposed to be insulting somehow, so I shall do the same. Here we go again... I have no idea, the Aquamedic stuff I have seen is a zeolite, not GFO, I belive that ROWA is GFO but I could be wrong. I never said RHF saif it caused RTN, all I said is that I have been warned of it, which I have. My hidden agenda is to bag Salifert because it a crap product is what your hinting at. However Salifert appears to be a very good product, hence the reason I use it (almost exclusivly). Like all companies they are bound to have the ocasional LEMON, perhapps this is one, apparanly the aipstasia killer is also crap, but thats only from what others who have used it have told me, no experance with it myself. The people I talk too, off shore (US, UK, Singapore), have warned me off the Salifert product, they have experanced problems with it, I am happy to take them at their word as I belive what they say, and they say that the problems went away when they went to Aquamedic or ROWA. If your bringing in ROWA thats great, any chance of selling it too me because i'd be very keen for some. As above, aquamedic is zeolite not GFO, unsure about the ROWA. RTN is not my only fear. The post from Randy Homes Farley was simply to highlight that some people do have problems. If I gave you a link to 'joes ghetto tank in untah' with 'Joe' saying 'he rekkons the Salifert product hosed his corals' you would instantly dismiss it. I thought the RHF would show you that people do have problems because I suspected you wouldn't belive me, it adds legitimacy to what other people have told me and from what I have read. Just to put your mind at ease because you obviously think something is going on thats not, I am not bagging Salifert, all I am saying is some people I know and trust have told me that they experanced problems when using the Salifert product, these problems went away when they switched to a different product. The RHF article says as much. So how about sorting out some ROWA for me? I'll do a review of it based on my own experance if you like. Alois (and to a lesser extent Layton). I have no hidden agenda, I don't care for the politics or the drama that go with your comments and I don't appreciate the insinuation. I am really, what possible motive could I have??? I am not trying to undermine anything you are doing or selling, or trying to activly promote other products basied on my relationship with other people (JetSkiSteve). I have always, and will continue to say what I think is right or correct and if that doesn't suit your own personal or business plans then too bad. Have a look around, I have on many ocasions in recent time said to people "try PMing Reef, he may be able to help", how much business have I sent you in the past not including my own, quite a bit I think. I am not sure why you why you are so paranoid but I am sure getting sick of your provications and insults. Mark

For want of sounding like a broken record, I would be inclinded to let it run its course. If the tank is still eating and acting healthy, it will go away. Ive been fighting whitespot with my own blue tang for over 15 months! When its happy its fine, when its stressed (or should that be when I stress it) it gets white spot. When I moved everything from the existing tank to upstairs he got whitespot again, so did my saillfin and my crazy tang. All gone now on the 2 others but the blue tang still has a few spots, I expect them to go away soonish. If you can handle the pressure, try and hold off. Its worked for me in the past. Just keep the tank stable, avoid any stress (adding new fish, hands in tank etc) and in my limited experance it just passes. Good luck, I am sure it will all work out fine. PieMan

Are you saying its total rubish i've been warned off it? I don't appreciate being told what I have said being total rubish, especially comming from the NZ rep of that product. Don't forget Reef you run a business and make money from selling Salifert, you can hardly consider your opnion well reasoned or unbiased. Again another attack from you, directed at me. The Salifert product is based on Iron Oxide Hydroxide (GFO), Randy Holmes Farley from reefcentral.com has this to say: I have been using the salifert product for a while myself and havn't had any problems that I would attribute to it, however too many others do. I was also warned off using the Salifert product when using Zeovit, as for why you would have to ask Brendon I do not know why, I was just happy to trust his opnion on it. Pie

My 1100 litres of water survived winter running on 3x 300 watt, in the garage. My tanks have no lids and are exposed to the air. No problems at all. Its on my reef tank which has sensitive inverts that hate heat changes. I have justed adding a 1400 litre tank to this system, still running with the 3 heaters, although winter may require me to add a 4th heater, I am hoping not. I am sure that heater is fine for either of the tanks. Good luck Pie

My own strategy for phosphate control is many pronged. * I feed sparingly, never feeding more than once per day, never feeding frozen food more than once a fortnight, never feed 2 days in a row. My fish are fat, but part of this could be contributed to the fact that I have over 1100 litres of refugium, which will be suplimenting food in the form of copepods and mysiids. Layton is right about not underfeeding, NickS lost his yellow tang to what he belives was underfeeding, I just gague how 'fat' the fish are looking, mine look good, not overly plump but healthy. * I use phosphate removing resins. They are not that expensive. I replace them as soon as my phosphates test positive. Typically replaced every 4 months. I've been using Salifert product but have been warned off it, I will try some of the Aquamedic stuff next but ultimatly would like to use fluidised ROWAPHOS (a very popular method in the UK). * Water changes. * Deep sand beds (in 2 of my refugiums) & calurpa growing. * Skimming. I have a skimmer thats slightly over speced for my tank, not massivly but it can easily handle my tank size. I clean my skimmer on Sundays, every sunday. Remove just over 1 litre of skimate from the cup. All of these things work together for me to generate the result I need. Although some may argue the terminology I would say my phosphates are 0, that is undtectable with the kits I have. I have no intention of trying to do any more. One thing to keep in mind is that phosphates need to be exported, they cannot be converted into something else. Skimming, macro algae, phosphate removing resins all remove phospahtes from the closed system, less feeding removes phosphates going in. Phosphates don't need to be a big problem, they just need to be managed. Hope that helps, good luck. Pie

Acropora colony. One of my real acro success storys. This started as a Y shaped branch, it has grown into 3 colonies this large and has been fragged many times. I've had it start to turn greenish or bright yellow, but the photo captures the colour of it accuratly right now. Its been lightening over the past few weeks, be intereting to see how it ends up. How it begun: And now 1 of 3 colonies: Pie

Just some photo updates to share: Here is a shot of the tank, I still need to change the pump locations for best effect and aesthetics, but at the moment am just happy to keep my hands out of the tank. Green Star Polyps in extereme closeup. They look great, and don't grow anywhere near as quickly for me as they do for others. Still I have confied them to the bommie just to be sure. Came home and found this starfish crawling around on the glass. It lost a leg a while ago, but its almost completely grown back! The cool think is the leg is still alive and slowly regrowing its body! I've been trying for ages to get my Flame Hawkfish to pose for this shot, finally got him to sit still and look foward with both eyes! This is often my visitors favorite fish, he has real character. Hawkfish are my favorite fish. Removing one of the sumps on Sunday, going to fellow reefer 'Suphew'. Will be a shame to see it go, but I need the space and am happy to not have to pay to heat and run another tank. Am planing on doing a 200L water change this weekend if the weather holds. Pie

Print is dead

Alois Really? I do use my own brain, and write things myself, if I cut and paste I site the source, I don't try and pass it off like I wrote it myself, and then use it as defence when i'm wrong, unlike you. Also unlike you I don't edit my posts after I write them in a weak attempt to retract what i've said. If we want to talk about dribble lets look at this: . This is from Alois's tank description on this site. Decades of experance, final frontier. Not only is it compete dribble, it not even your dribble, something else you've cut and pasted. Almost every thread on this forum that has caused angst or problems have revloved around you and your appauling attitude towards people you have grown to dislike. If you like them (layton) your praise them, if you dislike them (myself) you take every opertunity to attack them. You often jump on this site, stir people up then dissapear for a days or weeks before comming up. For every constructive post you 'write' there is a slew of attacks and rude comments. As I see it the big problem you have is that you are trying to be a member of the reef community, but also feed off it with your commercial ventures. Like your miracle mud thread, should really be in the commercial section as its a product you sell. Its funny to me to think that 12 months ago (when you were not selling it) you called it 'dirt from someones back yard', now that you sell it how thing change. You have no crediblity in my eyes, your childish attitude and lies frustrate me. Mark

Steve we have been though this with Alois already. If he cuts and pastes it, and its turns out to be incorrect he says "i didn't actually write it its just a cut and paste, I wasn't wrong'. Piestirer

Everything you want to know about Kalkwasser, how it works, whats in it, how best to use it, if you should use vinigar or if you should use Kalk infact EVERYTHING. www.reefcentral.com, reefkeeping online magazine this month has a MEGA article from Randy Holmes Farley "What your grandmother didn't tell you about lime". 10/10 worthy read, and removes the necessity to every read anything else about kalkwasser. Pie

You should be able to get some good results with the G5. I tried a G5 for a while before buying the C5050Z. The 8080 is a great camera, Ive had a good play with one recently and the ikelite underwater housing with full TTL looks like its all the business too.

All of the photos i've been taking of the new tank are all hand held (tripod is hidden somewhere). I typically use auto focus, manual depth of field, delayed flash. If the halides are on, I try if possible to angle the camera slightly high to increase the amount of light getting to the camera, white ballance adjusted -3 or -7 and AEL. Getting some pretty good results, then take that 8mb file, crop it and reduce it down to 100k jpg I would love to get a remote flash, but the olympus ones are quite expensive given how little I would use it Pie

Many units house the c02 cylinder in a polystyrene box to hold its temprature stable to get a stable bubble count. Pie

Keep in mind that for 12000 litres an hour would tank 4x Ehiem 1262s and consume 4x as much power, so given that, maybee they are not that expensive? Pie

4 in my tank, Regal, Yellow, Sailfin & Kole-like-colour-morphing-strange-tang. All as happy as and swim around in a shoal. Hope to add a powder blue as soon as one shows up. Pie

Excellent, nice to see some many health sps. I am sure you had a few breakages of corals on the move, how about sending me some. Happy to return the favor I am just starting to enjoy watching my corals attach to their bases and rocks now, been about 4 weeks I guess. Also watching a few of my dark browns just now starting to really lighten up. Doesn't take long. The table acro looks like a really nice coral, great shape and growth pattern. Looks like that softie on the left bottom is getting quite large, though you might have got rid of it in the move. I thought about not tranporting mine but I have to much of an emotional attachment to it now Happy to see more photos, looking great. Pie

Dunno, maybee just one of those things. Perhapps its just depressed? Pie

Honestly, it doesn't look very healthy. More pics might make it easier. It did look a little limp, which could mean not enough current (you can't over do it). Concentrate on water paramaters, get everything stable. There doesn't appear to be much life on your rock (its all white), so I assume your tank is still cycling, in which case nitrates are bad for the nem. Water changes, stability, not much more can be done. Avoid over interfaring. Got heaps of light? They love light, mine used to sit about 2 inches from the surface, under a 250watt halide and had a 12000 litre an hr pump pointing at it, this made it happy. good luck Pie

Yeah beware of them getting sucked into the power heads, shreds them, kills them and often poisons the tank and may take other animals with them thats all. If your confident that they can't get in there, sleep well Anemones can be hard to keep long term, lots of light, current and pristine water conditions. Some say target feed, I NEVER feed mine, all are over 12 months old. Don't know how happy they are, hard to tell Piemania

Power heads and anemones are a dangerous combination. Fair warning. Pieman

The other ones are clones of this one so all look the same, cept one of them is currently white with purple tips. Impossilbe to get photos of the others at the moment, they are camera shy. I think its some sort of beaded anemone, its very pretty and very sticky. Would love an ID. Pie

Looking great as always. Hard to belive how big that Hynophora is up the back left. I was there when steve got that frag from Alois, couldn't have been more than 2cm long, now its a monster! (an evil monster at that). Pie

Things appear to be looking pretty good, coral growth is now evident and several corals are starting to take hold. Still have some stuff to find the right homes for and still have anemones wandering around the tank, but other than that everything looks to be enjoying itself. I have a lot of work to do downstairs in the basement, but I think I will take a few months off and just enjoy the tank before starting to box in the sump room. I have been busy building a Home Cinema room as well which I have just finished, and am keen to get to watch some films on our 3M wide big screen This coral has bleeched and is starting to recover. It is one of many corals that have had serious damage caused by Hynophora: Have been lucky that many of my stoney corals have maintained good colour during the move and the new setup: This is one of 3 budded anemones living on my bommie. Its a stunning little nem, with lime green, brown, purple and dark marone tenticles. This one came from a reefer down here in Wellington, which has budded off several times. This is the middle sized one, about as big as 2 50c pieces, the larger one is fist sized. The smaller one is only a little smaller than the middle size one but is completely white with purple tips! Apparanty they do this before taking on their colour. Odd. If anyone can give me an ID on this anemone please do!