tHEcONCH

Hi - I think your water temperature is still a bit too high - drop it to between 27-28 degrees - that will allow for healthier plants without needing fertiliser and other additives which will in turn clean up your water (excess fertiliser and/or medicine is just a polutant, afterall), however I suspect the real problem is that you simply have too many discus in too small a tank. I find I can only sustain 3 or 4 healthy adult discus in a 240 litre community tank - any more than that and one will inevitably become the runt. I suspect you might find that the weaker one or two of yours will die and then the remainder do fine - unless you keep stuffing new discus into your tank. I've found Discus to be beautiful and relatively easy to keep so long as you provide them with enough clean water (without medicines, fertiliser, or anything else Canterbury tap water is pretty much perfect for Discus) and most importantly - territory.

I was in Auckland last weekend too... I'll keep you in mind next time I 'thin out their numbers".

Well, after a few days feeding with ReefRoids and random green algae off the side of the glass, it is on the mend. I think it might have just been very stresses from shipping etc. I can see its little blue tentacles reforming nicely

Yep, I have all of those and some better ones in my tank I should have taken photos before I took mine down - doh!

Noted BIll, but I'm not interested in selling it to anyone other than Wilson - I'll PM him next time.

If it were my only marine tank then it might be worth the effort, but since I have a RedSea Max anyway I decided to just concentrate on that. Its just less hassle and allows me to have healthier and more interesting corals. The 8 litre was really just an experiment to see if I could do it, but I didn't find it that much fun really. The corals were OK, but didn't really flourish the way they do in the bigger system. The Max also allows me to feed relatively heavily because it has a protein skimmer whereas the little tank was already a bit marginal to start poluting the water with uneaten food.

Hi Wilson - I've still got the whole thing - I don't really want to slpit because the other bits are useless without each other - you can buy the tank with backing paper, heater, filter, and light for (price removed) PM me. Mod Note. Sales go in the Trading areas. Mod Bill.

Chhers

Hmmm... maybe it is opening at night in response to when I feed the Sun Corals. I still find it odd that it closes when the main lights come on. I guess I might just up the flow a bit and try feeding it directly - what did you feed your one with?

tHEcONCH has just taken down his 8 litre nano because although he found it technically possible, it was a suprising amount of work to keep it healthy which made it a lot less fun than his main tank. The biggest problem was maintaining a stable temperature - even in tHEcONCH's fish room which stays pretty much the same temperature all the time, the nano's temperature still swung 7-8 degrees - tHEcONCH thinks that is because the smallest heater he could get was still too powerful for the volume of water, and the thermostat was too slow to react. That said, tHEcONCH kept small frags of zooanthid, sarcophyton, discosoma, Xenia, and Pachyclavularia in addition to the usual compliment of snails, starfish, etc. Most of those frags are now available at your favourite fish shop (bottom tank).

DON'T PANIC! In tHEcONCH's experience that is usually caused by an excess of finely ground food - feed it frozen blood worms for a couple of days to help clear its system out, and try to include more fibre (aka frozen bloodworms) in its diet. Incidentally tHEcONCH would drop the temperature to 28 degrees so that it can carry more oxygen / relieve its respatory stress.

Except when it is dark - does it have jetlag? Are the lights too bright during the day? tHEcONCH has it in a low/medium flow, and about 8000-9000 Lumens of light. Why is it so shy?

They will eventually get used to it and start eating, but tHEcONCH would rather feed his turtles in the main tank and make the effort and keep the main tank clean. tHEcONCH feeds once a day in the morning, removes all uneaten food after half an hour, and does a hoover up and 100% water change once a week (adding Turtle Clean) - although tHEcONCH also has the luxury of a relatively big tank, plants, a big filter with coral debris to stop the water acidifying, and Reeves turtles which are relatively small.

Plants certainly help reduce odour by using some of the waste products in the water, but you have to be careful what you use so as not to end up adding to the problem with rotting leaves and blocked filter intakes. tHEcONCH finds java fern and large / dense sword plants to be the best option as they will withstand the 28 degree temperature and constant shredding better than most other plants, but even so they usually don't last more than a couple of months. The turtles will also dig them up looking for bugs etc, which tHEcONCH doesn't mind because it gives the turtles something natural to do. Try one and see how it goes...

tHEcONCH finds the video in this link humourous.

Do you think tHEcONCH could keep it in Wilson's nano tank for a while?

tHEcONCH would also like to alert fellow aquariasts to the potential of feeding fresh human blood to Sun Corals, especially Black Sun Coral, given the feeding response elicited after he accidentally cut himself on a malevolent piece of acropora. :-?

That tank is really designed to have a small number of small freshwater fish (tetras etc), and really isn't suitable for marine fish. tHEcONCH beleives it would be cruel to jam them in there and hope.

The Brown stuff is a mixture of different organic compounds from decomposing food and diluted turtle turd. tHEcONCH would recommend that you remove all uneaten food no more than 1 hour after you feed, do more / bigger water changes (using a syphon to get all the waste under the stones), and get a bigger filter. A bigger filter will allow you to use coral debris in one tray to help nuetralise the acids in turtle urine, although no filter will completely process urine, and turtles make litres of it. You should also consider using some sort of bacteria culture starter to get your filter working properly again and/or 'Turtle Clean' at each water change. tHEcONCH also keeps Java fern in his turtle tank to help keep the water clean and give the turtles something to nibble on from time-to-time. tHEcONCH

What tasty recipes should tHEcONCH delight his Sun Corals with?

Could it be that Anemone's by definition have no coralites?

tHEcONCH is seeking the definitive difference - what makes an anemone an anemone, rather than a coral?

tHEcONCH would recommend contacting John at Organism on (03)3513001