lduncan

Nasty little things! I had a problem with flatworms of a sort, an outbrake of the white coral eating nudibanch. I managed to rid it from my tank surprisingly easily, by picking them either off the glass at night, or off the base of a colt coral I had, which they were all attracted to. They also had a go at my green sinularia flexibilis, which is only now really recovered. Here's a pic of one: Layton

Dennis, unfortunately these fish have a healthy apetite for coral polyps, so are not suitable for a reef tank. They will be an impressive addition to a fish only tank however... or a sump even Layton

The intensity of the blue is apparently astounding in person. The fact that it is a true blue coral is a rareity, purple is reasonably common, but the blue flourescing protien is particularly hard to come by. I probably have zero chance of getting one in NZ, I believe that they are hardly ever collected from the wild, most of the ones in existance in the US are aquacultured by hobbyists (hence why it would be extreemly difficult to get even a frag into NZ). Layton

Just in case someone stumbles across one ;-) , here is a picture of my dream coral... Acropora Tortuosa

My caulastrea seems to love the light, it's almost directly under one of my 400W lights!

Here are some more corals from my tank... Green Pavona Caulastrea Capnella

I've got a nice green monti cap. frag you could have, same vibrant green as the porites. It grows quikly too. Layton

Here's my Crocea clam.

Pies, i'd love to get hold of a frag of that purple one once it grows out a bit. Do you have any pics of Montipora capiella, i can't find reference of it, even here, which is pretty much Veron's bible of hard corals online.

Yeah, I realize that they are corallivorous fish, I was going to setup a fish only tank, but they problems people had keeping them alive put me off. I think people often have trouble keeping cuttlefish too, they are very smart, they can use tools. You'd better make sure the tank had a lid which bolted down, cause they are strong too! Layton

Great fish, from what i've read they seem to be hard to keep, but then there are a lot of people who buy fish without the appropriate tank for them. Let me know how they do, i looked at getting one, but settled on the heniochus, but their not really the same. Layton

Thanks, I'll get some high res photos up on my website at the end of the week once I clean the tank, and learn how to use the camera properly. The clowns are actually hosting in a gold crown sacrophyton, (looks like it's about to shed, which it hasn't done for about 6 months), so as far as keeping anemones, i've got no idea, sorry. Unfortunately, the two structures didn't really turn out as well as i had hoped. The tank is only 2 feet front to back, which I think is very limiting in what different aquascapes you can create. I don't think i'd ever setup a new tank which was less than 4 feet front to back, especially after seeing some of the amazing tanks on reefcentral.com Still after more acros, pocilloporas and seriatoporas (really would like a pink one) I initially thought that the one pictured above started to show a hint of green, but seems to have turned brown in the week I was away, maybe it was because my skimmer wasn't "tuned" to my standard after empting. One coral I would especially like, but hold no hope of getting in the near future, is an Acropora tortuosa, which it an extremely deep blue colour. Actually i'd be after any purple, or blue, or turqoise acros. Layton

Well, I'm back from Melbourne, with my new camera, I went for the cannon G5 in the end. I haven't yet had time to read the manual... or clean the tank, but here are some "point and shoot" shots (I think the dirty glass screws with the AF in some shots. Anyway, I should have some better ones up at the end of the week. Layton Green Table Acro Green Acro, possibly gemmifera. Bright Green Porites Seriatopora (and micro bubbles) Finally my (out of focus) tank

Hey Pies, I just went for my weekly update at your site and noticed it's down. Any reason? Apparently Microsoft, and it's IIS service doesn't think i'm worthy of seeing it On other matters, i'm off to au. tomorrow, and will be back with a digital cam next sunday, so i'll get some pics up as soon as i'm back. Hopefully i'll be able to see what's on offer in australian fish shops as well. Layton

I know this issue is highly debated, but personally I wouldn't go near a DSB in a marine tank. I don't like the idea of all that crap accumulating at the bottom of the tank. Leave it to the live rock, has worked for me so far, my nitrates are always less than 2ppm, usually 0ppm (measured with both salifert and hagen kits). I don't even do water changes as often as I should, and they don't appear to accumulate. Layton

Almost got it Steve, backslashes where the wrong way around (I blame Mirosoft and Windows for people that have this problem). I've rotated and uploaded it to my site, hope you don't mind (in the Misc. gallery for now).

Yeah, i'll have to round up all the reefers in ChCh. Funny I never come across any reefers in the shops down here, but both petworld and redwood pump out their stock fairly quickly, so they must be around. Layton

:lol: Nice pic Pies, unfortunately all of mine got wiped out when my heater f###ed up. Could I have a frag? ;-) Layton

Here's jetskisteve's clam:

jetskisteve, email me your pics to [email protected], and i'll put them up for you. Layton

OK, this is definately NOT my tank, but my favorite by far.

Well, things may survive, the information I have read from people such as Eric Borneman suggests that spectrum (effectively the colour) of the light is not criticle to the survival of corals, even species such as acropora. However I can tell you you tank will look like crap if you have a HP sodium light over it, they emit a very narrow spectrum of light in the yellow/red band. You would be very disappointed if you put such a light over a reef tank. Layton

Pies I'm off to Melbourne for the tennis. Yeah i'm looking at 2 6100's to start me off, probably overkill, but I think of it as future proofing for when I setup my 900 gallon system ;-). As far as camera's go i've got a couple of wholesale sources as well, one of which is in Melbourne. Layton

I'm off to aussie next week, so i'll be back with a digital camera and finally get some pics up of my tank and corals. I'll hopefully be able to pick up some tunze streams as well. Does anyone know if anyone sells them here in NZ?

The green wheelie bin in the background gives the scale away! Layton