lduncan

Isn't the pH swing the same?

$50 to $60 dollars for 50mL then. Seems kind of expensive. What sort of food is it? Chemical or cellular based?

Are you sure about this? That would be interesting to see. Got a link? Layton

http://www.korallen-zucht.de/KORALLENFU ... 100.0.html Say's here 439 euro's a litre, is that a mistake? Surely?

Why?

Actually yeah, the way the shell twists is a give-away. Snail it is.

Is the price on this stuff really $890 a litre?

The shift comes because the heater produces CO2 as a waste product. That means that the CO2 levels in the room rise and correspondingly the CO2 levels in the water rise, which shifts the equilibrium in the carbonate / bicarbonate system which changes the pH of the water. So when the heater is turned off, the CO2 levels in the room will eventually go back to normal as the it defuses, which will reverse the effect, but how long it takes is dependent on a lot of other things, so it may or may not be a quick reversal. As long as there's reasonable ventilation it should be fine. But I wouldn't get too paranoid over the pH thing. It might be worth testing the pH to see what effect the heater has. If it's significant, you might have to do something about it. But it's not really something you need to be doing routinely. Layton

Yeah you should be fine. Especially if you don't use a calcium reactor. Gas heaters are one thing which can affect atmospheric CO2 in your house, and potentially shift the pH alkalinity balance too. So if your not running one of those, I'd say don't bother, the pH takes care of itself.

Probably the most interesting part of that extract above:

That's a hard question to answer simply. You have to understand what pH actually is, as well as how buffer solutions and chemical equilibrium work. I could give it a go, but it would take a while, and probably wouldn't be particularly interesting, there's a bit of chemistry and maths involved. As for the KH being high. I disagree. I think it's a good thing to keep KH higher when nitrates and phosphates are higher. Something i've touched on before with C:N: P ratio's (Redfield). Also carbon in the form of alkalinity is limiting in the calcification process, not calcium. You can safely trade off calcium levels for increase alkalinity. Calcium of 350 seems to be a critical value in the trade off. Anything above 350 is fine. Layton

Generally yes. If you KH is in normal ranges, your pH will be fine. The one thing which affects the relationship between KH and pH is CO2. For example, if you have a buildup of CO2 around your tank, then although your KH may be fine, you may find that pH is lower than normal. Or if you run a calcium reactor, you may find that pH is lower than it otherwise would be because of excess CO2. I haven't tested pH in years. KH is far more important. Baking soda temporarily lowers pH (while the carbonate / bicarbonate equilibrium establishes itself) Baked Baking soda when added to salt water results in a pH of around 8.3, so it shouldn't raise pH (unless pH is low already) Honestly it's not really worth watching pH when adding baking soda, or baked baking soda, in small amounts. If you're adding a LOT of baking soda then, maybe yes, but it's only a temporary effect. Layton

Just some sort of tube worm.

You could put ammonia in and see the same reaction ;-)

I can't see any marks on him, but he charged straight for his cave afterwards an hid for a bit. But seems to be fine now, out and swimming like normal.

I have a AP902 on around 800 to 1000 litres total water volume. I feed half a sheet of nori, a couple of cocktail shrimp, and a couple of cubes of frozen brineshrimp every day. It's a little more than the system can handle, so I have to do more siphoning than i would like, but that is what the fish need to look good and stay healthy. Even then I don't know if they are getting enough food though. Today as I was feeding the nori, the crosshatch jumped clear out of the water and hit the hot metal halide before my hand had even touched the water! He was trying to get the nori sheet! Probably a sign he could do with more food. He also took a bite out of my finger the other day when I was picking up a coral, just a small bit... he could take a pretty sizeable chunk (1 cubic cm easily) out if he wanted too.

It's pretty hard to generalise on coral feeding, because there is such a wide variety of requirements. Some gather food exclusively from the water and contain not symbiots. Some gather the majority of their food from symbiots, and of course there is a spectrum of corals between those two extremes. I think feeding corals really comes down to the same issue as feeding fish. You want food in the water column, but you don't want nutrients. So what, and how much you feed is limited by your tanks waste removal system. You just don't want the food breaking down causing nutrient problems, you need to remove it before it gets to that stage. I don't specifically feed corals, mainly because i keep ones which get most of their food from symbiots, and the rest they can easily get from detritus as it's making it's way to the skimmer, waste from fish, and small particles of food from feeding fish.

I haven't watched the whole thing, but parts of what I saw were pretty interesting, like the porites wafers. Other than that from what i saw most looks pretty standard methods

I'm not worried about it. It's just unusual that's all. And believe me, I am the last person who would be caught over "academia-ising" stuff. I've seen my share of cardigan wearing walkshort and sock wearing unionist uni staff. As well as what I call "professional" academic students. People who couldn't see the forest for the trees. I was doing engineering, which is basically applied science. There was a massive focus on practicality and reality in our courses, but of course based deeply in science. Many of our lecturers were consulting engineers with businesses outside academia who would "keep it real". But personally I couldn't wait to get out of the place. I'd go insane if I had to spend any longer there. It wasn't the course, just the environment at university, it gets old pretty quickly.

If you mean wee for v etc yeah we were taught old school pronunciation which has a few differences from the taxonomic version. I just think that when British English speaker sound most of the words out, they come closer to the agreed upon pronunciation rather than the American English speakers who seem to come up with different sylabalisations sometimes. Maybe i'm over generalising. But that's what i've come across. I still don't know how you get a-CROP-ra from acropora though?

True no one knows how it was really pronounced. But people have agreed on a convention for consistency's sake. They still teach Latin in some schools. We were taught it from form 1 through 4. I remember all the textbooks had illustrations creatively modified, and all the stories seemed to be about puellae. And rope learning declensions, painful.

Like anyone he can talk some crap too. ;-) But yeah he obviously knows his stuff. Pronounciation: ak-ro-POR-ah mon-tye-POR-ah (I always pronounce it mon-tee-POR-ah though) If you want to get technical: http://www.saltspring.com/capewest/pron.htm I think British English speakers in the whole have a more intuitive "feel" for the correct Latin pronunciation than American English speakers. (No offence Steve :-) )

He needs a lesson in Latin pronunciation though.

I'm not convinced:

That would be a short one. How about: Zeovit - piecing the puzzle. Layton