wasp

No but I wish! The pics are from one of those email thingys people send.

Hope it works out. If it's young enough to get really tame, keep it for a pet, hand raised sparrows are cool! If you or someone wants to put the time in, they can be trained to live outdoors, but return to sleep in a place you provide, plus they will come to you for food when you are outside. Cats are the big issue though.

OK well since you are not specifically dosing calcium, there are only 3 possible causes for the high calcium relative to alkalinity - 1. too much calcium in the Red Sea Salt, 2. salinity too high causing all elements to be high, or 3. test kit is not accurate. You say salinity is right so that only leaves the salt mix or the kit, you could start by getting someone nearby to check your water with their kit, or if that is not possible most shops are happy to test your water if you take in a sample in a (clean) jar, to detirmine if your own kit is telling you the truth. If it is, then it can only be your salt mix, perhaps you could do less water changes plus add a little more alkalinty than you are at the moment, you will find calcium will naturally fall over a period of time. But having said all that, a mild calcium imbalance will not be the cause of the hammers problems but still is a good idea to get this right. Hmmm... Perhaps I should have said Cynarina, or some kind of "meat coral", anyway, I meant the one just below & to the right of the hammer. Also, if the hammer has brown jelly disease, this does not just happen to a healthy coral for no reason, there will still be some underlying problem. If you have not had the hammer too long, it could have already been in a weak state when you got it, but if you have had it for a while there is something wrong for it and efforts to cure it will likely be unsuccesful if the basic problem is not corrected. I have a slight difference in opinion from Reef about current, you need to blow the infected material away, but on the other hand hammers don't like much current. To me anyway, what I would do is have it in light current but blow it several times a day with a turkey baster or such, to blow any infected material away. I still also think it should be moved to the bottom of the tank where it will get a lower light level. I'm right with reef about fragging it though, if it has several heads it will be a simple matter to break them apart and the non infected ones can easily be saved. You will also be surprised how fast the newly seperated heads will start to bud out into new heads also. Just by way of encouragement, I have several times been given various euphylias with brown jelly type infections, and they have always recovered, so it can be done .

What the others said, nice tank! The trachyphylia is quite close to the hammer. At night the trachyphylia will put tentacles out, could it by any chance be stinging the hammer?

Travel will be an issue, however moving closer costs more. Safety - If you survived Rotorua, Te Atatu will be a breeze!

What everyone else said, plus I'm pretty sure the coral is getting more light than it is comfortable with. You can tell this by the way the tentacles are held in fairly tight and buching up using the outer coloured part to shade the rest of the coral. i think you should move it to a more shaded area, these corals can do well in quite low light. If it spreads out more this will tell you it is a better level of light. It MIGHT have some infection (not sure though), so to help with this you need modest flow, but not much. Hammers only like a very small amount of flow, but just give it enough to keep it clean if there is any infection. If you know anyone who uses Zeovit products, see if you can pinch from them a few mls of a Zeovit product called AALPS. Dosing this can do wonders for euphylias that are doing poorly. Also, water chemistry, although this will not be the main issue, it would be good if you could allow your calcium level to fall to around 400, and raise the alkalinity a tad. But no rush, this will not be the major problem for the torch.

That little red blenny? is nice too! What is it?

Not quite sure of all the facts but I heard Reef or someone has been working away in the background and has got blue legged hermits onto the allowed list. Can you confirm that Reef?

Well glad to see they are legislating, although as always with fishing, many years after it should have been done. The SeaShepherd article was choc full of inacuracies, this for example :- Quote - "The same yellow tang will die in a tank at 2 years max-if the tank is perfectly maintained, and if the tang or other fish came from Hawaii". However I agree with the general thrust of the article. Perhaps in Hawaii, and our own country, we could all be better off, if 50% of beach mileage was made into marine reserves. We would still need restrictions on the other 50%, but eventually, all would be better off.

:lol: :lol: :lol: Yes sometimes I read the posts here and wonder! :lol:

Do what works in your situation. If vodka didn't work for you then no.

Argh! OK well moderator can delete this one .

Thought you could blow good smoke rings? Bet you can't match this clever dolphin! http://www.flixxy.com/dolphin-quest.htm

When I was a Fresh Water Geek, I bred several species, including some of the "hard" ones. But with marine, even the "easy" ones are hard. However, anything could probably be done, if enough money was thrown at it. Herein lies the dilema. Yellow tangs for example, are a middle price range fish, being wild caught. To breed them, would probably involve putting a mated pair in a HUGE tank, swimming pool size. Yes, could be done, but it's going to cost. Would anyone pay it?

Sometimes adding vodka to the tank will help. It increases bacterial growth by giving them a carbon source. The bacteria compete with the cyano bacteria for food and are then skimmed from the tank. Vodka is dosed at 1 ml daily per 100 litres of tank water. If after a week there is no effect it can be increased to 2 mls daily. Because vodka dosing will eventually promote a bacterial monoculture in the tank, it should not be done for longer than a couple of months or so.

No, just put it straight in. It can be dusty though so a wash would not hurt.

In Chch i wouldn't know so I guess you will have to ring around the marine shops. It comes in different grain sizes, a good size is 1.7 mls. What is sold in NZ as aragonite, is actually usually calcite but either will be a good option for a marine tank. Not sure on price but usually a lot cheaper than coral sand. The other thing, if you cannot get any immediately no worries, you can add it to the tank later.

Personally i wouldn't use coral sand cos it gets full of crud plus is hard to vacuum. Never mind the price! Aragonite is a better option IMO, although as per everything marine, anyone is welcome to offer the opposite opinion! :lol:

Yes.

Nice tank Nemines, nice pink coraline. I think you should get some zoanthids to grow on those rocks. just a few 10 cent piece size colonies dotted around, will start spreading and add some nice colours.

Should have been here a couple of years ago! :lol: BTW I'm not refering to any present company!

Lucky nobody wants to see a pic of my tank at the moment! :lol: Bryopsis algae dotted all over it!

OK well the rocks should be fully cycled & you can put them in. As to the hair algae this is a lot harder to solve. Of course the simple answer is it is nutrient related but getting rid of the nutrients is more complex, and can cost money. It is good you are not overfeeding, it's basically about getting out of the tank as much as you put in, so not overfeeding in the first place means you have the first part of the equation solved. Are you using tap water for top up? This can be a problem, even if it is filtered. Many people cannot beat algae problems till they use deionised water. Plus, not having a protein skimmer will make things almost impossible. Not sure if you can do it but keeping the rocks in a dark area may help. One way to kill the hair algae will be to put them in a plastic container with a little sea water. Over a couple of days add 3 times as much dechlorinated fresh water, so the salt concentration is only 1/4 normal. Do this slowly so as not to kill the bacteria, and hold at this level with a powerhead for watermovement, for a week. The low salt concentration will kill the hair algae but be enough to keep the salt loving bacteria alive. Then over a couple of days wind salt concentration back up to the level of your tank. This is a quick fix, but be aware the algae will eventually return if the nutrient levels are not fixed. Algae can be hard, I have had an algae free tank for years and thought I had it sussed, then about 6 months ago I started to get a bryopsis algae outbreak. Very discouraging plus I couldn't get rid of it. I've finally realised it was caused by nutrients coming from some concrete rocks I made which failed and dissolved all over the tank. I am sucking this sandy muck out as I can and the bryopsis is finally starting to receed.