wasp

True! And more appropriate!

Heck well no personal offence intended Joe. But please try to keep perspective - There is much worse disasters, and much worse suffering, in other parts of the world, than there is in the United States, the land where the biggest human toll is caused by over eating. If I was to get all emotional about something it would be for the people in Darfur. Course we never hear much about that.

Done the 9 day test, the aqualight gave a reading of 0.13, and the rowa a reading of 0.39. When I did the 2 day tests i did wonder about the accuracy as they were different to the one I did a few weeks ago. However this 9 day test does seem to give a result consistent with the 2 day test allowing for some more leaching that we would expect. So it would seem the first test done a few weeks ago must have been contaminated. So the final 9 day results, for these samples anyway, are Jansens 0.10, Aqualight 0.13, and Rowa 0.39. At these low levels there can be some "noise" in the test results, so I'd say the Jansens and the Aqualight are probably similar. The Rowa, for this sample anyway, certainly leached more phosphate.

It's all written down! You'll like the start date. 9/11

Yes there are some visible. I believe most are gone in 7 days but a few laggards can stay on the fish up to 2 weeks. I was going to wait 2 weeks & transfer it into a bigger tank, however you obviously have a plan , so collect when you like. BTW the fish has a great personality does not seem bothered by the cramped surroundings, hangs out with the butterfly, and comes over when it sees me.

http://zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4295

Oh your still up! You'll be glad to hear the tang is doing great, eating like a pig. There is now an anti-jump barrier around the QT. All is sweet.

If ich is running at low levels in a tank, only becoming noticeable when a stress event or similar happens, provided no new ich is introduced, it will die out in 10 to 12 months. This is due to something a bit like inbreeding. So even in an infected system such as yours Craig, your surviving fish will be immune, and if you QT all new arrivals you will be free in a year. The next problem though is that fish will lose their immunity if not exposed, so a permanent means to QT all new fish will need to be set up, otherwise another new outbreak could happen. Anyhow having lost several fish myself over the last few months that's what I'm doing now.

If it's velvet, is the salifert stuff meant to be effective?

That's a great set up you've obviously put a tremendous amount of thought into it! One thing should be changed though ( I know you'll hate me ) The rubble is too small a size to allow anearobic bacteria to operate within it. This means you will not get nitrate reduction and will have too much nitrate in your tank. Be better to replace it with large chunks of rock. The kind of set up with rubble in it was popular a few years ago as it does provide excellent ammonia and nitrite reduction, but in order to keep some of the more picky corals that are kept these days, and for that matter, keep the easy ones healthier, swap out the rubble for larger rocks.

It's a Kodak DX4530. Good in it's day but not up with what's for sale now. For editing the pics I'm using Irfan View, it's a free program available on the net. Very easy to use. The camera seems to do good close ups, or at least pics that I can crop a close up from using irfan View, but still can't get a decent shot of the whole tank there is some kind of problem with the light the camera has auto light detection and just won't work right photographing the tank. Used Irfan View to make my avatars also, it's a great little program.

Another thing about halide bulbs is they slowly lose their brightness, a study I read suggested a roughly 30% loss in brightness over a 12 month period, this varied with the make. So we are advised to change bulbs each 10 or 12 months. BUT, here's the interesting part, after the 12 months, many of the bulbs did not loose much more brightness. So if you are prepared to accept the initial loss of brightness, should be possible to run the bulbs for two + years. Think I saw somewhere that Bomber is running 3 year old bulbs. here's the article http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/s/b ... Lamps2.htm

If you don't know, you're lucky! They are nasty little round green bubble shaped things that grow all over the tank once you get them and they look nasty, they are a type of algae. I have a plague of them, they can be seen in nearly all my photos. You can see them in this pic in clumps on the rock

Had a look thismorning and now he's eating a bit of shrimp moult from last night

You mean you have a job? I thought you spent all day futtzing with the tank and yabbing on chatsites !! :lol: :lol: :lol:

That tank design is cool, but needs one change. The skimmer can be a source of bubbles so don't have it right next to the return pump, you may get a tank full of tiny bubbles. Have the skimmer seperated from your return pump by the baffles.

Surely it's quaranteen first? I've set up a dedicated QT tank now and everything I get will spend 6 weeks in it.

I'm no expert but the way I understand it is most bulbs put out a range of colours, in fact with some bulbs you will get on paper with it just how much of each it puts out. So the manufacturer draws a line basically in the middle somewhere and claims that as the colour, ie 10,000k, or whatever. So there is room for some bulbs that are rated the same, to actually appear different, just because of how the manufacturer decided to rate it. But in general, bulbs rated 10,000k give the ideal light that corals need. But a bluer look is more pleasing to our eye. So a good system is to run 10,000k bulbs, and add some 20,000k (blue) floro tubes, but the blue is just for appearance, not for the corals. I've got 2 x 150 watt 10,000k halides, and 2 x 18 watt floro blue tubes. Many people would like it bluer than me, and have a higher ratio of blue. Also, if you go a higher k bulb, you get less light that is useful to a coral. I read that a 14,000k bulb only puts out 1/2 as much useable light for the coral, as a 10,000k does.

That's kinda what worries me about this whole thing, computers crash. So for example all i got now is standard heaters. So it's always possible the thermostat jams & cooks the tank. But if it was computer controlled, the computer might crash & cook the tank. I guess being able to tune in via internet would be peace of mind while away though!

Thought this was quite interesting I cleaned some bubble algae from a place in the tank, so there was heaps of it floating around, then I notice the brain coral has all his tentacles out which is very rare middle of the day, he's looking like this So then I have a close look and see he is actually eating valonia. As I watched he actually absorbed some of them down his mouths. Only the small ones though. If they were too big he would try, but end up spitting them back out. By the time I thought of getting a pic most of the action was over but here is an attempted close up of a valonia 1/2 way down one of his mouths (extreme right side of photo)

Yep, it's now confirmed, the tanks are the culprit. Our power bill was usually a bit over $200.00 per month, but since I got my frag system going it's been over $400.00. So using that calculator it works out that the power to run the frag system is indeed around 2 grand annually. So I got to sell nearly 100 frags per year just to pay the power. But I got to sell another 50 to pay for bulbs and then there is also other expenses. So over the last year I've sold around 200 frags, which means I've made-- wait for it-- around about zero money! So I've finally decided, the frag system is coming down But I'll keep it going for 6 months I need a holding facility until my new tank's up. Not a complete loss though all that aquaculturing of things i have learned a lot. And one of the key things I'll be trying to design into my new tank will be energy efficiency. I may see if it's possible to pipe light in from outside.

Are you going to maintain a permanent culture or is this one off?

My own tank tests at around 0.02, so your levels are around 15 x higher, however as Layton correctly stated the total levels counting what's saturated into the rock etc. will probably be even higher. No worries, just decrease Po4 input and increase export via increased start dosing to assist bacteria, should be able to turn things around. From reading zeovit.com it does appear most people take a few months before Po4 really starts moving to where they want it.

Many of our locally available seaweeds contains toxins and repellants, that's how they manage to grow around the rocks and not get eaten. One that can be used sorry I only know the maori name and don't know how it's spelt but it's said Paringau (does that mean anything) anyhow we used to gather it and eat it when I lived in Gisborne. Grows on the rocks at certain times of year, spring if my memory serves. It's a few inches long and very green. I have seen it in the rock pools at Muriwai beach, and in very small (unharvestable) amounts at Milford beach North Shore. But going with Nori may in the end be the easiest. Vitamins, many of the supplements they add such as Selcon are not available here. Best plan is to use some flake or pellet of good quality in with the diet so fish will get anything possibly lacking through that.

Useful thread Reef, thanks for starting it.