wasp

Layton could you post a picture of that stag under 10,000k lighting or similar.

How does it look under normal lighting then?

Any of the Auckland importers ever see that stag in the first post?

Nice one Kevin, I see it's got it tentacles out! Ready for action! Brian they can be that colour in a non zeo tank if water is good plus strong light. I'll bet the one you have is the same one. Try moving it into the strongest possible light and see what happens. You should be shooting for a Po4 level around 0.015, not essential but it will help.

Oh. Thought it looked like a humilis, I quite like them , thought I'd found another person with one. Layton how's that really awesome stag you purchased and posted a pic of here maybe a couple of months ago? Ever think you will frag it?

Is that 2nd to bottom pic a large humilis?

Hmmm... I really cannot remember commenting on that in the past at all. Yesterdays comment was based on what you told me a few weeks back on the phone, and was meant as a compliment. Prior to that i had little knowledge of your tank.

Feelers, the rock you collect at the beach is not what we refer to, in relation to marine aquarium filtration, as liverock. What is used in marine aquariums for liverock, is rock made from dead coral, it can be purchased at a pet shop selling marines. The thing about it is it is porous, which allows it to house bacteria, including the low aerobic ones needed to reduce nitrate, which will not be able to function in the highly aerated environment of a canister. If the guy on the octopus forum thinks cleaning his canister keeps nitrate down, well I'm afraid I'd rather go with the people he referred to on Reef Central. The sea salt thing does not involve Co2, it is a precipitation reaction involving calcium carbonate forming as the sea water is dried. If you then add water, it will not go back to the same as before it dried. However, if you are able to get and use seawater none of that will matter, as long as you can get clean water, that will be fine. Petplanet, the use of a canister will have little effect on phosphate one way or the other, however if that is your primary filtration, I would check your nitrate level, it may or may not be important depending on what you are keeping in the tank.

You've only recently set up that tank!! I think you must have done this before :lol:

Hi Feelers. First off, a cannister filter should not be used at all in a marine tank, it will not reduce nitrate and this will be bad news for the octopus. By sea salt do you mean dried salt from the sea? If so this is no good. The concentrating and drying process causes the carbonate alkalinty and calcium to take each other out. You can buy specially prepared salt for marine tanks at a pet shop, what town do you live in? Feelers there is much to learn / know. You will save money if you don't buy anything until you've done some more research. But for starters, you should base your filtration on liverock and a protein skimmer, and no other gizmos until you have some more experience in salt water. How about posting here all the details of your proposed set up, and take suggestions on it?

Thanks for the encouragement guys (and girl ) Brian I have some frags of the red one but they will not be available until the frag tank has finished it's QT on August 20th. Also be aware this coral will brown easily and look pretty average if conditions are less than very good. You into zeovit yet? If not I'd def recommend it. Yes I see what you mean Pies about the potential, that's how I feel, I am starting to see it. I've only got into sps recently and it is a lot more complex than the other corals to do right. It is two steps forward and one backwards all the time, but the general gradual improvement is encouraging. I'm hoping in maybe a year or two to have a nice showpiece of a tank, even though a small one.

What they eat requires nutrients. The best thing to breed pods is a dirty tank. What you suggest about the 3 footer has merit. Pies is the man to talk to about this, of course his tank is very clean, but what he has is basically a refugium in which they breed, a safe harbour for them. I am sure he can chip in here with some good info.

Thanks for the kind words Pies, although I'm not quite sure if you are taking the mickey I am looking forward to the day when I can put up some beautiful pics like it seems just about everyone on Reef Central has The corals are getting there slowly. Yes I am using zeovit which is a great help, and there is still quite a learning curve as I'm very new to sps, I've recently had phosphate levels too low which has made the corals pale, I'm still learning a lot about the fine tuning of the water chemistry. But it's all good fun! and very interesting. Also I'm working on a home made coral food, which the sps seem to like it really gets their polyps out. I'm trying it for a while and I may eventually market it.

Chimera a guy on RC posted he got some cyclops, (not cyclopeez) They are available frozen at Hollywood, and put them in his mandarin was picking them off the rocks. Cyclops are fresh water copepods, the mandarin realised they were food even though they were dead. I've never had a mandarin myself as I've never had a decent pod supply. The one good thing about your declining pod population is it means you are nailing your nutrients.

Well I'm still struggling with this photography thing, but managed to get a couple of photos that work. The top one is one of my little yellow acropora gobies, these guys are brilliantly colored and have a great personality. The next pic down is my sailfin tang, you can just see him peeking out. And of course there is some of my corals. I've tried to do a full tank shot but there is something wrong with the light it always comes out so overexposed you can hardly see it. Anyhow, I'll keep working on it.

Cheers!

Appreciated Steve! Let me know when you got some. Cheers.

All my pods mysteriously vanished a few months ago, I would like to try to re-establish some. If someone could syphon a few into a jar for me, I would be happy to give a frag in exchange

http://www.marinedepot.com/md_viewItem. ... &ast=&key=

You can also buy it at Hollywood for around 50 bucks for one kilogram. All depends on the purity.

Craig I'll definately take a couple of kilos CaCl2 when we next meet for water transfer, or whatever. Cheers

Tel a good plan for you would be to go and actually look at a few peoples systems, this will help crystalize for you what you want to do. You can see peoples systems on this site, and drop them a private message to arrange a visit, most people are very pleased to welcome a new reefer. If you are around my area you can come and see mine, the phone number is 479-5446, I'm Alastair.

Very Cool!

Well Tel, you've just learned the first rule of reefkeeping, being everybody has a different opinion. The other rule is that several different opinions can all be workable, and "right". Sometimes you have to sift the wheat from the chaff though . However, wether you change the water or not, the cycle will happen anyway, normally taking around 6 weeks. At this point you should do a really big, or even total water change, just to remove some of the crud that may have entered your water during cycling. After that, a common water change regime is around 5 or 10 percent a week, or 25 percent once a month. You judge this yourself, it depends on many factors including your bioload. Water from Melon bay? I don't know Melon bay, but if you can get clean looking water, not contaminated by nearby rivers etc, it will often be OK. Collect it just before high tide, when there is an offshore wind and the sea is flat. And about sumps, yes, do get one in your next set up. The best plan is to have one of a decent size and with good access and head room. This will leave you plenty of options if you decide to use some different equipment than you had origionally planned. Oh, and nobody has mentioned the "M" word yet, that's Money. This hobby costs all new players much more of it than they ever dreamed it could before they started. Best plan is don't do what I did and get cheap cruddy equipment. This costs more in the long run when you have to replace it with the better quality piece you should have got in the first place. This rule applies in particular to skimmers. There will be other opinions :lol: , but my opinion is get a good quality stand, tank, sump, and skimmer, spend however much this takes. The other stuff is not quite as difficult or wasteful to replace later if you decide to upgrade.

Tel, a wet and dry filter is not the best thing for a marine tank. When you upgrade to your big tank, much better not to use the wet and dry. Don't use a cannister filter either. Your filtration should be based around liverock, enough water flow, and a skimmer. The money you don't spend on an eheim cannister will be a good contribution towards a skimmer. The reason for this is that the nitrogen cycle goes thus - ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, nitrogen gas. The object is to take it all the way to nitrogen gas which then leaves the tank via gas exchange. But to convert nitrate to nitrogen gas, you need low aerobic bacteria that live within liverock, in the layer below the high oxygen surface. In a wet/dry, or a cannister, all the media is kept highly aerated, so the bacteria do not break down nitrate. Therefore removing this type of filtration will result in lower nitrate levels, and a more healthy environment for your fish / corals. In fact, many corals will not prosper and perhaps even die in a higher nitrate environment, such as you will get if you use a wet/dry or cannister. You will still find people using these types of filtration, but it is better without. Skimmers, there has recently been some discussion here on the subject, you could do a search. But the bottom line is, they remove a lot of crud from your water, which is a tremendous advantage to keeping your tank sparkling clean. A good skimmer will last you for life, it is best to start out with a decent one.