wasp

Puttputt that was a great story about your octopus! A truly unique pet, and unique visitor experience! :lol: Krama that is REALLY AWESOME!! To have something so unusual and fascinating, i think it would be well worth dedicating a tank to it. Octopus keeping is one of the few times in marine when using a cannister for biological filtration is acceptable. This is because of the big bioload the octopus puts on the tank, that extra filtration may be needed, and you water change out those extra nitrates. Feelers will know more about this, he is something of an octopus boffin!

Funny request I know but just wondered if anyone local got a rock to loan with a decent number of small aptaisia on it? Just my copperband has been looking slightly off colour recently, there is no natural food for him in the tank he just eats what I feed. Thought perhaps some of his natural diet ( aptaisia ), may do him good. If you are local I could collect the rock, then drop it back to you in a few days.

What's happened is he has been removed from the rock he was on, transported, & put in your tank. To his bta way of looking at the world, getting pulled off his rock means his environment is not very safe, best to move on. To do this he can walk, or he may blow up like a balloon and float. The worst thing for you to do is to try to "help", by re-positioning him in what you think is a better spot. This intervention just tells him he is still in a dangerous place & should move. They do move more at night, perhaps in the wild this is a safer option. You have to let him go through this without interfering until he settles. Just keep flow medium & pump intakes covered in foam. When he finally does settle, if it is not a place to your liking, leave him there anyway for a couple of months. Then you can gently move him.

Wow that's nice Dogmatrix, some pretty happy looking chappies there! Just going on looks it looks like you must be getting some fairly awesome growth too!!

Here's some advice from someone who has lost more anemones to pumps than I even want to think about Put some sponge over all the pump intakes. Then you can rest easy. Provided your tank is liveable for the BTA it will eventually settle down & you can remove the sponges. In the mean time just rinse them every few days. Trust me a BTA on the move like your one, WILL eventually find your pump intake.

Here is a picture of Helifax's tank. I have seen this tank in person and it is even more attractive in real life. It does have a sump. A sump makes life easier as you can hide all the equipment such as skimmer etc. in it, although a sump is not absolutely essential, I don't have one, but because of that my tank is clutzed up with ugly equipment. You can have a tank 200 mls wide, however because of the way corals grow, and the kind of current you need, such a narrow tank will add quite a lot of difficulty to making the right conditions for your corals, in fact you will never really get it right. However, it can be done, if you HAVE to. When Helifax started his tank he did a LOT of research and therefore did not fall into many of the pitfalls that beset new reefers, but i think he has upgraded some of his equipment since he started, nonetheless. If you set up the size tank you want, then followed his model as per his thread, you will not go too far wrong. He is also a nice guy and would be happy to chat with you via pm. ( Sorry if I'm wrong Helifax :lol: )

200 wide is less than 100 litres. But there are several people here running good tanks around 100 litres, it can be done. Helifax is one springs to mind, but there are others.

Depends how good you want it to be, to do right you need around two to four thousand dollars. ( Minimum ). Nobody believes this when they start, hence RnB's post. What normally happens is people try to set one up for a budget of, say, $500.00 or so, and to do that get cheap lights, cheap or no skimmer, spend the precious few dollars they have on a cannister filter when they don't need one, etc..... At first all seems well with the tank, but within a few months things start going wrong with the tank, and they are forced to spend money to fix the various issues. At this point people either leave the hobby, or buy the equipment they should have had in the first place, and lose the money they spent on the cheap stuff. Sound cynical? just I've seen this over and over. There are several ways to set up a small tank properly, but here is one ( basic ). Tank & stand $150.00 Live rock $250.00 skimmer $750.00 lights $400.00 heater $30.00 powerheads $150.00 test kits $200.00 livestock $500.00 These prices are just an idea of what you might be able to get away with, could be more or less, but it's a basic idea for you, plus there may be a few other bits and pieces you may need such as thermometer, additives, fish food, etc....

What medication Fay?

So back to the thread:- IMO just add some baking soda to raise the alkalinity. If the reactor is cloudy probably means it is too acidic, so increase drip rate relative to bubble rate. Because it's been turned off things will be a little out of kilter, will make it easier to set it if you run it without Co2 for a day, then turn on the Co2 for another day, then increase the drip rate slightly until the water stays clear, or nearly clear.

Big fat healthy fish!

Have you, perchance, been taking too many drugs, Layton? :lol:

There is a new Zeovit product called Coral Snow. It's main purpose is to assist in feeding corals, however they claim that it can also be used to clear cyano. What you do is mix some zeobacteria with the coral snow, & dump in the tank. Repeat daily until cyano gone. I quite often have a small cyano patch or two, which does not bother me it is never very much. But just to experiment i tried the coral snow plus zeobac thing, did it once and next day the cyano was gone. No doubt would take longer with a bigger cyano infestation though. Not quite sure on the exact mechanism involved, as i have always dosed zeobac anyway. Perhaps the coral snow gets the bacteria right in where it will outcompete the cyano? but I don't really know. As you already have the zeobacteria, a bottle of coral snow costs $65.00 ( apologies Brendan if I'm wrong! ), not sure how that compares with Red Slime Remover but the Coral Snow way is at least more natural & beneficial to the tank, rather than negative for the tank like the Red Slime Remover.

BTW just to share my experience with the effect of Reef Solutions on goniopora, I was given an almost dead goniopora, by someone who knew he was about to lose it so thought it may as well try another tank. It was completely retracted into the shell by this time, no extension at all, right on deaths door. I left it alone for a couple of weeks to see if it could improve on its own, but nothing. Because in the past Reef Solutions has been a good "cure all" for sick corals, I started dosing it, and within a few days stirrings of life began in the goniopora. eventually it became a fairly decent goniopora, but if I ever stopped the daily dose of Reef Solutions, it would go into decline. Eventually I tired of dosing Reef Solutions every day, plus it was making the xenia run rampant, so I gave the goniopora away.

It's made by a crowd called EcoSystem who also make Miracle Mud. What is in it is a mystery they will not say. 2 problems with it, it is i think somewhere around 50 bucks a bottle, plus once opened it has to be kept in the fridge. It does nothing for sps corals, but if you want awesome softies, xenia, and lps, it is the way to go. Last time I looked it was available at Hollywood, not sure if Jansens stock it or not.

Actually isn"t Feelers going cold water?

Pretty sure they would be fine, I kept similar in a warm water tank no issues.

They will do well in some tanks but slowly decline in others. If it does not do well, dosing a product called Reef Solutions will bring it back.

Very nice Zev!

Hard question to answer. That amount of light will grow acros. In some cases 250 watt halides would get better results but there would be debate over that. The best way to REALLY know might be to look at a few peoples tanks & their lighting & the results, so you can get an idea what you want to do. As for the second part of your question there was somebody selling bulbs for 35 bucks but I don't think it was Reef. Also I doubt you would get quality for that price although I'm always happy to be surprised! :lol: There are medium quality type bulbs for $65.00, but for high end ones you are looking at at least $120.00 plus.

Here's the news release that went out about the study. The actual article is in the journal Coral Reefs. Mon Oct 23 13:23:37 2006 Pacific Time Tiny 'Housekeeper' Crabs Help Prevent Coral Death in South Pacific SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Oct. 23 (AScribe Newswire) -- Tiny crabs that live in South Pacific coral help to prevent the coral from dying by providing regular cleaning "services" that may be critical to the life of coral reefs around the world, according to scientists from the University of California, Santa Barbara. The story of the relationship between the crab and the coral is described in the November 2006 issue of the journal Coral Reefs and is now available on-line. The coral provides a home and protection for the crabs. The crabs provide "housekeeping" duties for the coral, routinely "sweeping" out sediment that falls onto the coral, according to the study. Thus the relationship between the corals and the trapeziid crabs is mutually beneficial, or symbiotic. The little crabs, measuring only a centimeter wide, make their home in branching corals like Acropora or Pocillopora. The research was done on coral reefs near the shore of the French Polynesian island of Moorea, in the South Pacific. "Although we don't know much about these crabs, we do know that they are 'picky,' and are always tasting and exploring," said Hannah L. Stewart, first author of the paper and a postdoctoral researcher at UCSB's Marine Science Institute (MSI). "They use their front appendages to manipulate and shovel out the sediment." Stewart said that this family of crabs is common around the world. "This relationship probably occurs all over the Pacific and is likely more ubiquitous than we know," she said. "Crabs are in corals everywhere. There are major ecological implications to this research; species of crabs that associate with corals may be more important than we realized." She explained that coral reefs are one of the most productive and diverse ecosystems in the world. They support more than nine million species and provide a livelihood for millions of people around the globe. The accumulation of sediment on coral tissue is known to reduce metabolic and tissue growth rates of coral, increasing the probability of bleaching and coral death. Many corals can remove some sediment from their surfaces but high sediment loads can be deadly. Predicted increases in sedimentation threaten coral reefs in many near shore areas around the world. Coral reefs are threatened by a variety of environmental changes. For example, higher water temperatures and increased ultraviolet radiation, which are associated with climate change, are sources of widespread coral bleaching. Changing land use patterns, caused by population increase on the coasts, are another threat because population growth increases the sediment load on coral. This is due to the higher amount of water run-off from development, deforestation with erosion, and expansion of agriculture. The studies were conducted as part of The Moorea Coral Reef Long Term Ecological Research Site (MCR LTER), located in the complex of coral reefs and lagoons that surround the island of Moorea. Stewart performed the research with Sally Holbrook, professor and vice chair of UCSB's Department of Ecology, Evolution and Marine Biology; Russell Schmitt, a professor in the same department and the director of the MSI's Coastal Research Center; and Andrew Brooks, assistant research biologist at the MSI and deputy director of the MCR LTER. Experiments were carried out in the coral reef as well as in the laboratory. The scientists showed the importance of trapeziid crabs by gently removing crabs from sections of the two species of branching corals on a coastal reef. This resulted in 50 to 80 percent of those corals dying in less than a month. By contrast, all corals with crabs survived. The nature of this common symbiotic relationship had not been recognized until this study. For surviving corals that lacked crabs, growth was slower, tissue bleaching was greater, and sediment load was higher. Laboratory experiments revealed that corals with crabs not only shed substantially more of the sediments deposited on coral surfaces, but also that crabs were most effective at removing grain sizes that were most damaging to coral tissues. These were the largest grains studied, those measuring two to four millimeters in width. The MCR LTER, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), is a research partnership between UCSB and California State University, Northridge. Additional researchers on the project are affiliated with UC Davis, UC Santa Cruz, UC San Diego, and the University of Hawaii. Field operations are conducted from the UC Berkeley Richard B. Gump South Pacific Research Station in Moorea. The MCR LTER is part of the NSF's LTER network established in 1980 to support research on long-term ecological phenomena. The MCR LTER became the 26th site in the NSF LTER network in 2004 and is one of two LTERs operated by UCSB. - - - - CONTACTS: Hannah Stewart, 805-450-0094, [email protected] Sally Holbrook, 805-893-3956, [email protected] Russell Schmitt, 805-893-2051, [email protected] Andrew Brooks, 805-893-7670, [email protected] Gail Gallessich, UCSB Media Relations, [email protected], 805-893-7220 RELATED WEB SITES: Web page for Moorea Coral Reef LTER: http://mcr.lternet.edu/ Web page with PDF of article: http://springerlink.metapress.com/c...10/fulltext.pdf Web page for Hannah Stewart: http://sbc.lternet.edu/~stewart/ Media Contact: See above

Is your water clearer now on an ongoing basis?

Mines one with those pin things that slide in or out, <$20.00 at foodtown. Had it a couple of years runing 450 watts of halide, but about 6 months ago went to 650 watts of halide. I think that may be correct about the gradual start, cos I've noticed when mine turn on, just when I think they are on properly they make a click & suddenly get brighter.

No, I once kept several similar locally collected ones of various stunning colours, in a tank at around 25 degrees. Not only did they do well, they had literally hundreds of babies.