wasp

Bleak future. Considering all things, the hobby is not doing as much damage as other factors. Check this - Quote "Under the worst-case scenario, coral populations will collapse by 2100 and the re-establishment of coral reefs will be highly unlikely over the following 200-500 years." http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/02/ ... 41007.html Quote - "This whitening and then death of corals began to be known in a few areas in the 1980s. I became involved in 1997-98 when there was extremely widespread coral bleaching around all the oceans in the tropics," he said. More than 60 countries experienced coral bleaching. The latest evidence showed overwhelmingly that the bleaching was due to a steady, almost inevitable rise in ocean temperatures, now climbing at the rate of 1-2C every 100 years". http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0906-02.htm Quote - "t the 9th International Conference on Coral Reefs scientists reached a consensus that climate change will have an unambiguous and critical impact on the worlds coral reefs.And the Great Barrier Reef could be dead within 50 to 100 years." http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/earth/ ... 211822.htm Quote - "Coral bleaching events have been increasing in both frequency and extent worldwide in the past 20 years." http://www.marinebiology.org/coralbleaching.htm Quote - "The science tells us that it is climate change which is killing coral reefs. The water is getting hotter, the corals are basically being cooked by these very hot waters because they live right close to the edge of their tolerance already. And we hope that they can adapt fast enough, but it may be a forlorn hope." Terry Done http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/ ... _2-01.html

Well I don't know what my survival % is, but if I'm honest it would be closer to Pies figure. That's part of why a few years back I started aquaculturing and selling corals, but there was no money in it, (for me anyway I believe Cookie is doing OK), so in the end I stopped doing it.

A lot of reefs are already damaged, not so much by collection for aquariums, as by global warming, pollution, and collection for such things as food, building materials, etc. It is likely that in 50 years only a small portion of the worlds existing reefs will still be functioning intact. Again, the main problem will be global wariming and pollution. I am very much an advocate of responsible collection, reefs can be "farmed", or aquacultured such as is done in one area in Fiji. However in one respect the aquarium trade does good in that for only a very small % of the total damage to reefs, it does raise public awareness of the beauty that is being destroyed, largely unknowingly, by reasons other than the aquarium trade.

Nice one Reef that angel is a real beauty! Good to see someone setting up a FO to house something like that. No doubt you will be able to throw him a few frags occasionally The clowns likewise are AWESOME!! I hope you got a few spare to distribute to the shops, if so it will be a scramble for the first one in to score some! Don't like the triggers though I think they ugly! :lol:

There's tropical ones most of us have, but for eating that brown crud you got, the rock pool ones win! Te Puke. You close to anyone who could give you some tropical ones also?

This was on RC, it's pretty cool so I've linked it. Never had much luck with gorgonians myself but most people do so here's most of what you need to know to propagate them, click here

Stole this pic it was pretty funny! :lol:

The German scientist who really kicked off the use of vodka in marine aquaria, is a guy Jorg Kokett. Vodka was already being used but he researched & wrote an article which kind of "mainstreamed" the use of vodka. Finally found a link to part 2 of the article, here it is http://www.elegancereef.com/smf/index.php?topic=841.0

Also here is a good article http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-05/rhf/index.php

Cut from another thread - "The cycle goes ammonia, around 2 weeks, nitrite around another 4 weeks, or 6 weeks total, or thereabouts. You can then start stocking. Nitrate takes a lot longer to start getting reduced properly, could be 6 months give or take a few months. But nitrate is more easily tolerated by most organisms so at first you can just control it with water changes if need be. Once the tank is up & running the basic kits you need are nitrate, calcium and alkalinity, pretty hard to do things right without those three. You may also want to have ammonia and nitrite although once things are running right you will seldom if ever use them, just if something goes wrong. Some brands of test kit are a little unreliable, many of us consider Salifert a good brand".

Are you still dosing potassium? Too much too fast can cause tip recession. Just a thought.

You're a girl? Good to see another one it has been pretty male orientated around here! Fresh water seems to be more a female thing, but salt is dominated by males? Don't know why, a nice marine tank is quite attractive i thought ladies would find them attractive also!

One thought, if you will be upgrading, making whatever skimmer you get for this tank redundant, it will depend what time frame you are talking about, if it is not too long you may be able to skip getting a skimmer at all, and could run carbon & phosphate removing media in the cannister instead, although wouldn't recommend this longer term solely due to cost. Wonder if anyone out there has a spare skimmer in the cupboard they could loan for a while? Also, having seen Rollergirls tank I have to say it is a pretty tank nicely landscaped. Not much corals yet, looking forward to seeing how things go!

:lol:

With you there! It was my kids that were into it, Sunday afternoons we had to go to the ninja turtle shop. Me, well i didn't know one from the other so as far as the kids were concerned I was from the last century. Was funny though, quick as, ninja turtles became no longer the "in" thing, in fact it was an embarrasement at school to have any of the stuff, it all got left at home! :lol: First small boy lesson on the fickleness of fashion! :lol: :lol:

I'm pretty cautious about what I feed, but once a week I do put in some of that messy frozen mysis, but without washing it. The fine stuff seems to do wonders for the corals, sps, lps, and zoas all put all their collection equipment out to get it. I'd love to feed it every day but when I tried that I did end up with an algae bloom. Maybe if I'd carried on the filtration system would have adapted as others have said, although I was not game to try this. Another couple of times a week I feed a better grade of mysis that does not have much "mush" in the water with it, and sometimes I'll feed some mussell, which the fish love. Rest of the time it's flake.

It's the ball collecting ones you REALLY have to be careful of! http://www.goyk.com/video.asp?path=1864 :lol:

Doesn't look hideous at all, that is pretty normal in a tank about your stage, specially if it has not been getting skimmed. Must say that is a strange looking pump set up on your skimmer I've never seen anything like it! What is the skimmer called?

Wouldn't have red bugs or some such nasties?

Sorry to hear Chimera! Sounds just like what I went through a few months back when I changed tanks. Nearly lost some corals, everything went brown, tank looked like crap. Did big water changes but that didn't seem to help, basically I just maintained water parameters such as calcium, dosed absolutely nothing else, not even carbon, and waited it out, took a few months. Blamed some new rock but never really new for sure.

That's going to be real nice! It was seeing a clownfish in an anemone that made me get into this hobby in the first place, there is something real good about seeing a clown wallowing so contentedly in it's anemone. Having the anemone, clowns & some softies will be just right. Looking forward to following progress.

Actually I'd be happy to perform such a test, don't know about 100 times though might have to farm some of them out! :lol: It will certainly be better than a hobby kit ( Oops, ducks for cover, runs, and hides!! ) However as far as I can tell the whole thing would be for Laytons benefit alone, as it seems nobody else really cares, the last bunch of posts has shown there are still people who can relax, have a laugh, and actually enjoy their tank! There is one big drawback also, which is, whatever the result of the tests, I personally garuantee it will not change the mind of some people over the critical importance of the Wikepedia definition of certain words :lol: :lol: And of course, anybody who disagrees, just doesn't understand and is ignorant, right?

Excellent one Penejane! I've added it to my favourites .

You've certainly got a heap of them Fay! Same ones in my tank they're just harmless grazers. I've found when food is short for them they don't grow, they breed pretty quick.