wasp

Yes, and the other thing about the owner G. Alexander he is a real humble guy, took time out to compliment me on how my tank is going, I didn't know wether to be pleased or embarrassed! :oops: He's always happy to help people out with good advice and problem solving over at the zeo forum also!

Ha Ha! Well it could be one wanting to get a close look :lol: , but I think it wanted to get a drink and lost its footing.

Just a warning it is quite bandwidth heavy. But it is worth a wait, trust me! http://zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=5950

http://zeovit.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4870

The water would have had to be INCREDIBLY bad for 5 litres into 200 to kill the shrimp. Highly unlikely, the shrimp just had bad timing. The ammonia shows there is something wrong in his tank, there should be none. This is probably the real culprit. How old is the tank? Sometimes NSW will contain ammonia but it's hard to imagine 5 litres of NSW containing enough to be able to go into 200 litres and still be enough to show on a test kit. If you still have any of the NSW, test that, should put the matter to rest.

Oh . I like my zoos!

Cookie, could it be that there are several types looking very similar? Did the ones you saw eating corals look like Laytons pic? Also, perhaps corals are a "less prefered" food, when nothing else is available?

Cheers thanks! Fist size must be pretty awesome! If anybody goes to Jansens & has a look at theirs please post up here to let me know if they're the same. Bit of a major for me to get there at the moment work is super busy. But I'll try to organise if I know it's the right snail.

Pies how about post a pic of yours so we know which are the "safe" ones. If the Jansens ones check out I may add a couple to the tank for a bit more interest.

Can't find the article but I once read they are OK when small but start eating corals as they grow. This from liveaqauria - "The Tiger Cowrie has an egg-shaped, spotted, glossy shell and is in high demand for the rock aquarium. It differs in color depending upon geographical location. While it does not have an operculum to shut when it retracts its mantle into its shell, the opening is lined with "threatening" tooth-like structures. Normally, the mantle will completely cover its shell unless it feels threatened. This helps it keep its lustrous white and brown mottled coloration, while its mantle will appear like a fingerprint of black and gray, with many short papillae over the surface. In the wild, it can be found under rocks or resting on soft corals during the day, foraging for food mostly at night. The Tiger Cowrie prefers a rock aquarium with hiding places. While small, it will eat some algae and scavenge for scraps, but as an adult, it will eat some anemones, sponges, and soft corals, and is best housed with starfish, sea urchins, and tubeworms in the reef aquarium. Do not house it with Condylactis sp. It needs low nitrate levels and will not tolerate copper-based medications. The diet of a large Tiger Cowrie should be supplemented with pieces of fish and mussel, and a product such as TetraTips."

Just trying to figure out what they are Raeh1, (it's a long drive to Jansens). Do they have stripes? Is the opening a long narrow slit?

We might love fish but you can only push things so far! http://www.nothingtoxic.com/media/11592 ... by_a_Shark

Ha! My wife was complaining today about all that yucky pink stuff she doesn't like growing on the glass of my tank, she wants me to clean it off. She does remember our visit because she said "Fays tank doesn't have all that crap on the glass". I said "yes it does", so thanks for the pics, now i've got the proof!

Here we go then! http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthrea ... did=939918

Ha Ha! I suspect you already have some nice specimens :lol: Far as the breakages go yes it's so annoying. If I didn't keep doing it there would be a beautiful big monti branching all over the tank. I've put a few bits around the tank but it's only a small tank & can only have so many of the same thing! I may not be on the computer again this weekend so rather than pm, anyone else wanting to get in touch can call me on 479-5446, Alastair

Keep accidentally breaking my pink monti & as a result there's a bunch of frags slowly deteriorating in my QT tank. Free to a good home, but pick up only. A chance for some of these nubies on a shoestring to get one of the more hardy sps corals. Some of them are a bit knackered but long as you got reasonable water & good light they will come back to their former glory.

Sharkey what was the reason for the steel wool?

How long to wait depends what you want to do. To get clean as, cooked rock, will probably take quite a few months. However the basic nitrogen cycle, up to the nitrate stage, is done in about 6 weeks, at that point you can put in the tank & carefully begin stocking. If the rock was cycled in the tank, because of all the stuff that went on, IMO it is a good idea to do a 100% water change to make a fresh start before stocking. At this time ammonia and nitrite will be getting processed, it will be several more months before nitrate is being reduced properly. However most organisms can tolerate a fair amount of nitrate, at least temporarily. If you start stocking at 6 weeks, provided you go slowly, and skim at max, the rock will continue to "cook" ie clean it's own pores out, you need to keep the tank nice & clean so the rock is "unclogging" faster than it is "clogging". There are some people who have the patience to spend 6 months cooking rock before putting anything in the tank, I'm not one of them, but they have my respect!

Tang - all those crabs you describe should be removed. That's just my opinion I know some others have had them with no problems. Chimera, sorry to hear about the TN I hope you get it sorted. If it may be related to the zeofood might pay to stop dosing it for a time, it is quite powerful. Please get back with the results when you start dosing potassium will be interesting. One thing to watch though, when I started it gave awesome colours, so, like a kid in a lollyshop I got over enthused, overdosed it, and ended up doing harm in the form of colours going drab, and took a long time to come back. Have also read that dosing must be built up slowly, a main sign too much is getting dosed is burning of the acro tips. Anyhow I've ordered a potassium testing kit from Brendan so once that arrives I'll be happy to test your water if you need that.

One thing that sometimes but not always works would be vodka dosing, one ml per hundred litres daily.

Quite bit of dissagreement about what crabs are bad, because all crabs have to eat something. However IMO all hairy crabs should be removed. The very light coloured acro crabs seem to be safe, and ones with a straight white line from one eye to the other are safe. The other darker coloured crabs start off safe, but some of them get bigger & more harmful as they grow.

Suphew to be straight up, I don't know how much value you will get from arguing this with Layton. He tried to have a DSB once but it failed in only a few months. This bad experience has coloured his view on the subject, he now does not have a DSB but specializes in telling everybody else how to run theirs. Past experience and much wasted time arguing on this forum, and looking at what I've gained as a result, has taught me that the great bulk of what I have learned has come from talking to people who have succeeded at a method, rather than taking advice from people who have failed at it. Over to you of course but wish I could reclaim some of the time I've spent arguing the toss over a method with someone who failed at it after only a couple of weeks but believes he is a world authority on it.

That quote you posted from Anthony Calfo was interesting Suphew, I didn't think a 55 gallon DSB would deal with a 2000 gallon system so well. The secret would probably be to have excellent circulation so that all water passed over it multiple times.