afgun

Thanks for both, Robb. My cheato is growing like crazy. I will probably have some to give soon. Anthelia isn't spreading as fast as I'd like, but that's not necessarily a bad thing yet right?

Recently acquired some frags, and we ordered up some sponges and other colorful life from TBS this weekend...

PM sent

We believe that this crab has been eating fish and other desirable things in our tank... he was a hitcher on the LR from TBS:

And for my friend who wanted a recent FTS... Chad, I had to take out a lot of rocks after the debacle with great white today, so the tank looks different than when you saw it only a few hours ago! Sorry about the glare; I was in a hurry and didn't bother to shut the blinds first

We got the great white out !!!!

I'd like some of both as well. Some anthelia and all of the cheato you're willing to part with (gotta restock my fuge after some over-zealous crabs tore mine apart). I'll ping you this afternoon. Thanks!!!

I'm also interested in algae and xenia. Will pay reasonable amounts, esp if available today!

--andrew

Picked up a couple of nice rocks from TBone yesterday!

Not at all. It's just bigger and bulkier; the switches and plugs are on opposite sides of the case, too. Maybe that's a good thing for you.

apparently they're only available in the stores now...

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=914023&CatId=5313

http://www.compusa.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4823710&CatId=5313

I'm guessing that the manufacturer has discontinued them, or TD has decided to stop carrying them

You could try calling the DFW or Houston TigerDirect retail stores to see if they have any.

There's this one that has 5 switched outlets: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=109&cp_id=10907&cs_id=1090705&p_id=7988&seq=1&format=2

Otherwise you're limited to an American DJ rack-mountable power bar...

That's all that I could find when doing my searching.

Tiger direct!

The overflow covers have just darkened with algae. It definitely blends much better now, but I still would do an external overflow had I the opportunity to build it over.

Well, funny you should ask, Chris...

We recently placed an order with an online vendor for a number of fish. Unfortunately, most of them didn't make it due to mortality or predation. We had a couple of carpet surfers AGAIN, and some simply disappeared! We think that the main culprits were the goby that I recently gave away (after the "incidents") and a sizeable white crab with pointy brown claws, possibly a gorilla or stone variety. We've pulled a number of smaller gorillas out and dumped them in the refugium and continue to hunt others.

So today our stocked inhabitants are:

2x true percula clowns

1x blue/green chromis

1x zebra striped bar goby

1x yellow tang

1x powder blue tang

1x coral beauty

1x blue mandarin goby

2x royal gramas

3x red (not blood) shrimp

2x skunk cleaner shrimp

2x sally lightfoot crabs

4x hawaiian feather dusters

1x hard tube feather duster

3x rock flower anemone

1x h. magnifica anemone (not terribly happy, but hanging on)

1x long tentacle anemone

1x brittle star

1x big orange starfish

2x serpent star

4x spiny urchins (2 came from TBS; the other 2 have bred!)

1x not so spiny urchin (I don't know this one's name)

2x small sea cucumbers

various sponges (came from TBS) which are slowly dying

a few acros and fans (came from TBS)

numerous hermit, porcelain, mithrax and gorilla crabs (we're trying to get the last ones OUT)

numerous snails

numerous pistol shrimp (hitchers)

Unfortunately we've lost probably an equal number of inhabitants to carpet surfing and plain ol' disappearance to unknown predators.

The closed loop system has worked out well, but I've determined I'm not happy with my experimental deep sand bed/benthic/refugium, and am considering having a new sump system built. I do dread taking everything out, but I think it needs to be done in order to be effective...

I'll always take some macro if you have more...

Last weekend we bought a couple of condi, a LTA and BTA and 3 feather dusters. One feather duster seems to have been eaten, but everything else is doing well a week later (pretty good record for this tank given its history of predation). And this morning I found a brittle star! We got 2 with the order from TBS and one ended up getting chewed up by something. The other hasn't been seen in 2-3 months. Well, surprise surprise, he's still around!

We got 2 black spiny sea urchins with the TBS order and shortly after things settled in we noticed that we had a baby urchin. He's grown to almost as large as the 2 adults, and last week we also noticed another new baby urchin!

We have dozens of porcelain crabs (good!), several red mithrax crabs (unsure) and a bunch of teeny gorilla crabs (not so good) and an EXTREMELY healthy copepod population in the tank. Thinking about getting a mandarin goby...

I will help you take out the live rock to catch the predators and then help re stack the rock. It should not take that long with a few people working together. Just let me know. Lamont

I appreciate the offer, Lamont. The issue is determining which rock the thing is hiding in... I really don't want to kill off all of the live rock in my hunt to catch the other mantis. Let you know if we decide to get radical though!

Aha!!! My wife and I were looking at the tank today and who should poke his head out but one of our pests! He was in a large rock that I had relocated on top of the remains of what I broke apart the other day... I grabbed a bucket while my wife made sure he was still in the rock and I yanked it out. This time I tried something different. I plucked all of the snails and crabs that I could off of the rock and tossed them back in the tank, then took the bucket and rock to the back yard, where I filled it with fresh water. The mantis was not at all pleased with his sudden trip out of the water followed by no salinity, and promptly left the rock.

The rock went back into the tank and the mantis... let's just say that he won't be troubling us any more unless this is more than just urban legend...

We're keeping our eye out for the other mantis that we suspect is still in the tank, along with an opportunity to nab "great white" as we've dubbed the large light colored crab (rock?) that also might be predating the tank, before we start adding more vulnerable livestock again.

I've definitely got mantis; anyone have stories with success at catching them?

We still have 1 or 2 mantis in the tank along with a couple of monster crabs that we'd like to get out. They've killed off so much livestock that we are very hesitant about putting anything else in the tank before we capture them.

Yesterday we saw one of the mantis scooting about under a rock at the top of the tank, so we pulled it out and I took it to the garage. Unfortunately he slipped away in the dash to pull it and is still in the tank.

Anyone with successful stories on how to catch a mantis?

We have lost some firefish. Probably nailed by the 2+ Mantis shrimp that are still hiding in the rocks. They've taken out 4 firefish, a hawkfish and 6 chromis.; also driven 2 zebra striped bar gobies to carpet surf

I'm actually going out of town early tomorrow morning and won't have internet access. Back mid-day Friday. If someone in the RR/Pville/Hutto area is willing, I'd like a

1.5 oz Jar of Reef Chili Coral Food

added to their order; I'll reimburse for that and shipping next weekend.

If nobody in the area is participating and/or willing, no problem. Just let me know if you are. Thanks!

Tampa Bay Saltwater. Unfortunately aquacultured live rock can bring any kind of hitchhikers

I found another mantis today roaming about the rock near the top. By the time I grabbed a bucket and started pulling rocks out of the tank, though, he had retreated deeper into the stack and I couldn't find him - and didn't feel like tearing the whole thing apart.

I guess we'll have to learn to live with it or be very wary and prepared to pounce when we see them again.

Last weekend we couldn't find the Christmas wrasse that we bought 2 weeks prior. I had to go out of town this week... my wife told me that one of the bangai cardinals died while I was gone and this evening when I was feeding the tank, I noticed that our new zebra striped bar goby went carpet surfing, just like the last one. ARGH!

Tank parameters look fine, so I don't know what we're doing wrong. The only thing I can think of is that we must have more mantis shrimp and they're doing in or scaring away the other residents... any tips on predators that eat mantis, or how I can lure them out of the rocks to a trap without having to dismantle all of the rock work?

If you have room to add another sump... drill the side of your current sump (assuming acrylic here) put a bulkhead in and pipe to an auxiliary sump...

Do you know WHERE the leak is?

Got my aquagloves... just need to use them more regularly.