thedude

I recognize two of those corals and they're growing great! Great pictures as always Clint. John

I'm afraid of them to an extent but way more afraid of bubble algae going crazy. I'd had 4 emerald crabs in my reef keeping time and only one liked to munch corals and honestly, it's because I didn't feed him very much. There weren't any fish in the tank, and I didn't really want to pollute it so I was feeding once a week if that.

Hahahahahahahaha liar!

All, I've been in Dallas this weekend and talked to several people I know up here very in to the reefing scene. Most specifically a store owner and his assistant, who own a great store here and run an online store, and I were talking about the obvious lack of maxima clams. Maximas used to be imported from all over the indo-pacific. Due to various die offs from parasites and general trade restrictions, all the nations importing the "ultra" maxima clams have stopped, except for Tahiti. Tahiti has some very beautiful clams, but they have a high die off rate, and are definitely not sustainable. The only real aquaculture station to note in the US is ORA, and they lost many many clams due to last years hurricanes. SO what does this mean? It means that we'll probably see some really great clams come in, in the near future. After that, they're going to stop until we either; a. Find a wild sustainable population or b. Aquaculture them here in the US If you're looking for a pretty maxima and stumble across one at a reasonable price, I personally would buy it, rather than choosing to wait. Just a little FYI for everyone as I found it extremely interesting (especially since maximas are a weakness of mine and I haven't seen many in over a year) John

The only problem I've ever heard of with CBB's if that they have a tendency to nip at clam mantles and LPS corals. The problem I personally have had with them is getting a specific speciman to eat. Usually if I get in a school of 3-5 they more or less "monkey see/monkey do" and will eat frozen food. Otherwise, it's usually death with in a week. Definitely get a smaller clown tang and introduce him last, that way he'll be forced into already existing territories. The sargassum, blue throat, and crosshatch triggers are all awesome reef fish. Bigger ones will bother shrimp introduced after them and the sargassum and crosshatch and very pricey. On to the cleanup crew! I'm one of the guys in the at least one snail per gallon camp. A mixture of blue leg hermits, cerith snails, nassarius snails, and turbo/astrea snails are my favorite. I'd also add a few emerald crabs to take care of any obnoxious valonia. As far as the long spine (I think you mean diadema urchin?) they look really cool but REALLY suck to get stuck by. If you haven't had one of their spines go through your finger and wiggle out the opposite way, you'll never truly know what I mean, but IMO, the pain is not worth the gain. Get something like a short spine or tuxedo urchin and be done with it. You can get away with this bioload but you need the skimmer for it, and I really can't stress that enough. Budget for the Mercedes class skimmer and you won't be constantly battling cyano and other nuisance algaes. As far as clams go... check out my thread on clams in the reffkeeping section. John

Ok I'll bite and break it down section by section with my opinions. You first have to consider that the bigger tank you buy, the more expensive the auxiliary equipment will cost. Keep in mind you'll need metal halide lighting, strong skimming (Deltec or Euroreef IMO), LOTS of flow (either closed loop or Tunze/Seio), then if you're keeping a bunch of SPS, a calcium reactor. Little stuff will come up as well (food, carbon, other filtration media, reactor media, etc..) Tangs: You've got some HUGE tangs in this list, and some very very aggresive ones at that. The yellow and hippo are both do-able, although I need to stay away from Dori in general because they have a tendency to taste everything. Clown tangs are big aggresive fish with very high mortality rates. If you get one, a QT is a must, and it probably would not let you have any more tangs once he becomes established. Sohal tangs like you said are monsters. I wouldn't feel comfortable putting one in anything less than 8 feet long. Unicorn tangs are also monsters. Same as the Sohal and more aggressive. Other fish: Good choice on the clowns, go with either percs or false percs. They tend to be less aggresive than the other varietals. Chromis are fine but are being collected deeper and deeper and rarely do well in our aquariums. It seems like everyone I've ever seen that had a school of chromis had to keep replenishing their numbers. Anthias are great, squamipinnis (sp?) are the most hardy IMO. Remember that many of them (ie: sunbrust) come from deep waters and our bright lights will eventually stress them to death. Smaller wrasses are always great and are a personal favorite. Green Mandarins don't really need a year or two with a tank that size to do well. You can play these by ear and wait to find one eating frozen or establish a healthy population of pods. Remember that the sixline will compete with the mandarin for pods. Try looking into the Bellus angel as they're very reef safe. Pygmy angels are all hit or miss if they'll eat your coral and I care way more about coral than I do about fish. If you want another big interesting fish, look into the Xanthicus (sp?) trigger family, bluthroats, sargassum, etc. I'll get on later and finish this post John

Off the top of my head I can think of these problems with large bowfront tanks: Early in the production line, they leaked... alot. That has supposedly been solved in the last two years or so but it still worries me. Second would be that fitting everything under the stand is pretty weird due to the curving. That and the standard oceanic stand is rather ugly IMO. Last would be the dimensions are troublesome. The tank is really deep and would have to be lit with 400w halides to get light penetration to the bottom. If you're looking to go big, look at both the oceanic 125 and 180 as I like the dimensions much more. John

Soooo not worth it. If it came from ORA, they charged a MAX of 50 bucks for the clam.

Sounds like a great tank! Welcome to Austin! John

I've seen star polyps close up for literally weeks at a time. Sometimes the slightest water change will piss them off and they'll batten down the hatches persay and just ride it out. I'd wait and not be too concerned about them. John

I've had it work in the past, and I've killed fish with it in the past unfortunately. One thing to definitely remember, follow the dosing instructions exactly and do not overdose. The main problem, is that this stuff decreases the oxygen content of your water almost immediately, almost to an unsafe level. Keep heavy surface movement to promote oxygenation and watch water quality carefully. Other than that, make sure the angel is getting plenty of good food. Keep us updated, John

I'd say that Pacific Coast makes a good affordable chiller if you do indeed go that route. John

Tunze pumps are solid. No real plumbing or drilling issues, low power consumption, audible alarm if the pump stops working. They truly are worth the huge price tag. That being said, this is a BIG reef, so why not do both? The wavebox is also awesome but I wonder if you'd need an extension for a tank that large.

Gabe got it, Natural Salt Water. One of my goals at home is to continually monitor my tank conditions and try to achieve something as natural as possible. This means for me: PH:8.0-8.3 Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate, Phosphate: 0 Calcium: 420-460 Alk: 8

I try to keep my magnesium closer to NSW levels at 1400. I also run calcium a little higher than 400 though at 420-450.

Those are great explanations. Many people also don't realize that Magnesium is the second most prevalant ion in saltwater, second only to salt. John

As far as I understand it, it doesn't play any real relationship with PH and alk, but most definitely does with calcium. Magnesium allows calcium to stay suspended in the water column and not precipitate out. I don't think an elevated magnesium level would cause any harm but try to drop it by about 100.

Done Mike, it's all yours and I'll call you when I actually have it in hand.

We can all see that this is something that the people in Austin are extremely interested in. We're at what, day three and we already have 20 member! Mad props again out to Andrew for getting this thing going and thanks for everyone singing up and spreading the word! John

Yeah I did get the media, just waiting for UPS to actually drop it off. And I'll have half a bucket or so left if anyone is interested. John

Yeah

Looks similar to black ich or marine velvet that delevops on tangs fairly easily... The main clown diseases are ich (not ich at least the common variety in this case), lymphocitis (large smooth white lesions... not this), or brooklynella which would be my only guess at this point. What have you been feeding him and what are you water conditions at? It almost looks like the anemone could have stung him as well. Are you feeding the anemone on a regular basis? Also, when was the clown introduced? John FYI: The reason I said Marine Velvet is the fish will often rub up against things and your clown doesn't show any real external parasites that I'm common with. This is a great read on marine velvet http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-07/...hl%3Den%26lr%3D

AA carries it but honestly, buy the bigger bucket as you'll save some serious money long term. Let someone up there know you want the 4 liter bucket of Hydrocarbon (I believe) and we'll special order some of the bigger ones in. Premium Aquatics and Marine Depot carry it as well, and the sales people at PA are just outstanding. John

Yeah the Aquamedic skimmers are a royal PITA to adjust. They also experienced some HUGE setbacks when their entire US inventory burned along with their warehouse in early January. They just know have been able to start shipping their products again. Let me know if you need the number or email for Aqua-medic and I'll see if I can find it. John

All, Recently, the new trend in high end SPS keeping is to utilize some type of probiotic filtration method. This originally was only accomplished through the Zeovit method (www.zeovit.com) but quite honestly, the technology behind doesn't make any sense to me, and there is way too good a chance of nuking your tank. Another factor is the hefty price tag. I've come across two new companies marketing new products and wanted to let you all take a look at them as well. The first product is called Prodibio and all information and sales are going through www.robsreef.com . Marc Levenson (Melev) of DFWMAS is currently experimenting with this method and I'm very curious to see it's effects in his tank. The second is called System Reef-resh and is distributed by a Canadian company at www.polyplab.com. They also have a high quality soft coral food that I should be receiving any day now. Check them out as I think they are quite possibly the next filter additive. John