KeeperOfTheZoo

RCA would work great. I'm working out the details on my end for a vehicle to transport the stand in. Are you flexible on time at all Wayne? I'm not gonna be difficult about a freebie so I'll make the time work if that's best for you. Thanks so much! I'll just take the stand unless you have lights that'd work for a 55 freshwater tank. I could sure use some, let others get a chance at the rest of the goodies. If you'd like I have some fast growing softies that always need trimming: pom-pom Xenia, anthelia & Kenya tree. You wanted a frag of encrusting gorgonian, or is my memory failing me? I also have a little one head with multiple buds frag of galaxia, its pretty and my larger frags do NOT have long sweeper tentacles and the guy that had the mother colony said it didnt either.

At any rate, if you'd like any or all of the above I'll bring them when I get the stand. Oh, this Fri is RCAs first Friday sale! Is that just in the evenings?

Which LFS? I'd love to have the stand but I live waaaaay north of you.

LOL! I bought him a single baby octopus at central market one time and had to explain that it was for an eel.

I'm so glad his eye cleared up. Both were really cloudy when I got him. The one had cleared and the other improved before I gave him to you. I think I told you, but the lady I got him from had only ever fed him live FW feeder fish. Yuck. He really is a neat animal, but I sure don't miss his aquascaping the tank to make tunnels.

I'm so glad the goby is doing well. I wonder what got him the first time?

Cruddy pics taken with my phone, gotta replace my real camera.

Here's the green, you can see the growth to the right. It's grown out more behind it where you can't see in the pic as well. It's hard to see in the pictures, but this one has grown a lot in a month. Nice green derbesia as well. It's almost gone now, I'm not sure what my tang is gonna do when there's no more macro in the tank.

And this is the brown one, but after looking at pics of orange and red I'm not sure it's actually brown. Good growth ring all around it.

Wow Jeff, that's awesome growth! ! Nice tank too.

Dave, I don't want to see your pretty purple monti unless you're willing to frag some for me. Then again, I'm a glutton for punishment.... torture me with your gorgeous tank pics.

Ric, I have 4x 96w PC lighting. The green is holding its color just fine, little polyps are out and its growing. I was looking at the brownish frag and its changed, looks like its trying to get kinda orange maybe? Although looking at Jeff's pics it looks a lot like his red cap.

Dave, thanks for the heads up about calcium. I have a couple SPS frags that are growing much faster than I would have anticipated as well as a few LPS frags that are showing so much growth I'm amazed. I guess I had it set in my head that all LPS and SPS grow really, really slow. I've since learned that some are indeed fast growers. I keep checking my calcium and it doesn't stay as high as it used to but it's still ok (400-420, down from 450). If it dips below 400 I'm going to start dosing calcium. For right now I'm just going to leave well enough alone.

Lamont, I'm hoping mine cup vs. plate. Seems like they're doing it in Dave's tank no matter the flow so here's hoping we get some nice growth eventually too.

Did you see the pictures of the different montis all grown together in the link? It's AMAZING!!!

I'm glad the goby is hanging in there. Seems like if he's made it this far he'll probably be ok with time to recoup. Eating is always a good sign.

Since the eel was full I can't imagine he'd go after the goby under normal circumstances. When I had him he never showed much interest in any of the fish, even when he was hungry. It always seemed like he was following the fish to food vs. seeing the fish as food.

Gosh, 4 shrimp for dinner. I'm surprised the eel wasn't too stuffed to move. I'm so glad he went to you Jeremy, talk about a spoiled fish.

Keeping mind I'm limited to the camera on my droid right now, here are a couple shots of odd things growing in the tanks. I also noticed what I'm pretty sure is a white ball anemone growing in a cave on the underside of one of my rocks last night. It's a rock with a lot of holes so I can't see the base/mouth of the critter, but based on the tentacles with the little balls at the end I'm pretty sure my ID is correct. Most of what I've read about these guys sounds pretty negative. It's in a spot where there are no corals close by (at least for now), how bad is it if I just leave it?

Ok... pictures... I would LOVE to know what this thing is and I can not get a decent picture for anything. If you look in the center of the red circle that's what I'm trying to ID. This is its closed position. When it opens it pulls away from the rock and there are gills (that look like a air filter!) underneath. It splits open along the middle of the dark line you can see in the picture. It only opens its self up at night and it's fairly sensitive to bright light being shined on it. I've caught it partially open during the day a couple times but when I walk past the tank it quickly clamps shut. The external structure is hard (yea, I poked it). I was kinda leaning towards it being some sort of bivalve, but I'm really not sure.

These next pictures are of what I assume is a sponge growing in my sump. The pattern is so neat I thought I'd share. The largest with the internal structure that is so defined is a bit larger than the size of an old fashioned half dollar. I think the smaller ones are the same thing, not sure yet. And of course the spirorbid worms are trying to take over the sump. Wow are they prolific.

I have two little monti cap frags (green &brown). I've read that flow influences their shape as they grow but aside from that no other info was provided. I really like the look of a large colony with multiple 'shelves'. Will the coral always do that as it grows or do I need to adjust the flow over it a certain way?

Right now the bright green frag is showing good growth, enough that it has encrusted on a rock and some of the new growth is starting to cup and part is growing out across the rock. (I've had it about a month and a half). I'm really curious to see how it grows out.

I'm gonna have to find a purple monti cap frag. Wow, the purple is pretty! I found this thread on another forum with some really cool pics of monti experiments a few pages in. I'm not sure I havethat kind of patience but the results are awesome!!

http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=167411

I can't believe he bit him! Do you think he did the initial injury or just took a bite after something else hurt the goby and he smelled an injured animal?

I know eels are predators by nature, but that guys always been so mellow. Was he hungry? Feeding frenzy attack?

Hope your goby recovers. My rule with antibiotics is to only use when absolutely needed. Remember they'll kill all bacteria including those that are beneficial and necessary for life. That's hard on an already stressed creature. That said eels are known for having bacteria ladden mouths and infection is a real problem for people after an eel bite. Why don't you email the folks over at wet web media and see if they have any suggestions for treating fish after an eel bite.

+1 for a great way to check for CO2 Jeremy. Like the new sig by the way. I have one of those vacancy signs too.

Oh wow, hawks eat hermits? My hermits have been doing a pretty good job of chewing on each other here lately.

Your hawks are really neat, of all your fish they're the ones that stood out in my memory. I hope the angel is the culprit it'd be a shame to have to get rid of them. But if you decide to I want to be on the top of the list!

As a plug, Mike has a gorgeous tank and very healthy fish.

Neat fish, makes me think of FW angels.

How are you going to set the tanks up in relation to each other?

This is one time I would not recommend a hang on overflow for sure. Its hard to the point of maybe being impossible to flood proof it simply because you can't control for failure when there are so many random variables. On one tank with one HOB you can eliminate the risk of flooding, I couldn't work it out to prevent floods when using one on a second tank (fuge to sump in my case, I gave up and I'm having a new bigger fuge drilled)

Sounds like you are already wanting to avoid HOB but I thought I'd go ahead and reinforce the idea.

Why don't you check out the plumbing at some of the LFSs to see how they are doing things. Maybe you could mod and apply similar ideas. Fishy Business has one of the nicest looking sales tanks set ups I've seen. I had to ask if the tanks were chained together because they didn't appear to be.

On returns, drill the siphon break hole above the water line. Really limits back flow to the sump.

I haven't used a refractometer yet. Is the rust on the hinge a working part that will influence its accuracy? If not, I'm interested in getting it. What brand is it?

No one wants this little gal? Its looking lonely in my sump with only a big hermit for company.

Not a bad fish at all, just doesn't play nice with passive clowns. She was fine with all my other fish.

I hate to take a fish to the LFSs.

Darn, I was hoping to see hawkfish on the list.

What kind of clown? I'm looking for a happy healthy non stressed oclellaris. I'd give you a tomato clown but that doesn't sound like it'd help.

I'd like both K3s please! I will be in Austin this weekend, would that work for picking them up?

Edit- just looked at the desktop version of the site (surfing on my phone) so I could see your location. San Antonio is a bit far. Do you come N to Austin? If not I'll have to pass.

Thank you for taking the time to write all that out Tim. I think logically I know, but right now my frustration level is getting the best of my logic.

Its very frustrating to have two fish come from one tank and to loose the one I really want. That said, after seeing how horribly aggressive the tomato clown is I've been wondering how stressed the little clown I lost was before I even got it.

Like you said, the majority of my fish are fine and if I throw in my inverts my overall losses are minimal.

Thank you again for your thoughtful posts, this last was just one of many. I truly enjoy reading you perspective on things.

That sounds like an amazing tank with an even more amazing amount of planning and patience behind it.

As of right now my unplanned and unwanted tomato clown is living in the sump after it spent the whole day beating up my sweet little ocellaris and stealing the mushrooms she hosts in. Tomato girl is very pretty, but as the old saying goes....pretty is as pretty does and that fish has won herself a one way trip to a new home.

I've heard tale of the nasty attitudes the tomatoes and maroons can cop. I'm sure there are exceptions, I just feel bad about having subjected my poor ocellaris to one of the fish that prove the rule!

I have a tomato clown that needs a new home! Its too aggressive with my ocellaris to stay in my tank. I've only had it about a day but it seems to be a healthy fish, very nice coloring. I WOULD NOT put this guy with other ocellaris / non aggressive clowns. It's about 1 1/2"

I would like other non aggressive reef safe community fish. A healthy medium sized ocellaris would be ideal.

I'll also consider coral frags but no Kenya, Xenia or blue,red or striped mushrooms.

I live N of Austin, can drive to meet you but would prefer not to drive all the way to Austin and I won't deliver unless it's a really great trade.

I bet the floor is nice and clean now though.

Hey Christian,

You've gotten a lot of good and patient advice and I think it's time you heed it!

What I would suggest is that you go home and take note of your lighting and general hardware. You've been asking and having a lot of basic issues/ problems with things and I'm not sure If you're understanding the signifigance of the questions folks are asking in an effort to help you.

You need to know the type (PC? T5? Halide?) & wattage of your lighting. That should be a given for any reefer. If you can't rattle off the specs and basics about your lighting then there's no way you'll know if you are meeting the needs of your photosynthetic corals. That's why you keep getting asked about your lighting. I'll venture to say that if you don't know and understand your lighting capacity you should stop buying corals until you do!

Water quality is hugely important. You should have a general idea of your parameters from previous testing. Params do change but you should be seeing a small healthy range of normal params indicating that your tank is stable and can support corals. The great thing about knowing what is normal for the tank is that if any parameters change youll know right away that the needs of your tank are changing. For example, as I've been adding more hard corals and those corals grow I've been watching my kh and calcium closely anticipating an increase in consumption.

Good lighting and good water quality are just the start when trying to resolve a problem. So, when you have a problem but don't even know basic info about your tank it makes it hard to help you as well as frustrating for those who are dedicated enough to know all that info as well as they know their own names!

Reading up on the coral is good. It's also something you should do before you buy. It can be hard to keep things alive in this hobby even when you're doing everything right. If you start making poor choices because you don't understand the needs of the creatures you want to keep then you're just setting yourself up for failure.

I promise it wasn't on purpose:hmm: He said that you said it was 15 and that was the price for the tomato clown. I told him I thought you wanted the other but I wasn't sure cause of the price. You can absolutly bring him back if you don't want him. Although I wouldn't be sad if he works out good

Well, all my pm's and posts here were for the ocellaris, hubby was just the pick up guy. He's not into the fish.

Sadly the tomato is extremely aggressive and is harassing my clown horribly. The little ocellaris looked a little thin/harassed and the tomato was picking on him in the bag they were in together. I lost the little guy overnight.

Ill probably just take the tomato to a LFS for credit. Thanks for being willing to take it back though.