KeeperOfTheZoo

Bubble trap.

I also accidentally discovered that the media containers for an old dual biowheel filter fit perfectly side by side in my sumps baffles. Right now I'm running phosguard in one container and carbon in the other. Its super easy to change out media and very effective since all the water in the tank, sump and fuge eventually runs through the baffles.

You can keep mini carpets under PC lighting?

Mama, you need to give me the ponies for safe keeping.

Ah the joys of homeschooling... We are studying oceanography for science this year. Ties in well with the new 125g micro ocean in the living room. The trip to the FL coast was nice for hands on science as well. On the 28th some of the families from one of our groups are coming out to visit the farm in general. Should be 30+ people.

I've seen talk of setting up 'touch tanks', I think that would have a long lasting impact on the kids. On our recent trip my kids fed the rays at the Tampa zoo and are STILL talking about it.

In my experience with kids in general and teaching/ educating about animals the more hands on you can make the

experience the more impact it'll have.

There is a very nice aquarium in Corpus and the Waco Cameron park zoo has a couple neat SW tanks now. Austin has never really gotten into the whole zoo thing.

Neat idea Gabriel. It amazes me how so many kids have so little exposure to the diversity of life on our planet.

James, Cyrus said the same thing about his. I guess I got the hyper conch. Hope yours comes out soon.

If I'd known how great these guys are at sifting/ cleaning sand I would have gone to FL sooner to get one!

Thought I'd post this pic of my awesome cleaner conch. I don't hear them mentioned much when folks talk about clean up crews. This conch is pretty big, about 2". However, I've been very happy with how little destruction he causes to the various corals I have placed on the sand bed. He has excellent eye sight, I've even noticed him actively watching me when I'm standing next to the tank. Pretty cool guy.

As you can see in the picture, he's doing a great job eating the film algae that grows in my tank by the end of the day (I'm thinking this is being encouraged by my lower K bulbs, gotta get rid of those things). And what goes in must come out.... the whole process captured forever!

I sure can't join the single tank club. I have 4 running and two 55g tanks sitting in the garage awaiting set up. I need a 12 step program.

Melissa, while ya got the tank empty are you going to have it drilled?

Congrats and have fun on the set up.

Wow that's a gorgeous tank! I love the layout. Very well thought out and unique.

KH is carbonate hardness, a KH test doesn't test for total harness or even true alkalinity in the pH sense of acid/neutral/alkaline. It's worth watching because the carbonates (carbonate and bicarbonate) get used up via biological processes (of the living things in your tank) and when they are gone or too low it can cause pH swings amongst other things. When people talk about 'buffering', they are usually talking about KH. If your KH is where it should be (8-12 dKH), your water is well buffered and it should help keep your pH stable.

You have to have both carbonates(KH) and calcium amongst a whole lot of other minerals for your water to be balanced. I read a great analogy one time that talked about balancing pH, KH and calcium. It basically said think of a glass filled with two different colored marbles, red and blue. KH and calcium both dissolve in water and water can only hold so many dissolved solids. If the cup was full of red marbles (calcium) there would be no room for blue marbles (carbonates, KH). Your tank would be in big trouble. Sure, you'd have really high calcium levels which might seem great since most of us are trying to keep our calcium up for our inverts, but remember, balance is key! So, if you started adding some blue marbles (carbonate, KH) to the cup, what would happen? It would displace some of the red marbles which means your calcium would be lower, but that's ok... you really need it to stay in a range that also allows the KH to stay in a good range.

The opposite can happen to, you can add too much carbonate and drive your KH & pH up and your calcium down.

In your case, if you are dosing calcium without knowing what your calcium level is you might be adding to much. When there is to much calcium your KH will get driven down (remember, if one is too high it displaces the other causing it to drop) which can also drive your pH down. A big drop in either or both of those will start harming your livestock.

It's a good rule to never supplement anything that you haven't first tested for.

If you don't have a lot of hard corals and are doing frequent water changes you probably won't need to supplement for anything. I do 10-15% water changes every other week and I'm just starting to see my calcium dip down between changes to where I might start supplementing (it gets just below 400 sometimes). The thing is, it doesn't always dip below where I want it to be. If I start to supplement I'll have to test often and be very careful to make sure I don't over dose my tank and screw things up!

Best solution for iPhone problems? A Droid.

Sorry. I've been resisting for days! I liked my iPhone, hated AT & T coverage.

What's your calcium and kh at? Everything else is good.

Maybe its just their time to go.

Are any of your other corals irritated? Could any of the GSPs neighbor corals be bugging them (anything with sweepers?). Maybe they are falling victim to toxins being released by other corals, I think the fancy term is allelopathy. Basically coral chemical warfare. Are you running carbon?

What exactly are your water parameters? Having recently watched a friend struggle with a KH problem I've learned that some corals are a lot more sensitive to certain water parameters being off than others, and it's not always the ones you would think would have problems and be more sensitive.

Ok,

I started this thread so those of us discussing nepthea wouldn't totally hijack the for sale thread.

That said, Lamont, I think my little colony is the polar opposite of yours. It likes low flow, low light and gets really irritated if either of those factors increase (I've moved it around a couple times). I'd actually asked a few people about it because it seemed odd to me that a photosynthetic coral would expand and be beautiful at night, then be grumpy when the lights were on. It is a low to medium light coral though.

Here is a picture of what mine looks like during the day (sorry about the photo quality, my digital camera took a hike while on vacation so I'm using my new Droid to take pics until I replace my real camera). This is about 50% inflated. Ignore the dirty glass. I have been.

I got this mini colony from Jian (John) Song I think. It was back in Dec. and he was breaking down his tank to move up East. His mother colony was HUGE!!!! It was growing under very blue T5s (I would assume pretty high K, it was real blue).

How rare is this stuff? I've read it's extinct in the wild but it seems like many of us have it.

I'd like the overflow please!!

I'm game to join in.

This sounds like a good topic for a chat session, get some dynamic thought flow going on.

Anyone have a rotifer culture going? I'm thinking about starting one, along with a dedicated pod tank. I've got a collection of random small tanks.

I'm hoping my clowns will get around to spawning in the future. Itd be neat to try and raise the babies.

Keeping up with the rotifers then brine shrimp sounds a bit like real work though.

Well, if the mat still looks healthy there's still hope! Maybe change their location in the tank if you can just to see what happens.

Just depends on if it's happy and inflated or not. Does yours feed at night? Mine is always the prettiest and most extended when the lights are off. I got mine from a reefer who was moving up east. His mother colony was huge! My mini colony is about 6" x 4" , not super fast growing but I've seen noticeable growth since Dec. when I got it.

Ditto hydros sentiments, but that said didn't you mention being allergic to something fishy related at the meeting?

I would think though that 2 hours after the fact you've probably seen the worst of a reaction if you are having one. Most of what I've read about the toxins in zoas seems to indicate a fairly rapid onset of flu like symptoms. Unless you are allergic, it would take more than casual contact to make you sick. I pick up and handle my zoas all the time thanks to my crabs trying to aqua scape for me.

Hope you feel better soon. Let us know how you're feeling in a bit!

Hmm, that doesn't sound so good. I have 3 different colonies going in different places. Different levels of lighting and flow and they all open fully. Are yours in a place where something could be crawling on them? I had to move some zoas away from where one of my cleaner shrimp hangs out because he kept climbing on them and making them close.

Since your parameters are good I'd look for a physical irritant. Is the Matt tissue still healthy looking?

My nepthea looks like that when it doesnt have its polyps extended but its always neon green, even under non actinic lighting. Its extinct in the wild supposedly but seems plentiful enough amongst folks around here.

How much would you like for the tang?

I know exactly what you mean.. plus one of my birds tries to kill himself if his schedule is too disrupted, so he'd have to be boarded.. then when he comes home we get to listen to all of the noises of the vet's office repeated over and over.

What kind of bird do you have? That neurotic id guess a grey or an amazon. I want a sulphur crested cockatoo. Not the best talkers but they are such sweet birds. Gonna wait till my kids are older though. In the mean time I have a lutino cockatiel. He whistles and rings like our phone.

I just learned today that my friend who farm sits for me is moving this summer. We're never going to be able to vacation as a family again. Ahhhh! Its so hard to find someone to watch all my animals.

How do you get it to grow Troy? I had some in my DT and in my fuge. It never seemed to take off and do anything.

Mike are you going to try to raise any of the clown babies? Seems like the hardest part of the whole process is culturing the rotifers they need as a first food.

I think my females biological clock must be ticking. She hosts in hairy mushrooms and hooked up with the first dude that swam by. Obviously not a picky girl!!

That's exactly what mine did at first. Now its all over the tank.

The frogspawn is gorgeous by the way. Opened up fully the same day I put it in the tank.