Timfish

And here's some PAR readings from in the tank: This is looking down from the top back:

Here's where it's going. It's one of three that will be lighting up this tank. (The closer fixture in the image is the 2nd prototype to check PAR levels and possible heat issues.) Aquascaping this one was fun as it will be seen from above and behind as well as the end and finally in front as you descend the stairs.

Roughly $750 for all the parts. Even if someone went with more colors and channels (I'm only going with 2) and dimmable buck pucks it wouldn't be much more.

Half a dozen designs, two prototypes, and finally . . . 3000 PAR @ 14" (FYI, 3000 is as high as Apogee's PAR meter reads. ) The heatsink is 12" x 4" and has 3up LED stars with 16° lenses. It's pulling about 250 watts (2 150 power supplies). LED colors are 9 CW stars, 2 NW stars, 8 B & 7 RB stars.

Yeah, it was added back in '98 and was already half grown. It's my impression they should be living decades in our aquaria.

Well, I survived the holidays and moving 3 systems in 10 days so maybe it's time to post some pictures.

+1 and include the brand. Things have changed so much it's often cheaper just to buy new. Either fixtures are too cheap to pay for a couple hours of tech time to fix or the proprietary parts for the higher end fixture push repair costs up to where it's not that much more just to buy new.

Thought I'd post the parameters for the new slatwater. I didn't test for ammonia but it should be around 1 mg/l as it's made with just RO and not RO/DI. Alk 11 dKH pH 8.2 Calcium 400 mg/l Nitrate ~2 mg/l (Red Sea Pro) PO4 .1 mg/l (Nyos) Mag 1600 mg/l And here's some pics:

Smart kids don't grow up!

Don't feel like an idiot. There's several hundred species of Sinularia and many have similar looking growth forms. Mine is the only species I know of that I can provide paperwork from a world respected taxonomist, Dr. Micheal Jaines in Pheonix, AZ, proving it is what it is. Sinularia foliata is one of several dozen different speicies found in Palau and was one of the species nearly wiped out by the El Nino event in '98 and current research only has it identified in one local. Ironicly most if not all of the aquacultured "Nepthia" Palau Green Fingers available are actually in the genus Sinularia and not in the genus Nephthia.

Thank You! Well, to be honest , the green finger is Sinularia foliata and is arguably the rarest aquacultured octocoral. And the thin clams in the bottom left corner have successfully reproduced in this system which is a pretty rare accomplishment if I do say so myself. Here's the thread I posted about them.

Pics for this week:

This weeks tests results and pics Alk 7 pH 8.1 Temp 77 Magnesium 1040 Calcium 340 Nitrate <.25

Here's some current photos: Left end: Right end:

Corals are competing with algae for the various forms of nitrogen and phosphate in our systems. In my experience neither nitrates or phosphates are the primary cause of nuisance algae problems. If you look at this thread on hair algae I got rid of the hair algae without reducing PO4, inorganic phosphate. The nitrate, NO3, did not drop until AFTER the hair algae disappeared. The anemones that had turned brown with the algae outbreak started to recolor as the algae receded even though there still had not been any change in those nutrients. The Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC) skimmers might, at best, partially remove is consumed by cryptic sponges and converted into bicarbonate, HCO3, that corals will use for both skeleton building and photosynthesis.

This is the first system I set up 19 years ago in June, 1997 without a skimmer and thought I'd do a thread on it. For the first post I thought I'd start with a video taken a couple years ago: Recent water parameters: Alkalinity 5-10 dKH pH 7.8 - 8.1 Salinity 1.022 - 1.027 Temp 76 - 78 Nitrate 1 ppm

If it weren't for this breeding thread I'd be getting everybody together to have an intervention with you after your comment "I've been having some luck getting the aiptasia to throw off mini aiptasia. Pretty happy about that."

I'm happy to take all the credit for finding it but truth is I knew it couldn't be the skimmer 'cause the way I rigged it to fail wouldn't have caused any electrical smell and you had already ruled out just about everything else so the heater was the obvious next thing to check.

Great pictures! Now if you could get a close up video of one of the babies Berghia eating a baby aiptasia!

(Rigging those things to fail days or weeks after I've visited is a real trick! )

Still trying to figure out how I feel about having my name attached to this project. A technique I've seen with researchers, aquaculture facilities and fish wholesalers is to "soft plumb" tanks for easy drainage and removal. The tanks are set up on a rack with a trough or a drip pan on the back end or underneath. A supply line runs above them and each location for a tank has a valve that feeds the tank from above but is not attached to the tank. The tank may be a molded polycarbonate that has a spillway molded in or valve and stand pipe feeding to a trough or drian pan to channel water to a central filter. This type of setup lets each tank be very quickly removed for cleaning or research or replaced with a clean, sterile tank if needed since there's no plumbing or equipment to disconnect or remove. For your project is seems something similar would work. You have room to set a tray your sump which would help with temperature and access (keep your four boys from messing with them ). The tray could be a tubberware container or something custom to hold your jars. You could tap off your manifold with airline tubing and valve to each jar. Then have a very slow drip you could turn off during the larval stage. Since they are mildly photo phobic you could paint the tray black or have it made with black plastic so the babies tend to stay at the bottom (although you probably won't mind some escaping into your system. ) (I can't believe I'm worrying about running out of aiptasia before you figure out how to raise them. I'm going to have to schedule some extra sessions with my therapist, can you give me your card number or your address to send the bill to please! )

Sex and violence, better than Friday night TV. . . . So what did you do with the adults in the end? Would you suggest keeping the eggs, juveniles, and adults separate? Did you separate eggs from the adults at all? How long do you think it took to see any juveniles? How did you handle water changes when the eggs started hatching? . . . I was adding the adults to a tank I have an aiptasia problem in. It was probably 6 - 8 weeks after I was getting eggs that I saw baby Berghia. But considering the size of the individual egg and the size when they are noticable that was probably a pretty good growth rate. I made no effort to separate the eggs and adults and didn't do anything special for the water changes outside of trying to avoid any noticeble eggs or nudibranchs. The reason I suspect predation is I added a big rock with aiptaisa instead of individual specimens and after that I would see 'pods scurying around and asterinas but even though there were eggs I never again saw baby Berghia. Cannibalism is just a guess, it would explain why I never saw more than the initial group of half a dozen or so babies.

I'm really glad to see you document your efforts so well. My experience raising them was interesting and I wish I had taken more time to follow them. The adults when they reach the 1" - 1 1/2" size are quite beautiful. I got 4 to try to breed and lost two pretty quick. The other two initially had lots of eggs but I didn't see many juveniles. I did finally get about half a dozen tiny ones maybe 3/16" or 1/4" show up and was able to raise them up to adult size. About that time I started to add rocks with aiptasia to the tank and after that I never saw any more small ones even though there were plenty of eggs. I did notice after a couple months I had a lot of 'pods and asterinas wer clearly reproducing also. My suspicion is the 'pods and/or asterinas were eating the eggs or babies and maybe there was cannibalism between the older and younger specimens.

Were the pictures from a couple weeks ago and this last week taken at the same time? Even without clicking on the pictures there's noticable growth with some of your montis but your toadstools have expanded quite a bit in the second set.

Nope. Not ever. Never ever. Honest!