Timfish

I'm with the small (10%) weekly water changes and syphoning it off. I would probably try Boyd's chemipure elite for a month or two before trying the Chemiclean. I haven't tried the Red Slime Remover in a while so I don't know if the formulation has changed and maybe other people's experiences have been different but when I used it it had a pretty negative effect on coraline algae. Also be carefull about using Chemiclean to much. Several years ago I had a tank that developed a bad case of red slime and used it 3 times in about 4 -5 months. First time it worked like a charm but the third time it didn't phase it, I'm guessing the frequent use created a resistant strain of it. (an additional factor to take into consideration was the system was over 14 years old and had clearly developed "Old Tank Syndrome".)

Ohhh, I've never used them or any kind of standpipe setup myself so I couldn't say.

Having been told I'm behind the times before I'll admit I've never heard of a "Maggie Muffler" What is it?

Thought I'd post this experience of mine as I'm sure it is a frustration we have all shared. For starters here's links to 2 previous threads of a similar vein: http://www.austinree...-up-on-a-coral/ http://www.austinree...e-coral-deaths/ The picture is of two sibling clone Fungia polyps (plate corals) that both budded from the same location on a piece of live rock and grew in this tank. Both have been in this same location since they broke off the place they budded from. The one that died was about 18 months older than the one that survived. As you can see a couple of dozen new daughter polyps have budded off the skeleton of the one that died. They first showed up about 7-9 weeks after the death of the parent polyp (parent died November, 2010). It is important to note that even though there is a dramatic difference in size, all the new polyps were about the same size, about a 1/16", when they were first noticed. Two obvious questions this raises are: One; Why did one die in the first place when the two sibling clones were raised and maintained under virtually identical conditions. Second; why the difference in growth rates of the new polyps when they are essentially the same age and growing in the same conditions (if we go by volume I'd guess a 10X to 20X factor between smallest and largest). Anyway, if any of you are annoyed and worried because there's no explanation for why a coral died on you, don't beat yourself up, it may very well not be anything wrong with what you're doing, and, you're in good company (I think ). (For those of you who are interested in this stuff the polyp on the right is actually a siamese twin with two mouths giving it the unusual folded look for a plate coral.)

Congradulations on your new addiction! The shrimp will regrow it's legs but it may take a couple of molts to get back to full size. I'm pretty sure what you got are generic bristle worms and not fire worms. Fire worms are a type of bristle worm but in 24 years of reef keeping I've never seen one and haven't talked to anyone who's gotten one. Bristle worms are scavangers and ubiquitous in reef tanks and some can get HUGE. If you don't like them take them out but beware the bristles break of in the skin and are quite irritating so don't handle them with bare hands. The starfish are almost certainly Asterina sp and while some people think they may prey on corals my experience is they are completely harmless and beneficial.

I have nothing against deep sand beds but for aesthetic reasons I like a layer of about 1/2 inch. It looks brighter and cleaner (usually) than an algae covered bottom and I don't like the shortening effect of a deep sand bed on the "window" or the loss in the vertical viewing space of a tank plus there's the layer of algae on the glass below the sand. While Robb in Austin is right about dry sand I like using live sand for one I don't have to rinse it out like the dry products (yes I realize that makes me appear to be lazy) and in the case of moving a tank setup like you're doing it gives me a little added insurance the ecosystem won't crash. I've moved lots of tanks like you're doing and don't worry about the detritus that's in the tank after the move bothering the animals. The sequence I typically use is: 1st - unplug pumps, heaters, lights, especially metal halides. 2nd - Syphon off 70% to 80% of the water into buckets. This is water I'm saving and doing this first insures there is a minimum of detritus in it. I do not disturb any of the rocks or try to catch any fish until after this done. The short amount of time corals and polyps are out of water does not bother them but metal halides can burn them so turn them off. You also want more buckets than what's needed to hold all the water. In your case 8 or 9 5 gallon buckets. This is to hold wet equipment and you may not want to fill the buckets all the way. 3rd - pull out the rocks that are being sved and put them in the buckets with saved water. I usually also designate a few gallons of water I've already saved or make up a couple of gallons of fresh saltwater to rinse the rocks off before putting them the buckets of clean saved saltwater. 4th - Catch the fish, shrimps, snails, etc.. It's a lot easier if there isn't much water and no rocks for them to hide in. The water can be pretty murky at this point so make a list ahead of time and count noses. 5th - dig out the sand. This is messy and sometimes smelly. Sand can be rinsed in saltwater and reused but it's a lot of work and I'd rather use new stuff like Jake said. 6th - Disconnect everything. This is when I will start pulling apart plumbing, yanking out equipment, tangling all the cords in a knot, etc. 7nth - load up, drive, unload. In this heat fish go into vehicle last and come out first. 8th - set up stand and tank and fill tank about halfway. If you're pretty good at "seeing" with your hands add sand at this point. If not then carefully put your rock in. I like to add sand first then put rock in but the water gets pretty murky and it may be impossible to see what you're doing when you start adding the rock. If you are very visually oriented you need to stack the rock first, it doesn't have to be perfect but it does need to be stable. 9th - add fish, corals, inverts and rest of the saved water. It's really a judgement call on your part if the zoa covered rock goes in the previous step or here. 10th - Untangle cords and hook up pumps and filters. Add water to top off the system. double check plumbing and turn on pumps and filters. 11th - Assuming no problems with step 10 plug in lights and any other equipment not yet hooked up. Next Day - do a complete battery of water tests. PH and alk should be close to premove values. if there is a trace of ammonia (.02) I wouldn't worry about it. If it's .04 or higher I'd start looking at adding some cured liverock or sand from an established tank or live sand or some bacteria cultures (my last choice) to help deal with it. Day 2 - If there was ammonia on day one test for it again. Depending on how the animals look I may or may not test everything else. I would encourage you to get Sprung and Delbeeks "The Reef Aquarium" series especially Vol. 3. Chapters 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8 in Vol 3 cover in excellent detail water chemistry, filtration and lighting.

Check out a recent article by Dr. Sanjay Joshi in Advanced Aquarist online evaluating 3 different products: http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2011/8/aafeature The Ecoray 60 is giving you 500 PAR at 18" which is pretty acceptable level for a lot of the light loving corals. Be advised though a lot of your SPS won't want or need 500 PAR so do your research on the specific species/varieties you get. He also has some older articles looking at the outputs of other brands of LED fixtures.

Probably best to find people who have already breed AND raised clownfish. Getting them to breed is pretty common, keep them happy and be patient for the two or three years it takes for them to mature. (Base on what I've seen moving tanks even proven pairs may take 6 months or more to get back into the grove when moved.) The techniques for raising them takes practice and patience.

Maybe, maybe not Seeing how much damage tangs can do to each other when they want if somebody decides the clowns are invading their space they're pretty much toast at that size. It's really going to be a judgement call on your part based on what you think the temperaments of your fish are.

12 gauge shotgun is a sure thing, won't ever have to worry about that mantis again! If you can figure out which rock it's using for it's home base you might be lucky and just yank out that rock with it in it. You might try a trap (I've never had much luck with traps but I'll try it first). Worst case scenario you'll have to pull out all the rock looking in all the holes and hopefully find it in one. Twice I've found one in a hole and dumped about a tablespoon of salt in the hole to get it out so I could keep the rock. Good Luck Hunting!

Given that what makes a tank's pH more acidic is the production of CO2 combining with calcium carbonate making carbolic acid and nitric acid from the break down of organics I'm inclined to think you're more stable pH can be attributed to three probable causes: 1) The vent blowing on it is helping to get rid of CO2 faster or the flow has been changed giving more surface agitation. 2) There has been a shift in the cycles in your tank reducing the algae growth and it's production of CO2 at night when the lights are off. 3) you've made a significant reduction in the amount of food to the system. I myself very rarely test weekly let alone day and night pH. What I worry about is long term trends downward. While corals can live in pH of 7.6 since it is a buildup CO2 that is primarily causing it I will start doing remediation around 8.0 - 8.1. I like seeing my pH 8.2 - 8.4. For those of you who are curious to check how well you're tank is getting rid of CO2 take a bucket of water from your tank and set it outside with an air stone for 24 hours then check the pH of the water in the bucket against the pH of the water in your tank. If the pH of the water in the bucket is higher than in the tank the CO2 being produced in the tank is not being removed fast enough and is combining with calcium carbonate making carbolic acid. Often just moving pumps or return outlets around to increase surface agitation is all that's necessary.

If it doesn't bother you I'd leave it alone but I don't think cutting it would shorten it's life much. What kind of sponge is it? I've had to remove finger and ball sponges during moves or redos and not had problems being exposed to air momentarily. The sponges that are volunteers on rock usually tolerate a fair amount of time out of water. I have Tethys sp. in one tank that have crawled to the waterline and are exposed for 10 - 15 minutes every week during cleaning.

Freind sent me this and I thought I'd pass it along

I get grey PVC rod from Austin Plastics on Kramer but I'd guess most plastic supply places can get it for you. Most of the time I use 1/2" CPVC pipe from Lowes or Home Depot, it fits a hole drilled with a 5/8" masonry bit.

I'm curious why you want to remove him? I think they're one of the best animals to help with algae.

Don't know if you noticed but a lot of people don't like them and I wanted to say I'm one of them.

I'm assuming we're still doing this? I've got Nitrate standards from Marine Depot.

I was talking with a friend a couple of days ago and she commented it's easy to tell time with this weather we're having. Puzzled I asked her to elaborate, she said "Well, if the temp. outside is 100 then I know it's noon, if it's 101 the time is 1:00, it it's 102 it's . . . "

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/photogalleries/100524-new-species-handfish-walk-science-pictures/

I use APIs pH, Alk and Calcium test kits and Instant Ocean's hydrometer. I would encourage you to get Sprung and Delbeck's book "The Reef Aquarium" Vol III. Chapter 5 "Calcium, Alkalinity and pH Maintenance" goes into a great deal more detail than be conveyed here. (Chapters 4, 6, 7 & 8 are recommended also.) And I use Elos phosphate test kit.

Happy Birthday! (So you're 27 now?)

That's a really good question and probably anybodies guess. I quarantine my fish so for me best case it would be 4-6 weeks anyway.

I always start off with aragamite and if it doesn't keep up I'd go with calcium reactor. It sounds like kalkwasser would be a lot cheaper for you though.

This isn't really helpful answer but there are intestinal parasites that might explain it. I know from having sent a tang off for lab work (took a year and $200) that there are internal parasites that will present the same basic symptoms and are untreatable (and from what I observed in my tanks suggests it might be contagious or at least comunicable). Also bear in mind we basically only know about diseases at the class level or whats common for ALL bony fish which is the same class level for diseases of ALL mammals. We have essentially no information for order, family or genus level diseases for fish. For reference the cats and dogs are separated at the family level or two steps lower on the taxonomic tree and we know quite a bit about their seperate diseases

My experience both the dartfish and cleaner wrasse have very poor long term survival rates so I wouldn't normally worry to much about their disapearance but with the combined behavior you've described of the other inhabitants I would be thinking the same thing. It might just be a pistol shrimp which should be harmless but using a red light like Mindflux said to check out your tank seems to me would be prudent.