LEW

I just found a frag that grew onto the coral rubble and detached when I moved the mother colony! I am going to keep the tiny frag and bring the mother to the frag trade.

I am absolutely fascinated by tunicates (sea squirts). Does anyone have any in their tank. What are you experiences? I have rarely seen them for sale. More often I have seen hitchhikers on good live rock and a few tanks where they were thriving. Does anyone know of anywhere in town that has some tank friendly species?

I had no idea that either one was that difficult. I see mangroves on sale fairly often and they touted often. Admittedly the only ones I have seen succeed are in grown in sunlight. Seagrass I knew nothing about. I might still try the mangrove as get plenty of sunlight. But, I am considering a bottle of macro algae. Recommend a particular alga?

I would like to bring a frag of my montipora for the frag trade in march. What is the best way to get a piece without shattering the whole whorl? Should I glue to wound or just let heal on its own?

I think I am going to try TM. The precipitate in IO always bugs me, and I imagine RC does the same thing.

So I have a nano-reef (no fish). I want to make chain of tanks with water in common. I eventually want to have several tanks representing different areas of the ocean. I am contemplating either a mangrove or a seagrass tank next. Or possible one of each. As advanced aquarists or as an interested visitor which do you think would be cooler or more beneficial to the system. I am thinking seagrass since nice biofilms build up on the grass and that in turn feeds critters and coral. Though a nice mangrove is appealing as well.

Where do you get your salt? Do you run an LFS? I am intrigued. I am not really worried about price since I use so little at a time. Is it a "premium" salt?

By joining the forum have I joined ARC? Or is there some form or membership fee I need to pay?

Hmmm. Maybe I will be keeping the Reef Crystals. I read some bad reviews of it. But, a lot of reviews I read were done by companies who sell salts. So as much as I trust my fellow man I don't trust most reviews. Just for fun, since I only make 2L at a time I was thinking about using bottled rain water, Cloud Juice, from Drippin' since I am not sure if I can trust my buildings purified water. Everyone says it is distilled, but I am 98% sure it is actually deionized and not distilled. It would be amazing to source an entire building off a still. It surprises me that a lot of scientists I work with don't know the differences between water purification techniques.

I realize this an old topic for anyone who keeps a reef. But I am interested to hear what y'all have to say. I have always used Instant Ocean, mostly because it was familiar and available. Yesterday I bought a bag of Reef Crystals. But, haven't tried it yet. I tried looking for conclusive studies on different salts but while many articles analyze salts they seem to on principle make no conclusions on quality. What are you favorite salt brands for keeping inverts that are readily available in Austin? I read that some of you are using Tropic Marin. Is that a superior salt? Is there such a thing, or are we at a point where salt is salt because you can't get away with an inferior product? Thanks, I am looking forward to frequenting ARC. I have never lived anywhere that had a significant SW population.

I have a 2 liter nano. I introduced in the "Howdy" thread in the welcome forum. So it is 2 liters, it runs off a bubbler and 13w actinic light. I have a montipora, birds nest, a gorgonian, several soft corals and lot of little live rock critters. I have had it for a year now and it is doing great.

More pics to come soon.

A close up of my first coral, a leather.

Howdy, I recently moved to Austin to attend grad school at UT. Before that I was an undergrad at A&M down the road. Before that I was growing up in El Paso. I was in charge of the marine aquaria at A&M. Right now I only have my one little tank but it is my pride and joy. It is a coral tank in a 2 liter flask. Less than a gallon. For over a year now it has support a thriving, growing reef. Including a montipora, a birds nest, a gorgonian and several soft corals. In addition I have found various pods, sponges, alga, fireworms (that's fine with me), flatworms, starfish, cowries and most interestingly placazoans (simplest animal in the world, moreso than sponges. Just last weekend I brought the tank up to Austin from College Station where it was being taken care of for me until I was in a stable lab (it lives on my laboratory bench). It has a 13w actinic light, a bubbler and I do bi-weekly water changes. That's it. Here some old pics. I plan to take new pics now that it is back in my possession.