Bannerfish

i cant seem to keep nasarius snails alive long at all. Not sure if something was wrong with the cucumber i tried one time, but it didnt last long at all. the tiny blue legs you see for sale often dont last long, but the bigger ones do fine. the scarlet reef hermits seem to last the longest. I still have one of my original red legs, although he looks like a tarantula in a shell now, hes huge. i believe one of my old fish ate most of the others i had in there. the big zebra turbo snails last a good long time in my tank as well, but the prettier ones dont last long. some of them are cooler water species and dont tolerate our warmer tanks very well. emeralds also do very well in my tanks...without an eel in there to eat them lol. micro stars and spaghetti worms multiply like crazy in mine too.

i was at the dome the other day but i didnt see that one, hes beautiful

is it light enough for two people to lift it?

this is something ive been wanting to find, locally there isnt too much variety. Next time i drive down there ill have to check it out. ive been wanting some different types of fish to feed my predators here at home.

ahh, until now ive been thinking the jettys were boats that you took out into the water to collect lol. I knew you guys would have great suggestions!

The tv thing is mainly for me to use at night time, i cant sleep without some little background noise for some reason, i end up having some crazy dreams I guess i could use the phone or laptop too. I definitely will not be spending much time in the hotel room at all!

i havent let bubble algae disuade me from buying a frag if all the corals in that tank looks healthy and happy, simply because it does not thrive in my tank at all, neither does cyano or gha. bubble algae is easy to get rid of by not popping them in your tank, and removing the little stalk that it uses to attach to the rock. byopsis is easily killed by peroxide before it goes in your tank. for me the deal breaker is other corals or fish that look sick, tissue dying off, chewed up, brown jelly, rotting, etc.

In my own experience, growing macro in the sump has by far been the best solution to my nitrate and phosphate issues that I've had in my tanks. I do not use a skimmer but I still do water changes to replenish elements that the sps deplete.

I saw that post on one of the reef forums about the 40year old tank, that's something to be proud of!

That rock looks gorgeous! Wish I could get my hands on some

Good to know! The inn we were looking at said they don't have Tv or anything, so that might be a deal breaker for me.

How do I know where the jettys are? Is there any fees that I have to pay to visit the jetty? What about snorkeling?

I'm looking into a trip to port aransas, haven't decided on a date. My main objective is to go collecting and just have fun in the water in general, but besides the saltwater collection permit, is there anything else I need to know or get to do it legally? We will prob stay a few days at least, anyone have suggestions on what else is a must see that won't cost me an arm and a leg? Thanks in advance!

What part of town are you in, north, south?

Brought this clam home today, seems happy :-) I redecorated this tank, took out a bunch of rock, moved it the two fish that were in here. Since then I've put my baby cowfish (cutest little fish ever BTW ) and a mandarin goby in here, and added the clam, one of my yellow Fiji frags, a green ric, a blue ric, rainbow acan frag, and a Palau nepthia. planning on adding a few more lps. Eventually the cowfish will move to a bigger tank. I'm pretty happy with how it's turned out.

Wow, ID be all over those sps

Dang, I was hoping you'd be driving up. My cars been acting up, I don't wanna break down in Austin again like last time

That name doesn't sound familiar. Doubt he'd wanna drive all the way up here to see what my readings are. Do you know any brand names of decent par meters? How would I know if its a good one or not?

You happen to be driving up to dfw for MACNA?

Are there any decent par meters that are affordable? I've always been curious what my par readings are with the leds.

Your house is warm compared to mine, I keep my ac at 72, can't stand a hot house lol. I don't use a skimmer, so none of that evaporation is from skimming. I do have allot of water to air contact area though.

My 145gal system easily goes through 10gal of top off water a week

That is a huge birdsnest, I can't wait for mine to get that size. Very nice!

I've always had an extra filter handy so when I stir up the sand to transfer it or move it, I ran the filter on the bucket of sand to suck out the nasty stuff, using tank water in the bucket. Its always ran clear by the time I was ready to put it back in the tank. Then I drain all the water from the bucket of sand and put the sand back.

Yep thats what i read about the intense lighting being a sort of protection for the corals. Down at the base, where im guessing it was kinda shaded, its a greenish color with the yellow green polyps. I saw some polyps starting to peek out a little bit.

Timfish, interesting. I always hear people talking about using intense lighting to get the better colors. What would you do with this coral to try to get the best colours?

Oh well if someone gets mad about my wild piece. It is what it is, I won't lie about it to keep people off my back. I mean I try to get frags whenever I can but that's not always possible. I've never seen anyone get mad when they're talking about all the wild lps that comes in lol.

Why do people get mad about it being wild?

Its normal for most new sps to brown out when I first add them to the tank so I'm expecting this one to do the same, prob for a few months as I'm sure its been through allot during its journey to my tank. So far only the blue digi has stayed brown :/ they'll start coloring back up after a month or so. But they were all fragged several generations so we'll see. I'll be fragging it after it settles in a bit