George Monnat Jr

Here are some quotes from RC:

Urchins will eat it, but you're not going to get your tank walls clean without a razorblade. There is nothing in this world that eats it as fast as it grows. And for the record I have never seen a cerite snail eating coralline.

We have a pin cushion urchin that does not eat it but the Halloween urchin my wife just had to have has striped it off a rock completely. It grows back fast so no big but cleaned it all off the rock in short order.

When my tank was SW, I had an awesome, self-sustaining population of amphipods and a decent, self-sustaining population of copepods. I'd like to do something like that with the FW tank. I understand that most feed critters either don't like the FW parameters (brine shrimp) or need really green water which I don't want in my DT. I've read great things about Daphnia, and I was thinking about buying a starter culture.

Has anyone messed with them or have a different, self-sustaining population?

I have Ghost Shrimp which are actually very entertaining, but they're way to big to be feed for my livestock. Unless they spawn regularly. Has anyone seen Ghost Shrimp spawn?

RCA has a 175g (I think) container in Jake's truck that they can bring to your place. They cleaned my 125g and filled it with RODI a few weeks ago. I think they have DI not RODI, but the measurements are always great. I don't know the price, because I did a trade.

I planted mostly Anubias in mine, and lots of places said CO2 is pointless with them.

Look at my thread my sons freshwater tank. That's the quickrete sand.

It might be a little lighter; hard to tell. It looks about the same.

It's refreshing (no pun intended) with FW requiring a lot less stress and upkeep after having a reef tank. I'm watering my plants with the WC leftovers, and it's really good for them

I'm using 200 lb of the contour Sea Gull PFS from Leslie's/Warehouse Pool Supply. I'm been happy with it. I still haven't seen the Quickrete, mainly because my dogs' woes have kept me busy.

I've got my first interview tomorrow since I graduated (again). Took me a month of resubmitting resumes over and over and calling and calling before I could get an interview set up. Fairly nervous. It's not the ideal starting job, but ANYTHING to get my foot in the door and out of the restaurant business is a good thing. Wish me luck y'all

I looked back in the thread and didn't see what field for your degree.

Even though my LEDs are dimmed by their own controllers, I have them plugged into my Apex to shut them off based on temperature. I have the lights, fans and heaters all controlled by the Apex for temperature management. I definitely had the ATO on the Apex for the float switches and for pH since I added pickling lime to the ATO (for limewater/kalkwasser). My return pump was/is just on a UPS, and my UV sterilizer and circulation pump were/are on a plain ol' power strip.

So no bio balls? In my now-FW tank, I'm dosing Seachem Stability for the cycle (who knew FW had that, too?). I noticed a white bacteria film on the DT glass. It fluctuates with the water flow. I'm afraid to clean it off, because it might be important to my cycle. It looks like translucent cyano or the bacteria blooms I had in the reef tank when (over)dosing vinegar.

I saw this when I was carbon dosing. When I accidentally overdosed carbon, I would have bacteria blooms. They were usually white. Think cyanobacteria only it's white and doesn't care about light (photosynthesis). Are you carbon dosing or is something adding carbon/phosphates?

As victoly has mentioned, he did test some LFS samples for me.

For over a year I haven't been able to get my two pH probes on my Apex to converge. They've tracked well, but the DT probe always read higher (SW then FW). Yesterday victoly got me some 4.0 and 7.0 calibration fluid. Last night I calibrated the probes at the acidic end of the scale. The DT probe took 4 tries, but the sump probe only one. Afterwards, they're tracking awesomely! The sump has the ATO inlet and the peat moss in it, so I expect the sump to be a tad lower at times.

Here is where I work. Lead stripper.

I deleted my comment as internet humor may be misinterpreted and go horribly awry....

There's the RC Tank Sizes for Tangs (Surgeonfishes) as the first level of compatibility (tank size).

Here are a couple links to threads about tang compatibility charts:

Tang compatibility chart.

Tang Compatibilty chart??

I used the Quikrete sand(not the play sand, this was in a brown bag with green/black lettering), rinsed well, in my FW tanks. Really liked the way it looked, it's tan and looks very natural.

Where did you get it? I saw it on Amazon for like $6, but it was $36 S&H.

Yeah I'd check any pool supply store. Lowes and HD have pool sections, but I know the ones here in college station don't carry pool filter sand either. I looked for it when I was setting up my plantedtank a long time ago. Pool supply stores will definitely have it. They gotta have it to use in the filters they sell lol

I checked all the pool supply stores in NW Austin, which is just Leslie's and Warehouse. They all had contour Sea Gull PFS only. I'm using 200# of it now. You have to clean it really well (even though it says pre-cleaned), but it's working well. It's a bit yellow/beige, so I might checkout the Lowe's PFS.

Wow, really? I had to work pretty hard to find it. And the employees weren't helpful. But I eventually found some. Then of course I found lowes bags. I can check if mine has some if you would like. I think I even have a bag that is at least half full you can have.

I can order it to pick up here, so it's ok.

That's how it all starts...

None of the Home Depots or Lowe's in NW Austin carry PFS.

If you have a moderately modern home, then you have higher CO2 levels than outside. So adding bubblers may not help as much as you want.. You could pump in air from outside (I think Bio3 was thinking about this?) or leave windows open when the weather cooperates. I definitely saw pH rises when I left windows open, but now it's summer.

Did it move, or does it look calciferous? If it's fixed, then I bet the others are correct about it being a tube worm/feather duster.

I have an Aqua-C EV-180 I'm not currently using. I hope to use it again in the next year or two, so I don't want to sell it. But you could borrow it during that time. If it's not too big.

I loved my anemone-associating crustaceans. Here are the top four.

#4 Sexy Shrimp (Thor amboinensis)

Cheap, nice, pretty and cute. They'll associate with just about anything, but they tend to wander around a lot.

#3 Peacock-Tail/WhiteSpot/White-patched/Glass/Pacific Clown AnemoneShrimp (Periclimenes brevicarpalis)

They can get relatively big (almost 2") and can annoy smaller anemones, but they are pretty and will wave their tails at intruders (including people).

#2 Porcelain Anemone Crabs (Neopetrolisthes ohshimai or Neopetrolisthes maculatus)

Awesome, friendly (primarily filter feeders) and you can always see them as they're not cryptic like most crabs (like the Pom Pom).

#1 Spotted Cleaner/Commensal/Anemone Shrimp (Periclimenes yucatanicus)

This guy was awesome. He (or she) would waggle his antenna and hover for found when I walked up to the aquarium, an he liked to eat from my glove/hand. Until I used that to capture him for a new home, and now he hates me. S/he would mostly stay on its favorite Condy Nem but would trundle around scavenging for food every so often. It cleaned my Powder Brown Tang, too (last picture), so great ornamentation, entertainment, fish-cleaning and cleanup crew shrimp.

Hello, I am new to this and I have had my take maybe two months now taking care of my beta fish. Just recently since my last water change i have noticed an abundance of an orange substance on my rocks and decorations. I noticed a small amount during the last water change it wiped off under hot water and i thought nothing of it. my beta seem fine is this normal? i recently have lost on fish in another take with seemingly no cause PLEASE HELPPPP

Are you talking about a Marine Beta (Calloplesiops altivelis) or a FW Betta (Betta splendens)? You may get better help focused on you if you start your own thread. If you want to do that, private message (PM) me or a moderator, and we'd be happy to help you.

OP, I hope for your sake it's algae and not diatoms or the dreaded dinoflagellates. Your choices are fairly different depending on your ID being correct. Since that's an old post, have you figured it out?