CaptainBob

Nice photography, made me miss home a little

all of the sites that have been posted are great places to get information, but assuming you're coming into this as a complete novice a lot of the posts on RC and articles on WWM probably aren't going to make a lick of sense to you, if I was new they wouldn't make any sense to me either, so I'm going to tell you the same thing I tell everyone who walks into aquatek and wants a reef tank but knows nothing about it. Buy a copy of The New Marine Aquarium, we have it available for 20 bucks. It spells out the basics of the hobby in plain english that anyone can understand, with good diagrams and plenty of informational captions. In fact I've started refusing to answer the question "How do you make a reef tank?" in favor of directing people to this and other good reference books. And it's not a matter of being rude, impatient, or snarky either, the simple fact is there is enough to this hobby that talking to a dude in a fish store, even a knowledgeable one, isn't going to cut it to get the information you need to be successful with your first tank. There is simply too much information thats just second nature to anyone who's been doing this for any length of time to explain in a noisy shop with a lot of things going on, and it's nigh impossible for anyone to retain all of that information even if it does all get expressed. That being said I suggest you pick up a good book to spell out the basics. If you want a book you'll get more mileage out of, there are a number of titles that go into much further detail I can also recommend wholeheartedly. People really don't give enough credit to books anymore now that the internet makes so much information available to any trained ape with a keyboard, but remember that any of said primates can publish whatever they want online and no one can really debate their facts, correct their errors, or stop them from giving whatever information they want to, the forums given here are very good sources where competent people can step in and correct what's been said, but remember that anyone can still post whatever nonsense they like, and bad info doesn't always get caught right away. A good reputable book rules a lot of the idiot factor out of the information you're getting without having to second guess your source too much. Books also don't go away when you lose your internet connection, which we all know happens from time to time for whatever reason. I don't mean to sound old fashioned sitting here bashing the internet, hell I've wasted most of my adult life online, but the point is simply that having a good reference book or two onhand is never, ever, a bad idea, especially for a novice.

thread necromancy at it's finest... Mike at thecaptivereef has 3 heads of yellow duncans reserved for me, and he's got more at 10 bucks a head. Even if you're not a dendro addict you'd be silly not to want in on this, let me know by friday if anyone else wants anything. I'll receive the order at my apartment, you can even pick up your frags at Aquatek if you like. but yeah, let me know by friday

I can't really tell from the pictures, but your verbal description sounds a lot more like a bacterial infection than a parasite, is he still eating? do you see any kind of worms or filaments leaving these spots where his skin seems to be coming off? see if you can get a clearer picture of the affected area and I'm sure we'll be able to help you a lot more.

me likey lobo... I hate that I have bills to pay. Out of morbid curiousity what are you asking for it?

nano tanks and stomatopods are a great combination, I'll talk to bruce and see if he'd be game to host a meeting after hours at the tek one night next month... one word of warning though, if we schedule it the same weekend as ACL, I won't be there

I actually got my truck back into shape, my neighbor who routinely mooches off of my BBQ every time I grill had the decency to inform me that he's a mechanic, and took care of my truck in return for the 4 months of porterhouses and ribeyes he's gotten from me. bartering ftw. thanks for the offers though guys.

there seems to be a lot of talk on Stomatopods, lots of people have been seeing more of them lately but they're still sort of mystified as being evil nuisance creatures, I could give a 5 minute overview and feild a Q&A if there's any interest.

we've had a good amount of liverock available fairly cheap, lots of algae on it though, so long as you don't mind giving your cleanup critters a week to get it all looking tidy, you can pick up good stack of rock for 4 bucks a pound right now.

I do have a burrowing mantis, actually only recently brought him home, but my rule of thumb with any burrowing creature is to give them as deep substrate as the creature is long, so my 4" L. maculata has 4" of substrate, his burrow seems sufficient for him at this depth. So far he's only taken one meal, a small blue damsel, but he's new, I'm sure I'll have him eating silversides a few times a week on the same schedule as my G. chiragra(Roy's pictures do this species no justice whatsoever) before too long, The chiragra is a smasher, and so has a more complicated diet, he gets krill, silversides, occasionally live ghost shrimp, and every now and again he kills hermit crabs or snails when he feels like exerting himself. I usually know when this happens because it takes him the better part of a day to break and eat one. He's also been given the novelty of chasing a small platy around untill the condy anemone he shares his tank with snagged it... of course my Chi-Chi, ever the benevolent dictator, punched the crap out of the offending tentacle and claimed his immobilized prize... that was actually very cool to watch. about your mantis with his pet damsel... the mantis may just not be hungry enough to look at the fish and think of it as food, don't feed him for 2 weeks and that damsel is as good as bait, I can assure you of that. Bear in mind, many mantis species are known to bury their kills to save for later snacking, sort of like crocodilians, and big cats do. Yours probably just knows the damsel isn't going anywhere, and is likely saving him for a "rainy" day That's really the biggest misconception about mantis shrimp, aren't psycho bloodthirsty killers... just some of species, like my chiragra and most O. scyllarus are more prone to that kind of behavior... Which I honestly think is one of the most interesting qualities in the species that exhibit it. But any of them are capable of killing a soft bodied creature several times their size if they're hungry enough. They also don't eat coral, or actively rip apart coral heads, as some old salty reefers might lead you to believe. Like any mobile tank inhabitant, they might snatch food away from a coral you're trying to feed, and smashers will bust open tubeworms to get to the tasty morsels inside, which may wind up causing some incidental damage to nearby coral heads, most colonies will recover from such superficial damage without issue. The most dangerous thing they can do in a reef tank is move your corals, which may mean just pushing one out of the rockwork sending it tumbling to the bottom of your reef, with a lot of soft corals this isn't a terribly big deal, but I wouldn't risk any nice stony colonies to the mercy of a mantis' landscaping masterpiece. Some of these quirks manifest themselves in very cool ways though, ChiChi likes to have a door in front of his little house he's built himself out of LR rubble, so he very carefully and methodically tears sheets of green film algae off of the tank walls, since his tank gets cleaned on the days I get home from work and really feel like cleaning another tank he has plenty of crap growing in there to choose from, and he makes doors and curtains out of it, it lasts untill the current pulls the film apart, then he makes a new door/curtain.. he also uses a clamshell on one of his entrances, before he built the house he used to sit on the clamshell balanced on his telson just watching everything that happened in my room, which was actually marginally creepy, especially when he'd stare at me while I was trying to get to sleep. it's unbelievably hard to rest when you know a very intelligent 3" superpredator is glaring at you all night in more spectrums than us humans can physically perceive. But not all stomatopods have this kind of personality, Sam at Aquatek has a little O. Haveninsis named Liza Rose who she describes as being bubbly. My ChiChi built himself a dark tower overlooking "his" anemone, her Liza Rose built herself a cute little house with a ricordea for a door and a little garden of polyps she neatly lined up to one side of her door on the sandbed; bear in mind, this little in-tank garden is the mantis' handiwork, not Sam's. Like I said, some individuals do some really really cool stuff once they get comfortable. I hope my anecdotal rambling has answered your questions, and hopefully given you some new ones.

ooohh... If I had a garage I'd want that just for the sake of having it, but all the driving I do it'd cost as much to keep gas in that truck as it would to make payments on a new Tacoma... that and my white trash neighbors would no doubt screw with a pretty old truck like that as soon as they saw it left unattended in my parking lot thanks for the offer though

*after demonstrating that my puffer is hand tame* "WOW! can I pet the other one?" *points to the lionfish*

good idea, if anyone has any specific mantis questions, I'll be happy to answer them. I have experience with many different species of both smashers and spearers, and I'm happy to help with any questions you may have.

we have a rock with two nice green and blue/purple rics for 60 bucks at aquatek.

hello everyone, my faithful truck is nearing the end of it's life, it's served me well for a lot of years but the transmission and crankshaft are dangerously close to dieing on me... so if anyone has something with 4 wheels and can get me to work so that I might continue to bag up your purchases and sell you all your fancy new reef gear, please let me know, I'm not really picky about what I drive, so I'll consider almost anything... You know you want to help your friendly neighborhood fish dude out. Thanks

maybe a small leaf fish, if you were religious about your waterchanges, and either set up a reliable autotopoff system or kept the tank covered reasonably well to prevent evaporation from setting in too quick. Another good choice would be a little sargassum angler if you insist on going the fish route, very cool little fish, but I'd want to upgrade any of these fish to at least a 20 before they hit adulthood.

we have some nice rubble rock and sand available for $4 a pound right now

I'm not sure what the nicest way to say this is, but that's a horrible idea. I can suggest some other predators you might like for your reef if you like though

our harlies sold this morning.

I have a clamp on coralife 150 on my standard 20G and I'm loving it, only issue is you'll have to tear the hood off and account for a lot more evaporation in your BC... you'll probably want to implement some kind of autotopoff and extra cooling fans regardless of which upgrade you choose, since both are going to generate a lot of heat, and the necessary fans are going to evaporate your water a lot faster than you think. The stock BC 14 on our front counter starts blowing bubbles 3 times a day, so be extra vigilant of your temperature and evaporation no matter what you do.

that's why 24" forceps are in my toolbox

they're nice healthy ones too

I'm there until closing every day except sunday.

clownfish can be jerks to new additions, but a flame hawk should be able to put them in their place once he gets more comfortable and picks a rock as his territory. I can't say for sure if he's going get too stressed by them or not since I can't actually see what they're doing to him, but I wouldn't worry about a little watching and chasing, that's pretty normal, but if they're regularly making contact and biting I'd strongly recommend bringing him back in.

I don't own a tv.. What was just on?