xcreonx

No SPS. I did that for many years and I'm taking a break from that 'disease'!

Actually I just decided to get rid of my Tomato clown instead, so no need for an anemone

Although I would LOVE to find a captive-bred RBTA or a nice FL green bubble coral

Looking for? Nothing in particular, just good stores in other places.

Hey guys. Just wondering if you all have some recommendations for really great coral stores in Houston, San Antonio, etc. Back in Florida, I was never hesitant to drive to Miami (2.5 hours one-way) to visit a really great store with healthy, reasonably priced livestock. I always came home with a few pieces. Any ideas?

24" t5s

Where is this Horizons store? (sorry, Im new here!) Nurse Nini, how did you acclimate the LTA? My limited experience with them has been the more careful the acclimation, the better luck. I had a rose BTA that I drip-acclimated for a hour and he lived for many years. The one before that I did a short acc of maybe 15 minutes. He lived about a month. Just a thought.

Yeah, for some reason the html works for you. oh well. that was actually my holding tank when I was selling off a bunch of my corals before I moved here.

hmmmm... I guess my html is turned off....

FWIW, A. Yongei and A. Formosa are both considerd 'slimers', just as they are considered 'Staghorns' too. DiscusPro, your first photo looks like the ORA Bali Slimer, of which I had a small frag that turned into a monster. You can see a piece of it on the left (a photo from my SPS sale): <img src="http://goodmorningheartache.com/tanksale/acros2.jpg"> Also, M Digitatas don't have an axial coralite on the growth-tip, like Acroporas do. The tips are bare and generally rounded: <img src="http://goodmorningheartache.com/tanksale/orangedigi.jpg">

We lost power in that nasty storm last night for like 3 hours. Luckily I had my UPS backups ready to go. Anyone else lose power? How did you deal with it? Backup systems, in whatever fashion, are ALWAYS a good idea. In the rash of hurricanes in Florida the last few years, we lost power numerous times, often for several days. And believe me, with 95% humidity and 90 degrees, things go south very quickly. My solution was simple: I had a battery-powered car jumper. It had a cigarette plug into which I plugged in a 400w power inverter to give me AC. This ran my Tunze 6000s for a good 12 hours. For longer outages, I simply hooked the battery-jumper up to a deep-cycle marine battery, simpy a boat battery. This gave me plenty of power to run 2 tunze 6000s and a mag7 for 3 days during Hurricane Jeanne. To cool the tank off, I had bought several bags of ice from the gas station and stuck them in our deep freezer. Even with no power for a few days, the deep freeze stayed cold enough to keep the ice at least mostly solid. I put ice in ziplock bags and floated them in the tank. Cooled it off nicely. I hope I never have to do any of this again I'm glad we're inland now...

It's always a good idea when planning a tank to plan your coral/inverts according it's original location, then ideally add other corals from that area only. Basically a biotope. I have had problems for many years with beautfiul shallow-water acros from Fiji or Tonga RTNing in a tank with leathers from Indonesia and Gorgonians from Florida for no apparent reason at all. Water was perfect in every way... toxicity is a big concern, especially in mixed displays. In my newest tank I've paid careful attention to coral selection and placement. I've choosen coral only from the deeper-waters of the Indo-pacific, which is the pacific side of Indonesia only. This is quite a distance from Fiji, Tonga and the Solomon Islands, where a good majority of our SPS come from. Different ocean, different ocean currents, temperatures, etc. I choose this because of the great diversity that exists here: euphyllias, open brains, corallimorphs, bubbles, foxes, elegances... I admit I have two Ricordeas (Florida ricordeas).... but they've been with me for years Probably the best reason to plan a tank this way: Corals from the same environment have similar requirements... water flow, light, feeding, etc. This is great, as you don't have to blast on coral with light only to shade another from that light. There are always acceptions of course... I have to shield a Nemanzophyllia (Fox) from the same light my Euphyllias get, but this is better than having to shield all of my LPS and shrooms from the big metal halides required to keep all of the high-color SPS I had... that made things very difficult to aquascape. [/i]

yeah, I'd like to see them! I have some purple rics now.

Blue rics are nice. Do you have a photo of them by any chance?

Our company sent my girlfriend to sundance a few years ago. I didn't get to go But hopefully next year I'll have a film in the festival

Hey there. I currently have a Sunlight Supply Tek Light. It is 24" and has 4x 24w T5 bulbs. I wasn't here for SXSW, unfortunately. I am really looking forward to the next one, and the upcoming film festivals. I've got a few films I'm hoping to submit.

Hey guys, I've got some things for sale / trade that moved with me from Florida, and I need to get rid of them! 1. 250w DE Metal Halide setup: Reef Optix 3 Plus Pendant, Blue Wave ballast with timer, Aqua Connects 14k Bulb. - $250 2. 400w Metal Malide setup: Sunlight Supply Sun System X pendant, ballast and XM 20k Bulb. - $150 http://www.elights.com/ecgrowligsys1.html 3. Unused Sequence Dart. 3600 gph - $190 4. Mag 9.5 used for one week. - $50 5. 2x 24watt Sunlight Supply T5 retrofit: Triad ballast, SLS reflectors, bulbs, waterproof endcaps and some wires. I have 4 sets of these. $100 each. 6. I've got maybe 3 feet of 3/4" locline, never used and a few 3" flare nozzles. 7. Tetratec Deep-water air pump. - $30 I am more than willing to trade for really cool corals: zoanthids, mushrooms, ricordea, LPS - Acans, fungia, a healthy elegance, etc. etc. No SPS please!! All reasonable trade offers will be entertained. I don't want to ship this stuff, as most of it is heavy and large. Any questions, gimme a call! - Joe 791-8878

It actually wasn't that much work, just a little patience and some planning. Really wasn't difficult at all. A little nerve-wracking, but that comes with the territory

Hey Robert, it was great to meet you today. Let's definitely all get together soon! -Joe

If I am not flying to NYC to help my brother move 10 blocks uptown, I will be at the meeting for sure. I'm looking forward to meeting all of you! blob7.gif

Hi Clint. Thanks for the kind words. I did lose one coral.... a bubble coral.... which was one of my favorites. I was concerned about moving it in the first place, as it is such a delicate coral. Unfortunately, my fears were realized. My other LPS did make it though. a torch, a frogspawn, a hammer, a fox and a red open brain came through fine. Overall, it was successful. Yes, I would love to come to the first meeting. -Joe

Let me describe what I just did to move my corals 1200 miles from SW Florida to Austin, which took 18hours straight of driving: 1. I packed each coral or fish separately into a bag (triple bagged), with 1/3 tank water and 2/3 Nitrox (I couldn't get Oxygen). 2. I rubberbanded tightly and placed the bags into styrofoam coolers. 3. Into the car, and on the road. 4. Arrived 18 hours later. I had a small holding tank (trash can) waiting with new water. 5. Careful, but swift acclimation: 20 minutes or so and into the holding tank. 6. New tank setup with live sand, live rock and ro/di saltwater. 7. Water change in the holding tank the next day or so. 8. Once the water in the new tank was looking good, I carefully moved everyone in. 9. Done! Long process, and a lot of work, but ulitmately worth it! Hope that helps. -Joe

I bought my 24x18x18 35g Starfire from Miracle In Glass. It was about $900 shipped from their place in Canada to my old house in Florida (Shipping is PRICEY). It has 3 starfire sides and an external overflow. It has 1/2inch glass all the way around and a eurobraced top. VERY beautiful tank. I recommend Miracles in Glass!! Oceanic does custom tanks too, but I know they are just as expensive.

Hi. I actually have a bunch of 3/4" locline pieces left over if you need some.

Hello everyone. I'm moving to Austin this weekend and just wanted to introduce myself. I've been keeping a 180g mixed reef for many years here in Florida, but I will be bringing a custom 35g Miracles in Glass Starfire with me, which will be setup as a deep water Indo-pacific reef. Anyways, just wanted to say Hi and I hope to meet many of you in the near future. Thanks! -Joe Winchester