Elbeau

I'm looking for some of those very bright barbie-pink zoanthids. If you have any, please describe or send a picture & price. Thanks.

No, the office we're in stays pretty moderate after hours and weekends. I don't know if it's because they keep the AC on or if it's just well insulated.

Hey ARC...it's been a while since I've posted, but I wanted to tell the story of the nano I set up last year. The company I work for moved to Austin one year ago and I came along with them. Once I settled in, one of my first orders of business was to set up a reef tank on my desk at work. Since it's at work, there are several very limiting factors for a tank: *I can't maintain it during business hours, and I don't want to stay late for maintenance *It has to be quiet *It can't make a mess ...so having done a few tanks in the past with varying success, I put my reef experience to work and designed what would turn out to be the easiest to maintain reef tank in the history of reefkeeping. I bought an Eclipse 6 tank with dual bulb compact fluorescent lighting and an extra, small powerhead. Using a 1.5" aragonite base and PLENTY of live rock, I created the landscape that I knew it needed. I was VERY patient with my water cycle and didn't add expensive livestock until the tank had balanced out well. Once my levels were non-toxic, I bought a good clownfish, jawfish, red scooter blenny, cleaner shrimp, and peppermint shrimp...along with various crabs and snails. My only casualty in the last year was the blenny. Investigators have named the clownfish as a "person of interest" in their investigation into his death. I also bought a variety of hardy, soft corals, feather dusters, etc. The tank did well from the start. It had a few cyano and algea breakouts at first, like most tanks, so I decided to try a refugium for the first time. I cannot say enough for how well a refugium balances out a tank. WOW! I haven't done a water change since last October. I haven't added any suppliments whatsoever. All I do is add dried fish food and makup water. Other than that and the lighting, the tank is a self-sufficient ecosystem. It's thriving...without calcium supliments, without trace minerals, without water changes, and I almost never have to even clean any algae off the tank walls (I've only had to clean one wall since last October when I set up the fuge. I have large colonies of micro stars of many varieties. I have a great population of snails. I have little insect buggers galore. It's fun. Anyways, my formula now is: refugium + hardy livestock = easy nano

I ordered online one time. I ordered a lot of livestock for a tank that had just finished it's cycle. There was only one casualty, a cleaner shrimp. Without even showing the pics to the store, they agreed to give us credit toward a later order. All the livestock was healthy...actually a little TOO healthy. I ordered a "medium" maroon clown. I got a clownfish that was at least 6" long. I could have made a full meal out of that thing. It was HUGE, meaty and fat. I put the clown in first, then I put in some shrimp. The clown ate the shrimp before they even got to the bottom. It was pretty traumatic to watch. Among other things I ordered I got some carbon for my filter. After I got all the livestock aclimated, I put the carbon in the filter and turned it on.....BIG OOPS - I forgot to rinse it out first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I like to call the result the "Black Plague". To make a long story short, the black plague solved my problem with the huge clownfish, along with all my other livestock in VERY short order. In the end, the experience was bad, but not necessarily because of the online store. They could have sent me a smaller clownfish, but other than that I got a lot of good stuff that might have lived fine if it weren't for my little mistake. I'd order online again if I couldn't find it at a LFS.

I'd love to get a small startup kenya tree. I'll trade a cutting of a colt coral...or I'll just pay you for it.

It's still available, but I'm not for a couple of days. I'm feeling sick...fun. When I join the land of the living again I can bring it to my work at Burnett/183 for you to pick up.

The arrow crab in this picture is AWESOME...but...he has totally outgrown this little tank. He needs a new home. We have not had any problems with him acting bad in the tank, but he is so big he just dominates everything and he eats like a pig...really. His golden coloring is gorgeous. Trust me, the pic really doesn't do him justice...but it's the best I can do with a camera phone.

I finally got my cameraphone paired with my home computer so I can download pics. Here are our two tanks, the smaller one is the 6-gallon Eclipse on my desk at work, the other is a NanoCube 14 that my wife takes care of at home:

How much for #'s 15 & 16?

Correct...Amonia and Nitrite will balance themselves in about a month, but nitrate will keep building up. Sometimes after about 4-6 months colonies of bacteria will develop to combat the nitrate problem, but usually by then your tank is covered in all kinds of hairy junk that you don't want and your fish might periodically die. You NEED a plan for nitrates. The plan could be as simple as doing periodic water changes. Skimming also works great, as long as your skimmer works great. Refugiums with large quantities of Cheatomorpha handle the problem well too.

I agree, you need a short-term strategy - namely water changes...then a long-term strategy. For the long term, skimming is a good choice, just be sure to add trace elements if you skim. By skimming you remove the proteins from the water before they join the amonia/nitrogen cycle. You can also do things to make a more complete amonia/nitrogen cycle. A lot of people create "Plenum" systems, which is a way of creating a substrate with an open area underneath that allows certain bacteria to grow which transform nitrates into harmless chemicals. Another option is to grow large amounts of macroalgae under proper lighting. Now this doesn't usually look good in your display aquarium, but if a refugium is an option for you, then it can be a great solution. I did this recently and the results were great: http://www.austinreefclub.com/index.php?showtopic=2381 Using a refugium also creates a lot more biodiversity by allowing copopods and other crustations (?spelling?) to grow...properly designed, these can then wander from the refugium into your reef tank providing food for your livestock. Anyways, there are a lot of options and often people combine them for good results. Good luck.

Welcome, great to have you on the site!

Wow...I'd never heard of red bugs. Are they mainly an SPS problem? or do they come in on other stuff?

Welcome to the club and to the hobby! I agree that buying live rock form local shops or craigs list is by far the best way to go. Also, the advice to add each piece slowly is true. Each new piece could destabilize your tank a bit, but don't let that deter you, live rock is a must-have. The fish you have are good choices for starting up. Some people might disagree with me on this, but I've started up several different tanks over the years and I've found that pearly jawfish are hardy enough to survive the cycle plus they are wonderful characters to have in your tank. Also, I've always put a cleaner shrimp in right away. It seems to make a big difference protecting the fish from Cryptocaryon disease which has hit every single startup I've ever done. I've also never lost a cleaner shrimp during the first month cycle. I won't go on with too much advice except to say that no matter how much live rock or sand you put in, every tank goes through so many changes the first month that you cannot ever assume you're safe from a nasty cycle. Patience is key...I say that because it's my biggest weakness Anyways, if you want to learn a lot of things not to do, take a look at my blog entry about my first tank: http://www.austinreefclub.com/blog/elbeau/...p?showentry=204 Have fun and enjoy!

I have two tanks right now. One at home and one on my desk at work. The one at work has a refugium I want to talk about. At my last job (in Las Vegas) I set up a little 6-gallon Eclipse tank as a nano reef right on my cubicle desk (don't try this unless you have a cool boss). I only stocked it with soft corals and reef-safe fish, and it did great for the three years I worked there. When I got another job my boss wasn't nearly cool enough for me to even ask if I could move in a tank, so my wife inherited all my stuff for her tank at home. Good fortune struck this year when our company's board of directors ousted my old boss and moved the whole operation to Austin - Hense I'm now an ARC member My new boss here is quite cool, so I quickly set up another tank similar to my old one. I did the Eclipse 6 again, not because I think it's the best tank design, but because it really is low maintenance and quiet...and just because it worked last time. Both of these tanks had the same main problem...me...I habitually overstock, resulting in high nitrate levels. In my old tank this meant I had to do very frequent water changes. My new tank went through the initial amonia and nitrite cycles as expected, but when they were finished, I found myself with obsurdly high nitrate levels again. Now, protein skimming would be a great solution, but this is still a fairly quiet office (except when my boss sneaks up behind me with his megaphone), so a gurgling protein skimmer really wouldn't work. So I decided to take my first stab at a refugium. Aquatek was IMMENSLY helpful in fitting me into a little 2 1/2 gallon glass aquarium for the fuge. The aquarium tucked away nicely beside the Eclipse, almost out of sight, but still visible enough to enjoy watching the refugium wildlife. Keeping the water flowing between tanks was the obvious challenge here, but my solution is working quite well so far. To make water flow between the tank and the fuge, I first installed a 3/4" siphon hose between the two tanks. With the hose filled with water, it keeps the two tanks level with each other. Then, to get a little water movement through the fuge, I simply attached a small air hose to the outlet (you know, the little air port that allows you to squirt bubbles using the suction the outlet produces) of my small powehead that I put in the eclipse. I filled the air hose with water and put it in my fuge, and viola...small but consistent water movement between the tanks. Now, using siphons you have the obvious danger of losing siphon, and flooding one of the tanks. This danger is mitigated by simply putting the siphon inlet and the air hose inlet just below the water surface. This way, if I lose siphon, only a small amount of water can flow into the Eclipse. I stocked the fuge with a bunch of Cheato, then a large variation of live substrates that the local stores were very helpful in providing at little, and sometimes NO cost, as well as some substrates that I ordered online, making a nice "stew" of different stuff. I put in some nice mini-compacts for lighting and the Cheato loves it. It has been running flawlessly for 1 1/2 months now and WOW!!!! There is life everywhere. It is teaming with copopods, little shrimp, micro stars, worms (some good, some bad), and wonderful little things that look like small squid or jellyfish or something. They're just too small to really identify. I've had tanks before and loved to look at the small life in the substrate, but I NEVER though so much could live in so small a place. There are little buggers EVERYWHERE...and the siphon tube allows them to wander into the stocked tank all the time. In fact, you can sit there and watch for a few minutes, and sure enough, something will wander right out of that tube. Not only this, but my nitrates and phosphates have dropped to almost indetectible levels - in an overstocked nano with no skimming. I highly recommend a small fuge for a nano reef.

I a FAR from being a clam expert, but I do have a tank with two successful (so-far) clams in it. I had a similar problem on my first tank many years ago. There was a clam that I thought was getting enough light, but slowly over time, the purple in his mantle was replaced with this brownish-whitish stuff that was not nearly as beautiful as the mantle was to start with. It lived for several months like that, but eventually died. I asked around the LFS's in my area at the time and got a bunch of mixed responses. Some said it was natural and not related to the death, others said it was bleaching, but the response that made the most sense with what I observed was that when clams don't get enough light, a bacteria or algae blooms in the cells of their mantle causing the discoloration. Because of the bloom, the clam slowly starves to death. Now, that may just be the reef equivelent of an urban legend. I really don't know. I think that bleaching starts at the edge of the mantle and works its way in, which is different than what my clam went through. Anyways, now I keep my clams at the very top of the water column right under the lights and they are doing well. I wish you the best with yours.

I just dumped a little in my refugium, in the back where I can't really see, and gave the rest to River City Aquatics. They said they might put it in their refugium, but I wouldn't blame them if they just got rid of it. If they did put it in their refugium, you might be able to go by and look. I dunno. I never could see a live one when I was looking through it. I think the guy just scoops some sand out of the ocean and sells it, which would be fine if there was anything alive in it, and if the living things came from the right climate.

Cool...thx. I hadn't found Kingfish yet. I'll stop by today.

I ordered a bunch of sand-sifting clam/mud from the following guy: http://cgi.ebay.com/Live-Sand-Algae-Reef-A...1QQcmdZViewItem Picture: I got it yesterday and used a small amount to seed my little refugium. It looks exactly like the picture. It is a very claylike substrate with sand grains throughout. Most of the clamshells you see are simply empty shells, but I think there's a bunch of live ones in there too...but no guarantees...I'm trying this stuff for the first time too. You can pickup at my work today near Burnet/183. If interested, please e-mail me at: [email protected] Thx.

Agreed...can't argue with that.

Quite true. You have to isolate the water column and at some point drain from the top.

yes...yes...yes...all true. BUT............it's only true because you qualified your leak as a "small" leak. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be able to predict the future like that jk. Anyhow...let me throw this out and see if we can find some common ground. In my first reply to this post I said that it is safer to either syphon or to have drain holes drilled high in the back instead of low or underneath. I'll drop the syphon argument (not because I'm ever wrong...but because some mortals just have a hard time understanding my reality) and I'll just make the point about having drain holes drilled high in the tank instead of low. That way, it is still gravity fed (whew to all syphon critics) and it won't completely drain your tank if you have a slow, medium, fast, gushing, bubbling, or gurgling leak in your outlet, hose, sump, brain, or return lines, etc, etc. (whew to me)

Don't I wish....really. 2 1/2 months ago I moved here from Las Vegas. I vacated my Vegas home hoping it would sell even in the bad market there. What I didn't know is that I had a very slow water leak under my kitchen sink. My realtor found it two weeks later. My beautiful pergo floor was so wet some boards were curled 4" into the air :'( After extensive repairs to the drywall, counters, and floorboards of my entire downstairs...the flooring can finally get installed this week and I can try to salvage some money by renting out the place. The moral of this story is that a quick small leak would have been a million times more desirable than a slow undetected one (actually the moral of my sad story is to have someone checking on your home even when you think it's fine). But in any case. How much do you have invested in that tank? A little overflow from your sump is nothing compared to destroying your hard work and money that you have invested in your tank. And you don't really know how bad the leak would be. You can work with probabilities, but I'll still stick with the certainty that I don't have a way to drain my tank planned into my tank design. Anyways...enough rambling from me tonight...It's obvious that I'm way too tired for organized thinking right now. latre

I dunno guys. If I spill some water from a sump overflow my tank a little, then worst case I have to replace a little flooring (realistically most of us don't put our tanks on expensive flooring and a mop would clean it up)...and I'd much rather replace a pump than loose most or all of the water in my tank. Also, when (and I do mean WHEN) your gasket or whatever goes bad...you will definitely have a lot of water to clean up, so the burnt out pump is really the only argument here to me. IMHO of course. Siphon - MUCH better.

Predrilled holes are great...as long as they are predrilled high on the back of the tank. IMHO it is lunacy to assume that you will never in the future history of your tank have a leak as a result of the hole. If the hole is high in the back, you only loose the top portion of water when it happens. Because of this, I see no benefit to these pre-drilled holes compared to simply using an over-tank siphon hose. Sure, you will loose suction some day (still pretty rarely)...but when it happens, you won't wipe out your tank, you'll simply re-siphon. big deal.