JEN H

Could you possibly put an emerald crab down there for the bubble algae? I know that they are one of the few inverts that actually eats that stuff.

Give the guys at the Aquadome a call. Talk to Gary or Hunter. They might be interested in buying it from you. Do you have any pictures? My husband is interested, but wants to see what it looks like etc.

Try getting a product called Ick Attack, but make sure that it is the kind which is o.k. for inverts and corals. It is an herbal remedy, but my husband and I had great luck with this product. Hunter at the Dome had also heard good things about it. You can probably find it online....just make sure you get the kind which is safe for corals and inverts...(sorry to repeat myself, but I just want to be sure you don't get the wrong kind if you choose to go this route). I think something must have happened in your tank to stress them and cause an outbreak.

My husband noticed this evening while feeding our fish that we have a blue/green chromis hiding in the rocks under and slight overhang. In the process of observing the fish, it kept moving around one specific area of the overhang. There was also another blue/green chromis that kept going down to that fish in what seemed like a chance to check on the other fish. I thought that maybe the fish was injured, but my husband seems to think that maybe the chromis has laid some eggs and now the male is protecting those eggs. It seemed to be picking at food that would get near it, but it was not leaving the area to go feed with the 10 other Chromis we have (along with our other fish). If we find out it is spawning....how could we possibly get the fry out and segregate them prior to the other fish eating them? Thanks!!!

My husband and I just completed the creation of our first under tank refugium. I have to admit that it is not as pretty as the kind you buy for around $300, but it is going to work the same, and we just really want it for the benefits it gives to having a larger tank. Here is what we did..... Picked up a clear 24 L storage container from Wal-Mart for around $7 Picked up a 1 3/4 inch bulk head from the Dome (cheap) One 10 lb bag of miracle mud from the Dome ($60) One bag of various salt water plants from the Dome (not to pricey) Smallest Rio pump at the Dome 3 feet of 1/2" hosing ($2.50) 2 buckets we weren't using 2 smaller pieces of live rock from our already established tank We heated up a tool with the gas stove to melt out the circle from the container for the bulk head to go through. Put the container on top of the two buckets (to support the weight) under the tank right next to the sump. Ensured that the bulk head was over the sump so that the refugium would drain back into the sump. We then used the Rio to pump water up from the sump into the Refugium. We didn't let the water start overflowing into the sump right away so that the soot from the miracle mud would not get into the tank. The next morning, we were ready to start the pump and the refugium is up and running. We lucked out, because the two live rocks we put into the refugium had some copiopods on it as well as those very small white brittle stars. So, we will now allow them to populate the refugium along with the salt water plants we put in. Total cost - probably somewhere under $100. YEAH!

The Dome is the bomb, and Hunter is awesome! He has helped us every step of the way from keeping our fish for a couple week after shipping our fish down to Austin from Columbus, OH and got our 210 gallon tank stocked and happy Actually, everyone at the Dome is great. Gary is the owner, and he is great. Terry really knows her stuff when it comes to fresh water fish. Cukes are great. We have a couple in our 210 gallon, and I would like to eventually add some of the more unique ones at some point.

If the maroon has fin rot, I'm not sure if there is any treatment that can cure that. From mine and my husband's research...that is not a curable disease and you don't want your other fish to get it. We had to return a butterfly fish that had this problem....and we found out that it did in fact have it and did not make it. Sorry.... I hope maybe it's just a bad case of ick or some other parasite that you can kill with copper and a QT tank.

It's aptasia. We got about 4 pepermint shrimp....we have two left now. They took care of them along with Joe's Juice. I think that the shrimp did the best work though. Good luck!

One thing that we have used in the past which has helped alot is the Chem Pure bag. We needed to replace it this last time and went with Purogen instead. It doesn't do it when it comes to keeping hair algae at bay. We are going to get another Chem Pure bag to help combat, as everything else we have tried (additional clean up, water changes, etc) hasn't really helped much. Good luck!

Thanks for the info. How long have you had it on your tank now?

Hi guys. Wondering if anyone has any experience with denitrators on their systems? I have been reading a little bit and trying to decide if this is a good idea for our 210 gallon. Our nitrates aren't really high, but I really want to get them as close to zero as possible before starting to add corals. We are currently around 20 ppm. Do these things actually work? Thanks!

Quick suggestion. If you are going to get more live rock...look into smaller pieces that you can put in the back where the bio balls seem to be. You can remove the bio balls, and put live rock in there instead. We removed all of our bio balls from our 29 gallon biocube as well as from our sump and are using just live rock. Patience....ahh... I know all to well of what you speak. The good news is that if the rocks don't look too cycled...you can always invest in a bag of fresh live sand (unless all of the sand you have is new and live) and that will get the cycle going rather quickly. For us we, we had an algae bloom in about 3 weeks. However, we waited 2 months before we put fish in. With bigger tanks, the set up time can take alot longer than with the smaller ones. I think it is better to wait vs rush everything and lose live stock to.

I would suggest getting the sick fish out and in QT asap. If it is a bad illness, then you don't want to infect your entire tank with it. You need to get these guys out and medicate them. In the mean time, do some water changes on your main tank and watch everyone else in there to see what is going on. It sounds like you might have a parasite. Did you recently add anything to the tank with out putting it in QT first?

I want to say that majano is a type of aptasia. However, the stuff my hubby and I had looked different than what Bill has pictures of......either one is no good though. NOT something you want in your tank! My husband and I used a combo of Joe's Juice and peppermint shrimp. I honestly think that getting rid of our aptasia had to do more with the shrimp and less with the Joe's Juice. I read an article somewhere that you can actually inject these things with lemon juice and that will do the job too (I haven't tried it). You have to get a syringe from the pharmacy (you can buy them....just ask for one at the counter) and use concentrated lemon juice. You have to inject it directly into the object (I think in the lower part...or the "stem" is where you want to inject it).

We brought rock with us from Ohio when we moved down here. We kept it in a garbage can with salt water as well. However, we ended up having to re-cure alot of it. I think that my husband didn't have the salinity high enough. However, we got some live sand and a few new live rocks from the LFS and we were able to put in our cleaning crew after 4 weeks.

This looks like majano for sure. If you look at the attached link, at the bottom of the page they have a picture of a mature version as well as one that looks like yours. You need to get rid of this, or you will be sorry! We had aptasia in our tank, got some pepermint shrimp, and they really took care of it. However, we let it go for a while not really knowing what it was and my husband is like your wife...not wanting to kill it if not necessary.... I'm glad we were able to get rid of it. http://www.seahorse-nw.com/Predators.html

My husband and I set up a 210 gallon tank when we moved down to Austin earlier this year. It has been interesting, but I found that setting up a large tank like this is alot of work compared to our 29 gallon biocube that we started out with! We have a sump, which we really like. We also got a large Fluval for the additional filtration of the water to ensure parameters stay where they need to. When we had our first algae bloom, we put the Fluval on and within 24 hours the water was crystal clear. We have a Coralife protein skimmer, which I'm not 100% happy with, but it is doing the job. We were actually able to fit it under our tank in the cabinet and in the sump. I would certainly recommend looking for a skimmer that you can fit in your sump under the tank...if you can't find one like that, be sure you leave enough room behind your tank and just hang it on the tank itself (I don't think that this is a very nice option personally). Other than that, we have put a ton of live rock in the tank (that was the most expensive part...you are lucky you got it all included) and put about 1/3 of it in the sump and the rest in the tank. We have gotten our fish population going and have a Sailfin Tang (not the Hawaiian one, but these guys are great. Not too aggressive, reef safe, and beautiful), a male Square Anthias (he hid for a week after we got him, but that's normal), a blue chin trigger fish (one of the few reef safe triggers you can get -- he also hid for about 3 days after we got him), 11 blue green chromis, a pair of tomato clowns, and a blue streak wrasse (these guys aren't easy to keep, but ours eats plenty of mysis so we are able to keep him alive without problems). We tried a couple of long fin heniochus, because my hubby has always wanted a Morish Idol which you just can't keep in captivity.... No luck with these guys. We had one get popeye, and after a week in quarantine with meds he died. The second we got contracted some kind of parasite while in quarantine prior to putting into the main tank. We took him back to our LFS, and found out that he just didn't make it.... Butterfly fish our tough ones to keep, but I think if you can keep their stress down and get them acclimated o.k. they are great fish to have. We will try another at some point. My one word of advice in regards to adding fish to the big tank.... QUARANTINE first. We have found that this is the best way to catch any diseased fish prior to putting them into our healthy tank. If you don't do this, and you get an infected fish in there....it could really cause problems. Next, we are moving on to corals. Yeah!

My husband and I tried fire fish in our nano earlier this year....they lasted a total of 4 days....so we have never gotten that fish again. I know people like them, but we personally don't care for them after our experience. I would shoot for something else. We had awesome luck with our PJ Cardinals, infact....these type of fish are pretty much bullet proof. They are cool too, and just hang around. Not aggressive at all.