subsea

I apolotogize for not closing the thread in a timely manner. All rock was sold to the first person that saw it. Patrick

I have more time than money. I have been addicted to marine aquariums and reefs for more than 30 years. As my interest in "less technology and more biology" time and my patience have grown. Now that I have retired, my money income has drooked from $200K to $14K (retirement income). The last year has been shock thearapy between need and want. I now have the time and I feel like I won on that exchange. Time and tide wait for no man. I have learned to work with nature, "slow down and smell the roses". In speaking with advanced hobiest from Europe, it became evident to me that we American hobbiest were an impatient lot. The European Reefers wait a year befor adding livestock, including no corals. There focus is the micro fauna and fana to be established as the botton of the food chain. Daniel Knopp in a presentation at MACNA spent hours on his belley capturing pictues in his refugium. It is a big world in there. The perfection of the miro system working within the macro system of our reef tanks is so complex that normally we discount it and are not aware of it. Patience is indeed a virtue. We are not born with it, it must be developed. My engineer brother in law (LSU) tells me that there are two ways to wait: patiently or impatiently. One way agitatesw the soul, the other ways naturesz peace of mind. I choose patience. Sorry to play with that. I thought of it as relavant. Patrick

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Teresa, While Anthony does not get into it, I have found it necessary, for accellerated growth to add iron. It is easy enough to test for and it is hard to overdose. If you want to know more about dosing with iron I would recommend the chemistry forum at reef central. It seems to me that in the article archives there were several articles on this subject. While I do not grow it in my refugium anymore, I have several different outside growout tanks where I am using different circulation techniques. All the commercial growout systems that I have looked at try to tumble the seaweed. You are welcome to come and look at what I have going. Patrick

The responsibility and the rewards of teaching values and ethics as well as knowledge are great. I once heard it said that the job discription for a father was "the most difficult and the most rewarding job a man will ever have". Because my x was a social worker who dealt with child abuse, all to often, I have seen the dark side of that responsibility. As a grandfather, I have more rewards with less of the headaches. It is a great job.

Anthony Calfo had several articles on vegetable filters in which he discusses three different macros: chaeto, caulerpa and red gracilaria. Out of the three, red gracilaria requires the most wattage and is somewhat more challeging.

http://www.hawaii.edu/reefalgae/invasive_algae/rhodo/gracilaria_parvispora.htm Hopefully, this link will work.

http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/996/996_6.html This is what started me on my quest to grow ediable seaweed. I had someone ask me why I did it. My answer was "because I can". I think that it is a good idea and I think that it is economically feasible. We shall find out. Patrick

Grandkids are so cool. Day before yesterday, on my way to LBJ Lake, I stopped at my daughters house to see if her and the grandkids could go fishing with me. Something else was on their agenda so I showed the grandkids my fishing tackle and the bait, large night crawlers. My grandson, five years old really got off on the worms. While fishing I released many small pan fish, but I did keep a 2 pound talapia. Today when I left to go fishing I stopped by at noon to see if they could come. Since I had the fish with me, I showed it to them and cleaned it with them watching ( Ethan is 5 years old and Ella is three ). I broiled the fish for about 15 minutes and after removing bones let the kids eat fish. It was reallly neat to explain to them where food comes from, "night crawler bait to fish in the plate". The best thing about grandkids is that I can act like a kid and I have an excuse. Patrick

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=112 Kim, I think that you should carry your post to The Chemistry Forumn at Reef Central. When I used a calcium reactor, I did not control with alkalinity. I controled with calcium concentration. I found that my alkalinity lagged a little but everything looked good. When I raised alkalinity, it pushed the calcium concentration too high and caused excesssive precipitation. It actually caused parts of my sand bed to cement up. When calcium, magnisium and alkalinity are raised to the high end of their concentrations a danger to precipitate out is ever present. Patrick

About 30 pounds of live rock at $2 per pound if you take it all. It is $2.5 per pound if you break it up.

Kim, Very nice pictures. The black and white is gorgeous. The definition and the contrast are great. Patrick

I have always found puffers to be "dither fish", drifts in and out of the water column. The cardinals are another good example. Often, after the introduction of a dither fish to an established reef tank, I found shy fish to become more bold and display themselves more. The phychology of fish behavior is not unlike humane behavior. I find it to be one of the more interesting componants of this hobby.

Maxima, I remember removing the bio-balls in my wet/dry filter. It was a big leap of faith. Since that time, 20 years ago, I have embraced a low tech/more biology technique. Every method has its pros and cons which need to be dealt with. Leaving your skimmer running, imo, is not a big deal, particularly if it has been operating in a steady mode. Without knowing the specifics of your tank, it would be like shooting in the dark to give you specific advise. Only in extreme cases, as a last resort, would I break down a tank that has been set up for a year or more. In the last 30 years, all my tanks were set up to run on automatic. My job as a deep water subsea engineer would send me away from home at least 28 days at a time. Enjoy your vacation and have someone that you trust, look in on your tank. I also suggest getting a good maitenance person as a back up resource that your homesitter could talk with. Patrick

Mcallahan, Because I am a big propanant of skimmerless operation I don't completely agree with the Mr Hankie analogy. It did make me laugh and for that, thank you. As I have posted many times, I like multiple nutriant pathways. Bacteria as well as micro fauna and fana process nutriants and feed the captive reef. They do not go on vacation when we do. I am not much on being a teckie and have adopted John Tullock methods of "Less Technology and More Biology". I look forward to meeting you at March Meeting. I will be hosting the April Meeting and would enjoy discussing these things with you. Spread he peace, keep the Faith, Patrick

Christian, Glad to see you still pushing on. Tinfish gave you good advice on patience. Only bad things happen fast, good things take time. At 62 years old, I continue to have issues with patience. You are in a good reef club. Many different ways or methods work on reefkeeping. Do not switch methods with freaquency, patience is a virtue. Good luck on this hobby. It can be a passion and an addiction. This is not a bad thng in itself. As the MoodyBlues put it " It is a Questionof Balance". Patrick

I will have a full sized pick-up truck with a covered shell for camping, if it under 10' I can carry it for anyone that needs transport. PATRICK

I will be there also. I bought some seaweed from Gerald Helsinger of Indo Pacific Seafarms. Because of an upset in my outside growout system, the automatic feed diluted 500 gallons of seawater back to freashwater. If Gerald keeps his word, he will bring some to reseed but he also said that I could eat all I wanted to. I have already eaten it from the tank and I look forward to the quest. Anyway, I look forward to seeing you all from Austin. Patrick Castille

I agree with Timfish, microbes are the best most consistant process to reduce nutriants. I also like vegetable filters which can be harvested for nutriant removal.

Dena, you don't have to get it all with the same bulb. I use multiple bulbs over my 75G. At this time I am using a ratio of 75% actinic mixed with 25% 10K. With multiple bulbs you can concentrate the blue in a favorite spot for special effects. If you want to know th growth potential of your special mix of lights, I have a PAR meter to measure the active radiation levels required to grow and would be happy to loan it to you. Patrick

What kevin number to the bulbs.

I am also considering usings clip on assembles with a damp proof socket and a 16W PC bulb from Home Depot/Lowes. Its an inexpensive refugium light but I have cliped on (8) 60Wbulbs putting out 480W of illumination at 6500K . It is unattractive but for an outside growout system whose goal is to at least pay for itself it works for me. .

Rob, I just did buy two cheap double bulb shop lights with 6500K bulbs: bulbs were $6 each and fixture was nine dollars. The first fixture lasted 3 days and the second made one day. The tanks are on the south side of my home in an exterior poarch. These tanks are linked with a 150 gallon stock tank buried in the ground. In the future this sump tank buried in the ground will feed multiple small tanks exposed to direct sunlight. During the summer time it is easy to cool water using evaporation. In the winter, heating is expensive. I capture some solar and geothermal energy. Last winter I started running $500 a month electric bills with at least $300 going into heating water to 75 degrees. I have now selected temperature tolerant seaweed that is ediable by fish and people.