Derry

I think "amusingly tolerant" would best describe my wife's relationship with my tank. It's actually her favorite room to read or study in b/c it's pretty to look at and makes soothing water noises. She's generally interested in how all of the critters are doing, she gets excited for me when I get excited about something that's going particularly well, she's sad for me when someone goes carpet surfing, and she patiently glazes over when I start rattling off Latin names for things. I've asked repeatedly over the years what she'd like to see in the tank, and she honestly doesn't care. She just wants it to look nice. Exactly what I choose to put in the tank to achieve that goal doesn't matter very much to her. She's even letting me set up a 110-gal predator tank and is graciously living with a six-foot aquarium sitting on the floor of the fish room while I build the tank stand. There are, however, two things that will make her upset about the tank. As many have mentioned already, spending too much time on the tank for too many days in a row will get her grump on. The other is aesthetics - if I leave water change equipment lying all over the room, or if you can't see the fish for all of the algae growing on the front glass, then she wishes that I would find a different hobby.

I've tried making my own food a couple of times, but I've never been happy with the results.

I saw on GlassBox that PE Mysis finally came out with blister packs, so they're definitely on my to-try list.

For starters, please don't take this thread down the "I hate frozen, and here's why..." path. I understand that there are pros and cons to using frozen, and I've made the decision to accept the cons for the sake of the pros. I'd rather save the use frozen/don't use frozen debate for another thread. Having said that, what's your preferred frozen food (specifically, which brand/vendor) and why? I've been using SFBB varieties with good results, but I'm looking for something that uses fewer binders. I'd like to hear others' experiences with other brands.

Bump - each is now free, but trades are welcome!

I've got a couple of extra bulkheads floating around that I'd like to get rid of. One is a standard tank bulkhead. I'm not real conversant with how these are sized, so I took pictures next to a ruler. I can break out the calipers if anyone needs the hyper-specifics. Both sides of the bulkhead are slip. The other is a probe bulkhead designed to hold a 1/2" probe. I was going to use this to hold my pH propbe on my Ca rx until I discovered that the lid of the reactor is too small to accomodate the bulkhead. Warning: the threads on this bulkhead appear to be metric, fwiw. I'm MORE than happy to trade for these - I just want them gone. Free, trades welcome.

Oof... Painful in more ways than one!

My beloved 6" male blue jaw trigger tried to go amphibious on me about two months ago with negative results.

Does anyone know where I can find a high-powered magnifying glass? My 3x-5x doesn't really magnify enough to do a thorough inspection of new frags. The teacher supply stores don't have anything stronger than what I already have.

Oh, Chrissie, the betrayal... ; )

So I've had my tank for about three years now. You'd THINK that after all this time, I'd have a pretty good idea of what's in it, right? Well, I was having trouble falling asleep, so I headed downstairs and figured I'd check out the tank at night, which I don't do very often. What to my wondering eyes should appear but a gorilla crab, calmly breaking off bits of rock to chew through. I had NO IDEA he was in there - no molts, no missing fish, nuthin'. Guess I'm going crabbing for awhile...

I completely rebuilt my closed loop last fall using spa-flex and unions. I glued it all up with the blue wet/dry PVC glue, and it worked great. I now swear by the stuff - the flexibility was a life-saver for me.

Read up on the reviews - they were pretty mixed from the crowd over on seahorse.org.

My armchair analysis is that MH bulbs are going to become the aquarist's equivalent of the cassette tape within five years. This is really cool stuff.

I'm in Cedar Park, and I'm usually running 225-250 from the tap.

For anyone unfamiliar, Advanced Aquarist's Online Magazine is a monthly e-zine whose focus is the marine aquarium. It's got a far more scientific/scholarly bent to it than many of the other pubs I've seen, especially regarding equipment reviews and analysis. Anyway, they're on Facebook now, and their last several posts have been pretty cool, mostly news stories related to the oceans or sea life. Thought I'd share.

I've got a mini-jet 404 that you're welcome to if you can use it.

You'll find more info than you can digest at one time over on the forums at seahorse.org. There's also a core group of really knowledgeable folks who are cool with beginners asking lots of questions. I got my two erectus in January, and seahorse.org was invaluable in helping me get things set up.

I've got a closed loop driven by a Reeflo Dart (Snapper? The smaller of those two), with four outputs controlled by an OM Super Squirt. There's definitely stronger and more random water movement when it's running. To watch the food particles in the water column, I get some really complex interactions between the water movement created by the closed loop and the water moved by my two K4s and return pump. I don't know that I'd list a closed loops as a gotta-have, but I know my big tank (140 gals) looks "happier" when the closed loop is running.

Title says it all - where do you run your calcium reactor, in the sump or externally? Please list the pros and cons of your choice. Also, what do you use to supply water to the reactor? If it's in the sump, do you just let it draw on its own? Thanks!

Conspiracy theorists are everywhere...

My understanding was a captive lifespan of 5-6 years, easy.

So I take a look at my tank this morning to see one of my green chromis dead and pinned to the side of a K4. No warning whatsoever. All params are within the normal levels, and I've not made any recent changes to the tank. The chromis is one of the original fish in the tank and has been there for almost 3 yrs. It has been eating well and has shown no unusual behavior. Body mass looked good for a slender fish like a chromis. No gill inflammation, no lesions, no bite marks, no torn tissue or missing scales (although spending the night stuck to the k4 roughed up one side, but no major damage was visible). The only thing I saw that was out of the ordinary was a small chunk missing from the gill cover on one side, but the gill underneath looked undamaged. This was my first fish loss in over a year. It's bad enough when someone goes carpet-surfing, or if you find out about a hitchhiker crab when fish start disappearing. At least you know the cause then. I have NO idea why this little guy went belly up, and that always fires up the paranoia machine.

If yours went bungie jumping, a while back I had one go skydiving off a rock about 8" off the bottom. It stood itself up and acted like nuthin' happened. Apparently, it didn't like the strength of the new currents went I added a couple of koralias.

If visiting cyrus is too far a drive, I need to thin the Caulerpa prolifera in my seahorse tank and can get you a decent handful.