Crab Rangoon

Who carries the New Life Spectrum pellets in town

River City Aquatics, Austin AquaDome, and AquaTek.

RCA has two sizes/flavors of NLS available in bulk - which is nice if you'd just like to try a couple ounces, rather than simply buying a small/medium jar of it.

As I recall, AquaDome has definitely got the most expansive selection of both flavors and pellet size in stock.

Is anyone else here using a secondary means of denitration, besides just the pellets?

I have no links for quick reference, but I've seen multiple people on RC mention much improvement by combining MicroBacter7 with BioPellets. A couple web-shops said the same thing in the reviews section for the MB7 product, too - so I went ahead and picked up a bottle. I figure after my next water change, I would begin dosing it to see if I can tell any improvement.

I will say that my new Precision Marine SR40 is a MUCH MUCH MUCH better biopellet reactor than my PhosBan 550 was. Same plumbing, same pump, same volume of pellets - but dramatically better tumbling.

403nm & 453nm Stunner strips: 7am - 12:30pm

PAR38's: 12pm - 9:30pm

403nm & 453nm Stunner strips: 9pm - 12:30am

still no moonlights yet

Can't tell what color it is w/such a blue spectrum is it greenish?

Can you bring that Rainbow Monti up to RCA today?

I'll be there open to close.

crossing my fingers

Hey Wyatt, did you contact Tony? If not, give him a call.

Show me what your frags/rocks look like, but only if they're actually FS

Pics for reference, really not looking for more greens, as I've got those.

Rhodactis:

Yumas:

Nice! Any chance you shoot w/a Canon? If so, I can make some macro suggestions. If you shoot Nikon, however, I got nothin

I just finished selling my Canon and it's lenses, but the macro was to be my next purchase if I had kept it all.

It's definitely worth mentioning that if you don't want to become well versed on all the different options and settings of the camera, and wind up relying on the auto settings and/or a kit lens for a chunk of time - you'd probably get better results for your money by going for a higher end point and shoot.

I really can never get over how many of my friends think they are above & beyond using/buying a nice point & shoot, and they MUST have a DSLR. A year later, many of them don't really have a terribly good grip on all their camera controls, and definitely don't have any lenses they're proud of Research a lot before you buy, and hook up with some friends to try your hand at absorbing & applying the knowledge first.

A lot of people really doubt the ability and quality of a NICE point & shoot (say Canon G10, Canon G11, or Canon S95), til they see what other people have produced, or get a whole weekend hands on with the thing. Spending $4XX and being more familiar with your camera is a much better situation than dropping $700-1000 on a camera body with 1-2 lenses and not being comfortable or in control - just food for thought.

Yeah he's a cool fish and I'm lucky to have him.

No joke, I am quite a fan of the Borbonius when did you get him? I'd love one of them a little further down the road.

BTW, in an untimely reply to your need of a camera box, check out Avast Marine's new piece: http://www.avastmarine.com/ssc/do/product/avastbuilt/Top-Down-Porthole

Perhaps if they were the only thing I fed the tank for a while, they would take to it.

That is indeed the trick. If you feed a mixed batch, they can pick and choose what to eat, and they can be picky eaters. A fish should be offered whatever it willingly eats for acclimation and the initial weeks of introduction (or quarantine). After that, you should be able to crack down and more or less feed it what YOU want it to eat.

Luckily, 90% of my fish have willingly accepted pellet food during even their quarantine period. I also feed all of my frozen food mixed together, rather than Mysis one day, and Brine the next. Having all the food incorporated to every meal will aide in your fish warming up to frozen foods they didn't readily otherwise accept.

No problem I cannot imagine trying to keep this fatty in the Solana! Within hours he was merely a couple inches away from the other RBTA - clearly they have similar taste in light & flow

My two original urchins introduced at the tank's start have been wearing some stuff for 2-3 months now. One has a sort-of tile of coraline algae he wears as a hat, the other carries a 1" hard tube-worm shell like it were a cane but they both refuse to drop them.

fingers crossed it lasts til I can get North

I'd like to be on a list to be contacted in the future

The molting frequency will depend on your iodine concentration, iodine dosing frequency, and the size of your inverts. You should expect a fair amount of molting from small size to adult size, but once they're full grown they may molt half as frequently. I dose my iodine every 7-10 days and I probably see anywhere from 1-2 molts per month. I was seeing a sure 2, maybe sometimes 3, per month when they were small and still growing in size, though.

Super Reef Octopus Cone skimmer (w/ Bubble Blaster pump).

heck yes, after my initial break-in period, I tuned mine to pull this within 48-55hrs

that aint wet either, it's like Guinness or cappuccino I've got the Reef Octopus XP2000 cone on mine, and loving it. Only one I'd ever upgrade to in the future is the ATB Elegance 200 (or 200 Pro), but not any time soon.

For all cone skimmers you'll need to place it in a shallow enough area, or use a stand to elevate it in your sump - you really don't want it submerged more than 7-8".

A cheaper cone skimmer model w/a decent pump worth checking out is the Avast Marine DIY cone skimmer. Really nice piece of kit when it comes to bang for buck, dramatically more affordable than any of the other intro/lower end cone skimmers out there.

Haha, is this one going in Bridger's room?

Nope, out in the main part of the house. Gonna run LEDs on it!

arm-mounting & PAR38 by any chance?

'cept when brooding, the male looks like Kanye West with the fattest jaw ever yesterday he seemed somewhat interested in food again (since they carry the eggs/fry in their mouth, they cannot eat while incubating or brooding), so I fear he may ditch and go back to his daily grind this weekend. I might have to wait til the next occurrence to get 'em on camera.

I'm glad there is a general positive feeling towards pellets here In all my years working in a store, one of the things people are most hardheadedly against for some reason, is pellets. All your fish can be trained to eat pellets pretty easily, with time, and my fishes staple is currently NLS. I wouldn't keep them on NLS alone, personally, and I definitely prefer to mix in Dainichi (REALLY REALLY good food, and almost the exact price per oz as NLS, if not a hair less) or the occasional Reef Nutrition variety of pellets in from time to time. You can purchase a small container of two types of pellets, mix them together in a container, and store the remainder as back stock in your freezer as long as they're air tight.

I run the Rena brand auto feeder on mine, and have it drop a relatively small volume of pellets anywhere from 3-5x a day, and I simply offer one feeding of frozen every evening. Even my shyest fish will come out and snag the pellets, including very reclusive Basslets.

On the note of being cleaner & not promoting algae in the tank: please be sure to rinse your food, or strain all the defrost water, before feeding to the aquarium. This will keep all the water weight / skimmate bait from ever entering the tank. I defrost my food, rinse it thoroughly, saturate with a few different soaks for a while, and then do a light re-rinse. I typically make enough for 3-4 days of feeding, and just keep it sealed in my freezer, and it makes a world of difference in cleanliness.

I started my tank out with 6 of these guys, and sadly wound up losing 2-3 of them over the course of weeks due to aggression from another Apogon species I had in the tank, which was behaving very dominantly even though there was plenty of room After removing the other Cardinals from the display, I ended up losing yet another leptacanthus about a week later, and was stuck with only a pair. A couple months ago, I decided to pick up 8 more when Jake at RCA was ordering them for the in-wall display tank in the shop, but I still wound up losing 2 more slowly but surely, apparently due to my Wrasse not being compliant with them

For months now, I've had a school of 8 of them, and everything's been fine except for an occasional episode with the Wrasse during feeding time. Earlier this week I noticed that two of them seemed secluded, and I was worried they were not faring well, or perhaps fighting. Sure enough, they'd split off from the group around feeding time, and go bicker in a cave. For 2-3 days straight they practically refuse to leave the cave, and the male is absolutely brooding, as is obvious from his jaw/throat poking out. Pretty cool! Since they move so sporadically paired up and away from the group, I can't get very good pictures of the pair, but I'll definitely be getting them on video since their behavior is so peculiar and they're both showing rather radiant colors. Upon receiving them from the shipment originally, I really couldn't tell males from females - but now that I've noticed these two paired up, I have identified the two other males in my school, and I have 1 or 2 other females coloring up mighty bold trying to also get in on the action.

Has anyone else experienced any Cardinals (aside from Bangaii, of course) in their display tanks? I've already looked into the details of rearing & raising the fry, and ruled it out - the most success somebody has had was 45 days with any fry, and I'm already far too busy to tend to baby fish feedings. It's certainly a lot different from Clowns, though, since there's no way in hell I could ever get into the tank with a net and pull out the actual pair from the whole school. The slightest movement or motion stirs the Cardinals enough that you can't tell one from the others when they school together - so there will definitely be no disturbing them from the display to try my hand at this further. I just thought I'd ask if anyone else had experienced this, or even seen the breeding happen. I really hope that they continue with this from time to time and that I may be able to get it on camera some time.

You might be interested in knowing how long he's had it, too

I have a box of 24 CREE bulbs I plan on using over an EcoCube.

XR-E or XP-G?

I've done lots of reading, pic browsing, and deliberating - both before AND after buying my LEDs. My tank's been running on LED's since the start, and I only have ONE coral that came from LEDs in it's previous home. My tank is 27" tall, and my LED's are anywhere from 8-15" from the top of my water (I change it / play with it from time to time). I've got 6 of the PAR38 lamps in 12k over my cube, as well as 3 Stunner Strips as supplemental light. The tank, overall, is too bright for my fish to be overly happy - but in their defense, many of them are deep water specimens. My Angels, Cardinals, and Basslets are all MUCH more active and comfortable when only supplemental lights are turned on. It's also problematic that LED makes it harder to take good snaps and vids of the tank and this is compared to my experience in shooting fish and corals under other forms of lighting, but most obvious when taking full tank shots.

Recently I decided to start shopping for some more supplemental light, to put some more blue, UV, and red in - as well as add reflectors to all the Stunner Strips so the light focuses into the tank rather than all over the walls too With the additional supplemental light, I also plan to remove one or two of the PAR38's, hoping to make the fish more comfortable. I need to quit being lazy & finally take some decent video of the tank to post up.