caferacermike

I agree with John about the regular skimmer line from AquaC. I have read one to many post on Reef forums where a desperate person asks why their AquaC runs fine when they look at it but as soon as they go to work, overflow! I really really like my Euroreef.

You too? I noticed it for the first time tonight. I couldn't figure out for the life of me how leftover bits could be in the bottom of my new trashcan. I had used my setup 4 times and I knew it was squeeky clean when I started. I was wondering where all the solid bits came from. So maybe my little bit of tank ugly is coming from my water changes? Who'd have thunk?

Brian I believe you are more fluent in Kent than SeaChem but what are your (and anyone elses) opinions on Seachem reef salt? I never really did water changes on my tank for about 8 months, well ok I never did a single one. I never ever had a spot of algae or cyano. It was unreal. Recently when I upped my lighting to 500w metal halides I bought SeaChem reef salt, a new 20g trash can, a 3/4 bulkhead, a 3/4" pvc hose spigot some new vinyl tubing and an extra Seio M620. Basically I made myself a super sweet and easy salt water changing kit. Well after a month of doing 10g water changes a week, I've begun seeing a lot of brown algae and some spotty cyano. Thoughts on that as you mentioned some salts showed these same signs. I have 400 micro sized hermits enroute to help any sort of real algae breakout. Also I have quit feeding my tank altogether to try and starve it out. Water params are all good, I've been checking them 3 times a week. Corals have never grown more or polypped as large. My new Efflo added about a 1/4" all the way around in 2 weeks as was pointed out by friends that have known the coral. As long as there is a thread started about salt mixes how about everyone chime in with their experiences with brands and preferrence? Started with a brand in a yellow box. Can't be asked to remember the name. Worked well for starting the tank. The box lived under the kitchen sink for a month or so and when I finally checked back it had water spoilage. Tossed it. Seachem Reef. Using it. I don't have enough experience yet to comment.

Could be numerous things. Mine will open and close all day long. Puffy one minute, deflated the next. They really don't like a lot of flow so keep that in mind when placing them. I found mine did not appreciate my metal halides as much as I did. Used to open up way larger in PC lighting. Did you bury it in the sand? I've been told and have had great success at keeping them alive by placing them in the bottom of the tank buried up to about where the flesh starts on the skeleton. I had a hammer go on me after buying it. I had fragged some heads of the colony to give away. All but one head died out. I left the pieces where they were and about a month later I suddenly had about 12 heads growing on each frag. Now I have giant round balls of hammer. So if a head goes don't toss it. What flavor did you get? I've gotten them in green with pink tips, green with white tips, green with purple tips, green with blue tips, and one that was a pink color with white tips.

Even the AguaC remora is a better skimmer. It fits in the same space as a prism.

Sweet let's plan a collection trip. I've been dying to see if that veewee of yours can run. Oh and I did some research about where saltwater shouldn't be, seems the only place it isn't really welcome is around electronics and uncoated steel. I did find a great link about using it to flush your insides. I gave it a try and trust me clean as a whistle... Who'd a thought? Only took a few seconds to get the cramps and wow did it go well.

Hey I saw that rock at Robs house. I begged him for a head of it. Said nope. Irish I'll have some similar looking ones delivered to the house tomorrow night at midnite. I'll order you an extra. I will have to ask $5 for it as it won't be an extra from my tank. It will be from an order I am placing tonight.

Sweet.

Bill it does make sense. That's why i bought a Blueline wavebox to go with it. I got the box and it sucks. So it's now on for 20 minutes and off for 20. Blah. I'm going to sell all of my tunze streams and just get a wave box.

Irish please remove your sig line I'm not upset I was just asking you not to ask me to check PM's in unrelated threads. No Elegance corals ok? Seriously. They are one of the most difficult and the numbers are dwindling in the wild. Leave them for the super reefers. I bought 2 of them that died within a week of adding them when I first started. they both succumebd to the brown jelly disease as fast I put them in the tank. A $300 mistake. I was offered one a while back for a super cheap price from an LFS that got it in but did not want to keep it as customers don't like looking at dying coral. It was still ok and was still int he shipping bag so I took it. Only by luck did it survive. I have one and yes I'm super dooper proud of it but it was a long journey to keep it alive. I had to hand feed it everyday. I had to hover for an hour everyday as my other fish would try and steal it's food. Flow, lighting, and food are all very very important with this coral. I don't have the links saved anymore but do a few searches on google or yahoo and you'll see just why you shouldn't buy one. I almost got thrown off reeflounge for mentioning I even owned one.

You know randy I've had quite a few nudis over the past year. A handful of lettuce and a few purple with yellow gills and a blue with orange gills. I've had 2 go through power head ( why are they drawn to them?), a few were eaten by my panther grouper and my former wrasse, I saw one torn apart by a saron shrimp, but my tank never crashed. I also believe it helps to have a good skimmer and lot's of flow so the waste can actually get to the skimmer. The thing I'd be more afraid of is spending about $20 each for the things only to have them picked out and eaten. What about going to the coast and netting a few hundred peppermint shrimp? Maybe they'd eat the aptaisa and also help to control wastes in the tank as detrivours. Hopefully if the tank is slightly aggressive (I can't keep cleaners or peppermints because of my grouper, oh wait I yanked him last night and set up a tank for him ) placing that many might overwhelm the fish for a few weeks. Just a thought. And also because I want to go to the coast.

Unfortunately I don't have a single aptasia.

Glad I could help then randy. I've been thinking about getting a pair of harlequins to help with my micro stars. I've only seen a couple but I'd like them gone as the judge is still out if they are harful or not. I saw one at the base of a SPS that shed it's skin the same day...yes I'm drawing a line back to the star. So are you guys going to buy some Berghia to give it a go? It sounds so complicated waiting 8 months or so for the population to boom.

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I thought velvets were for controlling flat worms. Berghia nudi's are for aptasia. But again I can't remember if those are the ame nudis that eat zoas. http://www.berghia.net/

i've had many fish live in my overflows from time to time. OK I have to admit to something that has worked a few times for me......... You know that turkey baster every reefer owns? Yeah I reach down there, squeeze it out and greb em with the suction. You only get a few seconds to try but has worked numerous times for me.

Finally got a Tunze 6060 for my 75g. It rocks. My eio M620's weren't cutting it and since I already own Stream makers for my other tanks it was only natural I get the real deal. Wow it's great. Unfortunately my frogspawn and hammers are being blown over. I could move them to a calmer area but was wondering if they will "stiffen up" to the currents? I also have a blueline wave maker coming in a few days and was wondering if I set it up well will my Euphyllia enjoy the back and forth motion and open back up? Or just move them to the bottom of the tank next to my other hammer that isn't bothered?

I'm in and out as my work schedule is intense. I've heard a rumor that next week we will only be working 40 hours, down from our usual of 80.

Oh yeah and I forgot to add that CPreefguy on maast has a few pink lemonaides left if you hurry. I think there were 2 rocks with about 10 heads each. that is a rare piece right now and I only took 2 heads so as not to be greedy. He is in San Marcos and was very easy to deal with.

Ace your zoos look great. IT I was thinking that you were specifically asking for paly's, or sand buttons, as you had already asked about zoas in another thread. I have about 30 colors of zoos that I could cut as well. Nothing to trade? I was that way once. Promise to grow them out and pass them onto other local reefers and promise to remember me someday down the road and I'll see what I can scrape off for you.

Thanks Clint. Hey quick question, do you feel that in what I wrote about my new efflo and addressed it to the efflo king was an attack on the seller? Or do you see me excited about owning it and watching the colors come back? I'm in a bit of a pissing match on another nameless forum about it.

I'll try tomorrow evening. the lady ran off with the camera this evening. I don't sell, prefer to trade.

Looks like a nice sponge to me. If it continues to grow I'd like to seed my tank with a bit of it as well.

Clint they are doing great now with the new lighting. I was so surprised at what a difference it made. They have all begun to molt over the rocks. The caps are doing the best of course. I must admit that to my surprise the milli went necrotic the day after I turned on the new lights. It was doing the best of all the frags before the light change. It went from full and fuzzy to white skeleton in a day. I apologize for losing that one. My friend says the zoas are taking over his tank but are helping to out compete his algae problem. Said the algae has been receding since putting in all those zoas. The ric is huge and fat. I was hoping to try and meet up with you again sometime soon. You mentioned something about a RTG(?) in another thread and I'm stumped. You know I got a giant efflo of some sort earlier this week. About 7" acrossed. It was browned out when I got it so I'm unsure of what it is. Seems to be getting a purple hue and has white polyps only on the edge of the rim. The polyps in the center are still brown. It also polyps rfom all over the flesh, not just the obvious bumps that would be polyps.

I agree with Gkarshens. When I swtiched from flouros, 240w, to 500w MH and PC my bill did not really change. Basically think about this, I was thinking of 1,000w for 8 hours a day @ $0.15 per kilo hour. So basically I would be paying $0.15 per hour to run my lights and that big of light would add $36 a month to my bill. So right now I pay about $18 a month for my reef lighting.