andy

Five Guys. This is not a question of opinion, but of scientific fact. It can be proven mathematically: Five Guys >> In 'n Out See? QED.

Get rid of those cheap ball valves. It is *absolutely* worth the extra money to get decent quality ball valves. True union if at all possible. Cheap plumbing is a tool of the devil.

They're good for one thing and one thing only: eating red turf algae.

Same fish, died from similar symptoms... were they both bought from the same store?

Bump -- what better Christmas gift for the person who has everything?

Get a Poly-filter and run it -- keep an eye on what color it turns (green = copper). Donate a bunch of money to a worthy charity... good karma can't possibly hurt.

Coast-to-coasts are a great idea: the wider the overflow, the thinner the layer of water skimmed off the surface, the more organics skimmed per volume of water.

Zero -- no teeth. Just do a flat-edged overflow. Teeth don't help with anything, and cut down on the surface-skimming efficiency.

Seriously Brad, do some creative Google searches on vibrio and coral. There are some good articles out there. http://scholar.google.com/ is good stuff...

I've had this happen too; I think it's a vibrio infection... but I think everything is a vibrio infection ("Doctor, it hurts when I "? Vibrio infection...) so take it for what it is worth. Either way, I cut it off a few mm from the edge. The coral that is, not the

madmike is 100% right re: size. You're much better off with a larger clam. Clams don't eat cyclopeeze -- phytoplankton only, and IME feeding phytoplankton is a one-way trip to cyano-ville. Just not worth it.

Jeez, with those values you could use the stuff as mortar to make a brick wall...

My clams lived through events that killed SPS and LPS corals. IME they're very tolerant of changes in Ca and Alk, and even fish-only (<100ppm) levels of nitrates. I know they have a reputation of being hard to keep, but that hasn't been my experience... hell, my Crocea spawned in the tank and my tank is never pristine. Keep the tank clean and the temperature relatively stable (less than +/-4 degrees day to night IMO) and you should be fine.

There are a couple of Chinese companies that make ballasts for all our familiar vendors, and they use pretty much the same design -- that's why ballasts tend to be the same size and shape across manufacturers... having a standard is cheaper to make. The higher-end manufacturers may have the Chinese company use higher quality components, or they may not. Either way, if the Chinese company is out of SLS labeled boards it wouldn't surprise me at all to hear that they'd substituted Icecap labeled boards. It'd be cheaper than spinning a new batch of SLS boards, and that's the name of the game.

I had been using Red Sea Coral Pro for years and was very happy with it. Now I'm FOwLR, I'm using Mortons Iodized Salt. I kid, actually using regular Instant Ocean

HA! Nice :-D

Everything is sold. Except the clam, which is now working for the TSA:

Yup, Coral Banded aren't even shrimp, they're closer to lobster and are predators of shrimp. Nasty little buggers, if they get large enough they'll go after fish.

[language filter] you, Wikileaks!!

I can't talk about it anymore. It's on a deep-cover mission.

Excellent! Congratulations. Coming soon: Impur LE frag ;-)

Yup. America decided long ago that it'd rather buy a thing cheaply made across the world than something more expensive made by a neighbor across the street. We ended up trading our blue-collar middle-class for a $99 Blueray player and jobs at Walmart.