Piero

mysis and cyclop-eeze only sparingly, once or twice a week.

Dip...definitely. when i dip...you dip... I dip, you dip, we dip! Devo sings: When the coral's comin home, youu must dip it Treat a reef tank like a home? youu must dip it Now dip it.... dip it good!

interesting. thanks for sharing.

sounds to me like the organisms you are observing are probably not SPS predators, since you do not have any SPS in your tank. So the 'red bugs' you observed are most likely not the 'red bugs' that eat SPS corals.

i agree....but I'd still hate to be an animal - fish or coral - going home with a customer who doesn't take the time or make the effort to know what I am. Just seems like an indicator. is that kettle korn?

I'm shocked. Although it's disappointing, it's not surprising that this person still gets to take home reef life. Cash is king.

I agree also. But it's seems to me that in the blink of an eye we've managed to pollute the heck out of the air and water and land....earth may be designed to change slowly...but humans seem to bring rapid change. We may have to be around a long time to fully understand the earth's cycles....but it doesn't take long to trash it apparently. Given a level of uncertainty, it seams the safe thing to do would be to assume the worst. What's the worst thing that can happen if we clean up the use of fossile fuels? vs. What's the worst thing that might happen if we don't?

that's just nawt riight...crikey.

I'd hate to be the coral or fish doomed to return home with that type of hobbyist. (scary)

yes, good point...any business activity revolving around corals that are aquacultured and grown within the hobby does reduce the amounts we take directly from the oceasn...i stand corrected. I guess my point was that the trade as a whole takes more than it gives back to wild habitat.

I don't think this hobby has anything to do with conservation...yet. The marine ornamentals trade is all about consuming reef life, not preserving it. The activities of the trade contribute to reef depletion. I do see your point though and it would be nice to think that the trade somehow might eventually give back to the wild habitats we "claim" to care about...but we do not. We take take take and never give back anything I think. Encourage your LFS to donate a portion of their proceeds to conservation maybe? I wish there was actually a steep 'conservation tax' on all imported reef life that fed conservation efforts...only way to ensure that the industry that takes so much from wild reefs actually gives something back too...idunno.

skepticism is good...it's what drives the self-correcting nature of the scientific method. Any scientific theory, in order to gain any validity, is subjected to the harshest skepticism and critical analysis. But we should probably choose the safe course, and leave the actual research and data interpretation to the real scientists. regardless of whether current predominant theories about climate change are right or wrong ...logic would seem to dictate that the safest course of action is a conservative one, because the cost of being wrong is too great. And I'll defer judgment to the professionals. We're in no position to claim we know anything about the subject here....we're just uneducated hobbyists shooting off opinions we have no understanding of...the overall determinations of the worldwide scientific community over time is what holds any weight at all...not a couple of aquarium hobbyists with remedial scientific educations, eh? link

Thread discussing the article yesterday in the Associated Press link

links I posted links to all his galleries and the Reefland article on this tank. really beautiful colors and nice composition, if a bit overcrowded. But definitely impressive colors for T5's. Although it occurred to me that one of the best benefits of MH's is the ripple-lightbeam affect. LINK