Mr. Reef

* You can find a few pictures of our corals on our websites. We do not list all of our coral on them. Issac, We tried to come in, but failed miserabely. DOH! Work got in the way again. We will try tomorrow, but it's a busy schedule as usual. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

No problem, Issac! It was good to finally meet you. You definitely have good taste when it comes to coral. The royal blue staghorn, and the superman digi you picked up are very cool! We are planning on stopping by your store today and seeing some of those amazing chalices we heard about. You're going to be there, I hope? Thanks, Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

That's good to know. It seemed like it would make sense if it was being called a male. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

Krill, Silversides and other different types of large meaty treats would be good for him. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

A little bit odd, but kind of sounds cool to me. Haven't brung those in for a while so I haven't been able to see or study a phenomenon like that. Could be something normal for males. Or maybe it is amphiprion nigripes, which is not a skunk, but very similar and has yellowish orange fin and tail. He should have black fins on the bottom if so, and could possibley take a while to show up if small. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

OoOoOo. Nice!(drooler) Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

Nope, it was a cube. The little guy had plenty of room to swim around in, and was a happy little fishy (One of my favorite fish, extremely smart). I would say that if he did grow to about 4 inches while I had it up though I would have removed him. He would have been too big at that point. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

After looking at the 2nd picture that is definitely our Super Acropora Pulchra that we've been growing for 6 years now. It's actually a color morph of a original colony we had. It had a brown base with blue tips, then bam 2 years went by and the skin started changing to a yellow/green color slowly from one spot outwards. It happens in our systems quite often to different corals. We also have a electric pink stylophora that glows green if you put it under blue actinics. It's called the Green in the Dark Stylophora. (laugh) One of our nicest color morphs in my opinion. We have tons of the pulchra frags for super cheap in our store if anyone wanted it. I'd be surprised if most stores didn't have this species already. I know ORA cultures it as well under a different name. It's good looking stuff! Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

The Blazers game was AMAZING!!! ....Until Rudy was hurt :( I hope he wasn't seriously injured. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

Interesting. When I was 12 years old I had a tank set up for nearly a year at my house. It was approximately 32 gallons. I had one small desjardini tang (1.5 Inch), a algae blenny, 2 green chromis, and one hector eye goby. I never had any problems with them towards each other. I never had any algae or bacterial problems. They all ate well, and thrived. I decided to take the tank down after about a year. The desjardini tang still resides in our store to this day, and grew to about 3 inches during the time I had him. He is way bigger now if you can imagine. The rest of the fish went to good homes. I also know numerous customers who have/had tangs in their tank that are the same size or slightly smaller/bigger. They are mainly yellow tangs, desjardini tangs and scopus tangs though. One customer told me that their sailfin tang grew way too fast for their tank, and I agree. That's a fish that I would avoid putting in a tank that small. Either way we stock tangs in many different sizes. Like I said though, if your worried about putting a tang in there just take out the rock and scrape the algae off. It's a pretty easy thing to do if you have the right tool. The magnesium method should help as well. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

Looks more like Pulchra, but could possibly tenuis. Either way we've been growing these two exact species for years. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

Well you definitely have some tiny patches of hair algae mixed in there. I'd call the rest of it some sort of bryopsis if it had actual fanning to it, but it doesn't and I'm no expert when it comes to identifing macro algaes. :( You could always try out a small tang (1-2 inches big starting size) from the Zebrasoma genus if you didn't want to pull out your rockwork and scrape it off yourself. You could always trade him or sell him to someone else who wants one if he gets to big. Possible candidates if you wanted to go down this path: Yellow Tang (Strongly recommended) Sailfin Tang (May get too big too fast) Desjardini Sailfin Tang (Strongly recommended) Black Tang (Scopus, could get aggressive) Purple Tang (No, it costs way to much) Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

:eek: Read your first post to fast and thought it was a brittle star. DOH! It is possible that the serpant star ate your shrimp, and if you have any small fish in there they could always become his next snack. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

I have one question. Is it long, green, wavy, and look like hair on a rock? Like Pledosophy said, a picture would help. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

Wish I had a good picture of our Giant Blue Teardrop Maxima. :(

If cyano is growing on your sand you might want to consider getting some sand sifters, or at the very least stirring it occasionally to release some of the nitrogen and nitrous oxide in to the atmosphere. These gases are utilized by the cyanobacteria to grow. DON'T STIR THE SAND IF CYANO IS PRESENT, THIS WILL CAUSE IT TO SPREAD! There's one snail that I know of proven to eat cyanobacteria, and that's a Trochus snail. We use them in all of our systems as they not only eat cyanobacteria, but hair algae (Filamentous), and other various types of green algaes. I'd like to remind you that the anti-biotics for cyanobacteria are a ABSOLUTE LAST RESORT! If the medication (Which is azithromycin, used commonly for human bacterias.) doesn't work it can cause a superior cyanobacteria strain that is pretty much impossible to get rid of. I've heard of this happening twice already. Cyanobacteria is relatively easy to manage. All you need is the sand to be sifted. If any cyano appears, vacuum it out with a siphon tube into a bucket to remove it from your tank. You can do the same thing if it appears on your rock. If it is appearing in your tank naturally during the start of a new tank, it's not that bad. You can vacuum it out though if you please. Hope this helps! Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

Looks like some species of Pocillopora. Perhaps Damicornis? *I love the Christmas Tree Rock. Those are a favorite of mine. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

I've heard the mud is good to, but have had no experience with it. We use fine grain sand, and have had great success with its denitrification benefits. In other words I'm sure either would be good. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

You have yourself a nice collection there. Are you planning on expanding it in the future or just letting these guys grow out? Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

Actually if you knew us better you'd know that we are a aqua culturing facility and have been for years. But, I will excuse this as it looks like you've only been doing this and this solely for two years now. We rarely pull corals out of the wild and if we do we get pictures of them first and pick only the best. We know what we're getting. Your the one who doesn't. You get all of your corals from the transshipment of australian corals through a American hub. You buy 20 acan colonies at a time, and get what you get. You then sell them and go on to the next batch constantly pulling them from the wild. I also find it funny that you consider the retail shops to be high priced on acans when you yourself are one of the people inflating the prices. I'm not going to post the amount you can get these guys for or where you can get them from. But, let me put it this way ANYONE with a warehouse, a small amount of knowledge of the hobby, a business license, enough money to get started and has done their research can do what you're doing. Why do you think all these random business' selling acans and acans only have popped up everywhere? If we were all about the money we would do what you're doing, but we aren't. That isn't to say that we don't want to make money. Who wants to be financially insecure especially during times like this? But, we do what we do because we love this hobby. That's why my dad started his business 22 years ago and why we are still around today. I believe that other local LFS' here share the same love for this hobby as well. Good luck to you, but if things get rocky when it comes to the transshipping of your corals (Which I guarantee you it will.), you can always go back to buying comic books and random items for low prices and reselling them on ebay like you did in 2005. Thanks, Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

Nice job! That is a fantastic piece. Can't wait for pics. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-

I can say without a doubt in my mind that now days we get exactly what we order exactly as it presented. Ricky Soutas Jr. -Soutas Saltwater & Reef Inc.-