Electrokate

Drug test? For a company that sells grow lights? I'm just sayin... sheesh. Not that I can't pass but that is odd. (: Kate

You probably know about this guy since he bred lawnmower blennies but if not check his fishroom out... scroll to the bottom. Looking at his tanks I totally redid my freshwater last week. Yes, right before you came over (: http://www.practicalfishkeeping.co.uk/content.php?sid=3757&utm_source=PFK_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=March_25_2011&utm_term=Your_tanks:_Slobodan_Lazaveric,_part_two&utm_content=html If you can't view that, google Slobodan Lazarevic he has a website and has been tank of the month in a couple forums. Here is his website, and if you scroll to the bottom... now that's a fishroom! The link at the top to "aquascaping" is the freshwater side of the site. http://www.akvaristikayu.com/Octopus%20aquascaping/Reef%20dream%20.htm Note: Practical Fishkeeping misspelled his name. 2nd note: I am an unemployed typist, proofreader and editor. Interested in being of use to the aquarium hobby's publishing branch. Just in case you hear anything (: Kate

He did mention one more book... Breeding the Orchid Dottyback by Martin Moe. This is the one that is a journal, and it's a fun read. Kate

I bet we see the Wilkerson book out as a 2nd edition with updates within 6 months... it's just too great to pull for no reason. The library has the Wittenrich book-I just returned it Thursday (: Kate

Hey Rick, if you don't use it all let me know. Thanks, Kate

Went there not long ago. It's laid out like an old school department store: nice wide aisles, clean, well lit and decently large selection. Great shop. Pretty much the opposite of Albany's Amazing Aquarium (: I bet that is no accident. Kate

That was a great meeting, even with a migraine. And we got donations to Reefer Dan and I sent what I made off the culture stuff plus the chunk I was already going to send to Doctors w/o Borders, which I had been procrastinating on sending. I like this idea, thinking of doing a raffle next meeting of frags for local charities helping those who have not been so lucky through the recession... might also be good to do one at some point for an organization that promotes a balanced approach to harvesting marine fish for the food and pet trade. Awesome getting to try all these Reef Nutrition and Reed products! Have wanted to for some time. You guys should all eat that macro feast! Beats the hell out of Cheetos or fast food nutritionally... I will probably have rotifers and copepods for anyone who wants them for at least the next year so keep that in mind if you get inspired to try breeding something. I actually did raise peppermints to settlement using 4 glass gallon jars, a green plastic rubbermaid container, a heater, 4 airstones and related hose stuff, and some yarn. Total investment about 8 bucks. I don't recommend my method as it was a PITA and only got about a dozen shrimp out of 2 months work, but it was fun. I was asked about doing a meeting but my house is extremely small, and 50 people would probably be a lot. Maybe in summer when we can sit outside? I noticed when we were house hunting my husband seemed to most dislike any house with a large open basement suitable for a fishroom, and so I have this small one with random closets all over the place. Thus I have tanks in closets, which is great for heating their space, but not so good for visitors. Also it is poorly wired so that if you touch any lights with your shoes off you get a shock. Hoping to hire Dave to come work on that minor issue. (: Kate

Put me on the list to purchase offspring! Congratulations, that is so awesome...

Sounds good to me, I broke one of the glass vials! Figures... One of the reasons someone might choose the digital over the liquid test is that color vision varies from person to person, and men are statistically more likely to suffer from some degree of color blindness, and this is a hobby statistically likely to be populated by men. Kate

I'd like to be on the list too Thanks, Kate

You can get it at my house (: I raise it in a gallon jar, a fishbowl, a shoebox, a beanie baby box, whatever. No air, no heat. Sometimes I give them some food. Mine are the SF strain, I think they are tougher than the Utah. I also know someone who got out of killifish and wants to sell a pair of used 2liter hatchery kits, a pair of new backups and half a pound of premium Utah cysts, PM me if you want his info. I don't need it, got enough. He says you should have backups of the 2 liter hatcher base since after a while the airline attachment snaps. I mainly feed my brine shrimp greenwater, grown in another jar sorta near a strip light. If you want culture starts I can bring them to the next meeting. There are copepods in the cultures that appear to eat cyano, a bonus. But they are so tiny that most of my fish don't bother eating them. Kate

I'm in that club! House smelled really bad for a week, but it did actually dry out ok. Carpet is dumb.

I have an idea... next meeting everyone bring their phosphate kits and a few jars of sample water and we compare tests? I have the LaMotte "low range" kit (which is not all that low) and would love to see how it compares. I had looked into the hanna checker but heard about issues with microbubbles and cleanliness skewing results, and since I do not see well I would probably not notice mistakes with sampling. So I chose a "better quality" liquid test kit. One of my tanks was .6, the reef/display tested zero with the LaMotte kit. The high testing tank had minimal microalgae compared to the zero tank but strong macroalgae growth, and I had no goal of it being low phosphate since I feed that tank 4-6 times a day, it has filefish. Newly made up Instant Ocean saltwater had double the phosphate of tap. I repeated the tests several times to rule out user error. I switched salt brands and began religiously rinsing my fish food prior to serving it, gave the skimmers a good cleaning and started a daily skimmer maintenance routine. Bought the BRS phosphate reactor and GFO and put it on the tank testing zero as I assumed the only reason it tests zero is the cyano and microalgae was intercepting the phosphate as it entered the water. The high testing tank went down to zero a couple weeks later even without the BRS GFO setup, the reef still tested zero but the algae looked just as bad as ever. A couple weeks ago I moved the GFO reactor to the filefish tank and this morning the cyano was almost gone. But unfortunately the caulerpa also melted down. I think I would like to have SOME phosphate in that tank since filefish spawn on macroalgae (: Also have some beautiful red and purple algae in that tank I hope will not melt down... So the GFO reactor is going back to the reef. Thought it was so odd that rinsing fish food and skimmer care appears to have made such a major difference, if you are not doing those steps I would definitely recommend a trial run. But it is equally possible nothing changed at all other than my LaMotte kit going bad (: Which is why I suggest being one of the people to bring water known to be nasty. Kate

One critical problem I see with canon is they sell kits with EF-s lenses. The -s means "shortback". They only will work with shortback compatible bodies, and it is likely future sensor sizes will cause them to not make shortback bodies even for the cheap consumer grade lines. On the plus side they don't depreciate too bad so you can sell your kit and buy a new one. I've not owned Nikon yet, but my friends who use them say they use old lenses, things they got used here and there, and they say they are fully compatible. My dad's old Canon AE-1 lenses cannot be used even with an adapter. I have a Canon EOS 50D. It's pretty good, but it cannot take pics of a blue tang, they come out purple. I am hoping the next body I get will have this fixed. I have shot with 2 other brands of digital side by side with the Canon and they have no problem giving accurate color. [/img] Kate

I make mine out of nylon chiffon. It's amazing how much it traps... pods, coral slime, rotifers, uneaten food etc. I like the nylon because it catches so much and is so easy to clean. I just turn it inside out and swish in a glass of aquarium water. So much easier to clean a sock that does not have a narrow mouthed plastic ring with sharp edges stitched to it. Great thread! Kate

Hi, Deos anyone in your household smoke? What is your tank's alkalinity? Do you have a cat that could be putting its paws in the tank? There are so many possible reasons things go wrong... one friend had his tank go milky, he tore his hair out trying to figure out the source. Turns out his toddler stuffed half a bologna and mayo sandwich between the skimmer and the back wall of the sump. Without actually seeing your system it's really had to guess what diseases or predators could be in there... Giant hermits with hairy legs are notorious. But you removed it. Even a stray coin, snip of wire or screw in the tank is a problem, and it could be buried in sand. Another friend lost all her fish in her entire fish room when the landlord sprayed herbicide on the landscaping outside and her window was open. Thousands of dollars of fish dead. Met a guy whose roommate fleabombed. Byebye reef tank. I think someone did address this already, but I wanted to reiterate in case it got missed. In the first post you mention feeding once every 4-5 days. That is not enough, how long did that go on? A cube of prime every other day would also not be enough unless you are talking certain small fish in a large established copepod filled tank. Most fish need to be fed small amounts often. I feed mine 4 or 5 times a day, and they are fleshed out like I have seen them in the wild. You'd think this would be worse than it is. Yeah, I have some ugly algae (which they eat). I have mad coral growth and good sps color, no HLLE (yet) and little aggression. Only thing the fish fight over is who gets to eat the eggs of whoever just spawned. 4-5 times a day is a lot, and your fish probably would not need that many. Every day definitely, twice a day. Add it slowly so they eat it all before it can drift under a rock. Try a variety, Prime is ok but it has so many fine pieces, they just look like shell to me. SF Bay has a couple products that stand out-one is called "Plankton", not to be confused with their product labeled "Reef Plankton" which is so tiny some fish don't eat it. Hikari and PE Mysis are great. Even just grated raw seafood soaked in vitamins. Some fish need nori and other algae. Formula 1 and 2 pellets are well regarded, but store the bulk of your supply in the fridge well sealed, it goes rancid pretty fast. I rinse frozen food to get rid of fines and "juice" since all that stuff does is pollute the tank. I have not met anyone yet who successfully keeps a clown tang, they are super mean. I have heard of people keeping them in very large tanks IE greater than 500 gallons or when the fish is very young. Even then they are foul tempered. Most triggers too. Clown tangs and clown triggers are amazing fish but if you can't keep em don't kick yourself, almost nobody succeeds long term with such mean fish. Lucky the trigger did not take off half a knuckle, they can do that. They got no qualms about biting the hand that feeds, to them it's all food. People who work at fish stores do love fish, but can only know so much, and there is a ton to know. Your best bet is to make a list of fish you must absolutely have, verify you can keep them, then flesh out your collection with fish you know are compatible and not buy anything on a whim. Most shop people are too optimistic, hurried, distracted, etc to give you the time to hammer out everything that needs to be known about your system and habits before making a sale. Lucky if they can even ID everything in the shop, let alone tell you it's personality, ultimate size, rate of growth and dietary peculiarities. The worst shop workers are the know it alls. I would rather hear that the salesperson does not know and it's my job to research my pets than get bad advice from someone who does not know what he is talking about or is making it up as he goes along (fortunately I have not had this problem with the guy who owns the fish store you are not mentioning the name of). Hopefully you will not mind if you walk into a shop and hear that from me. If I don't know I am gonna say so and not just BS my way through the sale. Wetwebmedia is a pretty good resource for research, I use my Droid to look things up there when I am at shops. Good luck, and I am seriously wondering what your alk is at. Kate

These clownfish are really nice and the corals are good size, the zoanthids are on pretty big rocks. Should be a good deal for someone. The maroon clown is amazing, she is HUGE! Color is the best I have seen too. Deep maroon with egg yolk yellow stripes. If I had the space I would take her in a heartbeat and try to pair her up. She hasn't even killed her tankmates, that makes her nicer than most (: Kate

44 species definitely aquacultured locally or by ORA, 9 unknown (from people tearing down tanks), 3 acans that I know were wild imports cut into frags and sold on. I did feel a bad about the acans but on the other hand they came from a nation requiring the importer to work within a very careful set of rules and limits, unlike in some places where there is no effort to determine what is biologically reasonable. I only counted zoanthids one time, if I counted each color morph that would mean another 8 or 9 aquacultured corals. Generally I prefer local frags as they tend to be healthier, hardier and you know what color they will be under artificial lighting. And they "only" have pests we have a history with... I don't want to be the lucky one to discover a new coral eating bug. (: Now if only I could get locally aquacultured tangs and wrasses, that would be awesome! Kate

sorry this question is kinda stupid since I can guess based on the average dimensions of the normal 20, but what are the width and depth measurements for the stand for the 20's? I was going to build something like that but the space is limited, if yours fits I will buy it with the tanks and plumbing. Thanks, Kate

Thanks guys for all the effort. I do not expect everything to go swimmingly all the time especially on a free site, and when I saw PNWMAS having problems I thought of you guys scrambling to fix them with sympathy... Just watched my husband deal with calPOP server disasters for a week, I know it's hard work dealing with things like this for in many cases no pay. Thank you again, Kate

I have a free Helios 250 watt mogul bulb. They were pretty unreliable with their production quality but when they were on they were great, and but this particular bulb is a good one. It has probably 6 months on it. You mention your other light is HQI, but not if this one is. If you can't use it and someone else notices your thread who can, PM me. I use T5HO these days. I am guessing it would be pretty cheap to mail, I am in SE Portland. Thanks, Kate

GFO pellets in the 1 lb pack are sold out. Anyone want to split a 2 lb pack? I am in SE PDX near 74th and Woodstock, can meet at Rose City. Thanks, Kate

I hope the ban includes banning the import of pet fish too then. If they were sincere they would, people go to stores (Modern and Coral Fish Hawaii) and buy fish to "seed the reef" every week. Clowns, Fiji Blue Devils, Purple Tangs, you name it. BUT it's not about that. It is about sentimental regards and quick fixes, attacking an industry perceived as weak. If they really cared they would ban lawns that extend within X number of feet of creeks, rivers estuaries and all other waterfront. But they won't. They would ban pesticide use on all property adjacent to water along with fertilizers. They would require runoff prevention for agriculture and construction sites. They would stop clearing wetland and plant mangroves where they historically proliferated, allowing the return of newly settled yellow tangs to Oahu's most populous beaches. They would encourage tourists to pee in toilets and not wear cosmetics in the water. They would not dump sand from Mexico on Waikiki. They would do a lot of things. But they don't because they really don't care, don't understand, don't listen to reason and don't learn from science. They saw Finding Nemo and now feel bad.

If you have sand it may survive in the sand and then if you have an underlying surplus of nutrients driving the problem it will emerge from the sand after the water change

Thanks for the encouragement, and hope we both have success with the grammas. I am intimidated by most of the seahorses, after watching friends with pretty impressive skills have trouble, but I know others who have success too. They seem prone to disease, or maybe their environments get polluted from all the food. There are so many ways to kill fish eggs and larvae, it's amazing. First eggs I had kept dying, could not figure it out, then noticed how much the air pump was vibrating their incubator. It appears I was scrambling them! Moved that to the floor away from the table legs, got a few to hatch, turned out the Ikea LED light I was using was frying them. Heater failure is a recurring theme, and every time the clownfish hatch (usually about a dozen eggs are uneaten by then) I have some medical disaster that day. So it's been interesting. I might have a connection for S strain rotifers soon, will let you, Brian and Dave know if I get them. A researcher in Eugene raises them probably for Zfin (zebrafish/danio organization). Maybe we should get a group together and buy some ORA yellow assessors and pair them up, they sound like a reasonable prospect. Keep me posted, and good luck. Sounds like you have a lot on your table! Kate