Electrokate

There is a guy at a pet and farm store in Southern WA who likes to disabuse people of the notion that any fish will stay small if you keep them in a small tank to stunt their growth. He gets in their face and asks "if you put a rottweiler puppy in a kitty carrier in your closet will it stay small to fit the space?" I admire his willingness to enrage his customers on the animals' behalf. Most shop owners don't have the guts. Especially in a small town. Kate

It's been a topic on Reef Builders for a while now. I think RB was plugging for someone to buy them out and keep them going. http://reefbuilders.com/2010/10/22/icecap-is-in-troubled-waters-headed-for-an-uncertain-future/ Just had one of their expensive end caps catch fire Sunday. You can find most of their products on clearance on any web site right now, except of course the end caps. There really are not any alternative manufacturers offering water resistant T5HO endcaps are there? Don't like cheap wobbly tombstones. Which from my experience also catch on fire. And in that case it was not my wiring job! Kate PS am slightly exaggerating about "catching on fire". Heard zapping sound, puff of stinky smoke emerges, plastic is melted and bulb goes out. No actual flames. Maybe next time.

Does not seem like this forum has any more drama or filler than other notable forums I could name, actually people are a lot nicer and more helpful here than in unnamed other forums. That said I too noted some tension lately, tried to inject some humor into the emergency forum and hope that did not chap anyone's hide. I have real emergencies but figure they are pretty much my fault and my job to fix so griping about them is a waste of time. Maybe people are tense because of the combination of holidays, expensive hobby and rampant under/unemployment. There are really nice people in the club but coming to meetings and making trades is the only way to really meet them. It's so easy to misinterpret emails and forum posts that a lot of people don't post at all. Hopefully you will get to meet the good people soon enough, and figure out who the trolls are so you don't feed em. Still working on that myself. Kate

That is an awesome tank and deal, and it's true the stand is well worth the entire price. Unfortunately I am actually looking at a specific tank/stand that a member was thinking of selling. Also extremely unfortunately, I cannot fit a tank wider than 4' in our house, we have a small old school bungalow. Got a friend who keeps trying to give me her 180, and I've got no wall wide enough for it! Someone could buy this and come out way ahead, you've got a great setup. If nothing else drop it in storage til you get your next job, you'll be glad to have it later. Deals like this will not be up every day. Kate

Still available? I can use that... Kate

real actual emergencies By the way I do have real reasons to post here but it's venting. I make mistakes. Often. #1: Water in basement. Predictable. Same with everyone else around here. Leaving working extension cords laying on floor in the spot where the rain tends to pool, priceless. #2: Used flatworm exit on Convolutriloba/Acoel infestation in 55. Forgot was out of carbon. Had to buy it from Petsmart at 8:35 pm because real fish stores closed. Was surprised to see that flatworm exit actually worked on them, usually it only makes them let go so I can siphon and shake them off. Was hoping to at least lower the numbers so the wrasse could eat the rest, not actually wipe them out chemically. #3: Still tons of dead flatworms on sand in morning and scheduled to be in Salem for the Xmas party. Used up nearly all the make up water last night. #4: Lighting caught on fire on the tank when I fed the fish, which don't have a super hot appetite probably because of all the dead flatworms. So it's gonna be a fun day. At least the hood did not burn. Kate PS I could use a new T5HO endcap.

Do not fall down stairs, what did you do? I tripped on a tomato cage in my yard and dislocated my elbow... who needs stairs? Anyways, I would go in on the order if you did not already do it. I have brine shrimp hatching daily and an easy greenwater if you want to grow your own. Brine shrimp are pretty easy. Rotifers on the other hand are @#$) I am wondering if there is an Asian grocery on your side of town selling live marine prawns, they might be useful as well. There is one here in SE with shrimp, but the stock is pretty close to not live anymore. Thanks, Kate

Hmm. Electric shock treatment cufflinks with innocuous Nemo design, attached to the controller I don't have yet, and accessible by Droid? That might actually make me call it a "smart" phone, and incline me to use it now and then. (I seem to be the only person in the world who failed to become addicted to touch sensitive wireless telephone based hand held electronic devices.) I did try to interest him in open source controller modules but he likes to tinker with Linux a lot, and that could be dangerous. It mildly piqued his interest for about 3 seconds, anyway. Thought I could probably develop a screensaver with phases of the moon that replicate real ones, so that I could leave the computer near the tank and synchronize spawning. Nada. I can't even interest him in moving an old out of date UPS downstairs to run Korallias in a power outage. I scratch the acrylic 120 every time I breathe near it so obviously I need a whole new system. Hence the conundrum. Did you know astrea stars will burrow under a magfloat? Boy do they scratch a tank good. I was cleaning it with the lights off because I was trying to siphon baby clowns out, so did not see the starfish til it was too late. A fellow PNWMAS member has a delightful glass replacement system for only 700 dollars that I think would be perfect for my needs! Wonder if he would like to swap it for a used laptop... (: Kate

I am going to attend as well, could I get the paypal info? Need to pay dues as well. Thanks, Kate

Help! My spouse suffers from Aquarium Equipment Upgrade Aversion Disorder, is there anything I can do? The holidays are approaching, and one would think this would help but every birthday or xmas he gets "me" a new computer instead of fish gear. (He's a programmer) What can I do? I know this is linked to the dreaded Aquarium Aversion Disorder, which I have read the only cures are divorce or spontaneous abundant wealth, both of which are quite out of the question. Kate

How's it doing now? I've got a feeling it got stung by the mushrooms, seems like to get brown jelly you would have had to bring the disease to your tank on some new purchase, but I don't know. Nobody even seems to really know what "brown jelly" is since if you scope it there are a variety of possible culprits in the slime and it goes so fast you can't forward it to a coral pathologist. At least that is what I read a year ago, and coral pathology is unfortunately a growth industry these days. It was actually ricordea that stung and killed the heads off my torch, now that I think about it. The one head that lived is ok. You can have it if you want, I've got too much LPS. But you might not want coral with sweepers in a smallish tank anyways, they were even trouble in my 55. Kate

So. About this unicorn car... do you know this person? It certainly is original. If you do know this person can I rent it? I can think of many useful applications. Picking up conservative relatives at the airport, funeral processions, job interviews, blind dates, to name a few. If I run for office of course I will want to purchase it first. Kate

Super weird... some hermits nibble coral. I had blue legs eating coral at night. It was like they knew I was watching them, or maybe it was the wrasse they were avoiding (: They also eat dead stuff so it's hard to tell if they are causing a problem or cleaning it up. I lost a head off the torch when it fell into a spot where mushrooms were too close. Could that have happened to yours? Mine also got sand damage and there was a brownish slime but I don't think it was "brown jelly" as it did not spread to other polyps or to other LPS, and only the part that was buried was damaged, the other half of that polyp survived, but it took a long time to recover. Hope yours do too. At least if it is brown jelly you don't have other LPS in the tank to get it, so it's worth trying to save it. Good luck, Kate

Thought about that veggie filter idea, I could raise some tang chow and copepods at the same time. This would be better for certain macros than a refugium because it would be run with no heater in a basement closet. Most of the Ogo, gracillaria and ulva I have tried wilt away in tropical temperature refugiums. I do have an HOT magnum for carbon to prefilter after the neutralizer does it's thing. I have used prime treated portland water on SS grade red crystal shrimp with no mortality, so I think it's probably adequate, it's really easy to kill crystal shrimp with ammonia. They make coral look easy. I think dismissing tap off the cuff is not always called for, but those with tricky sps tanks especially ultra low nutrient can't mess around with it. Our house also has new pex plumbing throughout so no copper or lead. I only fill the barrel off the cold tap the washer is on, after a load of clothes, so it's water that has not sat around in pex all day absorbing who knows what plastic residue. Then I let it sit a day to offgas the microbubbles. Kate

Forgot to add: When I lived in Oly the next town over decided to flush their lines with extra chloramine. They may do this on schedule or after detecting a pathogen. That week the shop I worked at had a long parade of depressed former reef tank keepers come in and tell us how everything died after a water change. Also learned the amount of buffer and chlorine or chloramine is calculated based on how much makes it to the end of the line, so persons closer to the water treatment plant may get a higher dose than the one dechlor is calculated to neutralize. Whether or not that is true and standard I don't know, I tend to be a skeptic when certain people tell me things. Bottom line is tap is not for everyone and requires testing. I probably would not use it at all if I had a job. Kate

Any new additions to the tank that might have brought disease or nibbled on it? Any chance another LPS is using sweepers on it at night? Some LPS have shockingly long sweepers. Kate

I've been using tap for years in both Olympia and Portland. Noticed the ammonia last august, called the city, bought Prime. Already complained about chloramine on another post so will not bore you. If someone wants to play with Prime I will bring a sample to the xmas party. I do have cyano. Believe the ammonia additions were significantly contributing. Also, tap has some phosphate in it, PDX uses phosphate based buffers. The salt mix I was using doubled the phosphate. Do not have GFO reactors yet. I am not going to use RO unless a zero waste unit comes out, might buy kati ani though. Hard to justify with spouse the need for RO/DI, a little cyano does not bother him, fish are spawning, coral growing, only losses due to jumping, rock falls and failure to quarantine for zoa pox. All of which were my fault. So for now will use tap. Flame away! (: Kate

noticed this last summer after hundreds of dollars of killifish went into distress... water changes made things worse and then killed them. Finally tested the tap water and found ammonia, called the city, was told "they have to add a bunch of extra ammonia to stabilize the chlorine when it is hot out" (was august). then was told in a whining tone "you are not supposed to change more than 10% of the water anyways" which is not always practical. Guess I have never noticed the cold water tap going hot during a heat wave but what do I know. I did get on a few forums and warn people about the ammonia in PDX water but mostly got flamed in response for not shelling out for an RO/DI unit so gave up. I can't use an RO/DI. I don't get to raise our water bill at all, we already pay a high usage penalty, and re-mineralizing RO/DI for freshwater fish is a PITA. Some RO/DI marketers claim others lie about their unit's efficiency/wastage so I don't trust any of them. Plus am afraid I will flood the basement making a judgment error or tripping on the waste line. Gave away my last RO/DI unit over that one. Tried ammonia remover chips in an HOT magnum on the barrel of water before adding the salt, took a week to even make a dent in it. They don't really work. I can't buy RO water at the LFS, because I can't lift more than 10 pounds. If you have a good back keep it that way, don't go hauling 5 gallon buckets of water like I did! (: At least our city water does not have a bunch of drugs, farm runoff and heavy metal contamination. But we do have ugly tannins, which carbon takes out. Started using Prime but was warned you have to be precise with it, adding extra will neutralize ammonia in the tank depriving your bio filter which then crashes and causes an ammonia spike. Sounds logical, no idea if it's true. Found out about Kati/Ani units which are spendy and allegedly zero waste. You can recharge them with lye or acid, which is somewhat dangerous for a klutz like me. They are hard to find right now, some problem with the manufacturer in financial distress. So I don't have one yet. I can attest that Prime did not give me any hassles so far, there has been a reduction in cyano since I started using it but that might be a coincidence. Corals still grow, fish started spawning including wrasses and grammas, snails hermits and shrimp all good. When I have had LFS jobs customers came in complaining that Prime or Amquel killed all their fish, but they were dumping it into the tank straight and unmeasured as an alternative to water changes. So if you heard that these products kill fish take it with a grain of salt. It does smell bad. Doesn't it just fry you to see that green color after doing the water test? It did me... explains why I always got much more algae after a water change in my reefs. Then I did a phosphate test. Twice as much phosphate in newly made salt water as in the tap. No wonder I had algae. Fun with test kits. Kate

Had that problem myself. I think an old 10K Ushio in a pendant is an adequate SAD light, and it gets orchids to bloom. Unfortunately tends to make the neighbors curious as to what you are growing. I had it over an acrylic 50 full of RBTA's with the orchids sitting on top of the tank. Lit up the whole living room. I am convinced that there are antidepressant qualities to a good IPA, so I drink one a day, just like vitamins (: If you garden it kinda helps, because you work your butt off all summer and get grateful for the enforced vacation in fall. Plus it gives winter a purpose and place in life, you get grateful for the rain falling and the leaves composting, and the bulbs that will bloom (hopefully). Being out in the summer also means more sun so less SAD and more vitamin D. Actually D and magnesium probably help with SAD too. I am working on spawning clownfish which is so far kinda depressing due to the accidents, but hopefully will be a worthy winter project. I can't do it as well in summer because the house gets hot. (accidents being dislocating my elbow night of the first hatch, and heater fail after 3 days on the 2nd. Working on the next spawn.) You could take on some big thing you always wanted to do but never had time. Anyone else got ideas? Feeling kinda crabby myself mainly over the elbow. Hurts way more than you would think. Kate

While I agree starting a tank with no filter or liverock is unacceptable and would never advocate buying anything alive before buying the life support system, what is done is done. You can't put his fish and coral in another person's tank without spreading the ich. I second the idea of adding real cycled liverock, instead. Bring the healthy tank to him. Did you say how long the tank has been milky and if it occurred gradually or suddenly? If you have a sand bed, is anything stirring it up? How deep is it? Do you have a goal in mind as far as sand goes (Berlin method, DSB)? If you are going for deep you might want to buy some sand from someone with a healthy bed to get yours going. You should own a canister or power filter such as an HOT magnum. They are handy and last forever. Then you could get at least some filtration going and run some carbon. The micron filter probably won't do anything but it's probably worth a shot. Depends what is clouding your water. Do you have a quarantine tank? I actually quarantine everything now, even liverock. People are spreading zoanthid pox around Portland, red bugs are a pain, flatworms are everywhere, so coral need to be QT'd too. Unfortunately you don't have time to QT liverock or sand. Or you could take all your fish out and keep them in the QT tank til things stabilize, which would allow you to medicate the fish if they need it, and then you would not add food/phosphate to the reef tank. I have read that distilled water is made with copper tubing, so could have residue. Anyone have facts on this or is it an internet rumor? I just avoid it, RO/DI costs the same. Greenwater/phytoplankton start a bloom as a whitish grey haze, so be prepared to see that. Or your clam might filter it out if it is greenwater. I don't know what size or species of clam you got. Greenwater can alter ph if it's really thick to a scary degree. You want to deal with that phosphate, or your test kit sucks. Only a couple kits are accurate, and they cost a lot so most people use the worthless API kit, which will probably accurately tell you when you have "some" phosphate but gives false negatives and is hard to read. You can do water changes and use a GFO medium for absorbing the excess phosphate. If you are feeding frozen food get a brine shrimp net and rinse it well before putting it in the tank, this really helped with my phosphate and algae problems. Do you have any toddlers or drunks who may have slipped something into your tank? A friend of mine had his tank turn milky white. After 2 panic induced massive water changes he found the bologna-mayo-wonderbread sandwich his kid put in the sump behind the return pump. They also dump milk and juice all over the place. You just never know. Good luck, it gets better. Kate

you keeping other types? i have a few crystal shrimp id like mates for. cant tell if they are all male or female but i dont get babies and its been months... dont get much impressed with the lfs stock. also if you want to sell more cardinals later let me know, smaller group would be fine (6-8) hard to explain to hubby purchase over $100 of very small shrimp, he does not believe me when i quote some prices i've heard of. (: thanks, kate

Now that is a GREAT idea. Wonder if it would clear up the infestation of blue palythoa and green button palythoa in my tanks...

I'd come help, assuming you are still talking about the school near 82nd and Division. Sorry if you posted the address somewhere in the thread, I missed it. I actually am open to helping whenever in december as long as it's late enough to drink my coffee first (: Kate

Salifert alk test matches API, have tested several salifert batches vs several API batches. The Salifert kit also comes with a calibration solution... Guess I will stick with those 2.

Pretty big discrepency between the Elos and Salifert alkalinity kits, would like to know which is accurate