Flashy Fins

When I started my tank, I had no idea that corals might not appreciate bright light for 16 hours straight and ran my tank that way! Thankfully, I only had two T5 bulbs, so I never managed to burn anything. I use four T5 bulbs now. Two of them (1 Blue+ and 1 actinic) come on at 8am and stay on till 7pm. The white bulbs (both Coral+) only run from 9am till 5pm. Maybe it's a bit much, but I'd really prefer the lights on longer, so it's a compromise between what I want and what I think the corals want.

How far are you getting? I could get all the way to the end of the payment process, but on the final confirmation screen, it would error out and tell me my card or account couldn't be used for that type of transaction, no matter which one I selected (even though there's plenty of money/available credit on all linked accounts and cards). The way I finally got it to work was by adding money to my paypal balance, then using that to pay. I've used paypal for 14 years and have never had that problem, but first time for everything.

Just paid.

Paypal worked fine for me today. I'm paid up and an official member.

All right, you got me. But... I'm having trouble paying through the subscription link. No matter what I do, it errors out. Is there an email I can send the money to directly? Also, since everyone seems to know but me - where are you located? I want to be one of these people telling others they need to see your stuff.

The good news is... you weren't on vacation!

Nope, not at all.

I rarely buy or sell anything, so listen to PowderBlue before listening to me. (My comment was guesswork; I should've stated that.)

Yikes. They definitely could damage a clam, so if you never had clam trouble before and noticed it going downhill around the same time as the whelks appeared, I would say it's likely. That sucks!

Depends on the demand for the item (Vortech > Koralia), but I always check amazon pricing before buying or selling anything. I see stuff listed here all the time that's well-worn, and the seller wants the same price amazon wants for new, or very close to it. Greed does not shock me, but it's always surprising to see the stuff sell. Even if you paid $400 for an item, if it's 5 years old and now $250 new on amazon, I don't think $250 or even $200 is an appropriate asking price for the used one. For items with plenty of life left, I'd say... 50% discount (or more) for cheap brands 40% discount (or more) for mid-range brands 30% discount (or more) for premium brands 15% discount for premium brand items that are new/unused Items near the end of their life should be sold dirt cheap or given away.

Some of the good nassarius snails have a similar shell on the foot (if you look closely, you can see one here), but what you have are predatory whelks. The pattern on the snout is a giveaway. I had some similar bad guys once and was able to fish them all out just by grabbing them whenever I saw them. I pulled out 6 or 8 within a 2-week span and was done. Likely I had some eggs that hitchhiked in.

I have a murderous Florida rock snail that has taken out all my other snails and most of my bristle worms. It's time for his eviction. (Foolishly added him as an unknown nassarius; took me a while to figure out he was a killer.) The shell is about 2.5", so nothing massive, but perhaps a good for a snack if you have a mantis, puffer, or other creature capable of cracking a shell. Any takers? I live walking distance from Vancouver mall. Won't be home tonight, but tomorrow works if someone wants to come get him. Photo for the curious (don't buy for your reef): http://i1177.photobucket.com/albums/x355/cheranysphotos/00dumpitydump/snail2.jpg

A coral hosting a Midas is possibly the cutest thing ever.

I'm having trouble finding it, but I read not too long ago they switched it back upon further research. Getting rid of wellso never caught on with most people, so many will be none the wiser that it ever changed names.

This photo is stunning! Love the fish pic, too.

I've never seen one with spots like that. It's a beauty! Hope it recovers.

Your prices look good to me, and I think a buyer wil come along. I'd jump on the puffer if I could give it a good home (it's gorgeous!), but I'm in an apartment and not able to go for the big FOWLR I dream of having someday. Wife would never go for an eel; an enormous moray scared her senseless in the ocean once (night snorkeling; it was in her face and around her body before she even saw it), and now she gets frightened by the snowflake babies in store tanks, as if that is the same. Ridiculous non-logic, but she doesn't object to much else, so I respect the request.

I don't have anything fitting to join in, but this is such a cool idea!

Holly, your tanks are gorgeous! Thanks, Kim, for taking such nice photos and sharing. In the board meeting photos, Sirena appears to be sitting on the couch with a tremendous amount of cotton candy! Took me a minute to realize those were flowers on the table, haha. Sorry I couldn't be there. I've been sick lately and didn't want to bring my germs to the party.

Nice to see so much success! You guys are doing fantastic growing those polyps out. Shamefully, I was an early drop-out. I got super busy with work and missed a deadline for posting, then had one of my lights go out in my qt (leaving only actinic over the tank) for 2 weeks (busy and kept forgetting to replace), so by that point, the zoas were looking rough. Skip to now, and I'm recently home from a vacation during which the sitter failed to do daily water top-offs in a 10 gallon tank (causing about 4 gallons to evaporate), then he dumped 2 gallons of freshwater in all at once just before I returned, so you can imagine the salinity fluctuations and how everything looked. The zoas aren't entirely dead, but they do have a melted look and haven't opened for days, so they may be goners.

Could be tisbe copepods, but you should be able to squint and tell if that is the case. They're clear with tiny little legs that are usually flailing about when they find themselves in the water column, as they are used to crawling on the glass and rocks and don't really swim. I have so many, they crawl onto the power heads and soon find themselves blown around the tank. Sand is more likely, though.

Thank you again for putting this together! It's my first growout comp, so I'm really excited! I'm starting with 6 polyps of the zoanthids. Top down view: Tank is sitting on a red cabinet, and you can see the frag is all the way up to the front glass. Front view: Left side: Right side: Now, time to laugh at my tank specs! Tank is so newly cycled, I'm utilizing an ammonia badge just to be safe, but hey, me being least likely to win means the rest of you are each one step closer to being the winner yourself. Tank: cheap-o 10 gallon, set up as a coral/invert QT Flow & filtration: one and the same, a cheap Aqueon HOB filter with a sponge seeded from my reef tank Lighting: 2 T5 bulbs, one 10,000K daylight and one true actinic Feeding: I squirt a VERY small amount of food in every few days (mix of cyclopeeze, Reef Nutrition eggs, and mysis) and do my best to get it into the mouths of corals, rather than all over the tank, although I am not particularly successful at that No dosing, no reactors, no sump, no skimmer, no fish, no luck (we'll see)!

Whuuuut? I'm curious if this was actually typed or a censor correction. I need to come see your tank, if for no other reason than to learn the names of some zoas. As ridiculous as the name game can get, I think if I knew the names of a few things, I could ask around and find out who has the stuff I want to buy. You have some fantastic colors!

Very nice of you to document! It's funny, I see people in these pictures I didn't even see at the meeting, because the room was so full of activity! That's the best kind of meeting.

We stopped by there after the meeting, and I agree, very impressive coral tanks! They also have a nice selection of rimless tanks right there on the shelves for sale, to say nothing of the equipment mentioned. The small critters in the store like ferrets and hamsters have sliding doors on the cages that you're allowed to open up and reach into, so you're able to pet whatever doesn't run from you, haha. They have quite the variety of animals, too. Puppies are pretty much guaranteed to keep your spouse entertained while you gawk at coral. I confess to cringing a bit when I see puppies for sale in pet stores, but they did all look healthy and happy, and it was really nice to see them in something other than the jail cell wire cages a lot of shops use. Highly recommend checking the place out if you're in the area!