Salty Pickle

copy that

I just wanted to take the time to wish the community a happy thanksgiving, may you and your family find peace and joy. May your tanks be free of excess phosphates, nitrates, low alkalinity/calcium and unwanted pests.

Frag secured, thank you everybody for your input and help.

I am looking for a frag/colony of Tyree rainbow Stylophora.The polyps are baby blue, while its main body has pigmentation that ranges from violet to pink to red to yellow to green. Shoot me a pic and a price. Thank you for you time.

I bought a top for my Red Sea 525x and couldn't be happier: http://artfullyacrylic.3dcartstores.com

Super awesome, Thank you!

Figured out why i was having such a hard time, my power bar is faulty. Vertex Support has been spectacular at trouble shooting and now the are sending a new power bar without hassle. Great company and great support so far.

waiting for approval, thank you for the link.

I fit the doser, doser containers, cerebra power strip, ecotech backup battery, and all the cables in the chiller side and then I built a removable false wall for the controllers and to make it look cleaner. Its been a long night of tinkering. Still have a small amount of cable management left but I would say the Cerebra is officially installed.

thank you

I finished installing the cerebra tonight. I placed a ton of equipment into the chiller side of my reefer. The power bar on the cerebra was much larger than i anticipated but i made it work SaveSave

I am struggling to get this thing programed, anybody have time to help a brother out?

according to Meredith from BRS the probes do not work

I am swamped with projects around the house and time seems to be a hot commodity for me right now, so I am looking to delegate some of my "to do" list. I need a plumber that can install a utility sink in my garage, the hot/cold is about 4ft away from where the sink needs to go. God news is that my "crawlspace" is more of a "slightly hunched space", its about 5 feet tall, plenty of room to work. I also need a drain installed in the wall of my living room so I can simply drain my water without buckets or hoses running across the house. I just want to watch the water magically disappear, lol. I do not have any trades, just cold hard cash. Anybody know somebody that may know a guy that can do said project in Gresham?

Today I had the honor of meeting Mr. Bett at his coral hoarder cave and gazing upon his field of zoas. The pic in no way does the collection any justice. Mr. Brett allowed me to cherry pick a few frags and offered them at incredibly humble prices. His hospitality and willingness to answer questions makes 2 hours feel like 15 minutes. If anybody has the chance to visit and/or buy a couple frags, I highly recommend it. I have battled some significant outbreaks from buying "dirty frags" in the past so I am always a bit nervous every time I purchase something, whether it be from an online vender or a forum member. The first thing I did when I got home was dip the frags. While all the frags soaked I individual inspect each colony for eggs, zoa pox, ZE nudibranchs, flatworms and any other unwanted hitchhikers. With Mr. Brets frags, I found none. All I found at the bottom of the dip was a couple copepods and a baby Stomatella snail. I would not hesitate to purchase again in the future. Out of habit, I always transfer frags to new plugs that are seasoned in my sump so I might loose a couple heads, but that is a result of my own hyper vigilance and no indication on the health and quality of Mr. Brets frags. I am super happy with my frags, Thanks Bret!

When you sober up from the pain meds, I found this link for you https://www.reference.com/beauty-fashion/rid-green-hair-cd907283d6346a55 . just playing, Happy Birthday!

Sorry about the lack of info. 108g in the display 31g sump, total H2O is 139g. skimmer chamber 19x19. looking for in sump skimmer, no fuge, but want available space for future equipment.

I am firmly locked in analysis paralysis and I can not for the life of me figure out what to do. This is the part of the hobby that I loath. I need to buy a skimmer and have narrowed it down to 4. I considered the Reef Octopus but could not find a footprint small enough to my liking. Vote and/or leave some feedback on your experience, its all welcome and appreciated.

Pretty dang awesome what you can get for $360 in other hobbies. In the reefing hobby $360 buys you.... hold on I'm thinking.

I started with the enclosure I was going to use longterm. Once the enclosure is dialed in there is no reason to have to go through the pain of building a new one and stressing the animal out while you dial in a whole new habitat. The only changes I made through the growth of my GTP was the diameter and location of the branches. I chose the dimensions I did because it gave the GTP options. The larger footprint on the floor gave the mouse room to run around and the snake a chance to actually hunt, this was another reason why I used sphagnum moss. I also wanted to create "temperature zones" in the enclosure and give the GTP the opportunity to cool off or warm up, and chose its lighting preference, lit or dim. Its similar to our PAR zones in our reef tanks. Bigger size means more vegetation and branch options which got me one step closer to an optimal environment outside of being in the wild. Sure I could have set up a tiny enclosure with one branch, and a plant in the corner with newspaper on the ground, you can also keep a Beta in a coffee cup, or a living turtle on a keychain, again doesn't mean I should. I am a firm believer that the quality of the animals life should frequently be assessed. I see you have had previous experience with reptiles in the past so I apologize if there is any redundancy in what I have explained. This particular topic made me vulnerable to long winded rants. I just moved and I know for a fact I packed the mistking. I will dig it out of whatever box it is in and put it to the side for you.

You ask a tough question and one that has gotten me fired in the the past. The best beginner snake is the one you feel most comfortable and capable taking care of. For the vast majority of people making impulse buys at petco for their 8 yr old, the best beginner snake is no snake at all or a rubber snake from Toys R Us. I used to turn people away because they saw "cool" and not a living animal. 9/10 they would return the animal with injuries, malnourishment, diseases, infections, and ultimately a reptile with irreversible damage or even death. I rescued a 6ft albino burmese python that had bitten its owner and the owner out of anger put cigarettes out on the snake. The snake survived but the twisting of the scales due to scarring made shedding an incredibly stressful and painful process for the snake. When I started refusing people the sale of an animal because I could tell, through a line of questioning, that they had no intention of properly caring for the animal, I was fired, lol. I understand why I was fired, Im not bitter. I digress, my first snake was a ball python and I loved him to pieces. Very calm, easy to care for, and I took him everywhere. It was a male so the max size was 2-3 ft, females are generally larger, which I felt was a good size. Looking back on it now, skating down the street with a snake wrapped around my arm, was probably a stupid idea. Its also good to remember that pythons in general can live up to 20 years so its a longterm investment. So I would recommend a Ball Python as a beginner snake for an adult and a corn snake for a very responsible kid.

As juveniles they are highly prone to injuries due to handling and people trying to uncoil them off the branches, the python coils with more intent and the human pulls harder with more determination. They are nocturnal and will often leave the branch in search of food, this is a common time for people to stick their hands in the cage to grab the GTP and get bit. They don't realize the GTP is on the hunt and anything coming into the cage will be perceived as a threat or food, next to my Nile Monitor the GTP was one of the more aggressive feeders I had ever had. People that manage to get their GTPs outside the cage will cause major stress to the snake due to the sudden change in environment and overstimulation (another set up to getting bit). It is also a great opportunity to cause illness in the snake as well since the tight perimeters needed to care for the snake can not be achieved outside the enclosed environment. GTP's are just like our fish and have personalities of their own. Some can be tamed but in general they can not, and just because you can doesn't mean you should.

I had one many years ago when I was the manager of a reptile department back in Cali. I built my enclosure out of wood and glass, it was 36x36x36. all the sides were wood except the front sliding door. For heating I went with this: http://pro-products.com. For misting I went with this: http://www.mistking.com I still have my mistking that is no longer in use that I would be more than happy to give you. You would need tubing and a seconds timer but I have the pump and it is in flawless condition. This is the actual pump: http://www.mistking.com/Starter-Diaphragm-Misting-Pump.html. for plants I went with a combination of silk and live pothos. Once the pothos started vining I removed the silks as the pathos started to spread. It is a fast grower, very tolerant of the conditions, non toxic, and easy to prune. I also might actually still have a hook laying around for handling the python. They are not a snake you can handle. For bedding I used live sphagnum moss. Sphagnum moss has amazing water retention to boost humidity and antibacterial properties. It has been used for 100's of years as a wound dressing prior to the establishment of modern medicine. I was buying live sphagnum moss by the boat loads when I was cultivating Nepenthes Plants. I would buy off the forums here: http://www.terraforums.com/forums/forum91/. Flea-bay is an okay place to get live sphagnum but it often came in "dirty". This particular python requires stable conditions but since you know how to maintain a reef, I trust you can handle that.

I have no idea what I am going to house yet. I have been relegated to small nano tanks and now that I am no longer in that "nano club" Im trying to wrap my head around my options. Things I was only able to dream about have now become an option. One thing I do know is I am going to go LPS/softy dominant with some less demanding SPS up at the top like stylophora.

Super awesome, I let you know when Im done cycling.