EMeyer

Thanks guys thats useful. A new tank is absolutely out of the question, but good to know 1" is the thickness to look for. I knew it needed to be thick but didnt know it had to be that thick.

Got a nice chiller from a friend and I'm considering setting up a coldwater tank. Looking for an acrylic tank with nice thick walls. I've read this is useful to minimize condensation. Something in the 30-60 gal range and ideally a cube or similar. But I'm flexible on that. Also not picky about scratches. Anyone have an old acrylic tank to get rid of?

Thanks for the business and all the kind words, really glad to hear things worked out. Theres always a little bit of fingers crossed even with local shipping.

Cyphastrea are amazing! Totally under rated corals. With a collection like that, have you explored growing them on anything (branches, skulls, or other ceramic shapes?)

I wonder if its possible to address one general point of discussion without getting into the personal. (Disclaimer - I wasnt involved in the transactions discussed in the original post) I think there are two questions about selling used equipment on which people have fundamental disagreements. This extends beyond this community or even this hobby, I see this in general. 1. What is the appropriate price for used equipment? Retail? 1/2 retail? less? 2. Is haggling over price rude or a normal, expected part of the sales process? As far as I can tell, there are two schools of thought for each of these questions, making four groups. Me personally, I'm in the "1/2 retail and no haggling" school, but I think its worth recognizing that there are good and reasonable people in all four groups. We're all just starting the transaction with different assumptions. In my view its not useful to get angry with people for having a different position on these things, when there is so much diversity of opinion on these issues. Whichever group one finds themselves in, the other 3 groups... thats a lot of people to be angry at. my 0.02

Right now I've got probably 5-6 different kinds of cyphastrea in stock and another 6 or so in growout. Cheap to free shipping in the PNW depending on order size.

Its crazy how variable it can be. My well: ~50 My neighbors well (~1/4 mile away): >350 Junction City municipal (also a well-fed system - 15 miles in the opposite direction): ~300 Meanwhile Corvallis people tell me they have something closer to 5, right? (Then again, they have to put up with Corvallis, so maybe its a wash)

Good question - I see from the notes there is a refugium with rock and algae. Got any live rock / live sand / mud in the system?

I agree with Lexinverts on both the alk and nopox For whatever its worth, I'd also consider it overfiltered. Its really striking that you feed a lot but have very low nutrients in the water and no algal growth. Filter socks, UV, carbon reactor, and GFO reactor all running? I know there is lots of variation on this point, but in my subjective experience corals are happier without *any* of those in the system. Every time I try adding any one of these I end up removing it because it only seems to make things worse.

Yes, if your location is OR it should offer that as an option during checkout

Hi everyone, After more than a year of testing we're done with development and ready to launch - the tankDNA test is available now. What does this test for? Anything Eukaryotic. (What the @#$% is a Eukaryote, and why can't this guy just speak English?) Anything that's not Bacteria or Archaea. Animals, algae, fungi, plants, and odd little micro-eukaryotes like Ciliates and Amoebae that defy simple classification. Anything and everything besides Bacteria and Archae (those are covered already by our Microbiome Test) The reason I put it this way is to emphasize that the test isn't restricted to a particular set of parasites that we're already looking for. If your tank has some oddball parasite we've never heard of before, it'll still show up on the test as long as its a Eukaryote. How does it work? This test uses eDNA - environmental DNA present in aquarium water samples. The organism itself is typically not present, just eDNA (which includes dissolved DNA, cells, and tissue debris). To emphasize this point: a large fraction of the DNA in these samples comes from macroscopic animals like fish, corals, snails, and sponges that are obviously not present as whole organisms in the water sample! We sequence the same small piece of the genome in each DNA molecule in the sample, and compare these DNA sequences with a database to identify the organism each one came from. This part of the process works just like the microbiome test, just using different molecular reagents in the lab, and comparing the results with a different DNA sequence database. In this case we're targeting the 18S ribosomal DNA which is shared by all Eukaryotes, where the microbiome test targets a region of the 16S rDNA shared by all Prokaryotes. The logistics work just like the Microbiome test. We ship you a kit, you sample the DNA, then ship it back in the prepaid shipping envelope. We analyze tankDNA samples alongside Microbiome samples in our monthly tests, so results are available 2-4 weeks after you send in your sample (depending how close to the deadline it arrived). What kind of information do you get from the test? I've attached a few screenshots from a recent test on one of my tanks. This is my zoa frag system so there are no interesting parasites to show you. Knock on wood, may it stay that way. But the report still lists what its looking for. For most users the punchline comes in this section, which highlights parasites responsible for a variety of diseases in aquarium livestock. The report also highlights a few animal pests. I must caution you that these appear to not contribute very much eDNA to the sample so that the test ends up not being very sensitive for these. If we detect Aiptasia, you've got a bunch of Aiptasia. But I imagine nobody needed a DNA test to find Aiptasia in the first place so I dont lose a lot of sleep worrying about it. The report also includes a summary of the different sources contributing DNA to the sample. I find this useful to evaluate whether the test sampled the eukaryotic community effectively, so that we can have some confidence in a negative result. Its good to see a report with lots of diversity overall, and especially in the micro-eukaryotes like the ciliates (Intramacronucleata). My report shown here matches this description. [In contrast, what I don't want to see (and have worked hard to minimize in our new improved tankDNA sampling kit) is a sample dominated one by one or a few groups, with only a few types and low overall diversity. In those cases DNA from one source is dominating the sample and could be obscuring the presence of rarer types. ] Finally the complete table. Some of the most interesting stuff shows up here. In the final section we just show you all the data, classified by family, and let you sort it out. This is where you can find unexpected results. Its always good to explore the Ciliate community, since there are several of these associated with disease. For aquarists who attribute RTN / STN in corals to the action of ciliates, this will be an especially interesting (and perhaps worrying) area to explore. Aquarists facing diatom or dinoflagellate problems may be interested in the detailed descriptions of Diatoms and Dinoflagellates. I'll note that this tank did not have a major dino problem at the time of sampling but it sure did break it out dinos afterwards. While I find Ostreopsis commonly at low levels without problems, I've learned to pay attention when it reaches the levels I found in this sample. Its worth exploring the rest just for fun, to get a sense for how sensitive the test is. Plant pollen, human skin fungus, all kinds of odd things show up. Why does it matter? A subset of tanks I've tested harbor parasites, even though they didnt have any visible symptoms. But what happens when you add a new, carefully sourced and painstakingly quarantined fish to this environment? When we do lose a fish, we'd like to know if the tank is now infected with whatever killed it. If we take actions to rid our tank of parasites, like a fallow period or peroxide treatment, it would be nice to have some confirmation that these actions succeeded. I imagine there are lots of applications I'm not even thinking of for this test. If you have questions about parasites or any other eukaryotes in your tank, give it a try. --- As always PNWMAS members are eligible for 20% discount on testing, just message me with your email address so I can add it to the coupon list. Happy to answer any questions about this. Thanks!

We've got a bunch of zoas in stock currently, maybe something you're looking for? https://orchardreef.com/product-category/zoas/

Always happy to put something together. We're about to launch the eDNA service after testing on a couple hundred tanks, so theres plenty to talk about there. Also some fun stuff from the live rock testing. If theres interest I'm always happy to give a talk about this stuff.

RODI water coming straight out of the RODI has bacteria in it already. Unless you're doing something to sterilize it, I'm sure there are bacteria in the RODI container too. I tested mine a while ago. Gotta admit I never got around to writing up the results, but no question about it, plenty of bacteria in the RODI.

Those are the real thing - old coral skeletons, not mined or manmade.

I thought I'd add an example from one of the batches we recently sold out of. (It took about 45 minutes to sell out of the entire batch) Here are some highlights: Over 800 different types of microbes 13 different kinds of Ammonia-oxidizing microbes including both Bacteria and Archaea 4 kinds of Nitrite-oxidizing Bacteria No evidence of any of the known Bacterial pathogens Over 100 different types of Eukaryotic organisms, including worms, sponges, tunicates, and lots of protists No evidence of known parasites or pest species A complete list of ingredients Here's the complete report provided along with each order of rock from this batch: rock3.1_COA.html That batch is gone, but I'm preparing and testing another five batches now... it should be ready Mid April, anyone interested in buying a batch can join the waitlist at https://aquabiomics.com/product/live-reef-rubble ALSO - a secret tip for my PNWMAS friends - it sells out faster on AquaBiomics than Orchard Reef. So if you miss a chance to buy it on AquaBiomics when it comes up, check the same product on Orchard Reef for a second chance.

Hi folks, Just a quick note to let you know I've dedicated some tanks in the new greenhouse to farming Clean Chaetomorpha. We're selling this through the coral farm website, Orchard Reef Nothing revolutionary really, just clean healthy macroalgae for your refugium. This is exclusively grown in fish-free systems under natural sunlight. We sell it in a pretty generous portion, because when Chaeto is growing well there is plenty to spare. If you've got a local reefing buddy who can share some chaeto with you instead, go for it! That's always gonna be the cheapest option. If you can't find any locally, here's an option for you.

Glue on your finger, rub it on the rock. Gloves are nice.

IME the only problem with superglue is that it doesnt stick to the rocks well because of the biofilm covering the rocks. I find that rubbing it directly on the rock with your finger fixes this. Apply superglue to rock, apply superglue to frag, push them together and rub & twist until it starts to set. Epoxy can be so bulky and ugly, but a well done superglued frag can have more or less no visible glue.

Embarrassed to say I did not measure nutrients. I did see reduced levels of ammonia oxidizing microbes, but not nitrite oxidizing bacteria. Also no visible changes in the tanks (no nuisance algae etc) I need to measure nutrients next time

I repeated the treatment 3 times, 2-3 days apart. I havent experimented further with this dosing schedule... perhaps additional doses over a longer period would be useful, I can't say. In principle any use of antibiotics introduces a risk of selecting for antibiotic resistance. It seems this risk is greatest with chronic exposure, or the prophylactic use of antibiotics. I consider treating a lethal (to the corals) infection to be a situation where the risk is justified, but I guess I'd hesitate to ever say there is no risk of this happening. All I can do is minimize it. I certainly would not recommend using any in-tank antibiotics in a preventative way, for that reason.

the one I used is https://www.entirelypets.com/thomas-labs-fish-flox-forte-500-mg-30-tablets.html I have not experimented with others.

I will add that I think dips make sense to kill surface parasites but I don't think they're the way to go for diseases. I tried cipro dips for a long time with no benefits before I decided to treat the whole tank. I don't think its possible to get enough medicine into the corals in a short dip, and long dips just stress the coral in other ways.

Ciprofloxacin at 0.125 mg per L. I find a specific Arcobacter sp. in every specimen of BJD I can get my hands on. This antibiotic knocks it out, and has in my hands been safe for in-tank treatments. I've treated two tanks with it, saved half a dozen colonies of Euphyllia. There are certainly ciliates visible in the samples of BJD but I consider them secondary. In my opinion they are eating the coral tissue that's already dying from the bacterial infection.

RODI water is in principle the wrong way to do this. On some refractometers, you may get lucky and get away with it, if the refractometer has a perfectly linear response. (I wouldnt bet on this, for instruments that cost on average $30) When we calibrate a refractometer we are performing a 1-point calibration. Anytime you're doing a 1-point calibration, that point needs to be as close to the target level. The farther you get from your calibration point, the larger the errors will be. So calibrating with RODI is great if you want to read RODI. But if you calibrate with RODI and read seawater, you'll get errors. I like the homemade calibration solution, pretty easily prepared with household materials Reef Aquarium Salinity: Homemade Calibration Standards by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com