nate.hobart.1

I have a reef keeper if you are still looking, lemme know.

Just a tip for anyone looking for an incredible and beautiful dwarf angel- I was in Pets on Broadway today and noticed they still had a Golden Angelfish that they've had on sale for a very long time. I asked their saltwater guy about it and he said they'd had it for 3 years and he'd sell it for 60 bucks- which is a pretty great price for such a beautiful, rare and healthy little angelfish.

We'll have to see how it plays out. Hopefully it ends up being a good thing- making for more responsibly collected fish and a promotion of aquaculture. I doubt it will end up in a full on yield of the Hawaii fish collection- too many people make too much money for it to stop all together.

Blech my camera is aweful

I really want this... argh

LRS is excellent. It's not super cheap- but honestly- fat, happily eating fish are healthy fish. My fish love LRS. Other than that- and on the cheap spectrum Hikari Angelfish food blend is okay. It's definitely inexpensive and my fish gulp it down.

Holy crap guys... He... like my magnificent foxface- has 'pajama' coloring. That is- when the lights go out he totally changes color and puts on his pajamas! The pictures if terrible because the lights are out and I was scaring him with a flashlight- but it's super super cool. [emoji1]

Haha... you know it. The tangs been realizing there is a new guy in town and he's a bit grumpy about it- but not grumpy enough to chase the butterfly more than a few inches to a foot away from him. Every time I add a fish I get nervous about the social dynamic shift in my tank. I'm always thrilled when something just fits right in.

Dunno where you are at but PDX does have pretty high silicates in the tap water...

Seems like I'm in the same boat now. The fish I've got from Jeff have been very nice and healthy. He's doing so well - not hiding, already eating with all my other fish- no one is showing him any aggression. I'm thrilled.

Just wanted to show off my new declivis butterfly I picked up at Cuttlefish today. This is one of those apex fish for me- a fish I never wanted to consider owning because of price and rarity but always actually dreamed of having.

I've had goby and blenny in the same tank. It's really a non issue- especially if you have a snapping shrimp paired with the goby. If they ever feel threatened they just retreat to their den together. Honestly- a red snapping shrimp and yasha goby is just wonderful for a nano. Check out this video.

Oh... and jawfish are amazing if you have a deep enough sand and rubble bed...

I'd get a snapping shrimp and goby buddy. IMO it's the best combo for a little tank- tho they tend to rearrange things. Possum wrasse is one of my favorites cause they are very very chill. Pygmy hawk fish have tons of personality.

Also BRS gets my nod for awesome customer service. They've been pretty accommodating considering they certainly didn't have to be.

I think I might just spend some time messing with the reefkeeper. I mean... it's aleady all bolted into my cabinet and with all the cables all tidy and I just don't want to go through pulling it all apart again just yet. Maybe I'll see about getting a new ph probe and just spend some more time attempting to get the programming set. I know it's controlling the heater and light timers just work. I suppose the fan programming is likely user error. I really just want the remote access function and alerts. The fact that I literally couldn't do anything about the heatwave when I'd so specifically set it up to prevent the issue drove me bananas.

I've seen so many folks ask about adding things like tangs to their goldfish tanks - while I was browsing a LFS. I can imagine as long as you show some actual knowledge of the hobby and the store isn't overly busy most employees would be happy to engage you.

BRS will let me return it for a stocking fee- which I think is reasonable. I did program it with the computer and I loathed every second of it. The daisy chaining module effect means you can't actually just plug all of it in to program it- you have to dink around and unplug some things to program parts of it and so on. Oh and all that was after I figured out that everything needed a firmware update and had to be plugged in one unit at a time. Then the head unit wouldn't recognize the slx module. Oh and I did leave the ph probe in the two solutions for a very long time- as the video online told me to. Maybe I just am not a target market for controllers. Honestly if the apex is a more complex version of the reefkeeper I'll probably just end up even more frustrated. Though I feel my biggest issue is that the reefkeeper programming actually failed.

So I was the type to resist the tank controller for many years- never wanting to put my money into a gizmo that would help me 'automate' my tank. I finally broke down - when the summer months were approaching- and purchased a reefkeeper lite plus system. I bought it specifically to turn off my heater when it got hot- i.e. Redundancy- and also to turn on two fans I had set up over the waters surface when the tank was hitting high temps. Honestly after a few hours of messing around with the reefkeeper I was really upset at my purchase. It was really a pain to use and program... but after many YouTube videos and lots of internet searches I figured I finally had most of it programmed. The PH probe was the last thing to do. I found a video about calibration on the ph probe and went thru the process.... and it came out reeding my tanks ph at 4.5... so... I reacibrated... and again the readout was absurd. So... another recalibration... and a third incorrect reading... So I gave up on the probe and felt well enough about having a little computer that would keep my tank from over heating. Then while I was working my wife called in a panic. The tank was at 83 degrees and climbing and the fans were all off. The system was so counter intuitive I couldn't even talk her through manually turning on he fans with the reefkeeper setup- and she ended up just dragging a box fan into my office and wrapping my sump in ice packs. The tank made it through, fine. That said I think I hate the reefkeeper. It's been nothing but frustrating and now it's also not actually doing what I thought I'd programmed it to do. The ph probe is a total waste of time and... well... I don't know... What are people's experiences with tank controllers? Is the reefkeeper just junk?- as I feel it is... is the Apex the way to go? Did I just waste my time and money? Should I just have skipped the whole controller thing all together? Did i just get a bad controller? Does anyone actually use any of these things at all? I wanna know? I'm cool with returning the reefkeeper and throwing some money at a better controller- if it actually is worth it? Lemme know. Whatcha got? Is it cool? Not worth it? Talk to me about it...

https://www.reefbreeders.com/shop/jebao-battery-back-up/ I bought one of these last winter and it's really nice to have the peace of mind that even if I'm not around the mp40 will keep on running

I recently went back to t5 light from led- I'd guess- other than old bulbs that your lights aren't the problem- and honestly I've found led to be much harder to balance than t5. Led makes so much light you can really fry your corals with them fast. I'd try to reign in the nitrates. Their are lots of methods. I personally use lots of porous rock in my sump and a sulfur reactor, but their are many great options.

Could someone explain the self squeegee skimmer necks to me? Doesn't doing that just drop all that accumulated gunk from the skimmer neck right back into the skimmer? How is that a benefit?

I asked Caye's to find me one a few months ago- and they finally came through. Ghost ribbon eel. It's so tiny I doubt I'll see him for a week- but he's pretty stunning. At least as small as a golden dwarf but only 30 bucks.

I have an old crusty one you could have for free if you want to pick it up and clean it

I wish I could attend this meeting... sadly... work...