albinosage

But must also give them a fighting chance of survival before releasing to others mah Nurse them to a healthy size and let them start feeding on normal food first la. I'm also tempted to ask for one, but they will definitely get lost in the tank at this size hahaha.

Gassed him with CO2 for 2 days, all the other pests died except him

Hahaha! I always wondered if all the additives we use to strengthen the fishes will do the same to pests, it seems to have an effect on the pesky bobbit worm in my tank. Good life, been feeding on Henry's reef gourmet and living in vitamin c enriched water. It seems bulletproof in my attempts to kill it.

Yah man tell me about it... Everytime I'm free there will be a lull in shipment, nice things only come when I'm busy with work or having problems with my tank.

Just a quick reply: 1. Since is a small tank, must I get a protein skimmer? If yes, any good brands to recommend? If you are committed to frequent water change and not overfeeding, then the protein skimmer is not a must (although some people swear by it), since it is hard to find a good decent one for that tank size. 2. I be keeping live rock, fishes(cute and small) and coral, therefore should I get a small chiller to keep the live stock alive? I assume your office has air-con right? That should be sufficient, but you need to think about how to keep the water cool for 2 days a week when nobody is around the office (fan?) 3. I got a so call "thermometer" look alike to test for the salinity and what other equipments or test kit to get. Read from the web talking about ammonia, nitrates etc... Get the basic test kits for Ammonia, Nitrite and Nitrate, these are quite crucial for the cycling period, although I hardly use the ammonia test kit after my own tank completed cycling. 4. If everything is ok, how frequent must i change the water and how many percent? For suck a small tank, I would think that water change needs to be more frequent cos the water parameters fluctuates quite greatly. I think 25% each time should be safe. 5. For topping up the water, can i use tap water or "self mix" salt water? Try not to use tap water, cos it contains phosphates and other organic/chemical substances. Do you have a water cooler/purifier in the office? Water from there should be quite safe depending on what kind of filtration it goes through, if not, for such a small tank, you can easily buy 1.5 litres distilled water for water change. Lastly, good luck with your office tank, it is always a great idea to look away from the computer once in a while to relax

If I'm not wrong, it should be 6 to 7 inches across at least right, John? Can trim the spikes with scissors actually, damn irritating when it breaks off and drop all over the tank.

DOH! Silly me, should have seen that coming, the next natural step! Hahaha. I recall SantaMonica posting some links to blueprints of compact scrubbers utilising LED lights. Do keep us posted on your plans for the scrubber

Sherman, are you asking us a rhetorical question or is this some teaser for a solution you invented

Tsk tsk.... This week, they gonna get a sudden surge of customers and they will wonder why

Eh bro, I thought you reservist? AWOL to go buy fish ah? JK.. You're very committed to reefing man, precious weekend also go back office to tend to tank, LOL!

Salinity go up cos of evaporation, you must top up the difference with enough fresh water (distilled) to maintain the salinity.

Paper cuts occur more frequently because of brittle skin on dry hands, and most of us have dry hands cos of prolonged exposure to salt water. It's best to frequently moisturise your hands to prevent papercuts

Who? Me?? I only use up 1/2 teaspoon nia! Don't saboh me leh, later everyone bomb my PM hahahaha. I think there is 15% discount for orders above a certain amount, and 50% off shipping for orders above USD$200 or something like that. I don't mind ordering in future if there is enough interest, but it is the collection that's the problem.

Hey bro amby, why you don't want to keep this thread??? Don't be shy lah keep this thread alive, I think it is a visual treat.

Hi Mark, the product is the one in the first post: http://www.iherb.com/ProductDetails.aspx?p...293197697039798 I ordered a small bulk from iherb to maximise the savings and shared with some bros here

Yeah sure, just PM me when your reservist ends. By the way, I'm not endorsing the vitamin c, just posting my observations as it is and let everyone judge for themselves. If my first trial with the vitamin c had failed, I would consume it myself anyway hahaha.

I didn't expect any immediate results so I didn't take pics, but the "before" state of the zoa was not much better than the pic I posted, not an exaggeration, cos I didn't change water or tinkle with the tank at all besides moving that piece of zoa further back cos a snail pushed him around. The main difference I noticed was not the better colours, but the skirts around the polyps were opening up symmetrically in a perfect circle, previously, they were all lopped sided and of irregular shapes. I don't know how to explain, but basically a couple hours after dosing, they all closed up 100% as if lights were off, then one by one over a few hours, they opened slightly to vomit small blobs of black goo, before blooming 100% again with better colours. I can't say it was the vitamin c for sure, it could be a perfect coincidence resulting from something else, but my finger is pointed at the most obvious "culprit". I hope this means I will have better luck with zoas from now on

There you go: The single polyp that is not opened is in the final process of vomiting out the black stuff. I couldn't get the lighting to match exactly even though I shot at the same settings and white balance, probably it's cos they were shot at different times of the day. But you'd get the rough idea from the pics

Will take pics tonight if there's time! Update tomorrow morning

Backside itchy, so I bought a bigger nanocube lor hahaha! Was using a 12 gallon at home, bought a 24 gallon recently

Yah I guess it was detoxing itself. But it's really unbelievable how fast it reacted and how it suddenly colours-up to a level I've not seen for the last 5 weeks, all within one day. Not complaining though. Will continue dosing it to see how the rest turn out.

DOH! Forgot that it was a nano tank

Actually, there is no difference between using market prawn or damsel fish to cycle a tank, as mentioned much earlier, the purpose of this is to introduce decaying organisms to set off the ANN cycle. The only difference is of course, the excitement of having live fishes swimming around in a new fish tank. I understand most people who are starting this hobby would want to see instant results by having some life form in the tank. It is that "shiok" factor of visually seeing something inside, after spending so much on the set up already - as opposed to switching on the pump for weeks in an empty tank. That said, you would have to consider if you are in this hobby for the long term or is it just a passing phase. You would be tempted to buy other nicer fishes once the tank is cycled and would have to consider what you are going to do with the damsels after your tank is cycled, because damsels are extremely territorial and aggressive, and hard to catch once you have set up your rock scape. Do get yourself a set of test kit, at the bare minimum if you don't want to spend so much in the beginning, get the NO2 test kit, if read properly, this can indicate the completion of the cycling. If NO2 peaks and then disappears to zero, the cycle is most probably complete. Not a perfect solution and definitely not recommended, but better than nothing at all. Contrary to what you believe, what we have advised is actually the most basic knowledge, and is not something done exclusively by senior or experienced reefers. Although I have helped my friend maintain his tank for more than a year, I'm considered new to reefing myself, having owned my tank for 3 months, and the information I have were all gathered when I started researching 2 months before buying my tank. Never had any livestock die at my hands, besides some corals that were unhealthy when bought. Good luck with your new tank, and do read up more if this is not a passing phase.

According to the numbers in your table, I must have severely OD-ed! Hahaha. But still, everything has been normal so far. Maybe will dose another pinch of vitamin c in a day or two.

I started the vitamin C yesterday, hoping to get better growth and colours for my zoas which are not doing well, looking pale. Very skeptical at first, but since I'm gonna decom my current tank soon, I thought "just whack lah, anything go wrong can start all over in the new tank" Started by introducing a small amount, about 1/2 teaspoon, of vitamin C into the IOS compartment of my nanocube, 2 or 3 hours later, i was HORRIFIED to see 2 polyps of my eagle eye from the Irwana US zoa shipment produce a thick black goo from the mouth. It is not the usual brown strands of zooxanthellae, but thick black blobs. The few hours that follows, more polyps vomited the same black stuff. THEN..... .... .... . . . At night, just before the lights went out, I checked on the zoas, and despite a couple of polyps still vomiting, the rest of them suddenly bloomed with at least 100% better colours than they were in the afternoon before the vitamin C! I will get some "after" photos to back up my claims tonight or tomorrow, but here's the "before" photo taken 2 weeks ago: The green skirts were faded and the pink centre looked "dirty", and a few polyps were closed or dropped off due to zoa pox. The colour of the zoas last night was bright green on skirt with bright pink centre, all polyps opening evenly. I didn't change water since that photo was taken and water parameters were similar, except that it was pouring yesterday afternoon and the temperature dipped sharply. The vitamin C and miracle cure for colours could be a coincidence, but still, the simplest explanation is the best explanation for me