hongqixian

Usually when you see them dirty You can change them when you see that they're discolored or contain sludge, but it's okay to leave them for a bit longer if you want to be thrifty with the pads. Don't let them get clogged up with too much fish waste and tank dirt though because those will rot and degrade your water quality.

btw, it is possible to seed coralline algae growth by scraping or scratching at a coralline encrusted rock in the water and letting the fragments disperse. Otherwise the coralline may takes longer to spread to new areas. Just a cheap trick and you need suitable water conditions to see good growth.

the crushed coral chips contain calcium carbonate. Aragonite is a purer form of calcium carbonate. Anyway, we use these materials as substrate because unlike wood or some kinds of rock, they do not leach acids or compounds which affect seawater chemistry adversely. The buffering effect does occur but probably to a very slight extent compared to saltwater - just use some powdered buffer if you want to maintain your pH.

Try some good old-fashioned mechanical filtration. Get some aquarium filter wool pads and place them in your filter compartment. Change when necessary - the wool is cheap anyway. If you cannot manage to filter out the murkiness because the sediment is too fine for the wool (shouldn't be the case) then do a total water change as a last ditch resort. hope this helps.

hi jervismun, i've been reading your office tank thread with much interest. wow great job on it! anyway those pretty much look like flatworms to me. Bad news. You might want to try some products like Flatworm Exit. Search the forums for more info.

You might not want to risk clams because you're starting a new setup without a skimmer - clams require good water conditions, good calcium levels etc, in short reef conditions. Esp since frogfish are carnivores - the water might become polluted fast, and a 2fter does not have very stable water conditions, temperature issues also. 2x36w might be enough but it might not be a very good idea to put in an expensive clam only to watch it die imo.

k, will try, thanks a bunch!

okay maybe I will, because it's back to hiding again. Does anyone happen to know what shops in the East sell live brine? Thanks!

disconnect the slower pump - it will limit the rate of water flow through both and there will be irregular flow. yea do a water change, and like for everything in this hobby, take it slow. Try not to add more corals until you find that your current ones are doing well. all the best!

I tried it with pellet food and mysis - the angel took one nip at it but didn't seem to be too interested, although my dottyback came to eat a little bit too. It's starting to nibble the other live rocks though. Picky angel. Keeping my fingers crossed.

thxthx

Hi, These may be of interest: http://www.garf.org/lemn02/BAG0BUGS.html http://garf.org/1armci/dendro.html#Dendronephthya and http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/1296/1296_4.html Some people hang these corals upside down because they do grow hanging down from ledges naturally in the sea. Some don't.

heh it's okay, i'm using a smooth round pebble of some kind of coral skeleton that i got from the beach a long time ago. Trying it with mysis alone first - since I don't have nori (yet?). Froze the pebble in a small plastic bag - no sweat. Using the pebble because I can't bear to freeze any of the worms (the rocks in my tank are limited and full of worms). heh.

Hi, wondering if the pasir ris side - eg Iwarna still has skunk cleaners in stock. Btw does anyone know if Kwang's Aquarium at Crane Road is still in operation and selling shrimp - eg ###### shrimp? Thanks.

hahaha icic! go read this thread: http://www.sgreefclub.com/forum/index.php?...20anemone&st=15 anyway a good healthy bubble-tip anemone (yours looks like a BTA?) would be something like andtsg's bubble tip see the lovely rich brown it is? rich opaque green/ brown/ red is good, but translucent is not. the whitish-brown part of that bubble-tip is opaque, not translucent/clear. clear is not a very good sign, but gaping mouth, over-swelling (sometimes healthy ones do this) or complete deflation for more than a few days (healthy ones can deflate, but usually not for extended periods) and vomiting of intestines are bad bad bad signs - be prepared to take it out and dump it if so. You can tell dead corals or anemones by the smell - healthy live corals smell just a bit fishy, like seawater. Dead ones smell like rotting fish.

heh okay i'll see if i can find nori. I tried rubbing a rock with mysis and the angel was interested, but it didn't bite. Interestingly though, it swam out of the cave and went to peck some other rocks - just a little. Getting a bit more daring now. I'll try the freezing trick tomorrow if it still doesn't feed. Maybe it just needs a bit more time. Live brine might work but I think all the brine would be gone before the angel would start feeding - because of the skimmer and other fish etc. I don't want it to get too used to live food also - me poor student no time to keep buying heh - last resort I guess. Thanks, ben and bubble_gum!

hey thanks! where can i get nori? Regards

Hi guys, I got a small bicolor angel from Reborn back on Saturday and it seems perfectly healthy - doing well in my 2ft tank. It has staked out a little cave in the live rock and stays within it - swimming out occasionally only to display and give "keep away!" messages awhen my bicolor dottyback swims too near the cave. I do not see it pecking at the rocks as is usual of most angels and it hasn't taken the pellet food, defrosted shrimp or raw crab-meat that I tried placing near its cave in the past few days. Any suggestions how to get it to feed? Henry's food? Thanks for any help! P.S. Oh, tank conditions: Equipment: Prizm Skimmer, Eheim hang-on filter Inverts: Various Mushrooms, zoos, small sarcophyton leather toadstool, small Cerianthus sp. tube anemone, Fromia star. Fish: Bicolor dottyback, True percula, maroon clown - they've worked out all their aggression problems already. Tank has been running for four years.

I'm not saying that overflow systems in general give off lots of heat - I'm just wondering if you're using the black rectangular overhead filters usually meant for freshwater because the pumps they use tend to give off a lot of heat imo. Bubbles don't harm your livestock but they'll cause a lot of salt spray onto your lights and surrounding area - your lights might rust more easily. Just a point to note. I don't like the overhead box system because the return part draws quite a lot of air with it, causing more bubbling. It's really up to you. Cannisters are a decent option but it's just a matter of different methods of mechanical filtration anyway. Frequent water changes instead of skimming is okay as long as you don't mind the hassle. Most people without chillers maintain their tanks at around 27-28 deg Celsius with fans. That's good to hear about the anemone. But you might still need more light because one month is really still a bit too early to tell. Mushrooms don't mind higher temps so they're fine. Your livestock is well chosen - just be cautious with the anemone like dlee said.

You're very welcome

Hi borinz, the UV light you bought is only a decorative CPU light, and it should be either a very weak UV lamp or just a color that the manufacturer calls UV. Ultraviolet light sterilizes by damaging the DNA of cells. However, a sufficiently high intensity found within the UV sterilizer is required to actually do enough killing. Pls la, normal sunlight already contains quite a lot of UV and it's nonsense to say that it kills everything in its way. Yes it can kill, but you need strong enough UV. So go ahead and shine away and enjoy your tank's nightlife . If that little UV really hurts (assuming that it is really a UV light and not some decorative neon color) then reflected sunlight on your tank would be killing your corals left and right already.

The filter system you're using looks like the cheap freshwater kind - am I right? They give off a ton of heat and splash a lot - see your bubbles? Scary salt creep all over the place. I doubt the anemone will last long at that kind of temperature. Your zoos don't look like they're opening well too - compare to other peoples' photos? Damsels can more or less take anything though so those should be fine. It's not about spending a fortune or not, and really, it's much more fun learning from the pros how to set up a tank well rather than see many animals die. It's painful to wake up one day and find that your anemone has died and turned the tank brown and smelly and most of the livestock is dead as a result - trust me, I learnt it the hard way Most people end up upgrading their equipment anyway. Not to be a wet blanket, but it really makes life much easier to have a decent hang-on skimmer and filters that don't splash. Like henry from marinelife says, reef on! but be prepared to spend a bit to get good essential equipment like a skimmer and some PL lights - it really makes things much easier than trying to stinge.

this thread is ancient. how did u dig it up

umm, Flatworms look flat and a little like seaslugs. You should know if you have flatworms. Spaghetti worms refer to a few species of worms, all which have many wriggly and long tentacles. They eat detritus and planktonic food. Bristleworms come in live rock(they're what u paid for) and will go from the rock to the sand. They are harmless and go about eating leftover food. You don't have to bother about them unless they become monstrous (>10 inches?) Mostly the worms are harmless and of little concern. Mandarin fishes have little reason to eat bristleworms, although some might decide to eat small specimens.

Another ancient thread but: the pesky crabs are hardy enough to survive being in the rock and out of water for a while, through crashes, high nitrates etc. they need to be picked off manually. real nuisances.