clintcar

Posting this for a friend who is decomming and moving house: WTS 4'x 2'x 2' Tank, 10mm German float glass with overflow Non-cabinet type, square tube stand -- originally used for freshwater Includes two 2' tanks at the bottom, can be used for hospital tank 1 FR, bioballs, filtering elements and other equipment. No pump. Add $60 for German-made Eheim 1250 Please contact Benny at 83730488

Picked up the G2-160 version a couple of days ago from Razali -- quite pleased with the unit. I'm happy that the moonlight mode looks very even with none of that 'beam of light' effect commonly associated with other moonlight LEDs. Ibanez -- you play guitar too? Cheers, Clinton www.theguitarcolumn.com

Thanks for sharing this. Any specific hardware shop that sells Sugatsune products?

i'm using purigen too.. checked with petmart once about 'the bag' and they said they had brought it in before but were out of stock. right now i'm using 2 mesh bags doubled-up

It's probably feeding on natural food in your tank -- polychaete worms and the like. The are nocturnal so they will take a while to get used to coming out at daylight hours to feed. Mine did the same for a couple of weeks -- lurking in the rockwork in the day and only actively swimming about at night. You might try feeding your squirrelfish a couple of hours after lights out. With their large night-vision eyes they will see the food in the water. After some time they will learn to join the daytime feeding party and come out with the other fish.

Goniopora stokesii, a free-living sand dwelling species.

Blue/grey ear sponge; one of a few species that seem to thrive in captivity. This specimen came as a tiny 1cm speck a mushroom rock I placed into very first setup in early 2005. During the diatom months the tissue of this sponge eroded to an almost mesh like consistency with tiny holes visible throughout. It has since bounced back to health and is growing faster than ever.

Blue/Red Acanthastrea from Iwarna..

Green-striped mushrooms and green plate with purple edges from Golden Octopus, a great LFS run by a very knowledgeable boss.

Here are some techniques I use for encouraging coralline growth: I ensure my pH is always at least 8.2 with dKh around 9.6. I use Seachem's Reef Buffer which raises pH and alkalinity simultaneously. I dose Buffer when I see my pH dropping to 8.0 or 7.98. A drop in pH is usually an indicator of a drop in alkalinity which means the water is getting more acidic. I don't really test for calcium anymore but I dose Seachem Calcium Advantage twice a week or so. Calcium Advantage also contains strontium and magnesium which helps the purple coralline synthesize calcium. Using a salt with good magnesium levels such as Red Sea Pro salt also helps. Basically I just watch my pH and alkalinity and dose a calcium supplement that contains magnesium and strontium and the coralline starts reproducing automatically. Occasionally scraping at bits of coralline that may be on your walls or rock and ensuring that the purple 'dust' gets blown around the tank helps to seed the rock and tank walls with the purple stuff. Fish also seem to enjoy pecking at the 'dust'.

Thanks! As my tank went past the one year mark I started to get some plating coralline too. Unfortunately the brown diatoms smothered almost all of it. The coralline is having to start from scratch all over again. But its off to a good start.

One more full tank shot with minor rearrangements after adding three specimens from Golden Octopus yesterday.

Some sort of star-like polyp colony that grew from one or two that hitchhiked on a scrap of rock. They now cover the entire surface of the small rock. I'm proud of them as they endured and staved off the brown algae, refusing to be overrun as the other corals were.

More mushrooms. The bleached ones were there when I got it. Hope they'll recover.

One of two orange starfish. This one loves hanging out near the water's surface. It was doing the same at Aquamarin's tank when I got it.