albert_dao

The question of whether or not a sandbed acts as a functional biofilter is irrelevant. The real question is "why?" Live rock is more than enough to handle all but the most overstocked of tanks. Trust me on this, I can back it all up with in-store examples. The other issue is that sandbeds of sufficient depth to become anaerobic are also, like Connie said, a ticking timebomb. Over in the States, that might not be so much of an issue since they have such readily available access to real live sand. Sand seeded by live rock is NOT real live sand. Worms and animals coming from rock do not sift or stir sand, they merely make burrows in it and use the same burrows over and over. Real sand organism actually plow through new sand day in and day out in their search for food and shelter. This keeps the sandbed from becoming anoxic and from keeping the aragonite from becoming a big block of concrete. If you have some time, sign up on the RC board and do a search for threads by a member named "Bomber". That should give you a lot of insight into why barebottom work. I'd do it for you myself, but the RC search function is disabled whenever they have high server load. I'll look later tonight if possible. If anything, you could just stop by and I'll explain it more thoroughly with in-store examples.

I just put Dave in charge of the FW section, so you can all yell at him if it's slow, Ha!

Or until you have a tank full of Frankenfish.

I've had them host in clams before.

Power compact is far brigher than HO. There are retrofit kits available and they're easy to wire, but you'll need to have a box canopy and a splash shield of some sort. Protein skimmers aren't a NECESSITY, they just happen to make life exponentially easier when keeping your tank clean. As for skimmer models, you'll find no better hang on back skimmer than the Remora. Very slim (3" of back clearance is fine), but tall. Easy to operate, almost negligable maintanance and effective. You're looking at $200+ for one though. I sell them for $225. There's other skimmers such as the CPR bakpak, but IMO, they're not as good and you're paying the same thing. While I'm at it, the Coralife SuperSkimmer series is worth a note. From what I've seen, they outperform the Remora, but there's some huge drawbacks. Firstly, they are bulky. Very bulky. The powerhead driving them is the size of a softball. Next, they're very sensitive and prone to overflowing the cup if you're not on top of the unit all the time. That said though, if you are running a sump, I'd snatch one of these up over the Remora. They're far cheaper. A comparable model to the Remora is only $120. Anyway, something of note for a beginner; you may want to consider doing a barebottom set up initially. It's far easier to keep things under control. When you have matured your system and have developed the knowledge base and confidence to chagne things up, you could then add a thin layer of aragonite to the bottom.

All you need is live rock, a protein skimmer and something to move the water around. SEIO powerheads come of high recommendation. Everything else is garbage. As far as lighting goes, that depends on if you're planning a reef or not. If you are, the MINIMUM quality of lighting I would use is power compact lighting. Coralife makes a semi-affordable unit. Anyway, here's a good link for ya: http://reefcentral.com/modules.php?s=&name...=showpage&pid=1 That will give you much of the needed information to get started.

Oh yeah! For anyone who hasn't noticed yet, I have also linked AA to the cichlids.ca homepage. http://www.cichlids.ca The banner is a bit different, but the logo is the same.

Actually, I had my friend Cyril make it. I'll pass this onto him

Dolphins Tourist Zerglings Nemos Neons

What would something like that be worth? Are these sold to museums or mostly private collectors? These are really neat btw. I wonder what all these fish looked like in real life.

I wouldn't trust to use tap water with SPS corals. I've had SPS look stressed within minutes of using treated tap water. So if SPS is the direction you're thinking of heading, investing in an RO unit would be a wise venture. For most of the salt tanks at the store, we use tap water. The nano and SPS tanks all recieve RO.

They probably just bought garbage rock that's been sitting in dark, unlit/unfiltered sumps for too long, Ha! The other thing is that some people may buy rock that was "home made" and left to develope in-tank, as opposed to true live rock that was either aquacultured or harvested directly from the ocean.

I happen to like Nori.

There's more to a SW tank than bacteria. A lot of it has to do with the "hidden" population of inverts that cannot be found in unseeded base rock.

9 months of good output. Thereafter, performance plummets like a bad case of diarrhea. :poo:

They didn't kill each other. PH wasn't the cause of death. They are not WC fish. Obviously, the cause of death was suckage on behalf of Marco.

Just get all the chromis at once. Get a pair of clowns. They're all born male, the dominant fish changes sex over time and they pair up. You could probably get a blenny in there pretty easily. Here's your order on that list: 1. Clowns 2. Chromis 3. Blenny 4. Angel

Another strong possibility is that Fastest Map players suck and we just lost a stupid game to those sons of b*tches.

They vary widely based on those parameters.

Actually, I have an even better idea for starter fish: NONE! Cycle your tank with LR, figure out what you want to buy and skip the starter fish. Go straight to the most docile fish species on your want list. God, I am so King of this $&@#!

I doubt 8 would be too much. Severe understocking is the recommendation of those who are scared of liability.

SE or HQI? Ballast type?

One more:

Oh... yessssssssss.....