2manytanks

They are all great, but I like the Pike shot the most, I never really thought of it as a good looking fish but you've brought out the colour really well and I think given me a bit of a different perspective on it.

Noisy impellers, broken impeller shafts, leaks, broken tabs on the impeller cover, lousy at keeping their prime when you clean them, cheap hoses that don't hold up to wear all that well. Just overall cheap materials used to build them, another one I'd add to the list of preferable filters that the previous writer gave is Rena - I love my Rena's and have never had a single problem with them.

Cycle isn't going to do much, maybe it'll speed things up a hair. You can add small amounts of Prime or whatever you are using as a de-chlorinator to help keep the levels down a bit, but I really wouldn't suggest that either. To me, chemicals = bad, unless really necessary. If you artifically lower the ammonia and nitrite levels there is going to be less food for the new colonies to establish themselves and it will take longer to get the cycle finished and stable. I think you're better off to just let it run it's course and if the levels get dangerously high then do a water change. "The first thing he told me when I asked him about his tanks was "My ammonia is ALWAYS high"...." - I LOVE IT !!! Great comic relief.

Awesome photography!

In my experience, I would suggest exactly the same as others here. Good food and clean water. Forget the meds and certainly forget the PH adjuster - I don't know how the guy figured that would help with an ammonia problem. I don't know anything about your tank, your water conditions, filtering etc., but if you're having problems with ammonia in a tank that is already cycled then something has happened to cause the problem. How often are you doing water changes? How about the filter - what is it, how often do you clean it, how do you clean it - many people wash their filter parts in tap water : bad idea. Go ahead and wash the impeller and other hardware in tap water if you want, but you have to wash the bio-media in tank water, if you wash it in tap water the chlorine will kill off the bacterial colony and you'll be essentially cycleing the tank all over again. I would also suggest washing the sponges etc. in tank water too. Medication as often causes problems as it cures them, including killing off the aforementioned bacterial colonies in some cases, Avoid them if possible. Your food does leave something to be desired, I would strongly suggest taking the others suggestions and ordering some NLS, Omega One or another higher quality food. But definitely water is the biggest thing, change it in small amounts every week or more often until he starts improving and the tank water parameters are not only good, but stable. Do lots of reading, you can find pretty much anything on the internet now, and learning how evrything works is half the fun. And don't feel bad, experience and persistence will win out.

YUP, a tds meter is a good investment. And fun too - did you know a fair amount of the bottled water out there has more total dissolved solids than is considered healthy?

You did a fabulous job. Is the trim on the top wood? Admirable, looks very professional.

Hi Firestorm. When you're at Gold's, talk to them about lights. If you don't want to go with MH at first it's really not a problem if you're just doing fish a few soft corals and your tank isn't too deep. Since you're talking about the possibility of buying a tank with a built in hood, remember that not every system is going to be able to support the VHO flourescent lamps, it's not necessarily a matter of just changing the bulb. Talk to the guys at Gold's - they have some good lighting and good prices. As for Nano's, I have a 12g one that is consistently our most impressive tank. It holds 2 perculas, a dragon goby, a green clown goby about 30 button corals, 2 pulsing xenias some small bubble tip anemones and one large bubble tip. Everythng just thrives in it. It has about 10 lbs. of live sand and about 10 lbs. of live rock. The bubble tips do so well in it that I quite often have to remove some and transfer them to my larger tanks. The only change I have made to this tank from stock is to remove the bio-balls and put ceramic media in instead, I could do without them, but they certainly don't hurt. I have to do water changes a bit more often than in the larger tanks, once to twice a week, but it only takes 5 to 10 minutes, so no big deal. The lighting however is marginal, I've found that only the darker anemones can make it for very long in this tank, I assume it's because they have larger populations of zooanthellae (sp?) to gleen the most from the available light. I know some people don't like to have sponge for filtration, but it really is great for taking the particulates out of the system and as long as you clean them frequently, I believe they really help out a lot. As for having a substrate, that's a debate that's been going on for decades, even the depth of substrate is hotly debated, I'd suggest you do some good reading on it, there's lots on the internet. I chose to go with live sand in all of my tanks, and try to get an average depth of at least 3 inches. Different types of bacteria populate the sand at different depths, basically the top level dwellers remove ammonia and secrete nitrites, which are eaten by the next level down which secretes nitrate which is eaten by bacteria that dwell still further down. A good population of worms and other critters will help keep the sand stirred allowing water and nutrients to flow within. Sand sifter stars, dragon gobies, clams, sand dollars, etc. can also help keep your sand stirred up and clean. If you decide to go with sand but don't want the expense of useing all live sand, I would suggest rather than useing all dead substrate that you use at least a part live sand. Your tank will get a faster start with the susbstrate already partly populated to help remove wastes, and the sand that isn't live will become live more quickly than waiting for creatures from the rock to populate it. Remember that your live rock is going to have to cycle too, and the sand can help eat the wastes from your rock while that is happening. Personally, I find I have to spend way less time actually cleaning my tanks because of the sand, anything that settles on the bottom is consumed. Anyways, it's all opinion, do lots of reading and listen to everyone else, find what's right for you. Your own experiences will be different than ours, there's a thousand ways to do things and millions of ways to combine creatures that will have different results. One thing for sure though, it's fascinating, even those first weeks when all you may have in your tank is live rock that you're cycling - you'll find yourself spending hours just watching those rocks, and discovering new creatures coming to life and springing from what just days ago seemed to be nothing but barren, stinky rocks. Bill

DOH !! You beat me to the punch. As far as the salt and fresh water fish swimming together go, both can live in the other's environment for a short period of time. Thus, freshwater baths for marine fish and saltwater baths for freshwater fish to kill external parasites. If a batch of water was mixed at half marine strength to form a brackish salinity, both types of fish could live for hours or days. If it seems too good to be true............

Really ? i guess my blindness strikes again. Thansk Jason, I'll check it out. Bill

How much live rock/sand? I am a firm beleiver that nature does a much better job tan we can with any artificial means and that a good load of well established rock and sand along with a good clean-up crew can take care of almost anything. It's not too likely the foxface will keep it under control as it doesn't seem to be the best tasting stuff, they seem to think of it as a food of last resort. A dwarf angel or two might help as well, but still probably not enough. I still occasionally get some hair algae growing in the tank I used to keep my seahorses in, and I transfer the rock with the algae to another tank that has a foxface and a couple of tangs, It might take them weeks to eat it all, but the same amount of caulerpa would be gone in a day. Maybe you'd like to intoduce some other types of macro algae to the tank to compete for the available resources, but again, the foxface would likely gobble them up faster than they could grow and quit eating the hair algae. I found when I was keeping seahorses, that mysis shrimp were a really great source of nutrition for algae. So you might want to cut them down, I assume you're mostly useing them to feed the coral, so make sure you're target feeding and only as much as they will eat. Good luck, let us know how you make out. Bill

Hi all. I'm looking to start raising rotifers to feed to clownfish larvae and am wondering if anyone knows if rotifer and algal cultures are available anywhere in Alberta. I hate doing the mail order thing if I don't have to. Thanks Bill

Thanks Brad, I'm going to see if I can dig him up.

All I heard is sometime in January or February, near Collicut Centre. I'm guessing that would likely place it in either the Co-op mall or the mall where the new Save-On Foods is.

See ya there Jonah.

Hi All, I haven't been on the board in a long time. Nice to see so many familiar names are still busy here. Anyways, I have heard rumours that someone is opening a new LFS in Red Deer, not sure whether it is to be only salt or not but will certainly be focusing on it. It is supposed to opening somewhere near Collicutt Centre in January or February. Anyone else heard the rumours or know anything more? Bill

I can attest to clean water and good food to treat HLLE. About 8 months ago, I saw in a now defunct pet store here in Red Deer a HUGE blood parrot (I know - monstrosity ) who had a horrible case of HLLE, with enormous horrible looking holes in his head. The people at the store had absolutely no idea about the disease, they were just clueless giving him meds for something that didn't need it. Why research the disease and understand a bit about it when we have drugs - even if they don't work. I felt sorry for him, I was sure he would die there, so I took him off their hands. He's in a 120g now, always with good water and has been fed on high quality food since I got him. A difference was noticeable within a couple of weeks and today all he has left of the huge holes is just a few little scars. I'm glad I saved him, he's a great looking fish, with loads of personality. He just loves attention and is a great peacemaker in the tank as well - he's always right in there to break up a fight whenever one occurs, and even seems to have a good instinct towards knowing who the instigator of the fight was and if they need to be "escorted" out of the area and monitored for a while, kinda like putting them on probation. Anyways, clean water (I do about 20% once a week), good filtration (I have 2 XP3's on the tank) and good food (NLS Spectrum Thera+A jumbo) was all it took. Oh, and some circles believe they have found a link between the occurrence of HLLE and the use of carbon in the filtration for some cichlids. What I read about the link with carbon was enough for me to err on the side of caution and quit using it in my cichlid tanks for a while. Now that the HLLE is gone I have gone back to using it in his tank but in smaller quantities and only in one of the two filters.

--> QUOTE(Rick B @ Feb 13 2007, 10:45 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Sorry to butt in but do you have trouble with bubbles with your xl? Seems like mine is sucking air from somewhere. Called vortex and they sent me different sizes of jar O-rings. Didnt make any difference. The screw top jar is poorly designed for fitting of the motor assembly. Anyways....any bubbles? I purchased the 25K bag of DE from a pool shop and it seems to work just like the powder from Vortex. Thanks I did have a problem. If you're using a recharge valve on your hoses, I found that mine sucked quite a bit of air in through the valve - the valve is very handy but really shoddy design/construction. Other than that, no real problems.

If the stuff works OK you'd better stick with it, that is just so cheap I can't believe it - Vortex is obviously making big bucks off the DE they sell to us hobbyists.

3 cups? Holy crap batman. I could swear mine was an XL (memory could be wrong), it only uses a cup. I'm not sure who the bulk is made by, I never asked, but it seems the same to me as the pre-packaged, and it works just as well - I couldn't tell any difference at all in the performance.

Nice fast response you got too - way more efficient than when I tried in vain to get an answer from Coralife about a ballast a while ago.

I love the Vortex, they are fantastic as far as I'm concerned. And yes Vic, Pisces does carry diatom powder, that's where I get mine. They have it pre-packaged in several different sizes and also sell it in their bulk product bins - definitely cheaper out of the bulk bin. I'm quite sure Big Al's carries it too. Bill

Hmmm....how big is he? Pics? DOH!! Just packed him off to my nephew.

Hmmm.. those tanks sure look like they could use a Green Terror.

I find though that in my FW tanks with playsand that a significant amount does make it down through the lower layers with time, especially where there are fish that love to dig. The deeper sand does seem to go anaerobic, discolours and can develop quite a gas build up. So nowadays I always stir the sand up completely to the bottom with my syphon to release the gas, pick up the deep waste and just generally mix things up.