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Harlequins don't really go after serpents (not to mention those guys move too fast for them anyway), they go after tube-feet starfish like chocolate chips and asterinas. You should be safe.
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Dec 20, 2011 21:27
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arioch posted:Harlequins don't really go after serpents (not to mention those guys move too fast for them anyway), they go after tube-feet starfish like chocolate chips and asterinas. You should be safe. Okay, I also have a brittle that's ginormous but I assume he's in the same family as the serpent. Either way, I'll toss them in the sump just to be safe 
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Dec 20, 2011 21:42
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Argh, so the used Reef Octopus skimmer I was going to buy fell through and I am going out of town in 2 days. I think the best skimmer that the shops nearby have in stock are Eshopps PSK-150/ or PSK-200. They don't look like the best skimmers and they seem to get pretty average reviews on RC. Problem is I think the local shops are charging an arm and a leg. How long do you guys think a lightly stocked 90g would go without a skimmer? Probably 130g total system volume. Trying to think if I should just order one online and install it when I get back in ~5 days or so.
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Dec 20, 2011 22:33
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I'm leaning towards everything being fine. Hell, I screwed up my ATO and went out of town for a week and when I got back my return pump was churning air and everything was still fine. Do you have a lot of corals? SPS? LPS/softies?
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Dec 20, 2011 22:45
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Pretty much all softies and LPS. One or two SPS that were bought as a test that aren't doing so hot anyways. Mostly frags.
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Dec 20, 2011 22:50
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SaNChEzZ posted:Is dosing really that important? I dose my 2 part when I remember (once or twice a month) and just keep up on water changes. It's really only noticable if you keep SPS. My cube tank was almost entirely soft and LPS and I dosed it about as much as you do and had no problem. Of course I didn't do any water changes either so I had a hell of a nitrate problem, but there you go... Now I'm trying to keep SPS/LPS/1 Soft Coral all in the same tank and it is a nightmare because the water parameters that are acceptable to them all is a very narrow margin around 7-7.5 dKH and 400ish ppm calcium. A few of my corals give very definite hints that they are pissed off about water quality - namely my calustrea and digitata corals. When the former is shriveled my alk is too high, and when the latter is looking sad the alk is too low. If I'm lucky I only suffer a bit of tissue loss at the tips, but man, what a pain.
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Dec 21, 2011 02:10
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So the consensus seems to be that I'll be fine without a skimmer for a week or two. Ordered the SRO XP1000SSS for my 90g. Very excited about it. I am sure my old skimmer was making my life more difficult.
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Dec 21, 2011 06:00
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I've been selling some of my spare frags on Craigslist lately, and let me tell you that site brings out the worst in people. One guy has sent me no less than twenty five emails about two $10 frags. poo poo or get off the pot, dude.
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Dec 22, 2011 05:19
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When I was selling poo poo from my 90G I was breaking down, some rear end in a top hat called at 11:30PM and got indignant when I reminded him of the time and in no shortage of words told him to never call again. Then the fucker called back from a different number (I blocked his original number in Google voice) during a normal hour and set up a meeting time. Shows up several hours early (while I was at work), calls back, gets indignant again and tries to spin it that I'm the rear end in a top hat and that he works security and doesn't have time for this poo poo blah blah. Turns out he owns a rent-a-cop security company that has a few riced up crown vics that he loves to go beyond his ability as a civilian with, but I guess the sheriffs don't care. gently caress craigslist, but it does work if you wade through the poo poo first. Edit: I was a bit worried that some short-fused rent-a-cop had my address and was pissed off at me for who knows what reason. Thankfully nothing happened, though I did see their cars in my neighborhood once or twice even though it is usually patrolled by a different company.
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Dec 22, 2011 05:42
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This is why if I sell anything on Craigslist I am going to pick a neutral site to trade, like the local McDonalds parking lot or something. I bought some of my stuff on Craigslist and I was amazed that people sold out of their house and even let me in. RC or the local club would probably be different, but not with Craigslist.
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Dec 22, 2011 13:19
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I don't really mind letting reefers into my house since all my stuff is in the basement and GENERALLY people are relatively normal if a bit wierd. The true flakes are the rednecks that keep oscars. Dude ended up coming by today and brought me two large (4"+) frags of some nice acro, and three frags of some pretty neat looking zoas in trade. Works for me, as I'm building up stock for a frag growout tank. As for meeting people in a parking lot I've done that too but it looks even MORE like a drug deal. I'm seriously considering just notifying the city police I keep a reef tank as I: - Have people coming and going from my house, usually in the evenings, making cash transactions - A higher-than-normal electric bill for the size of my house, - Have wierd blue lights coming from my basement and, - Occasionally meet in parking lots to sell things for cash The only thing I'm missing is a roof with no snow on it in the winter when everyone else does.
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Dec 23, 2011 03:47
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Melchior posted:I've been selling some of my spare frags on Craigslist lately, and let me tell you that site brings out the worst in people. One guy has sent me no less than twenty five emails about two $10 frags. poo poo or get off the pot, dude. I bought a tank w/livestock setup and sold one before on CL and won't bother again, the buyers tend to be clueless or flaky and often do the "Oh, I only brought this much cash" or don't come with any cash and then I have to wait another hour for them to get their poo poo together. I only use local reef forums for buying and selling now and I've scored some great deals and met awesome reefers. Anyone else get some saltwater goods for boxing day (or just Christmas for you non-Canucks)? I snagged a really nice coco worm as well as a pocci colony that had a purple-orange pocci/acro crab with it too. I also bought a solid 6-12 month supply of food and additives. As for the drug deal looking part, this spring I bought a pair of halide high-bays from a guy and was carrying them to my car and there was a police squad car about two houses up across the street. The cops didn't care or notice I guess. The kicker I realized afterwards was this was on April 20th.
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Dec 27, 2011 09:58
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Funny you should mention that. The guy I talked about in the previous post seemed alright in my house, but after I asked him what the zoas he brought were called a few days later he started ranting about how he got the 'lovely end of the deal' because my frags (1-2") were tiny little things and he brought me 2 5" pieces of some acro. He sent me a total of almost forty emails and over seventy texts to pick up 3 $10 frags. He was mainly pissed I didn't split my 500 dollar efflo frag for his trouble. Out of everyone who has stopped by so far, he was the first to try and figure in his gas cost into a trade. Ugh. People!
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Dec 27, 2011 13:46
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Aquastyle 72LED kit came in today Man these suckers are bright! Gunna start laying out the LEDs on the heatsink tonight 
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Dec 27, 2011 21:30
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SaNChEzZ posted:Aquastyle 72LED kit came in today Love getting new gear, especially stuff to DIY and tinker with. Here are two shots from yesterday, one has the new frag rack I bought and two of the SPS colonies I got for boxing day prices (you can see the pocci crab, too). Second shot is of my other frag rack with all the different colours and types of SPS I've collected so far. The egg crate cage is protection for a couple of zoa colonies I got that would otherwise be eaten by my foxface. The birdsnest in the foreground was only  because it was damaged so I'm hoping it recovers. 
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Dec 28, 2011 18:32
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SaNChEzZ posted:Aquastyle 72LED kit came in today Once you get everything set up I'd like to know what you think of it. I planned out a DIY 72 LED array w/ Crees that came to about $630 in the end. The Bridgelux LEDs from Aquastyle are much cheaper. Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to use their DIY kits because I need 0-10v dimmable drivers.
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Dec 28, 2011 19:24
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Well, I'm only going to be using 48 of the 72 LEDs, some of the remaining will be for a fuge light, some will be spares. I got them all plastered down, then came into work and tinkered with the layout some more, gunna remove 2 and add 1 in a different spot tonight when I get home. Here's the final layout:  And the first string of whites, this is at 30%, the lowest settings on the potentiometer dimmer thingy:  Overall Ray from Aquastyle hooked it up fat. He sent me 4 extra LEDs, 2 white and 2 blue, two extra optics, and a handheld tester that runs on 2xAA batteries. Holy fuckass these things are bright. And the potentiometers work! So far so good, when I get home tonight, gunna wire up the string of blues and try to get to the center string. I still need to get fans for the heatsink, but yeah. It's goin well so far Here's the full build thread, or what I've started: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=289727 porksmash posted:Once you get everything set up I'd like to know what you think of it. I planned out a DIY 72 LED array w/ Crees that came to about $630 in the end. The Bridgelux LEDs from Aquastyle are much cheaper. Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to use their DIY kits because I need 0-10v dimmable drivers. Why 0-10v? You could email Ray and work something out with him for a kit minus the drivers and potentiometers I suppose. He's really flexible and is fairly quick to respond. His stuff is kind of booming at the moment though, so don't be surprised if there's a couple day turnaround on emails. I got the kit in 7 days from order, which is great considering customs and poo poo coming from china (loving dealextreme) Frozen Pizza Party fucked around with this message at 20:52 on Dec 28, 2011 |
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Dec 28, 2011 20:47
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SaNChEzZ posted:Why 0-10v? I have a custom controller and it has 2x 4-20ma or 0-5v analog outputs. No drivers I've seen take a 4-20ma input, but I can convert the 4-20ma signal into 2-10v with a 500 ohm resistor. I'll have to experiment to see if 20-100% dimming range is preferable to 0-50% range. Either way I need a 0-10v dimmable driver.
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Dec 28, 2011 21:22
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porksmash posted:I have a custom controller and it has 2x 4-20ma or 0-5v analog outputs. No drivers I've seen take a 4-20ma input, but I can convert the 4-20ma signal into 2-10v with a 500 ohm resistor. I'll have to experiment to see if 20-100% dimming range is preferable to 0-50% range. Either way I need a 0-10v dimmable driver. Ah, that makes sense then. I think finding a driver that does such a little amount will be pretty difficult, who makes one that only lights 3 LEDs each, ya know?
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Dec 28, 2011 22:40
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Well I am going to have 78 LEDs total, maybe 90 if I bump up to 48v drivers. Looking at having one 150w driver with 52 LEDs (4 parallel strings of 13 XP-E Royal Blue & a few regular Blue) and one 80w driver with 26 (2 strings of 13 XP-E Cool White). The two drivers specifically are a Mean Well HLG-150H-42B and a Mean Well HLG-80H-42B (or -48B if I decide on 90 LEDs). I don't have the room (drivers will be in a remote cabinet) or controller capabilities to have 6 of the usual ELN-60-48P drivers that I see everywhere. Plus, the HLG B type drivers can do all 3 of the usual dimming methods which works well for any future changes. Each individual string has a 1A fuse to protect it in case something wonky happens. The drivers are sized wattage-wise so that if they do go to 100% for some reason, they are still slightly below the max the LEDs can handle (according to spec sheets) and nothing will blow up. The 150w driver supplies 37.5w per string, and the 80W driver supplies 40w per string. Each string of 13 LEDs can handle 41.6w (3.2v * 13 * 1A).
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Dec 28, 2011 23:06
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Got the blue string wired up and changed the config last night 
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Dec 29, 2011 19:01
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I've kept a few freshwater tanks now and I really want to plunge into saltwater. The thing is, being in the military I'm moving every 2-3 years. Because of that, I'd rather do something small that I can just break down when I move and either sell the frags/fish or give them away to an lfs. So I've been looking on Craigslist and have found a 14g biocube with stand and skimmer for 200. Thinking about jumping on it but just wanted to see everyone's thoughts on going with a small tank for my first sw. Obviously I know a bigger tank will be more forgiving, but I don't feel like breaking down a 55g/stand every few years, plus landlords seem to get a bit hesitant when they see a large tank set up on their new hardwood floors/carpet.
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Dec 29, 2011 19:53
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nwin posted:I've kept a few freshwater tanks now and I really want to plunge into saltwater. The thing is, being in the military I'm moving every 2-3 years. Because of that, I'd rather do something small that I can just break down when I move and either sell the frags/fish or give them away to an lfs. The nice thing with BioCubes is that there are tons of people that own them and lots of documentation on reef forums to modify or upgrade them if you wish. I owned a 14g for a bit as a secondary tank and it was good, I prefer larger but having the all in one is a great learners setup.
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Jan 1, 2012 01:16
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From some reading I've done online, it seems everyone uses distilled water or uses an RO system. With freshwater I was fine using tap water. Not the case here?
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Jan 1, 2012 01:25
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nwin posted:From some reading I've done online, it seems everyone uses distilled water or uses an RO system. With freshwater I was fine using tap water. Not the case here? At a minimum use one of the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals DI filters that attaches to your tap. The problem is that saltwater tanks that have coral and other invertebrates are intolerant to a lot of the stuff that is okay to drink and is acceptable in drinking water. You also don't do full water changes so these impurities are either being added or slowly accumulating in your live rock/sand, etc. Having the water de-ionized helps you know that what you're putting in (salt mixes have calcium and other trace elements) is consistent and predictable. I haven't measured any levels in my tank in probably 2 months because of the predictability and the few times I do it's exactly what I thought. Tap water tends to have a bit of nitrates and phosphates in it which is what algae feeds off of and bothers most livestock you do want to keep.
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Jan 1, 2012 20:22
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As promised, here's the LED fixture, copied from Nano-Reef:SaNChEz posted:Selling this because I built a new light for the new tank and I'm using that now. The light is awesome, has switches for blue and white, although it's not dimmable. Has 50x1w LEDs, 25 blue and 25 white. The optics are 80 degrees and the spectrum is somewhere around 20k (Or so I was told by the manufacturer)
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Jan 8, 2012 06:15
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I bought a closed brain coral a while back and due to improper care by a roommate while I was gone, it almost completely died over the summer. When I got back, it was almost completely white rock save for a little patch on the top. Since I've been back, it has grown back all the brown fleshy stuff, but lacks the green color in between that it used to have (i.e. like this picture http://i.imgur.com/Rr9yW.jpg ). Little tube-like structures appear and disappear in the parts where the green parts were. Anyone have any idea what is going on here? Should I expect it to recover its original color at some point, and if so, any idea how long this should take? It has been about 4 months since the brown flesh has completely grown back.
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Jan 9, 2012 01:01
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a duck posted:I bought a closed brain coral a while back and due to improper care by a roommate while I was gone, it almost completely died over the summer. When I got back, it was almost completely white rock save for a little patch on the top. Since I've been back, it has grown back all the brown fleshy stuff, but lacks the green color in between that it used to have (i.e. like this picture http://i.imgur.com/Rr9yW.jpg ). Little tube-like structures appear and disappear in the parts where the green parts were. Anyone have any idea what is going on here? Should I expect it to recover its original color at some point, and if so, any idea how long this should take? It has been about 4 months since the brown flesh has completely grown back. What kind of lighting do you have? If you're using a red spectrum often corals will grow well but lack colouration. I don't have experience with brain corals but by the sounds of it it's healthy again. PS Sanchezz, what's the length of that light you're selling? MKLKT fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Jan 9, 2012 |
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Jan 9, 2012 03:30
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I have 72W of PC lighting in a 24G cube tank. One bulb is actinic and the other is 10k.
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Jan 9, 2012 04:55
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MKLKT posted:PS Sanchezz, what's the length of that light you're selling? I'll have to measure it, but I believe it to be about 16" wide. It lights up my 18x18x18 cube almost perfectly. Also, I'll let it go cheaper for goons, say 200+ shipping (I get a hookup on that)
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Jan 9, 2012 23:05
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I don't shop at Petco but was meeting someone there yesterday, and the Petco had the largest goddamn arrow crab I have ever seen. From leg to leg, as if you were measuring the aquarium glass, it was nearly six inches, and the thing wasn't exactly stretched out. No wonder all the fish were at the other end of the drat 'tank.'
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Jan 10, 2012 01:22
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I'd totally buy that sucker for my mantis shrimp. Only remarkable thing in the local Petco tanks is cyano.
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Jan 10, 2012 15:39
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Cowslips Warren posted:I don't shop at Petco but was meeting someone there yesterday, and the Petco had the largest goddamn arrow crab I have ever seen. From leg to leg, as if you were measuring the aquarium glass, it was nearly six inches, and the thing wasn't exactly stretched out. No wonder all the fish were at the other end of the drat 'tank.' The LFS near me has had a few arrows that if you stretched the legs out are about 1'. They looked like striders from Half-Life 2. I like unusual animals like that.
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Jan 11, 2012 00:12
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I really don't have a use case for crabs like that though. They're predatory and while they will knock down, say, a bristle worm overpopulation (which if you wanted to control them, can become somewhat oddly dangerous if you try to restrict their population by diet), they're also eating your small snails (stomatellas, euplica conchs, etc.) in the meantime. And when they get bigger yeah, your fish become late night snacks. So I guess if I wanted a dedicated species tank to one, sure. Even my mantis shrimp I trust more than the average crab. At least with that sucker I know he's eating the turbo snails I put in there (and the peppermint shrimps, etc.) and not the limpets, clowns, or the serpent starfish.
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Jan 12, 2012 02:55
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arioch posted:I really don't have a use case for crabs like that though. They're predatory and while they will knock down, say, a bristle worm overpopulation (which if you wanted to control them, can become somewhat oddly dangerous if you try to restrict their population by diet), they're also eating your small snails (stomatellas, euplica conchs, etc.) in the meantime. And when they get bigger yeah, your fish become late night snacks. Yep, I lost a few fish (various gobies) and some sexy shrimp as well as quite a few snails before I caught my arrow and returned him to the store. I've been a bit more careful since then in researching what does what.
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Jan 12, 2012 05:31
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Since everything has finally acclimated and is doing well, some pics of my office nano! Excuse the horrible white balance -- pics were taken with an iPhone. I'll have to bring in my SLR to take some better ones some day.    I've lost my green zoanthids (literally -- they fell off the plug during travel from the LFS and then disappeared somewhere in the tank after something removed them from the crevice I stuck them in). The red zoanthids have been pissed off since moving into this tank for some reason. It might be flow, so I've moved them to a quieter area. I also can't get the skimmer dialed in. It either doesn't skim anything or it just spazzes out and fills the cup with water. I've had to add an ATO as well. It lost quite a bit of water over the holiday break. Thankfully my co-worker was here off and on to feed and top off for me. It's also gone through its first pest problem. I either picked up acoel flatworms from the same LFS I picked them up years ago, or one snuck in on a mushroom I brought over from my co-worker's nano (he had them for a while but killed them with several doses of Flatworm Exit). Either way, dosed FWE and killed the ones I saw. Came back over the weekend and found more. Gave it enough FWE for 50 gallons. Didn't do a water change and left the carbon off for 12+ hours. I don't see any now and it's been 2 days. Hopefully they don't come back. I probably lost a few ceriths because of it, though. The coral and the fish didn't seem to notice.
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Jan 13, 2012 01:12
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Zoanthids tend to be shallow water corals that get a lot of light and a lot of turbulent water, so it's probably not flow. I have a gigantic patch of various Florida zoos right in front of a Vortech MP40. Those flatworms are generally pretty harmless, they bloom in the early stages of a tank being established, then more or less die off as a healthy population of other microfauna take hold.
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Jan 13, 2012 15:56
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Tank looks awesome, love the goby Here's one of my happy office tank corals. Look at those baby polyps  Palys are pissed because snails are on the backside haha.
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Jan 13, 2012 21:50
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optikalus posted:Since everything has finally acclimated and is doing well, some pics of my office nano! Excuse the horrible white balance -- pics were taken with an iPhone. I'll have to bring in my SLR to take some better ones some day. Love this! Would you mind going into a little detail about the hardware used for this set up (lighting/filter etc)? I have a nano freshwater planted tank and I'm thinking the next step in this addictive hobby is setting up a nice rimless marine tank.
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Jan 13, 2012 23:31
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God I fucking love Diablo 3 gold, it even paid for this shitty title
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delljit posted:Love this! Would you mind going into a little detail about the hardware used for this set up (lighting/filter etc)? I have a nano freshwater planted tank and I'm thinking the next step in this addictive hobby is setting up a nice rimless marine tank. Sure; the tank is a Mr. Aqua 11.4 gallon frameless. The light is a 7x CREE XR-E PAR38 bulb from RapidLED. It is plugged into a cheap swing arm lamp base clamped to my desk. The protein skimmer is a AquaMAXX HOB-1. I'm not totally satisfied with this skimmer as it doesn't seem to do anything but fill the tank with microbubbles or fill the cup with water. My co-worker bought one after I got mine and his skimmate is thick and green, so my tank's bioload just may be too small to notice anything.
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Jan 14, 2012 01:40
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