Our Tbs - Page 12

dwculp · #**276** 09/26/2005, 10:30 AM

More pics:

I finally got pics of my lawnmower blenny:

You can see a plethora of things in this pic, including my new tree coral:

My porcelain crabs were out in force today!!! I must have 30 of these things!!

lossman · #**277** 09/26/2005, 10:41 AM

We just purchased an in-line tds meter for our RO/DI set up. It measures the tds going into the filters and coming out. Interesting enough, I note that when we first turn on the unit, the tds coming out can be as high as 20 and slowly goes down to 0-1! It takes about 3-4 cups of water for the levels to go down. I've been thinking that we had been just putting this water into our top-off tank and using it in our buckets of salt water. Perhaps that might be the cause of the algae problems we had been having. I am now taking that 3-4 cups and using it to water my plants with, then filling the jugs with only 0-1 tds water. Let's see if that helps.

lossman · #**278** 09/26/2005, 10:41 AM

BTW, Dave those pictures are awesome!! Great looking tank.

lossman · #**279** 09/26/2005, 11:00 AM

Since this is picture day, here is a shot of our new little zoanthids. Not as pretty as some of you have, but we love them.

bobt2 · #**280** 09/26/2005, 11:19 AM

that tank looks great, i just called seachem, they said that the amm alert will only show toxic amm. my reading of .4ppm is total amm and is not toxic. still sounds like i wasted my money

drk70 · #**281** 09/26/2005, 11:35 AM

Nice pics Dave! Glad to see your tank is coming along.

patsan · #**282** 09/26/2005, 11:36 AM

All the pictures look great!

That's too bad Bob. I know with my ammonia alert, it showed all the stages I went thru. I got the rock on 5/26 and I didn't test until 6/1. When I did test, the ammonia reading was .2 (and showing alert when I tested)
It did go to the toxic zone after the rock went in too.

jnb · #**283** 09/26/2005, 11:39 AM

Ive heard this is common and can not see it contributing much to an algae problem - however 0 is better - your plants will like your tap water much better. My RO water is like 20 because I use a drinking tank they have said - my tap is up there like 112-170 - di is still zero knock on wood.

Quote:

Originally posted by lossman
We just purchased an in-line tds meter for our RO/DI set up. It measures the tds going into the filters and coming out. Interesting enough, I note that when we first turn on the unit, the tds coming out can be as high as 20 and slowly goes down to 0-1! It takes about 3-4 cups of water for the levels to go down. I've been thinking that we had been just putting this water into our top-off tank and using it in our buckets of salt water. Perhaps that might be the cause of the algae problems we had been having. I am now taking that 3-4 cups and using it to water my plants with, then filling the jugs with only 0-1 tds water. Let's see if that helps.

BrianPlankis · #**284** 09/26/2005, 12:11 PM

Dave,

Great looking pics! I wish I'd gotten 30 porcelains. I think I have two

Glad to see your algae problem has gone away.

One of the goals for my tank is to have as many things breeding as possible. Not only to have new life to watch and trade, but anything that doesn't make it can be food for my corals and filter feeders. I recently got some snails from a fellow reefer and she said they breed often and many survive to be new adults. Well, I have my first batch of eggs! Of course she chose my cleaning magnet so I won't be able to use it for a while

Here are a couple of pics:

I also had a little extra time due to the hurricane and took 6 frags off my sand and mounted them to what will be one of my zoa rocks (Terrible picture, but thought I would share anyway):

Nudibranch Update: Still no successful babies. It is taking too much of my time so I'm going to send the adults and any remaining eggs to a person who has been breeding berghia for 6 years. School is just more important. It was cool to have them for a while, but maybe she can keep them alive better and breed them.

Brian

bobt2 · #**285** 09/26/2005, 01:04 PM

pat, since there are almost no sponges to die, i may not get a big spike.if i want some sponge later i can transfer some from the gulf tank,

dwculp · #**286** 09/26/2005, 01:47 PM

I have been taking pictures all day long. Here are some hermits:

The picture above is about a .75 X .75 inch area of sand bed against my glass. How many pods can you find in it. This is kind of like "Wheres Waldo".

bobt2 · #**287** 09/26/2005, 02:41 PM

what camara are you using? wish mine took those kind of close-ups

dwculp · #**288** 09/26/2005, 02:43 PM

I will only tell you if you correctly guess the number of pods in the pic.

bobt2 · #**289** 09/26/2005, 03:34 PM

looks like 5, but my sights going, i can tell you how many feathers on a hawks wing a mile away but i can't see my hand 5" in front of my face

luckiM · #**290** 09/26/2005, 09:00 PM

Man you guys keep busy. I had to go through 2 splits before I got caught up. Everybody's tanks look great. Brian, I really liked your review of the Austin stores. I'm lucky enough to be up on the north side and you saved me (well more like my friends) the trouble of checking out the ones on the south side. I hope you made it ok.
Now to my questions. For those of you with hammers, what and how often do you feed? Where did you place yours?
Pat, I remember that you were making your own food mix and freezing, but I can't seem to find the recipe in all these posts. Are you still using it and can you post it again if you are?
For those of you using the reef chili, do you like it? Is it as good as DTs?
Sorry for all the questions, but I feel like I've been gone for years and missed so much. Plus I'm finally getting my tank going really and I'm sooo excited. I'm already planning my move to the next one.
Anyway, thanks for the inspiration and knowledge. You guys are awesome.

Marianna

Oh yeah. I count 11, but it's kinda hard to tell.

H2OLUVSME · #**291** 09/27/2005, 06:29 AM

i counted 11 also, but there were 3 spots that i thought of a "could be"s.

bobt2 · #**292** 09/27/2005, 07:53 AM

well 1 week later i found my first bad hitchhicker [ I think]. it's a white nudibranch. look very much like picture#71 on the tbs site. guess i'll get him out.

drk70 · #**293** 09/27/2005, 08:22 AM

Dave - How do you like your Coral Banded Shrimp? I was always under the inpression they were bad to have because they would eat your fish.

bobt2 · #**294** 09/27/2005, 08:42 AM

dennis, don't know where you heard that. i've had f/osw tanks since the late 60"S. i've always had a bcs .and i've NEVER had a problem.

dwculp · #**295** 09/27/2005, 08:43 AM

My CBS never bothers any fish or anything else for that matter.

drk70 · #**296** 09/27/2005, 08:49 AM

That's funny because my Aunt had one and one day she looked in the tank and it was peeling the skin off of one of her fish. Maybe the fish had already died and it was just cleaning up.

I always thought they looked neat but was afraid to get one.

dwculp · #**297** 09/27/2005, 08:51 AM

More than likely the fish had already died. CBS are more scavengers than anything else.

H2OLUVSME · #**298** 09/27/2005, 09:07 AM

i can say that i never had a problem with my CBS and fish.

i did however have a CBS rip to shreds 2 emerald crabs, 2 porcelain crabs, and the one crazy battle i witnessed was CBS verse arrow crab. i found out later that the CBS and arrow crab are mortal enemies on the reef.

i think i had different situations than most. i had a mated pair in a 29 gallon tank, with lots of other inverts. when the female was holding eggs, the male would be very territorial, in a very small territory.

FWIW, ill be adding one, or a pair when i upgrade to the 120/180.

drk70 · #**299** 09/27/2005, 09:14 AM

Maybe I will have to look into getting one. They just look like they wouldn't be reef safe.

Maybe it would eat my mithrax crabs.

I wonder if it would eat gorilla crabs?

dwculp · #**300** 09/27/2005, 09:23 AM

I saw my CBS get in a fight over a hermit crab with my peppermint shrimp. It was actually comical with the hermit eventually surviving. It was the only time I have seen it attack anything in the tank and it was during the time I was feeding the tank VERY sparingly. So sparingly I witnessed my serpent star attack a snail and a hermit.