pledosophy

Damm that tank is a steal. I would so love to get it just for the future, but after setting up a third tank before talking to the wife last week, I don't think it's a good idea. It's not big enough to sleep in Maybe I should wake her up and ask her. I'm sure it won't take long.

IMHO just some kids in a misguided attempt to look cool. Don't take it to personally, it really had nothing to do with you. I'm a relative newb to Oregon. In the city I grew up in that altercation would have been the least of your problems.My high school not only had assigned officers, but metal detectors, and police dogs. I did much worse things as a kid then that, I grew out of it and am a pretty upstanding citizen now. They very well will too. You pulled that in the hood I grew up in, you'd be carried by 6, not tried by 12. The cops wouldn't have arrested you, they just would have found you. No disrespect, just sayin, the samew would happen to Chuck Norris. It's just not worth it, walk away. Life's to short. It's not your fight. You're not going to accomplish anything. Your not going to make a difference in that kid except to teach him he needs to carry bigger weapons. Just walk away. Even if you do "win" the fight, the repercusitions are imense and will take you months if not years to deal with. To much hassle. Easier to walk away.

Por Que? I think all the others are smoke monster food. Maybe Jordan will get his epsidoe after all.

It was tight when Ben reached under the piano bench and pulled out an automatic rifle. Like he was in control the entire time. The geeky scientist dude is cool, Joel just can't understand him. If I could unlock time travel, I wouldn't be on a remote island, well maybe I would, with my "staff" to mix drinks and bring out more sun tan oil. Clair barely qualifies as a MILF IMO. Her *** is not selling the show. They could use some more blondes. The smoke monster was rad, but I expected Ben to suck it up like the Rock did in the Scorpion King. The bullet proof table thing was pretty lame. How did all the others homies get capped and Sawyer is just fine. He does die soon right? He's not one of the 6. I didn't realize Kate had Clair's baby, thought she had a different one, maybe fathered by Sawyer which is why Jack didn't want to visit her. Was confused by that. Do you think the one rich dude actually had Siad (sp?) wife killed or Ben is just manipulating it so Sieed (sp?) will kill for him. What happens with Ben and Desmond when Ben kills Penny? Hurley should be skinnier by now.

That sounds like your best option to me. IME with a 150w HQI on a 20g long tank, it was to much lighting so maybe the 70w would be better. Depends on how deep the tank is. I upgraded tanks to a 29g and am now much happier with my light. JMO.

I've called there a few times, they never anwser the phone, never returned a call (but I'm an idiot and keep leaving the messages). I wouldn't go by those to see if they are open, just show up, they're not good at the phone thing IME. I haven't been there in a year or so, so no help there.

Easier to ask for forgiveness then permission. I did pick up a very comfy couch while Levitz was going out of business. This thing is so nice. Its great cuz the tank is in the living room too. No seriously just talk to her about what you want to do. About how your expanding the hobby and saving corals from being collected from the ocean, etc, etc. Don't bring up the money thing right away cuz then you get into how much it costs, better to avoid IME. I did pay for every part of my my fish hobby for about a year back in Cali when I had the extra space. It was nice to net a few hundred a month from stuff I was growing, although I put all of it back in (to get better stuff). HTH

Rock lifts do sound fun.

I was wondering how long it was going to take.

If you have never fed teh tank, you can't be sure if it is cycled or not. The absence of ammonia just means there is no ammonia left, not that the tank can handle a bioload. Feed the tank, wait 6 hours or so and then test for ammonia. If the reading is 0, test for nitrite, if both are zero your good to go.

Are you really going to tear down the tank for hair algae? Seriously? If your not 100% sure you want to do this there are many many options we can explore, some of them very inexpensive at that. Some are very very easy. Hair algae no matter how bad it is can be dealt with, without having to tear down the system. If you want help before taking the radical approach I'd be glad to do what I can. I your set on it, then IMO Cook the rock for longer, it will help it release built up phosphates, kill unwanted pests. Don't dip the rock in fresh water, you don't want to kill the anaerobic bacteria, it takes quite some time to recolonize and without your LR will be pretty useless in denitrification. It's easier to clean your rock, then it is to reseed all of the years of bacteria. When you put the rock in the bin, put as much flow in as you can. Turn the temp up as high as you can. If you can cover the rock it will help with evaporation, but plan on topping off frequently. When the rock is cooking it is important you feed the rock so the bacteria will continue to grow. Instead of feeding with traditional foods, feed with pure unscented ammonia (they sell it at Smart and Final) or ammonia chloride (FWIW IME it takes about .113 gm to hit 1ppm in 10g of water) Spike the ammonia to 1ppm as often as possible. Daily is great, but when your cooking stuff for months missing a day isn't that bad. Using a pure source of ammonia means the bacteria is eating, but the protozoans and pests are not. Don't worry about the pH, it will be screwy. When I cooked my rock I also fed the anaerobes. I used Kettle One Vodka just cuz it was a good excuse to buy it, table sugar works the same. For vodka I was using 1mL once a week in about 55g of water. I would use flatworm exit on the tank and rock, separately. The ammonia, temp, and starvation will probably kill the worms, but just in case. In the tank it will give better penetration and less places for the suckers to hide. Pulling all of that rock is pulling all of your biological filtration in your display. Your going to see ammonia and nitrite readings. Amquel will only go so far, in a tank that size large daily water changes are just a stupid option. Your going to need to seriously plan for the loss of aerobic bacteria. It's going to take some time to catch up, even with your refugium and your skimmer. I know everyone hates them but I might start cycling some bioballs the same way you would cook the rock for a couple of weeks (it should take about 2 weeks) so at least the ammonia and nitrite will be gone. In a fish only system nitrate is not as bad, but your going to need to plan for that too. Nitrate reactors work well and can be made fairly cheaply. I might look into one. You could always toss a bunch of macro in the display during cooking but then you have to pull it out, and/or get a fish that will eat it as well IME or you will always have macro in your tank. JMO, HTH

Sunbursts from Oceanrider are erectus. They should eat freshly hatched brine and should hitch within 7 days. If your only going twice a day I would feed both times you are there. Actually I feed erectus fry 4 times a day when I am rearing them.

Matt, when you find out how easy it is to do a custom white balance you are going to kick yourself. Take a piece of paper with you. Photograph the paper so that it fills the frame (you might have to focus on the side of the paper and the move the camera to frame the paper), then go into the menu under Custom WB, and select that image as white. Change the WB setting on your camera to custom (it's teh two triangles with the square in the middle) and your good. Will take you three minutes the first time, a minute or less every time after.

If anyone is intrested in more macro, I have a few species on hand. Easy to pruin, I have a ton. I throw most of it away so not looking for much return.

is it the 36" or 48" footprint? How tall is the canopy? Is it drilled for an overflow? I'm in Beaverton too.

I have 12 emerald crabs in my 65g. Never a problem with the other fish or corals. I found the best way to deal with bubble algae is to do a water change with a small gauge hose and dislodge the algae while sucking it down the hose. The dozen crabs does help though.

Sold! That was quick. I was hoping to go in with some peeps. If you have anymore let me know. Maybe some of us can go in on a future pack if there is some left. The acans, caps, tort, and singularia I got from you are all doing awesome. Everything but the tort has doubled in size since I picked it up, the tort has grown. I have to get in this forum more often.

I'll bring camera and tripod 6 days a week. I suck at fish pics though, but I can take beautiful pics of your children at my studio. (I specialize in portraits, work mainly with kids at the Yuen Lui in Beaverton). Frag you say? You wouldn't be intrested in some huge mushrooms for trade would ya? All my other stuff is to small to share. I collect frags but they take forever to grow into colonies. It hink it's mostly my fault there. If your serious I can come over and take some shots this week. Have to talk with the wife ya know, she rules my schedule (if only she weren't so cute). We don't do anything besides play with the tanks, dog, and watch baseball. I don't think we have plans.

Cannon, Fuji, and Konoica all make cameras with S1 in the title. The fuji's are Nikon clones. I use the cannon macro filters with my 1.4f 50mm fixed lens and they do O.K., but not like a macro lens can.

Excellent points. I found until I started actively moving water through my rock that the dead spots would always create problems in previous tanks. Now with the closed loop and spray bars I have the tank I always wanted. I just added a nice skimmer to the tank as well. I don't think I will ever run a tank again without spray bars under the rock work. I have 4 fish in a 65 (leaopard wrasse, pink spotted watchman goby, manderin, bi color blenny) I consider myself one or two fish away from maxing out my tank. Just have to decide which wrasse and maybe tang I want to add. (plotting) After I get those I might have room for one more fish. (whistle);) It's a disease. I even took off work early today to come play with the fish. As I did friday, as I did last week. Have vacation time scheduled next month to reaquascape. I think I may need counciling.

Lovin the shots Frank. Your tank has come quite a long ways. Then again when I saw it the tank was still cycling. Great choices in coral.

I'm a photographer by trade but still use the original rebel for my home stuff. IMO as a hobbyist just looking for fish pics you would be better off with a nice point and shoot then you would be with an SLR. With an SLR you will need to invest more money after the body in lenses to get what you want where many point and shoots hae a zoom and marco feature. If you just have a couple extra gand you want to spend on something a Cannon SLR with a nice macro lens will give you great pics, but you will need to spend the money for a tripod as well. Otherwise I am really impressed with the Sony's that feature the Carl Zeiss lense, mainly the cyber shots. I like the Cannons over the Nikons and Fiji's because of the way the sensors are distributed. I haved used a Nikon D1X in the past but find the Cannon supperior for what I do. Right now I can make a 4' by 8' print off a Cannon Jpeg and I haven't had any clients want to go bigger then that. The D1X I was having trouble with 20x24" prints. Also important to remeber when considering camera's that a mega pixel is not a standard unit of measurement. It essentially means nothing. It's like lighting with watts, doesn't mean crap it's all about the other outputs (NO vs. PC vs. T5. vs MH) if that makes any sense. Not that I know anything, it's just how I pay my bills. I shoot mainly portraits though, so different ball game. I admittedly suck at fish pictures, especially macro shots, even with the fancy gear. JMO

Frank my man I was there when you got this. I'm down to have a beer anytime with you buddy. Had a nice time with John and Constatine. (sorry if I spelled the name wrong)

What! I almost missed this. I'll be right over. Not like you can read this cuz your there, but whatever.

Seahorse fry can last 5 days with no food IME. Kuda's look just like reidi (which are more distributed) so if you can get a nice profile shot of the head, we can ID the difference for you. IME fry do not take non live food for sometime.