ThePremiumAquarium

My pleasure! Thanks for stopping by to check out the system. Tell the girl that I don't know if I can hold up my end of the promise not to let you take home any more corals I have a terrible habbit of encouraging worthy reefers like yourself to go home with new corals, forcing them into upgrading their tanks(my main motive in your case as of the other night)

LOL soon enough my friend soon enough... We will have to do a trade. You have alot of nice zoas/palys that I would love to trade for a some of mine. I have just sort of begun the restocking and hope to get my hands on a few of the old specimens that I once had. It would be nice to be able to have a few dozen varieties of zoas/palys to propigate and trade. It will still be a little while before I will feel confident that my system is really ready for anything substantial when it comes to livestock. I have been adding a few things here and there but for the most part I think I still have a couple of months before the real cool stuff(besides zoas/palys) can be introduced. Oh and I took a gamble and picked up a harliquen shrimp and a few chocolate chip stars. He is doing great thus far and has been just going nuts on a starfish leg over the last day. Garrett

The first of my Metal Halides are up! After waiting a while for the bulbs I am really happy now that they have arrived. Here are a couple of pics taken with my cell phone as I left my cameras at home. And a few corals under the lighting(they look much better in person. It will be great to see how they color up) I spent a few hours a couple of nights ago making some frag racks form white eggcrate. I really want to do some in black but I just can't see spending the extra $$ for them at this point. They would definately make the colors of the corals pop but they provide less reflcetivity and are a 3rd again the price, plus they have to be shipped so who knows what could happen to them being so fragile. I am debating on selling a new lighting unit I got to instead go with a couple more retrofit lighting setups. I really like the output on the ones I setup this evening and on the next row I setup I would eventually like to set 3 metal halides over the 6ft length, especially because I would love to grow some sps in a couple of the tanks and think the extra light would really be nice. Soon I should have enough power over in the area to run all of the lighting at once. I have kind of been waiting to get a couple of 20 amp breakers installed and wireing run before I get all of the lighting setup more perminantly in configuration. More to come soon...

[language filter] now I want to breed some mollys! lol. I love chaeto and what a great use for it. (laugh) Excellent suggestions guys!

Thanks Jon! I too have a preference for Chaetomorpha sp. It seems that it has the least amount of care needed and the maximum nutrient exportation of any macro algae that I have tried. I have grown 6 or so species of caulerpas including the ones you see pictured. I also am a big fan of Halimeda and if cared for correctly Gracilaria is great in many ways. All do a great job at nutrient exporting and all serve their own purpose. As far as I know Caulerpa taxfolia is the only species of Caulerpa in Oregon that is illegal. The only reason it is illegal in Oregon is because it is illegal nation wide. Just too invasive and out competes native macro species. Macro algae is amazing stuff. It is crazy the number of microfauna that are present in a good refugium. I sometimes just sit and watch all of the critters. Makes for some good seahorse, pipefish, and mandarin food too

My favorite way of bioconversion Lots of live rock+Lots of good live sand+Lots of macro algae+Lots of invertibrates+A great skimmer+occasional GFO and Carbon = A Happy Reef!

Isn't Sealine a product that Pacific Coast Imports brings in? If so, you could likely have one of your local shops grab one from them for you or give them a call and head over and grab one. They are right here in Woodburn so it wouldn't be too far of a drive. Garrett

You are all going to hate me for this but..... I think its the Swine Flu Outbreak Garrett

Agreed. I have personally had 6 different lighting temperatures/types set up at the same time and placed various corals of the same type under these different lightings. It is quite amazing to see how different they turn out so I wouldn't completely discredit yours from being true purple hornets but I do believe they are a different morph based on the color in the ones you have posted. Could be the camera, could be the lighting, could even be the water chemistry but they do look like a different morph. Quite a nice one at that. Garrett

Here is a good example of the more known morph of purple hornets that CA2OR is trying to explain. I really like the morph that you have Perry and think they are just as beautiful. Like all zoas there are soooooo many color morphs even within nominclature. One from coralpedia: I have seen many purple hornets and some look like the ones that Perry has here. I also believe that the picture that he put side by side with his is a pretty close representation if not the exact same variety so I don't think there is a difference really between the two he has posted. The ones I have posted are a bit different though, especially in the said alternating skirts. Garrett

Look nearly identical to me. Nice find! Beautiful zoas and good luck with the sale Dennis. If I head up your way again I might have to grab a few polyps. Garrett

This hobby is truely an amazing hobby. When it comes to corals it is funny how supply, demand, and a simple discussion can lead a coral from being "worth" $.50 a polyp to being worth over $50 a polyp. Many of us have had corals that we thought very little of or at least in terms of dollar value did not associate with much worth. Then, all of the sudden 3 months later some guy from some where started to talk about how cool his new coral looks and how spectacular it is for such and such reasons. All of the sudden a few people are interested in a few frags of the coral. A month later the coral is considered by many to be rare or hard to come by and for some reason is more beautiful or "worth" way more now. Now that coral that we once had or happen to have but thought nothing of becomes a hit and one of our prized tank specimens "worth" more to you now than ever before. This is just how things tend to work in the hobby. It kind of makes it fun! One moment you are kicking yourself for selling/trading off your once drab and "worthless" 8" echino for a few mushrooms and the next you are wishing you could afford that really crazy looking zoa that just last week had a $10 price tag on it. I love this hobby! Its crazy and slightly bi- or even tri- polar but it rocks!

Yup, never had a problem and used a couple that were treated with copper for quite a while and they did great as reefs! Just keep the rock for a fish only system and start over with fresh rock and sand IMO.

LOL and if Nick doesn't have something that you like you can always head down my way for a trade (whistle)

Not yet but keep an eye on it. Sometimes blue shades lead to a more white look over time which as you know is probably not the best thing and means that it is likely bleaching. I woud just watch it for a bit. It could be just changeing colors for the better. I have seen them in blues, greens, oranges, pinks, reds, and even purples as well as all the shades in between.

This is a very good point. Starting with RO/DI water is a pretty good call in your case once you get everything resetup if that is the route you decide to go. I personally have no issues with using tap water but that is not the case for many and RO/DI never hurts. I do think that a heavy metal, whether in your tap water or previously used in your tank is likely the culprate so the above advice of testing for copper and its elimination is a good idea.

You could definately do that. I would go with a 29g because they can get to be a decent size and will tend to produce more if they have a bit more room.

Just watch your nutrient levels. Those little buggers excrete and deficate alot!(which is why I removed them)

IME copper definately makes live rock pretty much useless in a reeftank. The tank however usually does fine if cleaned well. I have had a few tanks in the past that were once copper treated and after a good cleaning have done really well as reef tanks. I definately wouldn't risk the rock or anything else that heavy metals can settle into such as aquarium ornaments, substrait, or equipment. Try setting up a small new 10g tank to sort of mimic your display. Make sure that you use the same water that you would use in your display, i.e. mix it the same and use the same source, not the tank water itself. Then add a couple of snails to the tank and see how they do for a couple of weeks. If they do well then add some of your displays live rock. If they die, then you might be able to just get rid of your live rock and sort of restart your tank with good live rock and live sand that you know doesn't have copper in it. Or just sort of start over by setting up a temp tank for your inhabitants, getting rid of your rock, sand, and anything that heavy metals could saturate, clean the tank really well and then mix up some new saltwater and see if that does the trick. Lots of options but I really do think that you probably are having an issue with copper. Garrett

Have you tested for heavy metals? Not sure that this is the problem but it sounds like it could be. I would definately run a test for copper as it has some pretty devistating affects on most corals and invertibrates. Snails usually will not live too long if there is any amount of copper in a system. Garrett

In my first reef tank I kept a few mollys that I used to get thing rolling in the system. They did wonderfully and in fact were pretty sweet looking fish. The problem that I ran into with them in a reef is that they shoot out little buggers all the time. At the time I had no use for them and would net them out and take them down to the LFS. About 9 months after the last mollys were out of my tank, I had to take the tank down to move it from Corvallis to Salem. To my suprise one of the babys had been down in my sump living for the entire time!!! I decided that this little guy would come with me up to Salem since he had done so well for so long just crammed down in my sump. He lived for a while in my 210g tank along with all of the normal saltwater reef critters. One day I found him dried up behind the tank. Pretty cool fish for being a mainly freshwater fish. From my understanding some mollys are found in waters with a salinity of around 1.030-1.032. Intersting critters for sure and definately would make for some nice live food since they proliferate like nuts! Garrett

Imagine a salinty drop from 1.026 to 1.012... then add a temperature drop from 78.2 to 64.5... Then imagine what the PH level was at. Even with those drastic numbers, alot of corals survived! Fish nearly all survived and only the most sensitive of inverts parished. Even the dreaded Sea Apple lived and did well after things stabalized and returned to normal. I was without power for 3 days and my ATO unit failed. I will likely never use an ATO on a larger system again. I will always have some way of keeping at leas powerheads going and and will soon buy a generator for the heaters and main circulation. I think your animals should all be fine. I would imagine that you will not see one problem and likely not even a simple algae bloom. You were proactive enough to not let things slip into the danger zone so I think you have some good tank karhma going on right now (laugh) Garrett

Those are all hot! I really like the magicians aswell. To me they stand out more than some of the other LE polyps that are priced much higher. Garrett

I think you will be just fine Not enough of a change to really harm anything or send things too far out of wack. Garrett