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Is that an octopus skimmer in there ludnix? If so, I have either the exact same skimmer (if it's a recirc model) or pretty darned close (if it's not).ludnix posted:I personally just got a glass 40g breeder tank and inserted acrylic dividers in it. This is what I've done in the past (albeit with smaller glass tanks) and is the simplest and cheapest way to do it. Acrylic sumps are awesome if you're experienced with working with acrylic and you can build them well, but most people aren't, there's not really a lot of great ways to learn how, and so mod people just end up with a glass tank altered for sump usage. I personally have an acrylic sump right now, but only because it came with my tank when I bought it used, but I HATE the sump design. It really loving sucks. Psimitry fucked around with this message at 07:34 on Mar 20, 2009 |
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Mar 20, 2009 07:31
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Sounds like we have the same skimmer. Seems like it's performed pretty well for the money, I'm not getting as much skimmate as I used to, but I think it's mostly due to my refugium taking over the nutrient exportation. The mangroves are turning into pretty decent bushes now. I have trouble cleaning out the body as you can see in the picture. I'm considering just covering it with black plastic or something to block the light so it won't need to be cleaned as often. Do you have any tricks for cleaning your Psimitry? Creating an acrylic sump is a pretty involved process, I can only imagine bothering with it if I needed a very specific size not available in standard glass tanks. Hypnotized those crabs are awesome. How are porcelain crabs with fish? I know just about any crab is an opportunist and given the chance they'd take whatever they can catch, but maybe they are just too tiny? I'm having a hard time determining size
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Mar 20, 2009 10:18
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ludnix posted:Sounds like we have the same skimmer. Seems like it's performed pretty well for the money, I'm not getting as much skimmate as I used to, but I think it's mostly due to my refugium taking over the nutrient exportation. The mangroves are turning into pretty decent bushes now. I have trouble cleaning out the body as you can see in the picture. I'm considering just covering it with black plastic or something to block the light so it won't need to be cleaned as often. Do you have any tricks for cleaning your Psimitry? As I don't have a light over my refugium, I don't really have to worry about this particular problem. However, I do tend to pull the entire assembly out and run the skimmer with a 40% vinegar solution. That seems to either kill or breakup anything that might be in the body. That said, I hadn't done this for quite awhile (due to my own laziness), and I noticed my own skimmate production taking a dive. I took off the air injector elbow from the pipe and tried blowing through the air hose. drat thing was almost completely blocked. A night in pure vinegar completely restored the skimmer's performance. quote:Creating an acrylic sump is a pretty involved process, I can only imagine bothering with it if I needed a very specific size not available in standard glass tanks. Agreed. I almost attempted to build one of these: http://www.melevsreef.com/55g/55sump.html. When I had a 55 gallon tank, it would have allowed me to have a MUCH larger sump than the 18G tank that previously was my sump. But then I went to a 90G tank.  quote:Hypnotized those crabs are awesome. How are porcelain crabs with fish? I know just about any crab is an opportunist and given the chance they'd take whatever they can catch, but maybe they are just too tiny? I'm having a hard time determining size I have a porcelain crab. At least I think I do. I got one about two years ago, and added it to my 29G tank. I rarely ever saw it. I was certain it was dead when I upgraded to my 55G tank. I was moving rock out of my tank when the thing fell off and started to scuttle away. Then I found it again when moving to my 90G. Just today, I saw a molted shell of one, so apparently it's still in there. Porcelain crabs are COMPLETELY harmless. They use their claws for defense only, as they are only filter feeders. I've never lost a fish or coral in the tank where I have suspected the porcelain crab.
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Mar 20, 2009 10:30
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I've been sorely neglecting my sump. I haven't taken my skimmer out in the 8 months it's been running aside from a few plumbing repairs, but I have cleaned the pump regularly. I'll have to do the vinegar bath as well as remember to unclog the air line on occasion. I certainly wouldn't mind any performance boosts I can get.
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Mar 20, 2009 11:07
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Yeah I don't know if the vinegar bath for the full assembly covers the intake port or not (I don't think it does). The nice thing about the bath for the injector port is that there's no air running through it while it's happening, so you can be sure that any calcium deposit that is there is quickly dissolved (though I left it overnight).
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Mar 20, 2009 12:12
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Awesome, I'm definitely gonna try my hand a building a sump now. Any specific size I should go for considering my tank's going to be around 45-55 gallons, or is it pretty much whatever will fit under the tank?
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Mar 20, 2009 17:35
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moechae posted:Awesome, I'm definitely gonna try my hand a building a sump now. Any specific size I should go for considering my tank's going to be around 45-55 gallons, or is it pretty much whatever will fit under the tank? Probably whatever you want, a lot of people use 20-29 gallon sumps under a 55.
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Mar 20, 2009 19:52
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Bigger is always better but you may consider leaving some extra room under the stand either storing chemicals or potential room for a calcium rector or some other device that needs to be out of tank. My sump fits exactly under my stand so I'm left with no room for hiding a calcium reactor unless I build a second shelf.
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Mar 20, 2009 22:43
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I put a 20long under my 75. The skimmer I bought was a tight fit which makes it a bitch to take out to clean. Take your comfort into consideration.
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Mar 21, 2009 02:03
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Ok so I've narrowed it down to these fish... 2 Cleaner shrimp Red Firefish Royal Gramma Longnosed Butterfly Powder Brown Tang OR Red Stripe Angelfish With my tank all cycled I can start stocking soon.
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Mar 22, 2009 02:02
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Expect the firefish to disappear. I'm convinced that they are the ultimate in saltwater pussies. They get eaten by EVERYTHING. The only way I'd ever run a firefish in my tank is if I put it in my biocube, with iodine sterilized live rock, and not a crab in sight. I also wouldn't run any shrimp (with the POSSIBLE exception of a small cleaner) in the tank with them. They just friggin' die for no apparent reason all the time.
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Mar 22, 2009 07:55
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Yeah the main SW store here is really tight with it's customers and one of the nice ones that worked there told me not to buy any of their cleaners because they have been dying/getting old shrimps. I already added a firefish and the longnosed butterfly today. I wish I had my camera working right about now.
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Mar 22, 2009 08:21
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And if the firefish isn't eaten, expect it to commit suicide via carpet-surfing.
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Mar 22, 2009 17:28
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I've had a firefish for a couple months, but now it's missing as you talk about their affinity for getting eaten. 
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Mar 22, 2009 20:47
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I'm finally stocked I got a Randall's Goby, Gramma and peppermint shrimp to join the two hermits and two astro snails I've got already. Aside from the gramma and goby flexing at each other every now and then there are no problems, and the peppermint seems to have demolished the aiptasia problem overnight. I only wish I could have watched but he's a nightowl  Has anyone kept a pistol shrimp in a nano? I know they've got that shockwave claw but are these the ones capable of shattering aquariums or is that a mantis? Would I have to worry about the gramma or peppermint with one of those in there? I even ended up with a second free coral on a piece of live rock. Now I think I might have a puprle and a red mushroom but they'll have to grow a bit before I can really tell what they are.
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Mar 23, 2009 15:03
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I am interested in starting a salt water tank when I get my new apartment in May. I have been doing TONS of reading and my brain is exploding with information. I plan to get a tank in the range of 10-20 gallons. Are there any small fish that I can have a swarm of instead of having one of a few kinds? I know 10-20g isn't very big, but I think it is a decent place to start for my first saltwater tank.
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Mar 23, 2009 22:17
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I can't think of any reef safe fish that will shoal around together. I imagine you could have a couple of firefish in a small tank like that, but the only small fish I can think that shoals around would be the blue-green reef chromis, which would be too large for a 20g. I would consider going bigger if you can, I don't know if you have any restrictions in your apartment, but the smaller the tank the more difficult it is to keep the parameters stable.
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Mar 23, 2009 22:29
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ludnix posted:I can't think of any reef safe fish that will shoal around together. I imagine you could have a couple of firefish in a small tank like that, but the only small fish I can think that shoals around would be the blue-green reef chromis, which would be too large for a 20g. I don't know what parameters I have yet either. This is all hypothetical right now. I have to talk to my new landlord when I am back in the city where the apartment is located.
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Mar 23, 2009 22:43
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Brekelefuw posted:I don't know what parameters I have yet either. This is all hypothetical right now. I have to talk to my new landlord when I am back in the city where the apartment is located. Meh. Don't worry about that. Let your landlord know that you're going to have an aquarium, but you don't have to let them know what the size is. My landlord didn't care that I had an aquarium (despite the fact that they can be more damaging to an apartment than any dog or cat).
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Mar 23, 2009 23:08
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How long do people think you can leave brine shrimp thawed and still be a good idea to feed to things? The cubes are big and I'm only really feeding two fish. Can I thaw one in the morning for a little feeding, leave it sitting in a cup all day and still put some in at night? This is the first time I've had a tank where a whole cube won't get annihilated in one shot so sorry if this seems like a stupid question. I just can't imagine dead commercial shrimp lasting long before it starts to rot.
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Mar 24, 2009 16:17
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I wouldn't leave it sitting out all day, but you can make life easier for yourself. I take one of those cubes and one of those seven-day pill dispenser things, and divide up a week's worth of food. Then I put the pill dispenser back in the freezer and thaw what I need when I need it.
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Mar 24, 2009 16:43
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csammis posted:I wouldn't leave it sitting out all day, but you can make life easier for yourself. I take one of those cubes and one of those seven-day pill dispenser things, and divide up a week's worth of food. Then I put the pill dispenser back in the freezer and thaw what I need when I need it. Hmm that's not a bad idea. While we're on the subject of feeding, I hope someone can ID something for me. The fish store people use these crazy long eye droppers, almost like what you see people using in bio/genetics on TV, to get food to corals without arm-tanking or freaking out fish as much. I CANNOT find these goddamn things anywhere in life, let alone the internet. Best I can find are "long" eyedroppers but 2" isn't long to anything but an ant. Where the hell can people get something like that besides pretending I'm the oldest college kid on campus and raid a biology classroom?
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Mar 24, 2009 16:52
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Morbid Florist posted:Hmm that's not a bad idea. While we're on the subject of feeding, I hope someone can ID something for me. The fish store people use these crazy long eye droppers, almost like what you see people using in bio/genetics on TV, to get food to corals without arm-tanking or freaking out fish as much. I CANNOT find these goddamn things anywhere in life, let alone the internet. Best I can find are "long" eyedroppers but 2" isn't long to anything but an ant. They call it a "Sea Squirt" feeder, made by Kent Marine.
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Mar 24, 2009 16:56
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Hood Ornament posted:They call it a "Sea Squirt" feeder, made by Kent Marine. You are the man, thank you
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Mar 24, 2009 17:01
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Isn't that just a skinny turkey baster or is there something I'm missing?
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Mar 24, 2009 19:14
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ludnix posted:Isn't that just a skinny turkey baster or is there something I'm missing? Pretty much, it's also extendable and has different tips you can use.
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Mar 24, 2009 20:01
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ludnix posted:Isn't that just a skinny turkey baster or is there something I'm missing? The ones I saw in use had way smaller outputs than a baster so I'm not sucking up half a cube of shrimp just to keep suction going. In the meantime I've got a regular eye dropper that also does a way better job at food control than the baster I've been using for 3 days. The length is what I'll want in a few months when these pieces of coral grow up and want to eat. Morbid Florist fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Mar 24, 2009 |
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Mar 24, 2009 20:03
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I had just attached some rigid air tubing to my turkey baster, otherwise a turkey baster's opening can't maintain enough cohesion to keep the water from falling out.
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Mar 24, 2009 20:10
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That's a decent idea, and cheaper than $20...
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Mar 24, 2009 20:32
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All the little starfish in my aquarium went crazy spawning last night. My tank had dozens of little piles of starfish all over. Here is one of the groups.
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Mar 25, 2009 21:22
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Hypnotized posted:All the little starfish in my aquarium went crazy spawning last night. My tank had dozens of little piles of starfish all over. Here is one of the groups. That is really cool, and cute! 
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Mar 25, 2009 22:23
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I've always been jealous of people who have tons of mini brittle stars. I'm pretty sure my fish would eat them up for dinner though.
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Mar 26, 2009 02:41
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Any Biocubers in here? At first I thought I'd be able to live with the fans being loud but now they're just out of control. I'd replace it with a PC fan but the nanoreef forums imply that it wouldn't be a direct swap, that I'd need a seperate power supply for that one fan. Screw that. I don't mind direct wiring something in there but not if it won't tie into the switches on top. Is my only option to wait for the OEM to replace it?
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Mar 26, 2009 21:14
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I've replaced both of my OEM fans with higher quality ones. You have to get 50mm fans (not the 60 or 80mm fans that are standard for computers) and you can find them at Newegg. If you want to do direct swaps, you need 2-pin plugs on them (which is unlikely). The easier way to do it is to get standard 3-pin plugs and get a 3-pin to 2-pin adapters (I figured this out after I got a 3-pin fan, took the connector off of the OEM fan and spliced it on to the new one). Additionally, I also found that heat has a really nasty tendency to build up heat in them so I actually drilled holes in the small lid, mounted a 80mm fan under those holes and set a timer so that it turns on when the lights do and it pulls air in from the outside and blows it across the water. The downside to this is that I don't have an exhaust fan on the other side, so that the humidity tends to build up in the hood area, causing the 80mm fans to short out all the time. If I hadn't built in a quick-change rig for it, I'd be going insane with constantly splicing wires. I tend to buy fans from newegg in bulk. The adapters can be found here: http://www.nanotuners.com/product_info.php?cPath=25&products_id=234 (they're PROBABLY on Newegg as well, but I've never been able to find them). Fans here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16835104008 Psimitry fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Mar 26, 2009 |
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Mar 26, 2009 21:22
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I found them online but I want to do this tonight. But thanks to the internet driving most electronics stores out of business there are no options besides loving radioshack, and their site implies that they don't sell 50mm in the stores. If I order this now, even with super shipping, it won't be here for the weekend and that's just not acceptable. I'm still going to go by one on my way home just in case. Maybe a CPU heatsink will have a 50mm bolted to it that I can yank. Those adapters don't really matter in this case because that 3rd pin is just a sensor lead, you can just cut it or wrap it over. Figures, we just threw out a ton of old PCs because I said there wasn't a real use for them anymore. I totally could have found one in those. Morbid Florist fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Mar 26, 2009 |
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Mar 26, 2009 21:51
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Morbid Florist posted:Those adapters don't really matter in this case because that 3rd pin is just a sensor lead, you can just cut it or wrap it over. Figures, we just threw out a ton of old PCs because I said there wasn't a real use for them anymore. I totally could have found one in those. It doesn't matter as far as functionality, but it certainly matters as far as getting the plug to fit. The two-pin plug is much smaller than the three-pin.
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Mar 26, 2009 22:13
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I'm looking at taking my first stab at a marine tank and went to a local and well reviewed shop, Saltwater City in Bellevue, WA. Due to my comically small apartment they made the following suggestion as a package deal: 20 gallon glass tank - $59.99 Aqua-C Remora protein skimmmer w/ mag 3 - #194.99 Flaval surface-skimmer attachment for Remora - $16.99 Hydor Koralia nano powerhead - $31.99 Current USA 2-65wt power-compact fixture - $174.99 75-watt Visi-Therm Delux heater - $27.99 Instant Ocean brand Hydrometer - $14.99 ESU digital thermometer - $9.99 Seachem Reef Calcium $9.99 Seachem Reef Buffer - $9.99 15 lbs live rock $119.85 4 buckets with lids $15.96 20 gallons pre-mixed salt water $20.00 Total retail - $707.71 Package price - $550.00 Obviously I don't need the water but I figure since it's the same stuff they use it'll be less shock on my animals, they also offer free water testing whenever I want it. I think I saw some poor opinions of the Aqua-C skimmer in this thread somewhere, any thoughts? They're willing to mix and match items in the package to some extent. Animal-wise I'd like to do something like a couple of clowns, an anemone and a coral. Or something, I'm pretty open to suggestion. Thanks!
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Mar 27, 2009 07:49
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If it's your first aquarium, I might recommend taking the size up to a 29 gallon tank or thereabouts. The nice thing about the equipment they've put on there is that it will grow with the tank somewhat. The remora is an aging design, but it's a solid skimmer that my buddy had on his 55G reef for quite a long time. There is a bit of garbage on there, as you probably won't ever end up using the calcium or the buffer (at least I never have anyway). But it's a surprisingly good package. The inclusion of things you don't often realize you need is great. The buckets specifically. I have six five gallon buckets and it pretty much still isn't enough. BUT the great thing about buying a bucket of salt is that you get a free bucket with screw on lid. In the 20 gallon with this light setup, you should be perfectly fine with the stuff you've listed. Make sure that you get a bubble tip anemone and you should be fine - they're pretty bulletproof and they don't need all that intense lighting in order to survive. But yeah - I'd suggest going up to a slightly larger tank (29G would be decent), put in a pair of Koralia 1's (maybe a 2 and a 1 for a 29G tank). Other than that.. yeah. It should all be good to go.
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Mar 27, 2009 08:50
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I agree with everything Psimitry said. The remoras are supposedly vary from skimmer to skimmer but I had a good experience with mine on a 30g system. It seems like a pretty good price as well. Is sand included in that deal?
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Mar 27, 2009 09:26
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Goby question. This Randall's is my first goby and I seem to be doing myself more harm that good by trying to keep him fed. I've got brown algae starting so I obviously need to cut down the food. My problem is that the gramma I have is a prick, takes the pick of the litter for food, AND can get in the goby's face a bit. So my problem is that I have to put in more shrimp than I should so he'll get enough (at least until he stops going for food). I've read there are sinking shrimp pellets that are great for gobies. I think my real question is how MUCH do these little guys actually need? Is he doing what dogs do and just eat until nothing else goes by him or will he only go after poo poo if he's starved? How many pellets do such little things need? (Haven't seen them yet, buying them at lunch) Hopefully a little water change tonight and cutting down the amount of food going in there should cut this algae problem off at the head. I'm going to bolster my janitorial staff soon, are there snails that eat the brown poo poo? My two astros either are pre-occupied with other things to eat or they don't like it. edit: there do seem to be snails that will eat it, but I see no mention of them ignoring corals one way or another. Morbid Florist fucked around with this message at 15:51 on Mar 27, 2009 |
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Mar 27, 2009 15:18
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