Pet Forum / Aquaria / Marine Reef / December 2005

OK, day six of my adventures in saltwater aquaculture.  The morning, I
noticed that all of the green hair on my overflow box had turned brown,
and a brown dust had settled over the rocks and sand at the right end of
my "new" aquarium.  Curiously, this all happened after I added a ...

I recently purchased a frogspawn coral with 3 branches and it is doing
very well.  How much spacing should there be between it and other
corals?  I have a 55 gallon with mushrooms, green star polyps, open
brain, leather finger coral and what I think is a tree coral.

A friend of mine has given me a PC lighting fixture after he bought a
bigger tank. It needs new lamps, but is in working order otherwise. It
takes 2 55W lamps. Should I make one of those white and the other blue,
and what spectrum?

Anyone use a microscope to examine the life in their seawater that a
magnafying glass alone won't reveal?
Any recommendations as to magnification and scope manufacturers?
Tanks,

Hi, I'm a refugee from freshwater.  Many years ago I kept a very
successful 10g Berlin style nano reef.  I'm thinking of getting a
Nanocube and starting a tiny reef again, but Nanocubes don't have a
skimmer or even a spot for one.  The guy at the reef shop said people

OK, everything's been running steady for a couple of days now, but I
just looked at the hydrometer, and it says that my water is borderline
fresh (1.0200).  Two days ago, it was in the lower half of the green
zone.  Obviously, I'm not losing water, and I don't see huge reefs of

I have put new lights in my hood, and since then I am getting this algae
back.  When I first set up years ago I had this problem, I know it is
because of the new lights being better has caused this to happen, but I
can't remember what I did last time to stop the problem.

I was posed a question today that I couldn't answer (imagine that!) -
can you use halogen lights over a reef tank? This came from a friend of
mine when I told him what my Aqualight Pro cost and why I needed high
wattage lights. He countered that I could get 300w worth of halogens ...

Can anyone identify these things ???
They are all over my refugium and now starting to appear in my tank.
They resemble a piece of rice with a funnel on the tip.
The best I can find is "polypoid life".... ????

I spend all day yesterday with a nasty head cold.  The only thing I did
with the aquarium was to set the light on it in the morning and
hand-stir/aerate the water in the evening.  According to the hydrometer,
the water temp is finally in the green zone, but the warmth has caused

Okay,
Well, thanks again for everyone's comments, suggestions, and guffaws. I
purchased my tank and system components yesterday and thought I would
share it here:

My tank is fairly new.   I noticed that some of my sand is turning in red
color.  Does anyone know that it is?  And if it is bad, how could I remedy
this situation.
Thanks in advance,

Hi, i have a simple question. Does carbon that i have in my caniste
filter take the calcium out of my water???  For some reason i cant ge
the calcium above 200 even with water changes just about every 3 days
The calcium level in the fresh sal****er that i make up is testing a

My Neon Goby. Amazing little fish!
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b3/xercesjpf/DSC01874.jpg
My silly perc in one of my toadstools
http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b3/xercesjpf/DSC01864.jpg

http://community.webshots.com/user/xercesjpf