Blog Comments

I have a reef dynamics skimmer and it skims like you wouldn't believe. I have the 180 for my 135g tank and would have no qualms about using it on a much larger aquarium. You can skim as dry or wet as you like. The pump is dead silent, and easy for maintenance

I'd almost recommend a Saws-All with the appropriate blade, or a wet-saw.

I use a standard hacksaw with a 16T blade and spray water over the cutting area. It takes a decent amount of time and you'll run through quite a few blades, but it is really useful for those pieces that just don't want to balance.

Just a tip from experience, try and find a hacksaw with a mostly plastic body so it won't rust AS much.

BRS has a video on aquascaping using very basic tools like handsaws and chisels. The handsaw portion of the video looked easy enough. It it isnt too thick of a section you are cutting, you can also use a wet saw.

First thing that came to my mind is that a saw would dull out very quickly unless it was a saw that specifically cut tile, brick, rock etc. Usually they will have a diamond coated layer that wont dull when cutting through stone.

However it would be interesting to see the end result of your aquascaping.

i bought a big rock and cut 2" slices to put acan and zoa frags on

the hack saw didnt work so well because the rock was so big, plus the teeth were too small, i ended up using a normal hand saw for wood, the bigger teeth helped but i still had to stop a couple times, take out the blade and pour some water in to wash out the rock paste before going all the way through. i didnt press to hard except for when i hit a harder part, i mostly let the saw do the work

this is the saw http://www.homedepot.ca/product/15-i...box-saw/947813

I'll give it a shot. That is pretty much what I have been doing with a turkey baster, but I will put more effort into it now. Also, maybe I will just stick with mysis, as it seems to be the only food the chromis recognize.

The only other thing I could think of is when working on the tank to net the dominant chromis and put him in the sump until the other chromis become more dominant and self-assured.

I've got six in my reef and one in my frag tank. It is odd that the largest is the one being picked upon. When feeding your food, you may want to do it one squirt at a time with a pipette so that you can point the food to the various fish in question to assure all get a meal. It's a little slower, but less wasteful.

I started with 11 in my tank, its taken 2 years but I am now down to 4. Two sets of mated pairs, they lay clutchs regulary if I could only figure out how to raise the fry I'd have a whole lot of them. I think its a hit or miss on adding more, usually the biggest picks on the smallest, never seen the smallest pick on the biggest.

I have also noticed when one female is ready to lay eggs that pair gets more aggressive with each other a few days prior. Then the larger one (I'm assuming female) get a little yellow color on the fins and within hours eggs are laid and fertilized.

i have kept far away from chromis for this reason, however i second adding more, many LFS and fishbreeders use higher population density in some species to avoid this, i also remember hearing it in a clownfish breeding episode of reefcast i believe.....ahhh reefcast, those were the days lol

I know there are some people on here who keep them and do so quite successfully so hopefully someone else can chime in on them. I personally have stayed away from them do to what I have read and been told by those who have tried to keep them locally here, but just like everything in this hobby you have your success stories and you have your horror stories.

I have always read that with shoaling fish that a high odd number keeps this from happening

unfortunately with every bit of research I have ever done on chromis (as I have at one time or another considered getting them) always pointed to them forming a very strict hierarchy and picking on one until it dies then moving to the next weakest one. In your case this one taking the punishment and then eventually eating after some coaxing is probably the only thing keeping them from picking on another one of the chromis. I agree with Jennifer about trying out a quarantine tank to help that one back to better health but you may also be looking at the possibility that another one becomes the bullied

I would try adding more chromis. In a lot of fish species the larger the school the less likely any one single fish will be bullied. It is odd that it is the largest one that is being bullied so if possible you could move it into a quarantine tank which would allow you to look for any signs of disease or illness and allow it to feed without competition and give it a chance to fatten up. When you reintroduce it to the others do it with more chromis so it doesn't just go back to being bullied. I hope it makes it. Good luck.-Jenn

I just read the article and what the author is trying to say is that there is not one feed all food the will cover your whole tank. If you have all 3 types on feeders in your tank you have to feed them all. Marine fish are very specialized feeders and this has a direct reflection on the the nutritional requirements of the species. There is no one fix all feed for your tank. Its no different than people being able to eat only salad and be healthy everything the boby needs just isnt there

That is what I use as well no fish meal and would be my only recommendation krill is the main ingredient

I use New Life Spectrum pellet foods and have found that most people highly recommend them.

Worst thing I have found about pellets and flake type food is the fact it contains fish meal which is whole ground fish bones and all. Fish bone are a source of po4. I alternate between pellets and frozen food but when I feed the pellets I add very small amounts 5 or 6 times thur the day and any nlarge feedings are done with frozen

Good question, DJ. Or it could be clogged up with salt creep... I have to clean mine out every two months, even with the monthly hot water suction/rinse method.

Just for the heck of it, double check your thermometer against another one.

Does the Colt coral brush up against any other neighboring corals that may be stinging it? I would do a few water changes to help perk it (and the other livestock) up.