Blog Comments

great photos! canon or nikon? additional flash or tank lights only? ISO level, tripod with photobox or handheld? what kind of post processing do you do?

Gorgeous pics Marc! Great pics of some great corals. :-)

Is the pic above the chalice (which is stunning by the way) a pearlberry acro?

I have no idea, but totally appreciate all the guessing you guys are doing. I suppose I could carefully scrape away a few of these and try to get a picture at a good angle.

Snails in my reef consist of: Astrea, Nassarius, Ceriths, Stomatella & Strombus (both in the refugium and frag tank, not the main reef where these were found). I have three conchs as well, but I never see them anywhere but the sandbed.

Originally Posted by Heathd

Dove snails are a type of Stomatella, so are the strombus grazers I mentioned.

I have to disagree, respectfully. Strombus grazer is a name a company gave to the dove snail as a dove snail isn't a Strombus(genus of conch's). Stomatellas are however stomatellas(even then i think Shimek disagrees with that). Dove snails are without a doubt, not stomatellas, respectfully.

Dove snails are a type of Stomatella, so are the strombus grazers I mentioned.

Originally Posted by waldend

I had something that looked the same and it ended up being Stomatella.

Ahhhh of course! They are breeding like crazy here! But so are the dove snails, i always assumed stomatellas were broadcast spawners! Wrong again i guess.

Edit: I guess I was right.

I cant edit my post above but I started thinking and then reading and it seems Stomatella are broadcast spawners. Those did show up at the same time I got a sudden bloom of them though. Without a close up they look like Nassarius snail eggs. I think thats actually what mine were but I never had any adults show up.

I had something that looked the same and it ended up being Stomatella.

Dove snails! Awesome! If you end up with a ton of those I would kill to get my hands on them!

Marc, that looks like the egg sacs of the strombus grazers you got a while back, although, I have never seen mine lay that many at once.

Did you put them into your display tank?

Marc, my guess is some sort of snail. What kind of snails do you have in your system? I have had ceriths spawn in my system but the egg pattern was much different.

I wish I could offer an explantion of the eggs.....If I had to guess, I would say its some sort of snail egg(not cerith)....since they are usually the only things that are crawling around on the glass other than urchins and some other types of starfish.

The strange thing about the rattling Dart pump is that the seal is perfect and the front end is quiet. The drive shaft is clean as a whistle. It's like the fan end is loose or the bearings are going out. I have to unscrew the end cover to see what I can find out, possibly oiling it. The second Dart is completely quiet, yet it has some ugly accumulations around the driveshaft that I have to clean out soon.

Nathan -

I like looking at pictures of your tank. I also like to show my wife pictures of your tank and say my next tank won't be that big, it will only be 300 gallons. My wife likes to ignore me

My reeflo has been giving me trouble was well at 4 months had to replace the seal already as it was leaking and pulling air somehow with the with the output more than half open. Reeflo sent me a new seal it fix the leak but is still pulling air somehow, notice in the seal replacement that the impeller seem to be separating where it is put together not sure if that is the problem or not, just know that im not very happy with reeflo's pump so far. My next pump will be a dolphin with a type 4 seal for sure. Tank is looking good marc not a surprise with how tight you are able to keep your parm's tho

No worries, I'm well aware of my belly. hehe Maybe if I hopped up and down 100 times in a row daily, it would help me get more in shape.

Here's the requested pH measurements for the past week.



I've not added any more rock in months, Henry.

One Battery Backup is mounted, James. The other is just sitting there, unused and uncharged. I need to either get it plugged in and in use, or buy a fresh battery. Which reminds me, I didn't mention that the MP60's firmware has to be updated to the latest version. Currently when the power goes out, the Vortechs switch to battery backup mode and keep running, but when power resumes, they stay on battery. I have to unplug the battery backup cables so they reset to electric power. The firmware update corrects this, but I've not done so yet.

Wow tank looks great for only 6 months. Corals look very healthy too.

Excellent pictures, Marc. Thanks for sharing so many. You mentioned before how you work on keeping everything clean of crud and salt creep, even in the sump and little nooks & crannies. This is very noticable in your photos and clearly makes a difference on the presentation of the system. Now I'm starting to notice the salt creep and general untidiness of my own sump and trim under the canopy. The crap under the covers didn't bother me before, but now it does. I've been inspired to start cleaning a little each day.

I noticed your battery backups for the Vortech's on the floor. Do you have plans to mount those anywhere?

Do you have any problems with fish jumping out?

-James

Your tank is incredible Marc!! Looking in your tank from the living room. Did you add more rock on the left side? Looks like it comes out now on the left side. I love it! Spock is one beautiful fish.