Recent content by kris walker

I had to do this this morning too. I just used baking soda (sodium bicarbonate). I mixed some in a cup and added to tank very slowly, monitoring corals for negative reactions (I saw one negative reaction because at one point I was adding to the tank too fast). Sodium bicarbonate will not...

RLMAO! kris

Now I understand. Thanks for the elaboration. kris

Could an urchin lose it's spines and die if it wasn't getting enough food? Is this a possibility in your case? kris

I had the same problem with my plate coral. It did not seem to like the full-size silversides, even if they are cut into smaller chunks. It just rejected them. However, I bought frozen baby silversides, which look like they have less skin for the coral's digestive juices to penetrate, and it...

Mr. Tang, 24 hours is quite impressive. How did you accomplish this? Did you drip a few drops in the bag every 5 minutes? kris

Detritus takes a long time to break down, but it does break down eventually in sand or CC beds. Critter eat some types of detritus, then just turn around and poop the rest out. Worms are pretty good at consuming a lot of it, but they poop too. Most say that CC traps detritus, and it does. But...

cleaner wrasse named surfin sam. Why? Because I read somewhere that they were a great fish to have to keep parasites off other fish. Had him for several weeks until I fed the tank it's first batch of live brine shrimp. The next morning, everything in the tank was dead (about 6 fish). kris

Bang guy, how does waiting 30 sec correct for the temperature factor? And then why correct for it again with the table? Did you mean that if you wait 30 seconds the swing will hone in on the reading more accurately (waiting out minor buoyancy fluctuations)? There appears to be some slight...

I guess partially calibrated is better than none. LOL. I have the Aquarium Systems "SeaTest" meter, which appears to not be calibrated at all (or at least it doesn't say on the meter). I still like the meter though, despite an occassional bubble-sticking problem. cheers, kris

"Any problems a new fish may have will surely show up while in the Q/T." I have to point out that a fish going into QT with ich may also leave QT with ich in 3-4 weeks. A fish infected with ich will not necessarily break out in white spots during QT, and therefore QT is also not 100% fullproof...

I missed this before, but there is a correction factor that you need to account for when you are taking specific gravity (s.g.) readings. In many introductory books, it says the s.g. should be 1.022-1.024 for marine aquaria. But many on this board have suggested raising it up to 1.026, which...

I think the reason people prefer QT over the dip method is because the dip method does not work 100% of the time. It will be interesting to hear what others have to say about it though. kris

Assuming you mean 20 long, not high, I would say 3 or 5 is fine, providing they are only an inch or 2 each (usual size I see at lfs). You have plenty of time for them to grow, at which time you will probably upgrade. kris

To learn a lot about the problem, check out this post by twoods71: "For all who have nuisance algae problems" Do a search for it. I believe it posted around the end of Feb. 2002. kris