Recent content by Chris Jury

The only cases of long term success I've seen with multiple pairs of clowns or family groups of the same species (e.g., 3-4 of the same species, and only with less aggressive species) have been in 180-500 gal tanks. However, even in large tanks I've seen failure too. As above, if it were me I'd...

FWIW, corals that are damp and kept in a sealed bag seem to react much differently to being out of water than those kept out of water in the open air. My guess is that a lot of evaporation is taking place drying corals that are in the air whereas in a small volume of air (and some drips of...

Strange. Is it possible to see some photos?

Some corals ship much better when damp shipped instead of shipped in water IME, including most Acropora. In fact, they seem to handle it as well or better than most. The one genus I know of that absolutely tends to die when kept out of the water >15 min or so is Seriatopora (birdsnest). One...

+1 what Russ said. Preferably, I'd use a small to medium grain sand and essentially not touch it, or else I'd use a very thin layer of large grain sand and blast/vacuum the heck out of it all the time (or go barebottom). Any of these can work, but sand beds used as biofilters (i.e., 1st option)...

He'd probably say the same thing if he knew you lived in the Bronx :lol:

Truly inspiring to see what reef fish populations can look like. Not to rain on the parade, but for just a bit of perspective, it's the fish populations here that are dramatically healthier than elsewhere, not the coral populations. The coral cover, macroalgal coverage, etc. here are right about...

If you can control it and prevent it from spreading near rock it can look quite nice. If it gets ahold of rock it can easily turn the tank into a huge PITA ;)

Agreed: as long as there are hosts, ick will persist indefinitely. The white spots are a symptom of a severe infestation, (somewhat like chickenpox), but the lack of white spots doesn't mean there is no ick or that the fish are not infected. As above, the only way to be rid of it is to remove...

FWIW, my advisor, Rob Toonen, conducted a study a few years ago looking at the effects of sand bed grain size, depth, and plenum vs. no plenum on aquarium water quality and organism survivorship. Including a plenum had no discernable effect compared to just using a sand bed. Sand bed depth had...

Generally I shoot for about 12", give or take maybe 4", from the water to the bottom of the reflector. If it's easy to adjust the reflector height though, I do so based on the light spread. If it looks too focused, raise it; if it looks like a lot of light is being lost, lower it ;) cj

I hate to be blunt, but keeping a Goniopora alive for 2 months is effectively meaningless. Usually they appear fine for a few months and then, after 2-6 months in captivity, slowing begin to go down hill and eventually waste away. People say that they are difficult because of the tens of...

Successfully keeping most Goniopora is somewhat like successfully keeping an elephant: it's possible, but the average person is not equipped to do it ;) As mentioned, there are a handful that require less feeding and tend to do much better, such as the red one cultured by ORA. Most that you'll...

At the risk of stating the obvious, generally this happens when something is annoying them ;) More specifically, usually this reaction is associated with something off about the water quality, and usually one or more of the countless parameters we can't measure. Almost always a water change or...

Needed turnover within the tank varies dramatically depending on what you're keeping, the arrangement of rock/structure, and the arrangement of pumps. Some organisms need much stronger flow than others. For example, a lot of mushroom polyps, some soft corals, some stony corals, will be perfectly...