Recent content by witchdoctor

I made a rock wall by drilling through the rock with a masonry bit, then "threaded" plexiglass rods through the holes. It was a real pain, you need a long masonry bit to get through the big pieces, though I usually tried to find the shortest distance I could. I made the plexiglass rods by...

My point was regarding the common names. As I stated, proper names more precisely identify the fish. It is the common names that are more confusing because of interchangeable usage. Scott Michael's book has the proper names correctly assigned, but the common names reversed. If you read...

Common names depend somewhat on the source, but Charles Delbeek, Randall's books, and a couple of other sources reserve gold rim for the a. nigricans, which is found in hawai'i. The a. japonicus is not found in hawai'i, just in the western pacific. Both of them have a gold rim to almost the...

The powder gray tang is more commonly known as the gold rim tang, or acanthurus nigricans (which used to be a. glaucopareius). It is also called the powder brown. A healthy specimen really can look gray in appearance. I've seen them scuba diving in Hawaii quite a few times. Can't say that...

The pair that I had before would often engage in mating behavior, spiralling up toward my moonlight on the tank. I watched them spawn once, but obviously no products of that. I've only found one report of successful spawning in captivity at the Waikiki Aquarium a few years ago. None of the...

Most of the small animals like that will pass through relatively unscathed. As Mouse pointed out, it depends on the shear forces of the pump. Essentially, they are small enough that the water cushions them and just pushes the out of the way because their mass is small enough. I do it with...

I had an outbreak that wiped out all of my fish (eleven of them) except one, a yellow tang, which was the only one to survive and make it to the hospital tank. I kept the tank fish free for about two and a half months and ran a UV sterilizer on it as well. Unfortunately, the UV also killed...

Yes, the containers are air-tight, and the salt lasts quite a while. I would go ahead and get the bucket. I think it's better that way, since the bucket seals, and the bags don't.

Hmmm... Not quite sure what you mean by that. Does it look like this? If that is it, then it is a tube anemone, genus cerianthus, this one in particular is Pachycerianthus fimbriatus. They are reef safe, but are not fish safe, as they are fish predators. [ January 08, 2002: Message...

Another way to find things at night is to wait until the lights have been out for a while, including room lights. A lot of these predators wait until it has been dark for a couple of hours. Then, use a flashlight with a red filter on it, you can even use a few layers of red saran wrap. In...

I vaguely recall an article in AFM, I think, where some one looked at that. If you use ORP as a measure of success, the bare bottom was vastly superior, as he was able to maintain an ORP over 25% higher in the bare bottom tank. During the course of the experiment, it didn't really seem to...

You should also make certain that it is not the target of chemical attack from a neighboring coral. Many soft and LPS corals exude chemical defenses that can destroy surrounding corals, especially if they are downstream.

They are carnivores, so you'll have to induce a feeding response (which is, of course, the hard part). You can try mysis shrimp, or maybe chopped up fresh shrimp. I would have hoped that maximum size is something you found during your research, but it gets BIG. Maximum size is around 30...

I love mine, provides great current variation, and keeps all those powerheads out of the tank.. The seaswirl incorporates two 90 degree turns, so a drop of roughly a two feet of head pressure.