Put drugs in her drink.
Problem solved. :-)
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OK, here goes:
Flash on, tank setup. The cooler with the skimmer on top is off to the right side.
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No flash, left side. There are five fish in this shot. The clowns are in pulsing Xenia, the polyps close and open suddenly about once a second. The pineapple looking coral started out as a dead chunk of rock.
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No flash, right side. Pseudochromis fish, 6 year old maximus clam, porites coral that appeared from dead rock and then grew huge, hammer coral that was a LFS dieing castoff deal, cool red mushrooms, etc.
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Along the bottom are a lot of small brown anemones called majano that are major pests. Nothing eats them that wouldn't eat the rest of the tank. They have to be picked out by hand. A good way to find bristle worms.

No flash, Sailfin Tang. This fish was an inch long triangle when we got it. It has amazing control of it's pattern, like contrast and tint controls.
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Last picture, with flash. Under the tank.
Calcium reactor, chiller controller, 2x400w HID ballast with timer on the wall, the other side is a 25 gal refugium divided into three parts. The left side (can't see) has the main recirc pump and the reactor pump, the center is the part with live rock and the heaters, also live sand, the right side has the skimmer pump. The light for it doesn't show in the flash.
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Looks like you have a small Aptasia problem. If it dosent bother you cool but if you get some lemon juice in a syringe you can zap em. Just make sure to ruin carbon for a week after.

Other than that beautiful tank. I love the Sailfin tangs but they get too darn big. I will stick with my Kole tang and add a hippo tank later on.

I wish I could get mushrooms to grow and spread like that.
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Please set it up! I wanna see what you can do!
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I have a 40 gallon tank w/ stand that is currently not in use but used to be a freshwater tank. I have always wanted to start a saltwater one...but know how expensive/time consuming it is and just don't know if it is the right decision at this point in my life.... maybe just get it back running as a freshwater tank for a couple years before I try anything more involved.
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40 gallons is a good size for a sw tank. Even though after you get corals up and growing you will wan to upgrade to that 300gallon built in at the foot of your bed lol.

Saltwater tanks depending on what your planning need weekly if not daily maintenance. Initial setup cost is much more than a FW tank becaus eoyu have to take into account the salt, better lighting, live rock, and the live stock. In the Saltwater world there really are NO $3 fish. Same for corals. I pay between $15-$50 for a coral that is 1 square inch. Fish can get even more expensive, ask blue face.
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Jim,
What he just said.
Just make sure you don't ask my wife.
Same nonsense she gives me with her sale items she buys, I gave her with the fish.:-)
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Aiptasia are easy, those are majanos. Huge problem. All the injection techniques have a 60% kill ratio. If I could get them down to less than one hundred in there I would keep them that way by injecting them. Aiptasia has about a 98% injection kill rate and peppermint shrimp keep them controlled.
Lots of light and well balanced water makes things grow well. I have the two 400w 20K HIDs and two 80w daylight CFs in the hood. Also my setup is in a SW window corner. The lights are off in the middle of the day.
I only do water changes two or three times a year but I have the calcium reactor adding traces and the refugium and skimmer removing stuff so there is a cross flow of nutrients and waste. There is a big sack of charcoal in the refuguim.
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While not the hardiest, Longnose Butterflies are really good for this.
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But will they eat everything else? Why would they mess with these stinging little bastards if they could just chomp on a nice mushroom or xinia?
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My tank isn't nearly as nice as some of the ones on here but I like my little puffer..

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Oh you guys...silly reefer botls.... scaring the newbies away from the hobby... It's not as hard as these bullies make it out to be...
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It can be easy.
My first tank was a 7.5 gal with a behind tank filter and three pieces of live rock wedged in it. It took a while for it to stabilize but it finally did, enough for some coral, shrimp, crabs, damsel fish, critters, etc.
It evolved into the 10 gal nano I still have. I have to clean it before I can post a picture. It takes a lot of cleaning to keep them clear. Stuff grows vigorously in a marine environment.
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What, no monocle? I like it.
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I know I forgot the Monocle.. okay if one eyeglass is called a monocle how cow a pair isn't called a bicycle??? :-)
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biocle
where you wear two monocles, stylin'
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You want to help out? With my funeral arrangements that is?:-)

They are specialized feeders for nooks and crannies. They generally don't bother anything else. Might take out small feather dusters though.
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FYI on the Longnose:
This is a fish that can be more of a challenge when it comes to feeding because its tiny mouth limits the size of foods it can consume. Its diet consists primarily of living marine organisms, such as amphipods and copepods, and therefore it is best kept in a reef tank or fish-only aquarium that is partially filled with live rock that has an ample population of natural prey organisms present to feed on.
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Dragonettes (Mandarinfish) are like this. Sounds like if eats 'pods that it wants crunchy stuff.
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Curing the rock. scrubbed it, was kinda nasty, but some sweet color came out of it. Doing a high sality dip 1.030-1.040 to try to chase out the badies that may be hiding inside tomarrow and then ill let it soak for a week, rinse and repeat! :-)

29G Biocube is here too with Koralia 400GPH power head and 75w Stealth heater.:-)


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