Reefkeeping South Africa » Items by Mewik

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Items by Mewik

Marine Aquariums of South Africa

• 

  Fish pedicures??

  Posted: March 27th, 2012, 9:37pm CDT by Mewik

  Not sure if this belongs under the general or fish category, as it relates to FW fish, mods please move accordingly if it's in the wrong place.
  
  I was having a think about this whole practice today and surely these beauty salons do not have any fish keeping experience and probably do not care about the well being of the fish being used in the long run, which should be classed as animal abuse? If somehow it is not classed as animal abuse due to some odd commercial laws or fish are not covered as animals then all the places offering these services would require some sort of aqua culture permits as they are profiting off of fish which they pretty much intend to discard of in the long or short term?
  
  I know I might sound a bit like a moaning old bag here but personally I find the abuse/exploitation of living creatures immoral and rather unethical. I see it has been banned in the States, mostly due to health reasons, so there clearly are a lot of issues surrounding the whole practice in general? I also find it sad that a fish breeder has the book thrown at him while these places must be breaking a ton of laws and are definitely falling into some sort of aquaculture area.
  
  Just wondering what everyone else's thoughts on the whole practice are?? As I said I think it's disgusting but maybe that is just me. :mad:
• 

  Acropora Colour

  Posted: March 26th, 2012, 8:39pm CDT by Mewik

  I am wondering how I can get my acros to colour up? When I first got the frag it was completely blue with green tips and at the time my tank was not exactly that stable and so it turned brown. Since then I have brought all the params under control and its got some colour back in it but nothing like what originally had. It is growing well enough & does have a blue hue to it on all the areas of new growth, no lumo green tips though :(
  
  My tank is being dosed with Brightwells Microbacter7 (4ml a day), I was dosing reef fuel in conjunction with the mb7 (2ml daily), but I stopped with it a while back as it seemed to be causing horrid algae outbreaks. Since stopping the reef fuel the algae has been brought under control, so i seem to on the right track there. Other than that I do a 20% weekly wc using aqua v salinity salt and only really add Seachem Reef Builder to the daily RO top ups keep the KH stable.
  
  Am i missing something here? I was adding calcium, mg etc but cut it out in favor of the weekly wc, since then the params have remained the same so not sure that the lack of colour is being caused by that.
  
  Here are some pics, they dont really capture the colour exactly as it looks to the eye. It looks more blue real life
  
  Here is a pic of the piece in Dec last year:
  
  
  And here it is this weekend:
  
  
  Closer pic from the week before:
  
  
  Will the colour ever fully return or will I be stuck with the brown forever? Also since dosing the mb7 the polyps only extend at night. They used to be rather large 24/7, I assume due to the water being kind of dirty. The piece is growing pretty well so Im a bit lost with regards of how to solve this issue.
  
  Any help or advice would be appreciated :)
• 

  DIY Chiller

  Posted: January 19th, 2012, 5:01pm CST by Mewik

  Being summer and all I was doing some hunting around for ways to cool my tank and I think I had a lightbulb moment.
  
  Surely I could just use the backside of my sump and stick a aluminium heatsink straight onto the glass then pop a few fans onto the heatsink and presto!! Think ill get some diy done and post the outcome. It seems to be a logical theory :whistling:
  
  Anybody out there tried this? Or got a better idea? The idea is to cool the tank off without taking up more space or pumping water through a cooling area etc etc. If it works then heatsinks can even be shoved onto the rear of the tank as well, eliminating the need for a big, expensive chiller sitting next to my tank.
• 

  Microbacter7

  Posted: January 10th, 2012, 3:49pm CST by Mewik

  I picked up a bottle of Brightwell's Microbacter7 and just need to get some input as to how I go about dosing this stuff. My PO4 etc is all sat on 0 so as far as I know it should be fine to start the dosing.
  
  My tank is 160l & my plan is to dose 6ml per day for 2 weeks followed by 1 drop per day after that. I am going to dose Aquav Fuel for carbon so long, how often/much should I dose and should I not dose the Fuel until after the first 2 weeks or what?
  
  Thanks
• 

  Seachem ULNS/LNS

  Posted: January 2nd, 2012, 7:54am CST by Mewik

  Does SeaChem offer a ULNS system? I was thinking that if you combined Seachem Stability with the Aquavitro Fuel then you should land up with something similar shouldnt you?
  
  I am wondering if I implemented the whole Aquavitro regime would the end result be a ULNS system? I see the salt mix goes on about it being for lns systems etc, yet they dont offer any LNS products like zeolith etc.
  
  Im thinking if Stability is cheap and it: "contains a synergistic blend of aerobic, anaerobic, and facultative bacteria which facilitate the breakdown of waste organics, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.", then surely this could be viable if I added a carbon source?
• 

  HS60 Modded

  Posted: January 1st, 2012, 8:16am CST by Mewik

  Hi all here's some pics of my HS60, that I have butchered to pieces and back :P
  I scrapped the chiller that came with the tank and added a small sump in order to use fans to cool the tank, I also had some idea of running a fuge type of setup and getting most of my filtration done naturally, which seemed to be working pretty damn well I just couldn't stand the pee-pond/algae dump look going on under my tank.....so i pulled it out, turned my sump into one giant holding area and dropped a TS2 and a Reef Octo carbon reactor in there.
  
  I have a tank upgrade on the cards so I figured I may as well get what I need now. Hopefully the skimmer will manage to work on a tank this size, sure I can always make it work one way or another.
  
  I am currently considering moving over to a ULNS system in the next month or two as my sps was not colouring up, but I have noticed now that it is colouring up so I might give it some time to see if it can come right as things are now.
  
  K enough babble heres some specs and pics.
  
  Hardware:
  Boyu HS60 (130l)
  150w Giessmann 14k MH & LED Moonlights
  +-15kg LR
  Vortech MP10 wm
  Sump 35l (+-)
  Reeftek TS2 Skimmer
  ReefOcto Carbon Reactor (Running SeaGel)
  4500l uplift pump (just under 3000l with head height)
  
  Stock:
  2 clowns
  Fairy/flasher wrasse
  Cardinal
  4x Goldies
  Blue Leg Hermit
  
  Green Candy Apple
  Elegance
  Hammer tip
  Frogspawn
  Acros (Blue & Green)
  Finger Leather
  Rics, Red & Blue Shrooms, Zoas, BSP, GSP
  Purple Gorgonian
  Small Galaxia frag
  Xenia (Weeds)