Recent content by olinf

You have asked about my favorite species of fish. I know, I'm boring but I just can't have enough gobies. They do very well in large groups. I keep spawning groups of 8-12 in only 20 gallon tanks. There is a bit of bickering over who gets to sit on which rock but no real aggression. It...

I have a 20 gallon tank dedicated to amphipods to feed fastidious species. In this tank I use sections of 4" PVC pipe mounted verticaly. Each is stuffed with bio-bale and has a piece of rigid airline tubing inserted with no airstone. The top extends 2" above the water level to prevent salt...

I know I will probably be flamed for this post but I just thought I would drop my $.02 in and play devils advocate. I have had much greater success in my fish-only breeding systems at a S.G. of 1.018 than with full strength S.W. Keeping a reduced salinity is in fact a key feature in inducing...

Has your water temperature increased recently? I have done a great deal of work on an El Nino associated vibriosis that affects sea stars and many other echinoderms in the Gulf of California. It seems that echinoderm immune responses are very temperature dependant. A rise of only 2-3 degrees...

I'm an instructor. Over a thousand dives in the Sea of Cortez and hundreds elsewhere. I mostly just certify friends and other researchers from the University of Arizona now. Olin

Erica, There are few things that can be done to help a larvae survive in a reef tank. Usually, if they aren't sucked into a filter, they will be consumed by other animals when they settle at night. If you have a masochistic streak, they can be siphoned off into a ten gallon tank and raised in...

Yep, just one of many reasons I am growing my own!

Good job on the spawning Erica! I wouldn't worry much about the parents eating the eggs. This is pretty normal for inexperienced pairs. If it keeps going after the third or fourth spawn then it might be nutritional. My new pairs will often eat their first couple of nests. It can be due to...

Thanks all, back to the drawing board. I had my doubts myself, I know my LFS keeps their LR in copper, but thats a LFS so I thought I would check it out before I tried it. The aiptasia is of minimal concern, it can be dealt with. Mainly I want to prevent the small hydroid colonies that can...

I want to grow coraline on a bunch of dry reef rocks in tubs before using them to start a new tank. Because some of the rocks will be used with dwarf seahorses, I would like to prevent the growth of aiptasia and microhydroids. The coraline rocks that I am planning on using to seed the new rock...

Hippo, Those are all very good points you brought up. This unit that I built was just an experiment to see if the principles work, I threw it together out of materials I had on hand when I was bored waiting for another experiment to complete. When I try one in my tanks, I will likely...

Well, in my growout tanks are aquacultured live rocks that I use to supplement my research budget. I am trying to create a "plankton-friendly" environment in which veliger larvae from the housekeeping snails will have a chance to settle. This one of the reasons I am interested in the ASD...

I was wondering if anyone has used an ASD device in practice in their tanks? I don't have the guts to try one in one of my reef tanks, but I was considering trying one in my live rock growout tanks. I built a modified version of the device described in the Dec. 2000 FAMA. Rather than the 3...