hi, i just wanted to take a minute to say hello to everyone. i am looking to start a aquacultured coral

facility in my town. any suggestions, contacts, or pure advice would be greatly appreciated. a long time

 friend of mine ( terry b.) is also interested, im looking to partner up with him. he recently started to frag

and split several different corals in his collection, once we know they recover and will continue to thrive

i'll be listing them with frags. i hope to have several frags offered real soon. anyone with a line on acrylic

( sheet and or tubes ) would be a big help. i am also looking for waste, or rather cut off pieces that may

be unwanted. ( i guess none of its really a waste! lol ) i'm  into building my own sumps, tanks, and

wanting to try  my first protein skimmer !  i am currently networking to try and gather a nice list of

like minded people with whom we can possibly benifit from each other. anyway,  i want to thank you

for taking the time out to read and i hope to be meeting people  (espescialy local )real soon.

    thanks,   joey   at   joepitts71@yahoo.com

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well i first want to thank you who took the time to read , next id like to ask if anyone has suggestions

for me to better get a hand on starting my own aquacultured coral facility. i just heard my partner

( terry b. ) has just had a  4'×  4' × 2' acrilic tank built to use as a starter frag tank compleate with

racks. next step is to get the sump and refuge built, it has to be large enough to eventualy add  several

of the above units to. i question if we should  cut down on the depth of the tanks. i just think it would be

easier if it wasnt 4'.  any and all comments will be appreciated. i will keep you updated as i move closer

to achiving my goal.  thank you,   joey   at    joepitts71@yahoo.com

I have some PPE Purple People Eater Frags ready to go.  NO WAITING LIST

www.eyecatchingcoral.com

Website updated.  Check www.eyecatchingcoral.com for updates.

As an experienced diver in the Caribbean - I have over 400 dives - and a novice reef keeper, I have been doing significant reading on keeping coral (healthy).  One reoccuring theme has been the need for a constant temperature in your tank.  I have read several blog/forum entries about people losing some, most or all of there coral from just a single sustained degree increase in temperature.  My observations during my dives though contradict the temperature sensitivity of corals in the wide.  (I am assuming captive and wild corals behave similarly.)  During most dives, you encounter several thermaclines.  Sometimes temperatures change 12 degrees in a matter of 5 feet or the temperature changes while maintaining a constant depth.  Reefs must deal with this on a daily basis.  The underwater currents are always changing and creating "hot" and "cold" spots.  The water temperature also changes from winter, average of 72 - 74, to summer, average of 82 - 88.  Water temperatures also vary from night to day due to solar heating.  I just returned from a trip to St. Thomas on April 21, and the water temperature was 84 in the passage between St. Thomas and St John on April 16.  The next day it was 78.  I snorkeled a shall protected reef that was 3 - 6 feet deep and the water was 88 degrees.  The corals were thriving in this area too.

By having such consistant temperatures in our tanks, are we breeding temperature intolerance into our corals?  Would a temperature variance create more resistant corals or more closely simulate natural conditions?  Your comments are welcome and appreciated.

I have a 24 gallon nano tank with 2 anemones, 2 clown fish, a tiger-stripe gobi, and 2 damsels.  I also have 6 hermit crabs, 4 snails, and a coral banded shrimp.  The tank sustained a die-off during my trip due to a 44 hour power outage.  The house got into the mid-60's and I had no water circulation, but miraculously I only had 4 fish and an anemone die.  The numbers above represent the replenished tank.

Priority shipment went out yesterday with a bunch of corals, supposed to be delivered this morning pre 10:30am. It's still stuck in Riverside, CA! They say it will be here tomorrow morning - 48 hours later... we'll see what's left.

I am also interested in mushrooms and zoos.

We just updated our frag availibility.  www.aquariumspecialty.com more new frags on the way once we can find time to take pictures...

So I've been reefkeeping for about 7 years. When you start out, the corals you get are pretty much all over the map - sun corals, daisy polyps, zoanthids, non-photosynthetics, its usually just a big free for all at your LFS and whatever looks pretty gets put into the tank. Yes I myself fell victim to this too - see my old website tank log from 2000 -  - I see a sebae anemone and a nudibranch!

Then... after some good time reading the web and books, reefers upgrade usually to an SPS tank. These can be very fun, challenging, lots of trading with other reefers (using frags.org hopefully), and a good deal of focus on keeping those little sticks alive. Purple Monster, The Matrix, etc. I personally think its really fun to collect all the cool strains, exchange them with others, and demonstrate commitment to the hobby by growing them out. I've seen some reefers like Rich in Sacramento grow a huge Purple Monster colony which is a real sight to see (he was member #49 on frags.org).

After keeping SPS, you might decide it really is a lot of work after a while, and those buggers are just too sensitive. Rich shut his tank down, Hugo in LA lost everything in a electrical outage, or if you've moved around over the years like me, just the sheer effort of starting/shuttin down/moving/starting up again, you'll find that there are other corals that are more conducive to a reef-life balance, particularly if you have kids!

I decided recently to get back into a new reef tank style based on larger pieces of LPS. I've had smaller LPS like acans and micros, I've done several SPS tanks, I've done the beginner pot pourri tank, and now going onto my 8th year of reefkeeping, I'm going to try larger LPS like Lobophyllia, Symphyllia, and see what kind of aquascape I can create.

Wish me luck!

Here are some pics from over the years: