I think after awhile you would really hate watermelon. But now a serious question. I am looking for a cheap small pump/powerhead so I can put water through my chiller. It needs to be between 600gph to 1000gph. Or should I cut into my plumbing and make it run off of my pump used for the main tank?

Matt

some have controllers, some don't. If it has a little panel where you can set the temp, then you're kosher. There are single and dual stage controllers as well, the dual stage controls the chiller and then the heater, to stop the constant flucuations, single stage just turns the chiller on when it gets too warm, and off once it hits the set degree.

hey i was wondering where you got all your cold livestock from. Did you get other diver friends to collect for you? do divers need a permit to collect wild?

do you think more light would be needed if i took in some coldwater corals? I once dove off bowen island and there was an underwater canyon and on both sides were just walls of white plumose anemones. It was the most ethereal experience Ive ever had. I was thinking of plastering my back wall with a patch of these. there are also a few other beautiful cold corals i would love to keep, including one GORGEOUS pink kind of anemone whose name escapes me for the moment.

Wicked my chillers a dual stage.

Ummm... I get all my stuff from the shallow water with a dip net or when snorkeling...:redface: I think that you may just need a fishing license to keep things I have never run into trouble. I remember hearing or reading somewhere that the corals and anemones around here need alot less like than the tropical ones. In fact I think if you have too much light it can be bad. The plumose anemones feed off of phytoplankton and other small goodies. They would probably be quite hard to keep alive like barnacles.

Matt

yeah i just finished reading somewhere... can't find the link... that cold corals are very independent of light. they all depend much more on plankton.

I would think the anemones would be able to stand any light that goes on a cold tank (because they do use low light) if the anemone were from the intertidal. could probably just peel one off the rock in a tidepool.

damn! i want to set up a cold tank so bad! I think may even tear down my 60gal tropical acrylic tank to do it.

edit: ...and i just finished setting up the 60!!

Thats what I practically did. I had my tank running for a short while after many issues then took it all apart and now I have a wicked work of art. *caugh*doit*caugh*

Matt

There are both strawberry coral-a branching softy in bright redish pink and strawberry anmones which are colonys simmilar to zoa's-same unreal colour. Both very common up here in Campbell River. There's also an orange cup coral which is a bright orange polyp similar to a paly. Check out the Van aquarium, they have an beautiful display with strawberrys and red irish lord rockfish. It's downstairs beside that massive west coast display. I am planning on setting up a strawberry tank as soon as my reef is established. I've got a 160 gal with a 1/3hp chiller. Should do the trick. If you want to do easy locals, pick your stock from tide pools as they deal with constant changes in temp and salinity on a daily basis-very hardy. As far as colecting goes, you'll need a tidal licence and a set of reg's to see limits and closed species ect... As far as transporting live fish goes, probably a grey area.
Shaun.

lol don't encourage me! ... actually naw i take that back. i really do wan to do this. and i WILL... eventually. if not this summer, then the next. barnacle are hard to keep alive? huh. didn't know that. I thought they would be very hardy... especially if collected from the intertidal.

well i play by the rules, i guess ill get a permit. lol fishmaster, i work at vanaqua. Yeah i know about the strawberries, and i do plan on having some of them too. they are not what im talking about though. these anemones get quite large and are a darker pink with white speckles on the stalk. not colonial. Ill figure it out on saturday when i go back to work. and then of course there's the giant green anemone which would set a nice contrat to the pink/red.

Too funny, how does a guy get a tour of the back room???nudge, nudge, wink, wink. There's a few amnones like you describe, sounds like the white spotted. Could be the fish eating, but it's foot is solid red with no spots??? The green's are cool too. So many choices.................
As for the barnacles, I bought some used gear off a girl who had a tide pool tank and everything was covered in tiny barnacles. They were doing very well. I think they could be the aptasia of cold water if you wern't carfull. They probably came in as plankton when she introduced fish or spawned in the tank. Who knows?????
Shaun.

I have those tiny barnacles over everything. They wont go away. What I was saying was that some people will go and get giant clumps of them and they usually die and then mess with the tanks healthiness,

Matt