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Old 12-08-2003, 04:38 PM
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Delphinus Delphinus is offline
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I'm glad to hear you might consider moving a things for the moment into an established tank. I was really concerned when I read you have two anemones in your 80g...

1. Anemones should not be mixed when in small to moderate sized tanks at the best of times, unless they are clones of one another. They can interfere with each other.

2. Anemones require a tank that has stabilized. You can't rush the cycling process, but even if a tank is cycled after a week, there's just chemical/biological chaos in a system that is less than six months old. Anemones will have a really tough time adapting to captivity in conditions like that. All too often, they don't make it, which is a tragedy, because it means it was collected out of the wild only to perish.

You have to slow down if you want to get long-term enjoyment out of the hobby. Going too fast only sets you up for stress down the road.

Stepping on the soapbox ...
The ocean is not a grocery store for us to remove whatever we fancy at our whim. If we continue this attitude, there will be nothing left to collect within a few short years. When you purchase livestock for this hobby, bear in mind that only a very small percentage is captive propagated ... the rest has been removed from a real reef somewhere. That collection process has a real impact. Our reefs are disappearing; the least we can do is try not to encourage unsustainable collection practises. This means, each and every purchase needs to be a careful, measured decision. If we're not emphatically 100% certain that we can care for this animal for it's natural lifespan, then I think the question needs to be asked, what are we doing?

So, a few weeks to wait is really nothing. Reef tanks success is measured in units of years. I know it's frustrating at first, but anything that is worthwhile is worth waiting a little while for. I think you will be much happier if you let things progress at their own rate then if you rush it. Every stage of a tank's maturation is really quite exciting on its own. You can literally see things pop out of the rockwork.

I do wish you all the best success with your new tank, and welcome you to this very exciting pastime.
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My next hobby will be flooding my basement while repeatedly banging my head against a brick wall and tearing up $100 bills. Whee!
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