New Fish

[Trigger Man]

Wow is all I've got to say about your tank, it looks great in there. I hope the file fish works out for you and that the SPS keeps looking so good.

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by justinl

thought just occured to me. If down the road, the SPS are obviously not keeping up and are receding, would you consider changing your lighting spectrum to 6500K or so to get increased growth? Obviously at the cost of losing the brilliant colours in exchange for brown sticks, as well as a likely horrendous algae bloom. you could probably control the latter with biological control (army of snails and a foxface maybe?)

I was just thinking the same thing. The best growth I ever had for SPS was with Iwasaki's, ... might be worth setting up a tank with quicker growing SPS under optimal PAR lighting for the sake of growing out the "food grade acros." Hey why not, there are plenty of things we do for the sake of favouring certain animals...

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I was just thinking the same thing. The best growth I ever had for SPS was with Iwasaki's, ... might be worth setting up a tank with quicker growing SPS under optimal PAR lighting for the sake of growing out the "food grade acros." Hey why not, there are plenty of things we do for the sake of favouring certain animals...

I think this is a great idea. A frag tank of sorts with 6500K bulbs for growth. Figure out what he is eating the most and what is growing the fastest and grow as much as you can as fast as you can.

[naesco]

Interesting ethical discussion.

GSP/Fishmaster
Some non reefers are critical of reefers who keep fish and coral in glass boxes.
But reefers all agree that we than have an obligation to provide the optimum conditions for the fish and coral in our care. Nothing less is acceptable. Most reefers resist the urge to buy that colourful purple nudi or whatever because experts have already told us the survival liklihood. To attempt to justify such purchase for the purpose of improving the hobby IMO is nothing more than an attempt to justify a wrong purchase. The fact is that the advances that have been made in fish and coral care are not made by us on this or any other board. The advances in care are being made by scientists and fish and coral experts.

Justin, in fairness, I chose not to reply to his repost.

Sphelps, your tank is beautiful and your photography outstanding, but I would like to know what is happening now as you have had the fish for a few days.
Is he eating? SPS? Significant damage? Is he eating any other food?
How are your SPS reacting?
Would appreciate an update when you can. tks
Wayne Ryan

[justinl]

wayne, I am glad you're not getting all up in arms with me; my goal was not to incite anything. flame wars suck.

steve, one more thought, if you do decide to set a 6500k food-acro grow tank (doooooooo iiiiit ), Maybe present some brown sticks to the filefish without changing your display tank's lighting. I'd be interested if there might be a preference to slower growing polyps rather than fast growing polyps or vice versa. Wish we could somehow do a nutritional profile on the two to compare if the filefish does exhibit a preference.

[superduperwesman]

Originally Posted by naesco

The advances in care are being made by scientists and fish and coral experts.

I think some DIY people would disagree. I've seen a lot of randoms come up with new and innovative ideas that I think you could easily argue to having improved coral care

Plus who says scientists and fish/coral experts aren't on forums??

Plus the market demand, which is in part influenced by forums, is likely a reason why some scientists do research and likely how, in part, people become fish and coral experts.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by naesco

Interesting ethical discussion.

GSP/Fishmaster
Some non reefers are critical of reefers who keep fish and coral in glass boxes.
But reefers all agree that we than have an obligation to provide the optimum conditions for the fish and coral in our care. Nothing less is acceptable. Most reefers resist the urge to buy that colourful purple nudi or whatever because experts have already told us the survival liklihood. To attempt to justify such purchase for the purpose of improving the hobby IMO is nothing more than an attempt to justify a wrong purchase. The fact is that the advances that have been made in fish and coral care are not made by us on this or any other board. The advances in care are being made by scientists and fish and coral experts.

Justin, in fairness, I chose not to reply to his repost.

Sphelps, your tank is beautiful and your photography outstanding, but I would like to know what is happening now as you have had the fish for a few days.
Is he eating? SPS? Significant damage? Is he eating any other food?
How are your SPS reacting?
Would appreciate an update when you can. tks
Wayne Ryan

No one is justifying the wrong purpose. The wrong purchase would have been me if say I bought this fish and put him in my soft coral dominated tank. I actually do have one acro though, so maybe it would have been fine? THAT would be justifying a bad purchase.

Are you actually serious about advances in the hobby being made by scientists? There are relatively few biologists doing anything for this hobby unless its to make a profit. Most marine biologists are not working in the commercial aquarium hobby. Many of the advancements in this hobby have come straight from reefers. These boards are proof of it everyday.

Not to mention, a majority of retailers/manufacturers are on these forums and many, many of the advancements in equipment have come from OUR advice/needs/observations, ect...all from these kind of boards.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by naesco

Emily, if the SPS are not replaced with more SPS, the fish gets flushed or starves.
But in the meantime they are beautiful pictures, arn't they?

No this particular filefish will just turn around and start eating frozen mysis like most other orange spots do. It's not exactly an easy fish to keep but it's not really difficult either.

Get better information before you start whining Wayne.

Originally Posted by naesco

The fact is that the advances that have been made in fish and coral care are not made by us on this or any other board. The advances in care are being made by scientists and fish and coral experts.

Demonstrably false, see www.marinebreeder.org

[naesco]

Are you actually serious about advances in the hobby being made by scientists? There are relatively few biologists doing anything for this hobby unless its to make a profit. Most marine biologists are not working in the commercial aquarium hobby. Many of the advancements in this hobby have come straight from reefers. These boards are proof of it everyday.

I am absolutely serious. There are marine scientists on marine scientific forums who do nothing but study fish and coral
There are expert marine fish and coral aquarists. I don't have to tell you who they are. We all buy their books. The advances come from scientists to experts and than to us. We should be guided by their advice.

That is not to say that members of this board do not learn from the advice and experience of others on the board. That is its function and the board is doing a great job in educating us all.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Originally Posted by naesco

Are you actually serious about advances in the hobby being made by scientists? There are relatively few biologists doing anything for this hobby unless its to make a profit. Most marine biologists are not working in the commercial aquarium hobby. Many of the advancements in this hobby have come straight from reefers. These boards are proof of it everyday.

I am absolutely serious. There are marine scientists on marine scientific forums who do nothing but study fish and coral
There are expert marine fish and coral aquarists. I don't have to tell you who they are. We all buy their books. The advances come from scientists to experts and than to us. We should be guided by their advice.

That is not to say that members of this board do not learn from the advice and experience of others on the board. That is its function and the board is doing a great job in educating us all.

I never said there were no marine biologist working to advance the hobby. I simply said it was very false to state as you did, that we do absolutely nothing for the hobby.

You know what you should do though if you want to accuse someone of mistreating fish...go to Youtube and look for the nano cube (I think its around 20G) with the Porcupine Puffer, Snowflake eel and Triggerfish. Oh and think there was a damsel too if I remember correctly.