Recent content by itafx

Full tank pics here

Full tank pics here

Last summer, we had a family vacation at a mid Atlantic coast beach. We brought home some barnacles on a small piece of driftwood. It's neat to watch their little feeding appendages come out and forage for microscopic food in the water. Are barnacles benifical in a SW tank ecosystem...

I have cycles in my SW tanks where lots of small sponges 1/4" to 3/4" long grow up and then die back (or are cleaned out by me). Are sponges good, bad, or indifferent in maintaining a healthy SW ecosystem?

Perhaps it could be fuchia. Here is a picture of that.

It's not slimy. If feels like a very delicate plant.

I'm using an Emperor 280. I looked inside and saw these sponges all over the insides of the filter media cage. I scrubbed them out and totally cleaned the filter. I cleaned the sides of the glass and am about to do a 50% WC. Glad the sponges are harmless. Thanks for the replies.

This red stuff sponaneously grew up among my macroalgae. I really like the color that it adds, but i'm wondering what it is, and whether there are any harmful side effects

Lots of these appeared mysteriously in my SW tanks. They look like elongated whitish tubes that anchor on things. At the same time these appeared, my macroalgae started shrinking instead of growing. Are they sponges? Are they harmful?

What do you think it would be for 6 discus in a 55g tank? I was thinking about getting them at 3" and growing them up and having them pair off in that tank.

It is a fairly new tank. I've always wondered why newer tanks tend to do this so much more than old tanks. I think there are more diatoms than an otto could eat in a life time. I haven't done anything yet since I didn't consider it to be very harmful. At this point, the diatom volume...