benni":35874f3x said:
Wow Trev! Hope your back end is healing from the spanking you got. Seems off the charts bad when someone asks for help and they get the lashings that others have earned (try some bagbalm-you will heal quicker :wink: ). Having referred to this forum for a long, long time as a wealth of research and eventually signing up because of the help that could be received here, I want you to know that getting bitten when asking for help is not what this forum is about-I apologize for the others and hope you keep coming back.
Being a lover of saltwater tanks, in fact part of being with my tank at home helps me feel more connected with the mother that I lost when I was young. I love every critter in my tank and feel some grief when I have some die (accept that dang domino damsel-glad that bully is gone). I am sure having your tank at the school has some of the same effects on the kids there and I know you probably feel that pressure. All tanks have there ups and downs and asking others for their help is all we can do to bring the tank back to baseline.
What stinks here is that instead of getting help, you are lashed. So let's get back to the problem. Does anyone know what the symptoms mean that Trev described above on how the fish died? Is the 1.025 level a solid fact? I have heard from marine biologist's that that is too high and have talked to fish stores that say a SG of 1.021 is where it should be. So do we have opinions or fact? Also, is the alk stable? the pH seems low, anyone have any thoughts on that? Since a top off system is not the best situation for this tank, does anyone have any ideas on how to slow evaporation with out lowering the O2?
I am sorry that you lost those fish, I am sure that is the last thing you wanted to do. I know from private conversations that you forgot to communicate that you mostly try to get farmed raised specimans anyways. Although, seeing anything die is tragic. Well, that is that-I just hope that the ego maniacs don't treat their children or the one's they care about the same way they treated you when you made a mistake. Good luck with your tank!!!!!!
most 'marine biologists' i've met don't know thing one about keeping marine ornamentals-most never even owned a tank or a fish in their lifetimes-many (if not most) don't even have much to do with fishkeeping in captivity but rather deal with any one of a huge field of topics/lines of interest-in fact, i work w/a pHd in marine bio whose lack of aptitude in even the most basic husbandry skills leaves alot to be desired, at best
99% of lfs's don't know jack, and the whole thing about the lower sg is due mostly to a misunderstanding of when and by how much a lower sg is indeed beneficial
i've heard lfs owners/employees state that a slightly lower sg prevents ich :lol: :lol: :lol:
corals and inverts have no business being kept in anything but natural ocean salinity levels, and unless one is dealing with a specific hyposalinity treatment for a specific issue (which isn't .021, or .017), neither do fish
what's the s.g. of the ocean that our fish have been evolving/adapting in for milllions of years ? last i heard it was running about 35 ppt (app 1.025-1.026 sg), excepting some higher salinity areas, such as the
red sea, which can get as high as 1.030 + in some areas, iirc (a FACT, not an OPINION)
What stinks here is that instead of getting help, you are lashed.
wrong-the poster got both, and given the lack of homework done on their part, i could reasonably argue that i may have been a bit too kind
my 0.02
and fwiw, i see, treat, and feed hundreds of new tangs weekly with/for all sorts of issues, including 'hlle', prior to shipout to stores
a word about hlle-often, the condition's progression is 'solved' or stopped, only to leave the fish with (sometimes) scar tissue that will not heal over, leaving the hobbyist to mistakenly think that the 'disease' is still in progress/not fixed
a word about lower sg:
the 2 main reasons behind keeping systems at 017-021 are slightly elevated dissolved O2 levels (in most hobbyists's tanks, there's NO issue with low O2, however) and a SLIGHTLY reduced pathogen/parasite level. It should be used as a protocol ONLY in commercial sized systems, where due to the higher number of fish, every increase in O2 or reduction in parasite populations can be critical, especially given the rate of spread of pathogens due to increased fish densities/water volume
some do it thinking it causes them to use less salt, thereby cutting operating costs
some think that 017 is actually hyposalinity 8O
All tanks have there ups and downs and asking others for their help is all we can do to bring the tank back to baseline.
educating one's self before starting a new venture rather than waiting for others to spoon feed one important information due to improper prep work is also an option, and one seen to few and far between, not just in this hobby, but in the way most people approach everything, ime.
getting indignant about how one's treated by other's who DO give some decent advice but also make it a point of chiding the asker in the hope they don't continue with the waste of livestock due to that (ignorant)approach is laughable, imo
