Recent content by Chooch

Northcoastmarines.com is the best price for TRA Vol. 3 I've seen so far.

I siphoned my sandbed out in sections using a large diameter clear PVC plastic hose. I did it over the course of about a month and one half. My hair algae is now completely gone.

As far as fish I would wait on adding the regal angel or blue girdled angel until your tank is well established. I would wait before adding the bicolor angel and the mandarin as well. All of these angels are delicate so you will need pristine tank conditions and a mature tank to give you the...

Just to add my two cents, the triclor specimen is definitely C. solorensis. I have seen the red headed specimen identified in different books as both C. solorensis and C. cyanopleura but I would defer to Greg and Matt on the identification of the red headed species as C. cyanopleura. In any...

Danimal, I have personally kept Bartlett's anthias and I can vouch that they are among the easiest anthias to keep. Others, including Scott Michael, have had this experience as well. Mine fed on every type of food offered including flake food. Once they were fat and well established, mine did...

My thought is that two fairy wrasses, regardless of species, would likely co-exist in a 300 gal tank, especially since you're adding the smaller specimen first. I have maintained two different species of fairy wrasses together successfully in the past . I currently maintain a Halichoeres...

In the Caribbean: Bonaire, Caymans, Cozumel, Bahamas plus the Florida Keys in the Atlantic. Some very nice reefs in all those places and some mediocre. In the Pacific: the Solomon Islands by live aboard dive boat. The Solomons reefs were remote and very pristine with many of the reefs only...

My Regal Angel is 3 1/2 plus years in my care. A Red Sea sailfin tang, yellow tang and royal gramma have been with me over 6 years.

If your tank is large enough, a naso tang, Naso literatus, will take care of it.

John, I had the good fortune of diving in the Solomons and I can attest that both the coral and fish diversity is astonishing. I'm a wrasse fanatic and I saw species of wrasses that I've never seen in any of the books. The saving grace for Solomon reefs is a relatively small human population (...

I find SPS corals easy to keep as long as their needs are met i.e. strong light, strong water movement, high calcium and alkalinity, clean water, etc. Personally, I find purely SPS tanks to be somewhat stark and static with just blocks of calcium carbonate. I prefer a mixed reef with SPS, LPS...

I kept a Bower's parrotfish, Scarus bowersi, about 10 years ago. Mine would eat freeze dried krill, Formula two and some other items. Still, it eventually became emaciated and wasted away after about a year. It was painful to watch as it was a beautiful and personable fish. I've heard of very...

I would just add that this is one of the more delicate angels. Not impossible but many do not seem to adapt to captivity. Some other members of the Chaetodontiplus genus are suprisingly very hardy and readily adapt. Based on my experiece with the Singapore angel RustySnail has given good advice...

You are certainly not feeding much so that does not appear to be a major source of nutrient import. Try scrubbing any areas where the hair algae is growing with a toothbrush. Also use a canister filter to vacuum the hair algae out. Once established hair algae seems to need very little to keep...

Based on my personal experience I have found the Little Giant to be the quieter of the two pumps plus you get more flow for the buck. I've been running a Little Giant 4-MDQX-SC for 5+ years with no problems.