Knowledge is poqer

[bug0926]

From my daily reef blog at http://120gallons.blogspot.com/

Many local fish stores will sell you whatever you are willing to buy. Best bet is to do research and know what you are buying and find a reputable fish store who won't tell you flower pot corals are easy and a great beginner coral. Many stores will tell you every coral is easy and will do fine in your tank...and every fish is easy to care for. A good way to see how reputable a store is would be to go to one with some good "questions". Find the owner and ask them. Sometimes some staff just might not know better, so that's why I recommend dealing with the owner if possible. See if they have a flower pot coral for sale and ask them about it. See if they are honest and tell you that they are very hard to keep alive. If they don't have one, ask them if they get them in. Maybe they'll tell you they don't carry them because there's little chance to keep them alive. That's an answer that would be music to my ears.

Another good question, is asking them if a 30 gallon tank is good for a hippo tang. See if they tell you that eventually get a foot long and you need a bigger tank.

Questions like this can help you gauge a fish store. But as always the best bet is for you to know what you want ahead of time and do your own research.

 

[The Chefin' man]

I can honestly agree with you there. I have gotten back into the hobby after being out for 10 years. I seen a neon green flower pot and it rocked. Well the owner of the LFS hooked me up with it because he owed me some money. He said that this coral will be easy to maintain and take care of. Therefore I also purchased another one that is brown purple and green. I actually figured it out that when I got me stock back from him because I upgraded my setup the neon green flower pot looked very sick and I couldn't figure out why. Well I did some research on the flower pot corals and much to my dismay. I sat there and thought about pulling a postal job on the LFS (I can think of a nasty abbreviation for that also). Well, I figured I will give it a shot anyway and work my science on them. They have been home for about a month now and where there was very little extension on the arms of the coral they protrude about 1 inch and hopefully still going. The actuall flowers have not come out yet but I am still working on them. I feed them 7 CC a piece twice of D's phytoplankton. I do not know if I should try to change their diet and some more info would be greatly appreciated from the pros.

Thank you,
J.c.