Random Thoughts

Yesterday I visited a famous Brazilian veteran aquarist, Mr Joao Basso, he's been in the hobby for some 40 years now (much like Paul B), and in his recent years has experimented a lot with new tank formats and other DIY projects.

One of his recent inventions, about 2 to 3 years ago, is a tank system that has no visible overflow nor return, no visible pumps, uses a small return pump (aquarium volume turnover once per hour), looks super hyper clean and has incredible flow using a closed ...

My tank hasn't seen much action lately, I have't been very good on the maintenance, but there is one thing I take pleasure in it: observing the balance between algae and mithrax crabs.

I have two distinct areas with green hair algae, and a few areas now sparsely populated by with red bubble algae. The hair algae grows, then the crabs eat it and you see less of it, the reb bubble sometimes makes gains on a rock, a few weeks later thet are gone, the mithrax ate it.

I'm going ...

It is interesting how one can tell the difference between LFS's business and ethical/ecological practices when "rubber meets the road"...

Last week I had two distinct experiences regarding fish purchases.

One, at my LFS#2, was them suggesting I get a Desjardini Tang or a Foxface Rabbitfish to eat up my Valonia infestation, even though they knew my tank was a 180L, 60cm cube display tank probably limited in space for those two fish.

The second, at ...

[Blog to be migrated from http://rcsnorkeler.blogspot.com/, you can read the rest of the past story there]

It is interesting to note how maintaining a marine aquarium sometimes is a roller coaster of emotions.

Discouraging:
Right now it is quite discouraging to see the plague proportions my Valonias have reached. Shortly after the Valonia eating crab died I spent 5 days away from home (birth of a child, praise the Lord) and left my auto-feeder on. I think it ...