Random Thoughts

I mean is it me, look at how cool some of this stuff is. You can have a dog, and well, it's a dog. OK everybody has a dog. (I don't) or you can have a cat although I don't know why anyone would have a cat. (I don't have one and never will) My Daughter has one for about a year and I don't think I ever saw the thing. I have no idea what color it is, how many legs it has, nothing, it's a cat. It's name is probably, cat. Maybe Felix, I have no idea.

But fish are so cool. How many ...

I have always been drawn to more odd shaped fish like copperband butterflies, frogfish, pipefish, seahorses etc, but copperbands always keep me fascinated. They are not very rare and not real difficult but many people have trouble keeping them, or even getting them to eat.

In the early 70s I started to write a book (that I will never finish) and I noticed in my notes that copperbands were one of the first fish I used to keep, right after blue devils, clowns and dominoes.
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Some fish facts:
The best way to keep an animal like a fish healthy is to know how it makes it's living.
We are after all very distant relatives of fish (if you believe Darwin) so we should have some sort of understanding of the way they feel.
We don’t see the way fish see, we don’t feel the way fish feel, and we also don’t eat the way fish eat. Fish don’t have tongues and they don’t "really" chew. (Try chewing without using your tongue) They bite a piece of food, then ...

Mandarins are not like most fish we keep. Their digestive system is more like a seahorse or pipefish. They don't have a real stomach and can not store food as we, and most fish can. You can tell how often a fish has to eat by the size of it's mouth. A mandarin has a tiny mouth which is not designed to take a big mouthful of anything at any one time. They are also not designed to bite pieces off larger food items.
A mandarin was designed to eat pods and little else. We as aquarists tend ...

Today I decided to have a typhoon in my reef. I do this sometimes twice a year and IMO it is the main secret as to what has kept my tank going so long.
I run a reverse undergravel filter like almost everyone on here! No? Oh I thought everyone did. In any case, this is what I do to keep the tank going. As you can see I have two diatom filters running at the same time. I could do it with one but it takes twice as long. A diatom filter removes anything smaller than a micron which is much ...