| Preventing non sessile
critters from stealing food from sessile animals: |
| When feeding an open brain or other
LPS (large polyp scleractinian) coral I put a plastic strawberry basket with a small rock
on top of it over the coral to keep the fish and large inverts away from the food.
Submitted by: G. Dawson |
| Mixing up artificial
seawater: |
| When mixing up a new batch of
saltwater, always add the salt to the body of water that you are preparing. If you add
water to the dry salt at the bottom of your container some of the calcium will precipitate
to form relatively insoluble calcium carbonate. This is one reason that some aquarists
find a significant amount of residue at the bottom of their mixing container. Submitted
by: Terry Siegel |
| Using an in-sump
skimmer.... without a sump |
| Want an in-sump protein skimmer but
don’t have a sump and don't want to set one up? There's an easy solution that will
work with many in-sump skimmers. Purchase a hang-on refugium. Most of the commercially
available ones feature a minimum 4-inch front-to-back dimension, which allows you to place
many pumps directly in the refugium. Sit the skimmer on top of the refugium or set up a
small shelf near to it, and make sure the skimmer’s exhaust returns the effluent into
the refugium, not the tank directly. Of course, you should check the size of the pump of
any skimmer you're interested in, in order to ensure that it will indeed fit. Submitted
by: Charles J DeVito |
| A way to remove an abalone from
the tank wall: |
| Take a sheet of saran wrap and cut a hole
in the center slightly larger then the abalone. Affix the sheet around the abalone with
silicon, making sure to get a good seal around the circumference of the cutout hole. You
don't need to let this set, just long enough to form a halfway decent bond. With a
hairdryer, gradually warm up the foot of the abalone through the tank, by playing the
hairdryer (outside the tank, of course) over that section of the glass the abalone is
attached to. As the glass warms, the abalone will move right onto the saran wrap. You can
then peel away the saran wrap and move the attached abalone. Any silicon that remains on
the glass can be quickly removed with a razor blade. Submitted by: Charles J DeVito |
| Removing a fish from a reef: |
| If you have a few days leeway in removing the fish, the easiest method
is to simply place the food you'd feed your fish inside a deep-bodies fish net. Put the
net into the tank so the fish can feed, walk away and leave it there for maybe 20 minutes
before removing it. It will take your fish time to overcome their fear of the net, but if
you don't feed them in any other manner most fish already used to aquarium life will
become bold enough to feed from the net within a few days. Once that point is reached,
it's an easy matter to remove the fish you're after. This trick does not work as well with
shy feeders like comets, but it still is often successful if given enough time. Submitted
by: Charles J DeVito |
