Rory's Reef
Active Member
I did not know this. Learning new things
. I will now refrain from using the term Alkalinity 
Bad hobby terms.
- Thread starter Kershaw
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I did not know this. Learning new things
. I will now refrain from using the term Alkalinity 
When someone says "clownfish hosting anemone/coral" when it's the anemone or coral that does the hosting. That one's at the top of my list.
As I've said before the terms SPS and LPS drive me a little nuts as someone who actually studies coral taxonomy and biology. They aren't exactly correct, I wish more people used actual scientific names.
"Cycling" bugs me too.
There's more but we'll keep it at those for the moment.
As I've said before the terms SPS and LPS drive me a little nuts as someone who actually studies coral taxonomy and biology. They aren't exactly correct, I wish more people used actual scientific names.
"Cycling" bugs me too.
There's more but we'll keep it at those for the moment.
OP
OP
Kershaw
Valuable Member
Not all of us are educated and big words hard
. I still don't even know how sicce is pronounced
Oversaturated LEDs on sale threads.
Best Fish-Jake
Valuable Member
Novice
Novice is a good term to use, or beginner. Newbie is a little harsh I don't use that one.
PJS
Active Member
I did not know this....but now I know this, thanks for sharing!
happyhourhero
Burner of the Tips
Deep water acros.
cdmckinzie
Active Member
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For someone who is not a scientist, using scientific names is very difficult to learn and remember, that's why people come up with common names that usually refer to what the animal looks like or behaves like.
cdmckinzie
Active Member
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Newbie doesn't bother me at all, I am NEW to the hobby and it is a cute, funny way of referring to us.
jdl513
Valuable Member
Please forgive the chemistry but there is an important difference.
Alkalinity is the measure of carbonate (HCO3) and bicarbonate (H2CO3) in solution sometimes referred to as carbonate hardness for water.
pH is the measure of the ratio of H+ to OH- ions in solution.
These are apples and oranges.
A change in alkalinity in the aquarium will affect pH but a change in pH doesn't necessarily signal a change in alkalinity.
You can change pH of water modestly by adding acid to lower or sodium hydroxide to raise without affecting the alkalinity(carbonate hardness) of typical seawater.
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Tuffyyyyy
2500 Club Member
Since this seems to have divulged into a thread dedicated to ranting about the hobby, I'd like to say that I feel like every thread on here ends up with a consensus that a tank is doomed to fail if it doesn't have:
250 gallon display
100 gallon sump
100 gallon refugium (even with all of this it's just not enough to host a Mandarin. Maybe if you had 3x this much water volume!)
All of the ATI T5 lighting
12 Ecotech powerheads...that should at least give you moderate flow
All of the Hanna checkers.
The list goes on and on.
250 gallon display
100 gallon sump
100 gallon refugium (even with all of this it's just not enough to host a Mandarin. Maybe if you had 3x this much water volume!)
All of the ATI T5 lighting
12 Ecotech powerheads...that should at least give you moderate flow
All of the Hanna checkers.
The list goes on and on.
This is a general statement..... but I love it when someone marks their craigslist item "SOLD" vs deleting the listing! I'm always that guy that texts them telling them I'm interested if it is marked sold! Haha
Defining lighting by watts per gallon.
Maximum number of fish by inches per gallon.
Or any other arbitray limit defined by the volume of the aquarium.
Tanks now come in such a variety of dimensions that those general guidelines are useless. When tanks were basically scaled versions of eachother (rectangular boxes), those were valid guidelines. But when you can have a given volume that ranges from a tall "cube" (I'll add any calling any tank that has a rectangular base a cube despite the fact that the height differs from the base dimensions) to a standard rectangular tank, to a long shallow frag tank. Water depth and swimming room vary greatly which are the largest determining factors for lighting and fish.
Maximum number of fish by inches per gallon.
Or any other arbitray limit defined by the volume of the aquarium.
Tanks now come in such a variety of dimensions that those general guidelines are useless. When tanks were basically scaled versions of eachother (rectangular boxes), those were valid guidelines. But when you can have a given volume that ranges from a tall "cube" (I'll add any calling any tank that has a rectangular base a cube despite the fact that the height differs from the base dimensions) to a standard rectangular tank, to a long shallow frag tank. Water depth and swimming room vary greatly which are the largest determining factors for lighting and fish.
Larry L
Valuable Member
Recommendations that corals that need to be placed "high in your tank" vs "low in your tank", with no consideration of how deep the tank is. My tank is 18 inches deep, so "deep in my tank" like on my sandbed might get more light than halfway down your taller tank.
tyler1503
2500 Club Member
Yes!!!!!!
+1 to this!! It's called a cycle because it always continues. The food cycle doesn't end with the dominant predator, the weather cycle doesn't end with rain, a bicycle doesn't end at the air valve. The nitrogen cycle doesn't end with nitrate!
I've started using the term "initial cycle" instead of cycle and I feel more comfortable with that!
We have numbers for literally every single other possible thing in our tank. Why not flow?!
Along those same lines as "high" vs "low" is coral placement. What may be considered "low" in a 120 could still be higher than the lid on my 8gal cube [emoji23]
It irritates me how much this irritates me.
I think the main issue with common names is when I say meat coral, cushion coral, doughnut coral, or open brain, someone could easily be thinking of 10 different corals. They're all common names that belong to completely different species, but most of these species are known by all of these common names. When I say open brain, I could be talking about cynarina and someone could think I'm talking about a lobophyllia. It bothers me, but I came into this hobby using mainly common names so I guess I'm not allowed to be too bothered by it haha.
BluewaterLa
Active Member
I am old and have too much to gripe about sometimes haha so I will explain away one of your gear grinding dislikes
The term show tank refers to the dimensions of the tank
For example a 150 show tank has the foot print in length and width of a normal 6 foot 150 but is a couple inches taller
This height difference adds a couple gallons in the neighborhood of 8 to 15 gallons of volume
So a 150 gal show tank is 158 gallons or 160 gallons or 165 gallons depending on manufactures decision on the added inches in height
Just that simple
Though some places just label a tank "show " to make it seem more appealing, now that would get my goat
I see your point!
BUT, that 450 gallons is attractive! I have had several tanks and the simplest one to run was a 180 SPS tank with 100 gallons of sump and a calcium reactor. It had 3 DE 250 Mhs and 6 T5s. The worst one was a 24gl JBJ BioCube - Man that thing was a LOT of work. Finally nuked it with vodka dosing. ;( I believe this makes me a lazy reefkeeper.
"Old Fashion" when referring to tried and true methodologies.
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pickupman66
5000 Club Member
OMG.. this thread. So many things stated here that I Smile at. I wont do any repeats here.
