In reading through the letters and e-mails that are forwarded to me I often wish I had more information on the systems being discussed. I'd like to outline some of the information about your systems I would like included when you send me questions about problems you are having.

Let's start with the tank itself. How big is it and what are the dimensions? How much total water is in the system including the filtration system? Where is the tank located, and is it near an open windows or door?

The lighting system is the next in importance. How many lights do you have? What type are they? What is the wattage, color temperature and length? How often do you replace them? How far above the water are they located, and is there a shield between the lights and the tank?

Filtration is, of course, critical. What type(s) of filter do you have? If you have a protein skimmer, what size is it, how much water are you sending through it and with what type of pump? If you are using activated carbon, how much do you use, how often is it replaced and where is it located? If you have live rock, how much do you have, how is it arranged, how old is it? How did you set up and cycle your system?

Additives are always tricky. What products do you use, how much, and how often do you add them? If you use calcium supplements, how do you prepare them and how are they added?

Tank maintenance is also important. How often do you clean the filter system, the glass, the aquarium and the prefilters? Do you do water changes? If so, how often and how much? What type of freshwater are you using and where does it come from?

Water chemistry is critical. You should provide the following measurements: ammonia, nitrate, phosphate, pH (range), alkalinity, calcium, temperature (range) and specific gravity. Iodide and strontium levels are also useful to know, but not critical.

Finally, what do you have in your tank? What types and how many fish, corals and other invertebrates do you keep? How large are they? How close together are the corals? When were they added?

One of the best ways to help yourself understand what may be happening in your aquarium is to keep a logbook. Each day write down anything you do to, or observe in, the tank. Record all water quality test results Often, when looking back in your logs you may be able to trace a change in your tank to something that happened or something you did days, weeks, even months ago. Your logbook can be as simple as a notebook or you can use your computer to build a database or spreadsheet. You can even use one of the shareware or commercial aquarium data logging software packages now available.

The Internet
Not another story about the Internet! I'm afraid so. Whether you have access to the Internet directly through an Internet provider or through an online service, such as America Online, do yourself a favor and explore some of the reef-related resources available on the World Wide Web. A number of hobbyists, businesses, public aquariums and professional aquarists have their own home pages where you can get information on system design, products, reef exhibits, reef aquariums, coral and fish identification, do-it-yourself projects — the list is almost endless, as is the Web itself.

To get you started you can access my aquarium link page. It will offer you a good start for your reef-related Web surfing.

In addition, there are newsgroups where you can find reef-related discussions, or post your own questions. Try rec.aquaria and sci.aquaria. These areas have currently undergone changes to better organize the thousands of messages that get posted each day into more specific categories. At best these areas are confusing to the novice, and still a little hostile to neophytes.

Online services, such as America Online (Keyword: Pets), Prodigy and CompuServe (Go Fishnet), offer message areas, files, weekly chats and monthly guest lectures on a variety of reef-related topics, and in my opinion offer the better choice for asking questions and getting useful answers. I have been a member of CompuServe's Fishnet forum for over 10 years, and America Online's Pets Forum for two years. In my experience, of the two, CompuServe is the better choice for reef-related advice, quality of information available, quality of discussions and the level of expertise of its members. America Online is easier to use for the novice, and has many excellent files on a variety of topics available for downloading.

One thing that really bothers me about the Pets Forum is that their chat rooms are shared by everything from cats to parrots. Nights are designated for certain topics, but people often intrude on fish or reef discussions. This does not happen on Fishnet because it has its own chat rooms devoted only to fishy topics.

Pests, Pests and Still More Pests!
I recently received two letters, each one describing a different pest or perceived pest (in this case, dinoflagellates and flatworms — planaria). Flatworms come in many shapes and sizes. The ones we normally consider pests tend to be small (less than 5 millimeters in length), flattened worm-like creatures. They can be brown, green or red in color, often with a white strip down the middle of the back. These animals feed on bacteria and coral slime, and are thought to be relatively harmless.

The problem comes when there is a population explosion in the tank and they begin to cover every available surface, including your corals. They become a real eyesore and can also severely cut back on the amount of light the corals receive. At this point you have three options: leave them alone and wait until they begin to disappear — which often happens, siphon them off the corals every day until their numbers begin to decrease, or find a biological control.

Biological controls are tricky because there is no guarantee that they will work, and if they do work, what will they eat once the flatworm population declines? Fish are the most effective biological controls for flatworms. Members of the genus Valenciennea (sleeper gobies) have been observed to reduce populations of flatworms effectively, but they tend to waste away in aquariums once the flatworms decrease in number.

Wrasses are very interesting fish in that if there is a life-form that occurs on a reef, there is usually a wrasse that eats it. Both Macropharyngodon (leopard wrasses) and Anampses wrasses are suspected to eat flatworms in aquariums. In the few cases in which I have experienced flatworm outbreaks in a reef system, the populations eventually disappeared in about six to eight weeks.

Flatworms often appear in new aquariums containing live rock, when new pieces of live rock are added to an already established reef aquarium, and when new pieces of coral are added. This is why it is prudent to carefully inspect new arrivals for suspicious hitchhikers, and to quarantine new pieces in a separate tank to make sure they are pest free. Often, vigorously shaking the piece in a bucket of seawater is enough to dislodge flatworms. A more drastic procedure is to dip the live rock briefly in freshwater for 30 to 60 seconds, causing them to drop off.

Dinoflagellates can become a real pest in aquariums, and have caused more than one hobbyist to completely tear down and sterilize his or her aquarium. This tiny, single-celled protozoan can multiply into large mats of brown, filamentous growths, often with air bubbles attached to rising filaments. When examined under the microscope they look like very tiny spheres embedded in a gelatinous goo!

There is no sure-fire way to rid an aquarium of this plague, and often it is merely the shock of a change that causes them to disappear. Treatments have included raising the pH to 8.5 for several weeks, dropping the specific gravity to 1.016 rapidly and keeping it there for a few weeks, raising or lowering the temperature, using phosphate-lowering compounds, and turning off the lights for a few days to a week. Sometimes a combination of the above will cause a positive result. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any organisms that will eat these beasties either!

As you can probably tell, many of the above options carry their own dangers for the other inhabitants of the tank, but drastic problems sometimes require drastic efforts. You may lose all your animals or you may be successful. The alternative, however, is to do nothing, and that will eventually lead to a very nice display of dinoflagellates and little else.