whoa?!?!?!?!?

I don't know how my little blurb manufactured that kind of reaction. My
point was that I used to post here very frequently helping out people and
getting help.... I had a looooonnnngggg hard battle in the discus tank with
algae, finally after that (if there are any vets here they may remember)
smooth sailing. My point was when I tried a reef setup I was severely
dissappointed to find out that yes sadly they get algae over there too. And
I was kind of poking fun at the SW people b/c often they believe that it
doesn't get much more challenging than a reef tank yet..... they totally
borrowed the idea of the refugium from FW planted tank people.
Trust me I did not mean to gloat! I'm sorry if I came off that way. I was
kind of making a joke at myself.

While by my tank's and inventory it would be apparent that I need no help,
that is only partly true! The science of the tank is solid... but I am
looking to give my 55 planted discus a fresh design and since I have been
away from the hobby I am just curious if there have been any new ideas /
trends in aquascaping? I am a scientist and not an artist and thus have
trouble with the latter.
Regards,
Ben

p.s. as far as a year being a long time... try thinking of the discus that
after two years of weekly water changes and the plants that were pruned bi
weekly and the yeast bottle that was changed monthly to all of that
happening monthly or even bi monthly and a year being a long time will make
more sense. :-(


"Zion Hill" wrote in message
...
A year is a long time? Last year was about 15 minutes ago for me.

If you know enough to have a planted Discus tank, and you are screwing
around with Marine, how much else can we really suggest to you?

It's not neccessary to show off to us that you are doing Reef, keep in
mind
that many of us here also read the Marine newsgroups, so your revelations
are not earth shattering.

As far as Links and Pics, just surf the web

"Benthic" wrote in message
...
hello all,

Been a LOOOOOONNNNNGGG time since I've posted here. Well, I am
embarrassed.
I used to be quite the "stuck up Plant tank fanatic" until I had an
opportunity to get a 125 gall reef ready tank with all the live rock and
bells and whistles. Guess what people?! over there in sal****er land
they
get algae too!! Lots of it! all new kinds of algae to fight with.
Just
when I became a pro at my planted discus tank... now I've got diatoms,
red
slime, and the worst of all yep you guessed it HAIR ALGAE. Hah! The
thing
is in a reef tank you don't have the nice macrophytes in your corner to
have
your back and kick the algae's @**. BTW guess what the new rage is in
marine world? Hooking up a second tank to your main tank to grow only
"macroalgae" i.e. using attractive algae to outcompete the lower algae.
it's called a refugium, and some of this macroalgae is wild lookin.
Anyway
enough of that now for my questions.....

I've seriously neglected my discus 55 gallon. But the absence has kind
of
had the "walk away from the painting" effect. Now I want to do
something
cool but I want it to be lower maintenance. Slow growers. With the
reef
tank I simply do not have the time to dedicate to pruning every third
week.
I alrady have a full carpet of lilaeopsis, and a bunch of stem plants.
Full
bed of flourite. I've got 4x 40 watt NO flourescents, fluval canister,
and
DIY CO2. If I remember correctly when I was "psyched" about a year ago
people were getting into cork, attaching "barriers" to the corners
inorder
to make shelves so that the gravel was at different levels. if anyone
has
any cool links or pics that would be awesome! I am picturing something
along these lines. btw is that glossostigma?

thanks everyone,
Ben