So that many snails will always have enough to eat?  I guess the angle of light made the hippo tang look purple, but in actuallity it is very flourescent blue.  The purple tang stays underneath the rocks and doesn't come out much anymore, I don't know why, it looks very healthy, fat, and is fairly large even though you can't see it in the picture.  Also, this tank is run purely on tap water for 10 months and I have had no problems.

-Cody

When you can no longer differentiate the snails from the substrate you have too many. 

Thats what happened with my tank--it was fresh water.  I then dried it out, tossed all the sand and dead snails and said what the heck, I've always wanted a salt water aquarium and here I am now.

cpearce.... wrote: One further question, how do I know if I have too many snails?

You can't have too many.

Adam

Sorry, still new at the picture posting, hopefully that works better now.

-Cody

The top picture is my LT purple anemone that I thought for sure was dead (see LT purple anemone topic for more details).  The picture was take by using a mirror that I stuck behind the tank and then took a picture of the mirror. 

The second picture is a top view of my green bulb anemone that is only inches above the LT purple anemone.  When my LT purple anemone went behind the rocks I went looking for it and didn't realize that the green bulb was stuck to two rocks.  So, when I lifted one of the rocks up to see if my LT was underneath I ripped the green bulb almost in half and though for sure it was dead, but instead it made a great recovery as you can see.

The third picture is a just one of my entire tank.  The two anemones are on the left side (notice the yellow polyps in second picture and the entire tank) .  I also realize that my white urchin (that you can see in the picture on the left) is what has been making all of my coraline algae turn white or disappear!  I guess coraline algae is part of their food source.

One further question, how do I know if I have too many snails?

-Cody