Don't add any of the water you use to thaw the frozen food into your tank, pour it through a small strainer or similar device before adding the food to the tank - it sounds like a hassle if you don't already do it but it really can help with keeping nuisance algae at bay as that water can contain phosphate among other nasty things (bacteria, etc).
This isn't related to hair algae but I'd also vary the diet a bit as mysis alone aren't going to be nutritionally complete for any of those fish in the long term (do some research on each species for food ideas).
Absolutely. You wouldn't be healthy if all you ate was shrimp and neither will your fish. I am convinced that a varied diet helps keep your fish healthy and allows them to live long lives.
I usually thaw and rinse with warm tank water (a turkey baster's worth to thaw in, and another to rinse), so I use a plastic strainer. I've found that a metal strainer (or a metal "anything-that-touches-tank-water") corrodes much too quickly, even when rinsed and dried after each use. The inventors of "stainless steel" obviously didn't test the stuff in seawater.
I've been using this one for months but I don't rinse SW through it. After I rinse my food I knock it into a plastic cup, add whatever else I am feeding along with vitamins and garlic, let it soak for a few minutes and then add enough tank water to "dilute" it enough to easily suck up with a turkey baster.
The stupid hair algae is coming back. I thought i had it beat but i see it growing all over the rocks again. However, i noticed something: the growth is not even over all the rocks. The first batch of rocks i added (not live) have 80 to 90% of the algae on them. Rather mysterious. So, i mentioned this to my LFS and he asked an interesting question. He wanted to know if i used lace rock or base rock. I told him i remembered th box being marked lace rock but the other store people said it was all the same. He said, no, in fact they are not the same. Lace rock is mined volcanic rock that has never seen contact with the ocean. It is rock pushed up from deep in the earth and often used in cichlid tanks. Some ignorant store owners, according to him, sold it as a cheap replacement for argonite base rock. Lace rock is not argonite (calcium) based and contains lots of other minerals (although he was not positive that phosphate was one of them). However, he said the porous structure of lace rocks are quite different than argonite base rocks mined from ancient oceans. Thus, lace rocks do not perform the same denitrifying properties as base rock. Furthermore, their porous structure traps detrius without processing it (the typical bacteria don't like lace rocks i guess).
I took out one my my hair algae covered lace rocks and smashed it. No goo oozed out of the rock, like he said might happen, but i got a strong wiff of hydrogen sulfide from the inside of the rock. This is interesting. I think i will remove all the lace rock (i have a few large pieces) and see if that reduces my algae issues.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
I generally agree with your LFS that terrestrial/mined rock (of any sort) can be problematic.
A few points:
- A lot of mined "lace rock" marketed for cichlid tanks is, in fact, calcareous.
- Any time you use dry rock (lace/base/whatever) you will see "invasive" species colonize quickly because, well, they're called "invasive" for a reason! Dry rock has absolutely nothing - not even bacteria - on it or inside it.
- Porous is Porous. Denitrifying bacteria will colonize anywhere the oxygen level is low and could care less if that was inside live rock, lace rock, base rock, fake rock, your sandbed, or the bottom of your kitchen garbage bag. Almost all nitrate reduction in a reef tank happens in the sandbed, not the rocks.
- Hydrogen sulfide in your rocks or sandbed is generally due to insufficient water flow (specifically: denitrifying bacteria are not getting enough nitrogen). This could be partially due to not rinsing/cleaning the lace rock well enough before placing it in the tank - limestone sedimentation and dust can clog up dry rock quite quickly.
So, if the pores in the rock seem "clogged" then the rock probably wasn't rinsed/cleaned well enough before being placed it in the tank... which means it also wouldn't have been washed well enough to remove any potential contaminants in the rock/dust - which could very well be a factor in your algae issue. Try the old "turkey baster in the hole" trick and see how much sediment you can blow out and let it settle to the bottom of whatever container you've got the rock in. Collect and examine the sediment in a smaller container (clear shallow bowl or petri dish) and see if you notice anything that doesn't look like sand.
Oooo the mystery deepens. I will give that a shot doc. Actually, i didn't realize i had to really rinse the rocks at all; i don't think i did.
So, do you think mineralization would be a problem even with base rocks mined from ancient oceans? ( like marco rocks). I wonder if it would be a good idea to let any new base rocks soak in RO/DI water for a while to suck out all the excess minerals.
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
So, do you think mineralization would be a problem even with base rocks mined from ancient oceans? ( like marco rocks). I wonder if it would be a good idea to let any new base rocks soak in RO/DI water for a while to suck out all the excess minerals.
My understanding regarding Marco's rock was that it wasn't mined, but simply collected - ie. might have still been "live rock" less than a year ago. I could be wrong but just looking at pictures of the product its quite obvious those are coral skeletons and, thus, probably not "mined". I know some people who boil them for a few hours in chlorinated tap water just to be safe... lots of marine creatures drop cysts just before dying, and not all of them may be as yummy as rotifers to your tank inhabitants (See dinoflagellate cysts)
In my opinion: any dry rock should be rinsed/scrubbed and then soaked in a trashcan full of saltwater for at least a few weeks with lots of circulation and regular water testing, especially for iron and copper if it is any type of "mined" limestone. It should then seeded with real live rock for at least another few weeks or more, again with lots of circulation - this step can be done in the tank if it's a new setup, otherwise do it in the a Rubbermaid or trashcan. Don't worry about lighting it for the seeding phase - coralline takes a few months to really get started anyway and nothing else in there is going to need anything more than ambient room lighting. Some people recommend a period of "months" rather than weeks for the seeding process, which isn't actually all that outrageous especially if the rock is destined to be placed into an existing system. I remember reading the results of some biodiversity study a while ago where a bunch of base rock samples were placed on a real reef to be seeded and after 8 months none of the sample rocks showed more than a fraction of the amount of life found on samples of nearby (physically touching, in some cases) natural live rock.
__________________ Lucas"Doctor"Thompson
Last edited by doctorthompson; 12-11-2007 at 02:43 PM.
Reason: Link to paper on dinoflagellate cysts
Just for kicks... break off a tiny chunk, dry it out, and drop it in a bowl with a cup or so of vinegar and see how long it takes to dissolve - and how much doesn't dissolve.
Oooo, that sounds like fun. Just the Ca would dissolve right?
__________________ Samuel
"If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.... There is magic in it. Let the most absent-minded men be plunged in his deepest reveries--stand that man on his legs, set his feet a-going, and he will infallibly lead you to water, if water there be in all that region."
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