1st off congrats on the new addition to your family!
When I acclimate I float the bags for like 10 min or so then put all the water and critters in a small bucket and drip acclimate that way. Then just take the animals out and dump the water.
Hi again,
I ordered my cleanup crew from Reefcleaners.org....haven't gotten a delivery update yet. My nitrates are down to about 2.0 now. Its hard to tell, but it may be a little lower. The API test kit uses the color card and my eyes aren't what they used to be. I have to take it to the window to get a better look at the colors. The color card goes from 0 to 5.0 and up, so I'm guessing 2.0.
Reefcleaners has 20, 30, 40 gallon, etc crews or you can pick and choose. I thought the twenty or thirty gallon crew might be a little much to start with. Heres whats on the way:
2) blue leg hermits
4) empty hermit shells
5) florida ceriths
1) fuzzy chiton
4) limpets
4) nerite snails
5) nassarius vibex snails
12) dwarf cerith
1 penny algae and some chaeto with pods.
I have a question about acclimation. I hear everyone talk about floating the bags...(like I've always done for freshwater). But if you have to start a siphon to drip, how are you going to float the bags. I have my own ideas on how I will get this done, but was just wondering how you all do it. Oh, and by the way....my wife is going to have a baby. Man, I've been dieing to tell someone. I thought I was going to bust!
Thanks and Good Day,
Buddy/Gobby
1st off congrats on the new addition to your family!
When I acclimate I float the bags for like 10 min or so then put all the water and critters in a small bucket and drip acclimate that way. Then just take the animals out and dump the water.
Reefcleaners.org won't guarantee the critters if you do it that way...here is a link as to why:
http://reefcleaners.org/index.php?op...d=17&Itemid=31
.....but I will do it that way with my fish and corals. I added the CUC last night....it was kinda cool. Some of them didn't wake up right away, but some of them took right off mowing down stuff (especially the nassarius). This Fuzzy Chiton looks really wild but he was just sitting there when I came to work. When I get home this morning I hope to see more activity. I wish I had gotten more Hermits because the ones that came are pretty small. I did a 5 gallon water change the night before. I'll post pictures later.
Thanks you two,
Buddy
I don't like hermits at all they tend to like my snails way too much, that's just my preference. I got chiltons as well I love them mine are no longer fuzzy though the snails made sure of that, the ceriths are a really good addition to the tank they will do a real good job of keeping your sand bed stirred up. If i was going to get anything else I would get some dwarf ceriths. But, wait a while before adding anything else. What you have is a good start.
I do have Dwarf Ceriths in there...see list in post above. Now that everything is stirring around in there, its like watching t.v. Maybe I can break my XboxLive addiction. ;-) Heres a couple of pics:
Not too happy with the rock layout.
The critters after touchdown
the Fuzzy
some red algae...they call it one penny algae because thats what it cost. Does anyone know what it really is called?
This is the only hitchhiker I've come up with so far....is this hair algae? How long does it take for hitchhikers to appear usually. I thought I might see something appear by now.
Buddy
Nice pics Buddy, I commented on your post about wishing you got more hermits. I was trying to say instead of hermits I would lean towards more cerith snails. Just my opinion.
That macro is Red Gracilaria, depending on your light it will lighten in color, mine is currently bright yellow.
Im horrible at algae id ill leave this one to someone else, kinda looks like Bryopsis, but not sure. Just manually remove it.
Yeah.... I need to do something with the algae. It is really taking off. I'll have to get in there and mow it down.
Well I think maybe the algae is starting to settle down. There is still some in there, but I didn't panic and it seems to be thinning out a bit. I did my weekly water change tonight, so while it was siphoning I sucked it into the tube and squeezed the end to pinch some off. It works pretty well. The snails and chiton are working on it too. I haven't seen the hermits much, but my daughter said she saw one of them eating it. My calcium is staying at around 400, but I was wondering why my P.H. is hanging a little low. It went from 8.0 to 7.8 in a couple of days. I would like to get it up some more. Salinity is staying at 1.026. Ammonia, nitrites, nitrates & phosphates are all zero. I have been adding 1/2 cap of PurpleUp most days for the last week since I have it here.
Buddy
Your pH can vary with the light cycle, it starts falling when the lights go off and then starts to go back up when the lights come on. High indoor CO2 also contributes to low pH so if the house is closed up more that could also be contributing.
Carmie
Only disasters happen fast!
Carmie's 54 Corner Tank
Carmie's Cube
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I was wrong...the algae took off again. I have been leaving the lights off most of the day at someones suggestion. So I suppose the P.H. dropped because of that. The P.H. really never got above 8.0 even before leaving the lights out though. I was thinking on a Lawnmower blenny and a Seahare to help out with the algae. I had shoulder surgery three days ago so I haven't been able to test the water or remove any algae. Getting there though.
Buddy
Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Remind me, do you have any corals? If not keeping the lights off does help with the algae bloom. But, algae is just part of a new tank. Watch out for the sea hare, they will starve to death without lots of vegies.
Last edited by CarmieJo; 10-20-2010 at 08:25 PM.
Carmie
Only disasters happen fast!
Carmie's 54 Corner Tank
Carmie's Cube
Show people you value their advice! Click the STAR icon at the bottom of the post to add to their reputation.
Hi Carmie,
No...no corals yet. Thats why I thought lights out would be okay. There are no fish either, just the small cleanup crew. Thanks for the well wishes.
Buddy
Surgery....what kind of excuse is that..lol..J/K. If anything this just gives your CUC a little more time to do thier job. Take it easy and get well soon.
lol.....thank you.
Hello All,
Still working on the hair algae. I had to take out some of the rocks and scrub them and pull off the algae. It seems that the cleanup crew likes to eat it better when its trimmed down. My daughter saw a small, what looks like a featherduster on one of my nerite snails. I'm not sure what it is exactly. There is a barnacle on the snail and this small feather looking thing shoots in and out of it. It was very cool.....officially my first hitchiker. Here is a pic of the snail and barnacle in question:
I will try to get a pic of the thing popping out later. It was being lazy tonight.
Buddy
I forgot to mention that I started using the JBJ protein skimmer the day before yesterday. I thought it would be a good idea with all this algae dieing off and floating around. It took until today to start overflowing into the collection cup. Good deal.
Buddy
I am really enjoying your build! I wish I had strted my tank with these people helping me out
Thank you Mike,
I am having a good time with all of this. Everyone I have conversed with here have been very nice. I'm getting an itch to add more critters to this tank. I have decided also to put in another Koralia Nano pump for more circulation around the backside of the rock. It looks like I have a dead spot that is bothering me. As soon as I can swing it I'm going to get a Jbj Nano Glo Refugium Led and try a fuge in the center filter section out back.
Buddy
The refugium sounds kool, I can't wait to see how it turns out.
The Nerite Snail with the feather duster is Awesome! I had a tiny one popping out in a cave in some of my LR for a while, but I haven't seen it in a long time. I was pretty paranoid of bad hitchhickers, so I didn't get many good hitchhikers either. I am going to check around when I go to my ORCA meeting and see if anyone would be willing to part with a piece of well populated LR, as long as I don't get any nastys with it I'll be happy to watch it spread.
If you get more clean up crew types, I'd be wary of a sea hare, like CarmieJo said. I had algae issues in my tank, and my LFS sold me a sea hare. He knocked it all out in no time flat... and it's a 75gallon. I'm barely keeping him alive these days. If you have a local reef club, you may want to see if someone has one you can rent for a while, but keeping them alive requires a lot of algae. I hear that if they die they release a toxic substance like flat worms do, so one starving to death in a nano would probly be detrimental. I'm not sure that what I said is 100% correct, so you may want to do some research on it.
Yes...I ditched the seahare idea. I ordered more snails and crabs for now and a Lawnmower blenny. I also have a SixLine Wrasse coming. I have just noticed copepods all over my glass today. I was pretty excited about that....silly huh? I also found some kind of small tube looking think about a 1/4" long with a very small trumpet looking head growing on the rock. I'll get a picture of it tomorrow and post it. Oh...and I don't think the thing on the Nerite snail is a featherduster. I think it is too small for that, but just whatever lives in a barnacle. I'll have to look it up.
Buddy
Okay....here is a picture of the tube looking trumpet thingy:
So who can tell me what it is. Its only about a 1/4" long so far. I hope it isn't something bad! I also found, like I said above what I thought might be copepods on the glass. They were skittering across the glass after I stirred up the tank and disturbed the cheato. After watching them for a couple of days I noticed some of them looked a little longer then some. Hopefully I don't have some kind of worms....any thoughts?
Buddy
Looks like a pineapple sponge to me. Nothing to worry about. It's a filter feeder. They will come and go.
Here is some of mine from a year or so ago.
Last edited by SaltyDawg; 10-29-2010 at 05:44 PM.
Ahh yes. Thats it exactly. Thank you.
Buddy
as far as the pods, I can't say much except all the copepods I've seen are so small that I can't make out much as far as features, just tiny reddish dots that move around a lot. Amphipods are big enough to see features, and they looked kinda like fleas to me, but from my understanding there are several different forms of both, so there's no way I've seen enough to tell you anything with certainty. Do you have pics?
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