lutz123

So I moved the young clown pair from their pico "quarantine" tank to their Nuvo 16 yesterday so that I could put the new little yellow clown goby in the pico (need a new quarantine tank). Everyone seemed settled in nicely...or so I thought. I got my coffee this morning and walked over to check on my fish tanks (they live in my home office) and notice the little goby is out from behind the rocks (Yay!) but only see one clownfish. Coral is where she should, be but Marlin is MIA. "She must be sleeping" says my 4 year old. (Yeah, sleeping.). I peek behind the rocks knowing I probably won't like what I find, but he isn't there. Then I glance down at the floor and spot movement out of the corner of my eye. Marlin is happily swimming in a 5 gallon bucket that had an inch of fresh saltwater left in it! Thank goodness for laziness after a water change! If I didn't keep the tanks in my office those buckets would never have been there. To add to his luck, the office is also where the cats like to hang out. I likely would never have found him if he had hit the floor. I had hoped that by using the glass Nuvo lid I would avoid jumping being an issue, but of course they will always find the half inch gap. Now I can sit down and relax - and plan coral stocking and a bigger tank to add...

Oh I want! I have stuck to lurking since setting up saltwater again but this is enough to lure me in! I have a newly cycled nuvo 16 (and a picotope) with a large tank being built in my head for now, but flooding terrifies me. I am constantly researching "failsafe". I would love to see more about these. I wonder what the display dimensions are.

Oooh. Sounds good! All of these options! I had seen that Quantum Reefs had the IM products on sale until tomorrow. I would love to buy locally, but where the heck are they?? I will call them tomorrow, and then move on to some rock. I probably ought to get my wish list together. I didn't keep a single thing after selling the old tanks.

Yes, i saw that... But I really don't want anything in my tank ALIVE when I start it. The best guess on what caused me problems before was toxins from nudis I didn't even know were there. I did think about it for later on down the road but I'm not quite there yet. See, at least I fully realize that eventually I will go bigger.

So..I am about to cave in to my desire to get another tank but am going to start out small and test the waters so to speak. I have my eye on Innovative Marine's 16 gallon and will likely stock it with a couple of small fish, some sexies, and a pom pom...and a couple of snails. Maybe a goby/ shrimp pair? If it works out well I would like a 65 or 75 gallon. I loved the dimensions of my 58 gallon Oceanic. Anyhow, as much as I absolutely LOVE live rock and all of it's critters, it scares me to death so I am going for dead rock and dead sand. I may see if I can find a small chunk with a tad bit of algae and the tiniest handful of live sand eventually but I'd like to know everything that lives in the tank in the beginning. Can someone point me to some good references on starting and cycling a tank without live rock? Thanks!

From what I read, he thinks it is at first, but is corrected by someone that it was actually the nudi that he squished that released a toxin. I don't have any zoas FWIW. Either way, my symptoms were nearly identical...like I could have pretty much written that. Aren't his symptoms a little different than normal zooanthid palytoxin reactions? I don't know anything about that.

I thought I'd share that I stumbled across a nearly identical experience to mine. Scary, and it looks like it happened to someone in the DC area in 2005 or earlier. Not sure if it's okay to post a link to another forum, but here goes... http://www.fishforums.net/index.php?showtopic=79056&st=20 If not, I suppose I could copy/paste. Does this sound familiar to anyone? Mostly scary because I didn't "squish" anything - I just had my hand in the tank. It had to be from the death of whatever... I did find at least one 2-3" polyclad flatworm earlier and it died (and saw a few that were about 1/2 inch long that looked identical to this one)...and at least 2 other kinds of flatworms. Does flatworm exit kill nudibranches? Either way, this confirms as closely as I could that it was indeed a toxin. BTW, I did have a hangnail but no big open cuts. I hope this serves as yet another reason to take precautions. Does carbon remove toxins?

FYI - Flatworms contain a toxin called ttx, or tetradotoxin. TTX has been implicated in some marine food deaths (pufferfish, most commonly). I have no clue if that's what's being released when they die, but it sure looked like that's the "toxin" that everyone refers to. Who knows if it's potentially harmful without ingesting though. I'm just sharing what I found because the question was raised - and it pretty much ruled out ttx being my problem yesterday based on symptoms.

Already ordered and on their way! My leather is droopy. Might move it into the QT temporarily to see if that helps. Hopefully the carbon will absorb whatever it is. I'll change it out again in a few days. Oh, and I do have a few flatworms still. Oh well. They are tinier and look more like the pacman ghosts. Guess they will be permanent residents. By the way, if anyone wants any FWE and is near me, it's all yours.

Moderator, can you please change the topic title to something a little less scary?

Interesting...and I thought of other possibilities as well. I didn't feel any kind of sting per se - but didn't touch anything but the water and don't have any corals except a leather, GSP, and xenia - maybe a small tube coral. There a a few small colonies of colonial hydroids. And who knows what else is lurking... I also thought of the possibility that I was allergic to the flatworm toxin - I don't know anything about what's released. I must admit I do feel like a bit of a wimp since the xenia are still pulsing away and all of the snails are back to their usual activities this morning. Even the GSP I tipped upside down adding water is peeking out from under the sand. It was a pretty decent population of flatworms, but they weren't covering everything. I just figured I'd go ahead and knock them out before I add fish. My hands were in the water about 5-10 minutes after adding the medication. All of that being said, if I did react to it, it was obviously because I'm somehow more sensitive than most folks. I did do my research to learn from others experiences...no word on anyone being remotely reactive. And I think it's still used on humans (not for deworming) with no word on sensitivity or reactions like I had. Maybe I just really ticked something off - I hope not. I'm a wee bit afraid of the tank now. This was a good article I saw this morning - not saltwater, but informative... http://www.loaches.com/disease-treatment/levamisole-hydrochloride-1 No more flatworms though!

So...the verdict is it was a reaction to the drug - likely absorption since my first symptoms were my left thumb and right hand feeling tingly (siphoning), though inhalation could have been a factor I suppose. Less than two minutes from my hand being in the tank to the computer for a quick google, which I abandoned immediately in favor of 911. My blood pressure had skyrocketed. I read those stupid directions time and time again. No warnings except to keep away from children. I think it was the right initial amount - I need to look at the box again. Under a capful for 70 gallons minus room for rock/substrate. In less than 10 minutes I could see the darkest orange flatworms floating around so I thought I would begin to siphon some out. There just weren't enough to continue so I opted to wait. My hand was in the tank probably 30 seconds. I do understand it's virtually unheard of, but it was extremely scary how difficult it was to find out the ingredients - active or inactive. I wasn't able to help with anything but providing the box, instructions, and bottle - neither the paramedics, nor the hospital, nor Poison Control could figure it out. If I weren't able to get the info (thank you!!) at all they would have had nothing. By the time we could provide the info things were already getting slowly better so they opted just to let it continue. FWIW, they typically don't have people show up with veterinary dewormer problems. It apparently used to be used for humans, but the doc figured that they likely don't anymore for a reason. Who knows why I reacted? Lesson learned though about not using any medication without knowing the ingredients and why they do. I made the assumption that since fish and snails are fine I should be too. Also, perhaps not using a new medication without anyone home besides my two year old. Brings me to my question...I need to get this water changed so this stuff is out. Pardon me for be a little gun shy, but I don't really feel comfortable (and doc said no way). I managed to do about 10% tonight, and put fresh carbon in the reactor (sorry doc). Everything is doing surprisingly well, but I'm sure it won't last. I think I may have lost a couple of cerith snails. I needed to do a good water change anyway because my nitrates were inching up above 25 - newly transferred tank. I'll start making water, but anyone have any suggestions? My hubby doesn't care how many people have touched it and been fine - he's not interested in playing with it either. I feel like 50% of the water is changed out a few times over the next few weeks things should be safer for me. Or 10% every other day? Sorry if it doesn't make too much sense...still feeling a bit crappy.

Severe allergic reaction. Please call <removed after contact made for privacy> if you can help.

If it were me, I'd make a call to one of those flood damage companies if it's a lot, even just for a quote. I don't think it's terribly expensive. Definitely not worth risking missing something and having to yank up carpet or drywall down the road. And since I'm a wife, I can tell you your best bet is to bite the bullet and make sure it goes away for good quickly. Any lingering issues are sure to come back and haunt you.

Yeah, yeah. I've tried, but I can't get it to focus. Yet another excuse to get a good camera!

Nah - nothing like that. Actually, I'm pretty sure it's a eunicid worm after looking at some youtube videos - has the same white on it's "neck" as some of those. It's a very centipede looking worm, with definite antenna - and lightning fast. Hmm, that changes things. Not sure I really want him there... What do people do with these? Kill them?

Sigh... I suppose. I honestly never thought I'd be fascinated by a bristleworm. Blech! Yesterday he was still at it. It's just so strange...and the research geek in me can't get over the fact that I can't find anything on the internet. Heck, even WWM (Bob Fenner) simply said "Hmm, never heard of that". I seriously need to go ahead and get fish. Then I can just get over the worm.

This bristleworm (1/8 inch wide and 2-3 inches has emerged from the rock) has been popping out of his crevice all day long and he comes out often. I can always expect to see him if I go check the tank. The substrate is the caribsea special grade reef sand, so not terribly small. He grabs substrate, opens his mouth, and swallows it. He swallows two or 3 pieces and carries one in his mouth back into his hole. It's like watching a python try to swallow large prey. He's been doing it all day long. That may explain better what I saw last week, which was him reach up into the water column and expel 4 or 5 white pellets (which I subsequently figured out was poop.) There is plenty of "stuff" to eat in the tank - live rock and all of it's various hitchhikers, 2 sea urchins, a couple of hermits, and some snails. It's not going to make a difference in my life - I'm just curious, but it's driving me nuts that I can't find anything on the web.

Thanks - and I didn't think about the salt creep. I'll go with 1/4 inch and see how that works.

I need to make a screen for my tank (36Lx18Wx21D) and would like to minimize escapees. I found 1/8 inch black polyester mesh...is that going to filter the light too much? It's plenty bright in my opinion, though nothing in the tank currently needs that much light - 36" Current Sunpod with 2 150 watt MH lights.

Yes. Definitely the shrimp, not the shell...and the nassarius has joined the fun feast too!

So...the first thing that needs to be pointed out is that I added 2 small peppermint shrimp to this tank yesterday. They were drip acclimated for about 2 hours, then added. Both promptly ate and were lively. Parameters are good - ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrates below 5, ph 8.2. This is a cycled, but "new" 27 gallon cube tank. It was set up beginning of August to eventually house erectus seahorses. It contains live rock and we have added a few snails since. It was overgrown with digitate hydroids so I thought I'd put in a couple of peppermint shrimp to see if they could at least help me make a dent in the population before hopefully adding seahorses. This morning I checked the tank and both shrimp were fine. They were hanging upside down on the rock just chillin'. I checked it a half hour later and one of the shrimp was upside down and completely still...with a digitate hydroid hanging on to one of it's legs. I freed the grip and the other peppermint shrimp rushed out to grab his former buddy and dragged him under a rock to eat. While I'm trying to figure out how not to disassemble the rock to get at this dead shrimp, can anyone tell me if they've ever heard of such a thing? Was the hydroid just being opportunistic?? Would a shrimp normally go from fine to dead in 30 minutes with no signs of distress? What the heck?

In case anyone has a hankering for a little bit of tank cooling, Target has 6" clip on fans for $1.74 each on clearance - on the end caps near the home improvement section.

I saw a similar response on wet web media...I think it said it may slow metabolism, and not to expect everything to live?

Well, I will just chalk it up to it being a bad day as far as attention. Everyone's entitled to have them and I can't deny that there are overwhelmingly good comments about F&F! As for the shoes thing - that's just a personal opinion and just my point of view as a potential customer. It doesn't give the overall impression of cleanliness and concern to a customer, regardless of how clean things actually are. My little one doesn't wear shoes most of the time either at home (indoors or out), but I don't have any clients to impress. Sometimes what's natural to do doesn't always come across the way you think. If I were running a business I would absolutely want to hear feedback - and especially the negative! Always looking to improve, right? When I was in there the stock all looked very healthy and well-cared for (as did everything else). I promise to try again sometime!