JerryJ

Very nice...do the firefish all use the same hidey hole?

I haven't tried it yet, but it seems to me a good approach would be to match the QT water to the water in the bag. If the QT is prepared with high salinity, you can always dilute it to match what the fish is currently in. Then why not use pH adjusting drops to bring the QT water close to the pH of the bag water? You can do drip acclimation with this adjusted water since it won't toxify the ammonium, being at low pH. Once the fish is in the QT, you can gradually bring the pH back up, although it will probably raise significantly by itself through buffering. Does this make sense, or am I missing something?

Folks, Thanks for the responses. I know about the lingering problems if copper or other meds have been used, but I'm sure I've never used such in this tank. It used to be a FW tank; I went marine about 2 years ago and the turbos I bought then did fine. I also have a couple of margarita snails that I put in a long time ago, and they're doing OK. I also have a fire shrimp that seems happy. I have no crabs other than blue leg and red leg hermits, and they don't seem interested in harming snails. The fish (Banggai cardinal, yellow assessor, tailspot blenny, possum wrasse, and neon goby) shouldn't be an issue. I know a 1 to 2 week quarantine isn't guaranteed to eliminate parasites that may be hitchhiking on the snails, but I figured it couldn't hurt. Maybe ich might just decide to pop off the snails during the quarantine. I've checked ammonia and nitrites in the QT tank and no problems there. Nitrates in the display tank are very low, but about 20 ppm in the quarantine tank. Could a week of exposure to 20 ppm nitrates do this?? Thanks, Jerry

HI...I've been having trouble getting turbo snails to live more than a couple of weeks in my 29 G tank. I generally quarantine the snails in a fishless tank for a week or so, then add them to the display tank. Although there is a lot of hair algae for them and I think my water chemistry is good, they tend to die after a week or so. I'm wondering if I've been acclimating them too soon. I generally do about a 1.5 to 2 hour acclimation, but maybe the beginning or end of the process is too abrupt. Of course, since I quarantine them, there are two acclimations, but the quarantine and display tanks are usually pretty close in water parameters. I guess my question is, suppose it is an acclimation problem...is that consistent with a several-week survival? How long does an improperly-acclimated snail take to die? I would have thought they might die pretty fast if the water parameters changed too abruptly. Thanks, Jerry

Tom, Thanks for the reply. Unfortunately, I still can't get it to work. When I click oh the triangle to the right of "Signed in as JerryJ," nothing happens until I release the mouse button. Then the drop-down menu appears, but just momentarily. My profile page comes up, but I don't seem able to get the "My Settings" page. Am I doing something wrong? Is there some other way to reach the email change page? Thanks, Jerry

Hi, I have a new email address and would like to know how I make the change for WAMAS. Thanks...

Hi everyone, My power was out for about 7 hours last night. By the time power was restored, the frozen fish food (mostly PE Mysis) in my freezer had gotten soft inside the little plastic bubbles. Do you think it's okay to use this food, now that it's refrozen? I don't know how long it took for it to warm to above freezing temperature, or how long it was in an unfrozen state. I bought a lot of food in bulk from Foster & Smith, so I'm reluctant to throw out $100 or so of food. I intend to use the food, but I guess I'm looking for someone to tell me it's okay to do that! Thanks, Jerry

I don't know how relevant it is to this situation, but I've heard that ammonia in shipping water can cause problems during acclimation. If the pH in the bag is low, the ammonia is in the form of relatively harmless ammonium. When you perform acclimation, you add high pH water and when the pH goes up, the fish get hit with a big dose of ammonia. I don't have much experience, but I think some people say the "gold standard" in acclimating mail-order fish is to use low-pH water during the early stages of acclimation, so you get rid of the ammonia but don't raise the pH. But on the other hand, aquarium stores get fish that have been in transit a while, and I'm sure they don't go through a process like this. Also, I think ammonia might cause some of the problems here, but it wouldn't give the fish ich. Anyway, my sympathy for all the headaches. If any more experienced people have opinions about this acclimation business, I'd be interested in hearing about it.

I'm in Reston.

Hi everyone, Today one of my H. erectus seahorses produced about 30 babies. I don't have a brine shrimp hatchery going, so I didn't save the baby seahorses. I assume this will happen again, and although I don't really need any more seahorses, I'll probably try to raise some from a future batch. But, what with gong to work every day and occasionally going out of town, giving them enough food on a daily basis will be a challenge. Assuming more blessed events in the months ahead, I was wondering whether anyone would be interested in taking some very young seahorse fry for free. I don't know how well they will tolerate being transported when they're just a few days old, but it might be worth a try. They're so cute, I hate letting them die. Please let me know if you might be interested. My understanding is that they often spawn every 2 to 4 weeks. Jerry

OldReefer, Thanks for the suggestions...what is "2 part"? Also, I've never heard of a CO2 scrubber before; what is it and where can one get such a thing? Jerry

Hi everybody, I seem to have a pH problem in my 29 gallon FOWLR tank. The tank has a shallow aragonite bed, a Bak Pak protein skimmer, and an Aqua Clear power filter. The only fish is a small firefish. The tank is kept covered, and I change at least 10% of the water weekly. The tank has been in operation for about 5 months. The pH and alkalinity have always been a bit on the low side, but lately the pH is dropping enough to worry me. It's about 7.7 in the morning, and 7.8 in the evening. Recently I lost a fire shrimp, and even more worrisome is the apparent effect on small critters in the sand bed, rocks, tank walls, etc. I don't see any copepods at all now. Other parameters: SG 1.023, Calcium 500, alkalinity 1.7 meq/l, magnesium 1350. So the calcium is high and the alkalinity is low. Is there a connection, and if so, which is cause and which is effect? Does high calcium cause carbonates to preciptate out, lowering the alkalinity and allowing the pH to go down, which dissolves calcium from the aragonite and keeps the calcium up? Something like that seems to be the case, because adding Brightwell Alkalin8.3 buffer hasn't had much effect on alkalinity or pH. I've put enough buffer in to get the alkalinity up to at least 2.5 (according to the label), yet it hasn't made much difference. Something must be removing the carbonate salts I'm putting in. I thought to bring things close to where they need to be with a big water change. But when I tested my WC water, the parameters were: pH = 7.9, alkalinity = 1.7, calcium too high to measure (above 520)! Not much better than what's in the tank now. I use Coralife salt. Should I conclude that my bucket of Coralife is worthless, and switch to another brand? I have the feeling Reef Crystals is sort of the gold standard in salt, and according to http://aquariumwatertesting.com/AWT_...lysis_0208.pdf it has low calcium content. If I switch to Reef Crystals, could I get in trouble due to chemical incompatibility between the Coralife and the Reef Crystals? I've heard some salt brands don't mix with others. Thanks for any wisdom you can provide... Jerry

Is the center brace on a 55 gallon tank essential to the tank's structural integrity? Mine is cracked...not all the way through, but the plastic at the rim of the tank is separating and pulling away from the brace. Does this mean the tank's front face is in danger of rupturing? Luckily the tank's not in use right now...I'm just setting it up again. Does this mean I've now got a 55-gallon terrarium on my hands?

Hi, I'm thinking of getting a yellow banded possum wrasse. Based on recent unpleasant parasitical experiences, I would like to do a FW dip for new arrivals whenever possible. But I think I heard at some point that wrasses don't tolerate FW dips very well. Does anyone have any relevant experiences in this area? Thanks, Jerry

Well, what came off the fish were about a millimeter (1000 microns). They may not have been full grown, but on the other hand they probably got expanded somewhat by absorption of fresh water. On the fish they were almost invisible. In your experience with these things (assuming yours and mine are the same organism), did you observe anything relating to their ability to infect a tank and come back after the fish had been dipped? I'm concerned, obviously, about the need for a fallow period and how long. Thanks so much!

Thanks so much for your efforts to find information on this. Are you familiar with the appearance of gill/body flukes in the genus Benedenia? Is there a reason to think these are not Benedenia? I know it's pretty much impossible to make a postive ID without a picture of these guys. In the absence of detailed information, my thinking is, based on what I saw, that these little monsters are quickly killed by freshwater. If they're not protozoa, I assume they are external, not drilled deeply into the fish, and therefore exposed to the ambient water. The dip also seems like a good diagnostic tool, since it makes them easily visible. So (assuming the fish doesn't die from stress) I will repeat the dip in a couple weeks. I'm thinking I'll see no parasites, meaning that the fish was cleared of parasites by the first dip. Then, after about four weeks of fallow time, I can introduce a goodly amount of water from the display tank (maybe even some sand) into the hospital tank. Wait a couple weeks, dip again. If there are still parasites in the display tank, I'd think they will have latched onto the fish by then, and I'll see them in anoher FW dip. If not, maybe I can convince myself it's safe to put him back in the display tank. I don't want him to get reinfected, since he's so hard to catch. I don't want to have to take all the live rock out again!

F&Fmgr, Yes, that's certainly a key issue. I have the fish in isolation, and I think freshwater dips can eliminate these parasites, based on what I saw. Since this was the first fish in my tank, the display tank is now fallow, and I don't want to reintroduce any fish until the next generation hatches and dies out. Assuming, of course, that they reproduce by way of eggs and don't use an intermediate host. That was why I introduced this topic...if I can identify the parasite I'll know what to do next. Thanks for your comments.

Thanks for the responses...I guess my main question is really whether the size and shape of these things rules out infection by single-celled infectious agents like velvet and ich. The suggestions of isopods and flatworms seem to confirm this. Am I right? Just what do velvet and ich look like after a freshwater dip, anyway? Thanks!

I bought a red firefish last week that was itchy...dashing against the sand to scratch himself. Otherwise he seemed OK...active, eating well, not skittish, good color, etc. I gave him a freshwater dip in a small bowl so I could watch what happened. Within a minute, he developed about a dozen white bumps on his skin...clearly parasites that were expanding and becoming opaque in the fresh water. In a couple minutes the bumps fell off. They were about a millimeter in size and shaped like flattened, slightly elongated disks. Sort of like rice grains that had been squashed in one dimension, or little maggots. So, does this observation tell me anything about the type of parasite I'm dealing with? Does the size and shape of what came off allow me to discriminate between velvet, ich, or some sort of fluke? Prior to the dip, the fish had no clearly visible spots...just some diffuse, slightly raised bumps on his sides that I could see when viewing along the length of the fish. I'm thinking velvet or ich parasites would be smaller when they fell off the fish, but I don't know. These things, when they were exposed to fresh water, were almost as big as the fish's eye.

Two of my margarita snails are crawling around on top of a rock and one is expelling a white substance into the water - it almost looks like smoke coming out from under his shell. At one point he was sitting on top of the other snail. I'm guessing this is how they make baby snails but what exactly am I seeing? Is the smokin' snail male or female? Am I seeing eggs or sperm? There's sure a lot of this white stuff for such a little creature.

Thanks...I'm sorry to say I removed about half the polyps myself last week, before you informed me that they weren't hydroids. So I've done a lot more damage than the crab. We'll see how things progress.

Well, Coral Hind was right after all. The polyps came out today. I guess they were freaked out by the addition of the crab, as suggested, and I can't blame them. That crab scares me too.

Coral Hind, thanks for sharing your opinion, but it's been half a day now since I've seen the polyps, so I do believe they were crab food. That is the most voracious creature I've ever seen...when I put him in the tank he started shoveling algae into his mouth, literally the minute he touched down on the live rock. I have two emerald crabs too, but they seem more laid back. The Sally Lightfoot is such an eating machine, I'm wondering about my plan to stock the tank with little gobies, cleaner shrimp, etc. But at least the live rock is really clean!

Can star polyp coral survive without the polyps? I have a patch of purple coral, identified for me by this forum as green star polyp. It had a about a dozen polyps growing out of the rubbery purple material. This morning I purchased an algae cleaning crew for this new FOWLR tank and now only one of the polyps (a tiny one) is visible. Every other day, the polyps have emerged promptly when I put on the lights, so I think they've been nipped off. The algae crew I got includes a very hungry Sally Lightfoot crab who's been crawling all over the live rock, so I think I know what happened to the polyps. Assuming I'm right, and the coral won't be able to grow polyps while the crab is around, does this mean the coral will die? I know it's primarily photosynthetic...does the photosynthesis occur in the purple "body" of the coral, or in the green polyps? I assume the polyps gather some food material; is this essential or can the coral live without it? Thanks for any info!

Ohhhh...so the purple stuff they're attached to is part of the organism, right? I was thinking it was coralline algae (hey, I'm a newbie, purple is purple to me). So apparently this is a photosynthetic coral (hence the green tinge?) that is fairly hardy and may survive in my tank? I don't have reef-type lighting, but the patch of star polyps is in fairly shallow water under the lights, so maybe it will be satisfied with my FOWLR environment. I assume if the coral does well, I'll get a lot more of these polyps sprouting out, right? Will the polyps develop more intense green coloration eventually?