bues0022
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Posts posted by bues0022
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Ask any one of our politicians - it seems to happen frequently to that crowd
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^ rehab expert there. I also take the "let it grow over old skeleton" approach typically.
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I've been reading about people having success with mandrins by gulturing and feeding white worms and grindal worms. It won't make use of your phyto, but seems to be a good food source.
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Are you still culturing grindal worms? I've been interested in culture some worms for my tank as well.
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brown
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I actually found articles on both written by him. The blackworm one from RC I linked above, and his white worm one here: https://www.thereeftank.com/forums/f6/wash-your-white-worms-277482.html
I'm interested to hear from him, after doing both, which one is better to start with. I'm thinking white worms because they don't involve running water (consideration for the space I have at the moment), and they seem to propagate quite easily.
Some noted on the blackworm thread that the cleaner shrimp didn't go for the blackworms. I wonder if that's also true for white worms. It would be awesome to feed some corals with food that the shrimp won't steal. Not sure if the corals will catch the wriggling buggers though.
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I ran across an old Reefcentral post which our own Paul B contributed heavy on - from way back in 2010 ( http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1907090&highlight=blackworm ). I'm hoping he sees this thread and can chime in - both for the extraordinary depth of knowledge, but also the not to subtle wit and sarcasm that tends to drip from every post - it cracks me up.
I've been considering getting into feeding something other than pellets/flake/homebrew frozen foods. Live worms seemed interesting. The thread I linked above was discussing black worms, but white worms are also fed in reef tanks. Which one and why? Is one easier (and less smelly) to propagate? Having a super nutritious, renewable food source seems like a no brainer.
As an aside (for Paul), on page 4, you were discussing the benefits of fish oil fed to fish, and the other guy seemed to be giving you a hard time - I seem to recall seeing a BRS/WWC youtube a few weeks back (it was likely already old news by the time I saw it), where WWC believes in feeding their tank a "fish mash" as they think even the corals do better with the fats/oils their food provides the water column. I've been feeding my fish lately a mash of squid and bunker (a super oily fish that I had left over from baiting crab traps this summer). I put them in a blender and let 'er go. I know much of the oil get skimmed out, but my fish go nuts for the oily fatty food, corals eat like crazy, and while it could have been a better mix, I'm quite happy that I chose to chuck the whole fish in the blender (skin, scales, guts, and all) instead of only the meat fillets.
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When I brought my Hector's goby home, it was about 3 days until I saw the guy again. I only have a 30 gallon cube, so also not much rock. At that time I didn't have any CUC, so I figured I'd see some evidence (body or nutrient spike) of death. I just kept feeding like he was in there and hoped for the best. I don't know about the goby and shrimp pair you specifically have, but my bet is they are hanging out in the sand someplace.
BTW - I'm always hesitant to lift rocks to search for inhabitants for fear of crushing them when I put the rock back down unknowningly on top of them.
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On 1/18/2019 at 3:11 PM, Origami said:
To visualize that more clearly, it's the amount of salt that you'd find in a bit over 13 gallons of your water at it's starting salinity. In other words, neglecting salt creep as a method of export, you'd have to be losing upwards of 13 gallons of water through your skimmer or through some other leak over a two-week period.
On 1/18/2019 at 7:52 PM, realypk said:The skimmer currently exports about half gallon per 2 days.
1 hour ago, realypk said:Yea mine was much much clearer and see through so I'm presuming this was a source of the problem.
I'm not so sure you've fixed the entirety of your problem. As Tom said, you're "missing" enough salt for 13 gallons of water. You skim 1/2 gallon every 2 days. In 2 weeks, therefore, you've skimmed 3.5 gallons. That's only 1/4 of the missing salt.
If the last statement I have you quoted in here represents how/where you think the majority of the missing salt went, then I think there's still another explanation. I've had my tank before where after a water change I would have sworn I had one reading, only to take it a second time and get another. Bubbles on the refractometer will make results goofy - even little ones I've seen skew it. I always take at least 2 different readings before I start trusting it.
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What's your secret? You have some very impressive results - corals that I would have almost guaranteed were toast you have brought back.
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Whoa. Pics or it didn’t happen!!
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That’s an interesting video. In general it makes sense - more smaller frags means more linear frag edge length for growth. It would be interesting if they have have any data on the frag edge length, and could normalize the data to understand if frags actually grow quicker when they are smaller, or if it is just more edges to grow, thus it fills in quicker (thinking mostly about encrusting-types that only grow outward on the edge)
for acros and stags, a well respected guy in MN where I came from swore by fragging only the tips of his corals. I think he actually did a “grow out”, where growth from tip frags (1/4” - 1/2”) grew faster and by a certain time point were actually bigger than the multi-inch frags he cut. He thought it had something to do with less damage to the coral so less to repair before getting back to growing, and sincethe tips were already on active growth, they were more deadly to encrust the base.
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Volume. The ocean is big. Also, it takes us humans a LOT of work to try to duplicate (in such small scale) that which is naturally occurring. Phyto, rotifers, pods, small food, the list goes on. Even still, an extraordinary few eggs survive to adult. Clownfish can easily spawn 500 eggs every two weeks. If even a few percent reached adulthood our oceans would be thick with clowns.
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From what I understand, anemone aren't toxic the way the creatures being discussed here are. Anemones - if they should meet a powerhead - are hard on tanks from a nutrient standpoint. There's a lot of biomass that is now going to be decaying in the tank. Similar if a clam should die, one should take it out quick because it's a large mass of goop which can cause pretty serious nutrient spikes. The creatures discussed here (cucumbers, medusa worms, sea apples) as Tom said can be great for the tank. However, if they should die, they have toxins inside their bodies which can be released which can harm tank inhabitants (this is NOT the same kind of water fouling as a nutrient spike). Some stories of medusa worms even sound like one getting injured/cut, but surviving is enough to have the animal release its toxins and kill fish.
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Back a number of years ago I had some problems with some brown polyps taking over my tank. I had a very bad experience using kalk paste (I tried siphoning as much out as possible, but params still went wack). Instead what I did was just used some kalk water in a syringe. I mixed the water, let a bunch of the heavy particulate fall out, drew it up into a 10ml syringe. Then I put a needle on it (I was working with a dog rescue foster group, so I could get these easily without feeling like a druggie), and I poked through the stalk of the polyp and injected just a little bit. It died pretty quick. I did a few polyps every couple of days until they were all gone.
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Water changes are an obvious sure fire way to bring it down.
Clams suck a LOT of ca and alk from the water. That would be my bet. If you didn’t adjust dosing after it died, there is less alk uptake thus dissolved alk goes up.
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I’ve had this one orange ric for about 6 months. When I got it, it split within 2 weeks and I thought things were looking up (even though it was only about the size of a nickel). Well, it’s been on a very slow demise ever since. Now it’s about pencil eraser sized, and I feel it just barely hanging on before melting away completely. I’ve had it in high flow, low flow, high light to low light. Currently it’s on the bottoms in medium flow. My water isn’t the cleanest, but sps are growing and my other ric night next to it is doing just fine. What gives? I’ve started to try to target feed it, but it’s only taken a little bit once a few days ago - will try again tonite. My mushrooms also aren’t splitting and growing either, so I’m confused what I’m not doing because I had a hard time stopping shrooms from growing previously. Tips are much appreciated. I’d like to save this little guy if possible.
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I dipped my zoas just recently with a really aggressive one-two punch.
15 minutes in a solution of 90% RO water, 10% HP (the regular HP from walmart), followed by a swish in iodine water (2 drops of betadine (which is I believe 10% Iodine compared to Lugols which is somewhere around 2-3% I believe) in 2 cups of tank water), followed by swishing in the HP solution, then back in tank. The zoas didn't open up for almost 2 weeks, and the ones that looked rough before the dip completely melted away.
I'm not sure I'd go that aggressive again. I think 15 minutes was too long.
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I have a 30 cube, and I’m undecided on what I want for my last fish. So far:
pair of percs
firefish
hectors goby
diamond goby
I really like the different colors/shapes/personalities of all of the fish, but I’d love to have a fish that spends more time swimming in the water column. I have a peaceful mixed reef, so things like dwarf angels are out. I’m browsing fish online, but any suggestions are appreciated.
Maybe a a pair of Chromis? Would and orchid dottyback be too aggressive if I only get one, as I don’t think I have room for a pair?
Edit: I don’t care for cardinal fish of any color.
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I'm going to quick hijack to tell Jon what I did under my current tank:
I don't actually like using foam for my tank. I have a "lip" on my stand so my tank actually sits "inside" the top of the stand (molding is all the way around the exterior bottom of the tank) So if I use thick enough foam to make me feel better, it raises the tank too high. If I use thing foam/rubber, then I feel that while I still spread out the point loads a little, it's not much really and I still have areas of high/low contact forces.
So, I know this won't work for everyone in every circumstance, but it worked brilliantly for me. I laid down a very thick bead of construction adhesive on my stand. I then covered this bead with two layers of cling wrap. VERY carefully, with two people (only a 40 gallon tank, but I had to be careful) we set the tank down as close to vertically onto the cling wrap. The construction adhesive squirted out everywhere, but the cling wrap stopped it from touching my tank. I let it sit for a day, the pulled the tank off. The cling wrap peeled right off (did not stick in the least), and I was left with a perfectly smooth, and hard surface to put my tank back on. No high spots, no low spots - I checked with a straight edge. In the uncured form, the putty-like consistency of the adhesive formed a conformable thickness interstitial layer between the stand and the tank. When cured, the entire tank is supported perfectly.
Back to the regularly scheduled program.....
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That thread is simply amazing! He completely sidestepped the panic mode and went straight to curious researcher. Threads like this are invaluable with understanding for the rest of us to most directly treat the issues - and one cannot treat without knowledge, documentation, and experimentation to know what works and why. Very good thinking to archive the images before his passing. It is too bad his enthusiasm for the hobby and thirst for knowledge is no longer with us.
Lets see those clowns.
in General Discussion
My Blackhawk Picasso’s from Booyah’s Reef in Chicago.