Kathryn Lawson

Thanks!

Where's that? I haven't heard of them!

I think Reef eScape is the only one with true quarantine. There are other good shops (like Blue Ribbon Koi and Marine, Supreme Reefs, Rick's Fish and Pets, Fintastic, and Tropical Exotics), but they don't do a full quarantine.

I like my sliding door trap personally - the door is on a string so you can ease it shut slowly while they eat inside the box, and with the door shut it also works as an acclimation box

I'm in Woodbridge VA if you want to borrow my trap

Where are you located? There's folks here (myself included) with traps we can lend

That's fantastic success, congrats! Do you happen to have a video showing how fast the water is moving around in there? Did you use baby brine shrimp or copepods? I'm testing out a low-tech DIY kreisel which is basically a big, rounded-bottom vase in a heated water bath, with a mini sponge filter suspended in the middle of the vase with a cup on the top of the air tube that rises slightly above the vase's water level, which holds the bubbles in but lets the water gently overflow (hope that makes sense). So far it's been the best low-tech version I've tested, since anything else using air bubbles for movement seems to get my sexy shrimp larvae stuck on the surface regardless of the bubble rate. I've also been working on a 3D printer and am prototyping a printable kreisel insert for a standard 5g tank that would work more like your tank, though that's currently on hold because (a) the printer is having unrelated issues I'm still fixing and (b) the vase with sponge filter overflow seems to be working decently - my current batch of sexy shrimp larvae is living the longest of any so far... (fingers crossed!)

Sounds like you have a ton of experience already! I'd love to pick your brain on some of your previous projects - sent you a DM From a functional standpoint, blue velvet nudibranches might be an interesting challenge, given that they eat flatworms. Or since you've raised mandarins, maybe branching out to ruby red dragonets? They're on my "eventually want to try" breeding list. In terms of symbiotic relationships, there's always the double challenge of electric flame scallops and Lima shrimp!

Tried to message you my phone number, but it seems you can't receive messages - not sure why

I've got a spare 29 tall if you want - I had a seam go a few years back and it saved my tank then. A tank leak sucks! I'm in Woodbridge VA

That is super clean, and really creative! How did you end up doing the overflow? Drilled in the bottom center, pipe up through the sand, and flowing in/out the gap in the side of the rock structure? Is the lid just cut to size and placed on top?

I found these flatworms? on a vendor's coral (montipora) that I picked up from the meeting on Saturday. Anyone know what they might be? I found them while cleaning the frags before dipping, so they haven't been introduced to anything but the other corals I got from that vendor. They don't look like the "normal" red planaria I've seen in the past, and the monti frags do look like they might have been damaged by some sort of pest. Wondering how concerned I should be, what treatments I should use on the exposed corals, etc. Bonus question - also found the egg sacs also shown in the pics. The sacs are 3D and turgid (kinda like a disc-shaped bubble algae), and the inside dots are loose and seem to "rattle" around when the sac is moved. Any thoughts on what they might be? I'm thinking maybe some sort of snail, since they remind me of the egg sacs I've seen from freshwater snails and dove snails, except that those are flat/one-sided and attached to a surface, whereas these could be pulled off the surface they were on and kept their flattened-bubble shape

I use large snail shells! They supposedly like having their foot in a hole, and mine certainly seem to be happy with them. Makes it really convenient to move around as needed

How did you determine the volume or mass of the new brand of salt to add when mixing the saltwater - the same as your old brand? It could be that the composition of the new mix is different (more anti-clumping agents? fillers? other compounds?), so you need to use more of the new brand than you did with the old brand to get to the same salinity.

I love Pender! We see one of their avian vets for my parrots, and they also were willing to prescribe chloroquine for fish quarantine.

I have a fairly large, rectangular, sliding door trap in Woodbridge, VA if you want to borrow it!

Depending on how heavy/large the tank is, you might be able to drain it down almost entirely very briefly to enable moving the whole thing without disturbing the rock, etc. That's how I moved my 30 gallon peninsula while the window behind it was being replaced - unplugged everything and drained all but a tiny bit of water (just enough to keep the fish underwater at the very bottom) into a spare 30 gallon I keep in storage (learned the hard way when I had a tank leak to always have a backup option big enough to hold rock and livestock...), enlisted my partner to help me move the tank across the room, then refilled/plugged equipment back in. Covered the tank etc. during the replacement, then did the process in reverse once the window replacement was finished.

FYI: https://reefbuilders.com/2024/06/17/triton-transfer-barcode-kit-helps-out-icp-analysis-customers/

Well, that might explain why I never heard back when I asked how I could pay them to upgrade a free (5-element) sample test kit I'd gotten to the full test, back when my tank was really struggling (the packaging indicated it was encouraged/supported, but there was no way to do it on their site). I ended up going with Triton at the time, because the LFS closest to me carries them. It's definitely more expensive, but the turnaround time on my two tests has each been about a week including shipping.

Thanks! Unfortunately, it seems polyfilter is not rated for lithium, and because it's not technically a heavy metal it's unlikely to help. However, it seems that due to the extremely high amount of sodium and potassium in saltwater (compared to freshwater, for example), medium levels of lithium still cause minimal issues since usually the issues are caused by lithium replacing Na or K and messing up biological processes. At least, that's what I've been reading. I'll certainly keep polyfilter in mind for metal issues in the future though, thanks!

Interesting, thanks! I'll keep that in mind if I look more into other salts

Good to hear first-hand feedback! Have you been able to keep shrimp, clams, etc?

All right, everyone... more updates! I swapped out the vinyl tubing for silicone, and did 6 ~30% water changes (12 gallons) over the last two months. Sent off an ICP test last week, and got it back this morning - tin is totally gone!! Phosphates are also down - 0.03 according to Triton, so I'll pull the (3 small) phosphate absorbing cubes from the sump and just continue to monitor/slightly dose nitrate. Algae has receded significantly, which has been really nice. The addition of 5 captive-bred tuxedo urchins definitely helped in this area also, but even before they were added, algae growth rates were decreasing to manageable levels. I've seen a bit of cyano forming down at the sand/glass interface and in a few corners, but it has not been spreading past those lower-flow areas (absolutely nothing like the issues I had previously!), and my remaining corals are doing well, so I'm inclined to just keep an eye on nitrate levels and maybe try to increase flow a bit more. Now for the interesting news... I now apparently have high silicon and lithium levels. Given the reducing tank issues, I'm not terribly inclined to worry about the silicon for now, but I do remember thinking that my DI resin would be due for a swap soon, so I'll take a closer look at it. I did just last week find a magnet that the seal had broken on from a (name-brand) frag rack in my sump while cleaning out the remnants of the algae accumulation there (no CUC down there), so that has now been removed. I have had carbon and Cuprisorb in the system since finding out about the tin, so it's possible it removed most of the metals that leached from it, but left lithium (it's not reported to remove lithium). There is also the distinct possibility that since there are no other metals, the lithium is instead coming from my new salt (Instant Ocean, not reef crystals). I've seen discussions of high lithium levels being "normal" in IO salt, and I'm not aware of any major concerns from elevated levels - anything I should keep watch for? Planning to mix up the salt in my bucket just in case things settled out weirdly, but otherwise just monitor as I slowly try to reintroduce more sensitive livestock (inverts). Thanks for all your input, and I'm so relieved that my tank is heading back in the right direction!! Link to results: https://www.triton-lab.de/en/showroom/icp-oes/210461

The DC pump is convenient because it lets you make more fine adjustments compared to tweaking the valve, but the valve will definitely need to be adding some restriction in the first place to prevent all that noise!

Whoops, yeah, thanks for catching that detail - the second emergency drain is effectively higher up because of the length of PVC pipe that I completely forgot to mention! I see the other photos now - it looks like your overflow box has two drains and can be set up Herbie style if you want. I see you've got the PVC extending the emergency drain, so all you'd need is a valve on the first drain - I'd recommend putting it at the end of the pipe right before the entry into the sump, so the majority of the pipe is completely filled with water and will minimize any trickling noise from after the flow restriction.