Kathryn Lawson

Some (really poor) photos for reference:

I've been struggling with algae and cyanobacteria in my 30 gallon tank, which has been up and running for almost exactly a year now (had a smaller tank for 6 months previous to that, and started with live rock). Right now, my nitrate concentration is 0 ppm (too low), and phosphate is 0.3 ppm which I understand is higher than "ideal". My nitrate to phosphate ratio being messed up is probably why I have some cyano on top of the turf and hair algae, since cyano can fix atmospheric nitrogen and thus grow in nitrate-limited environments. The turf algae has been a long-term but seemingly-reasonably-paced fight, but the cyano and hair algae are relatively new (last 2-3ish months) and seem to really be throwing my system out of whack. I know from a coral growth perspective that nitrates at 0 isn't great, and also gets me into the danger zone for dinos. This leads me to think that I might be better off starting to dose nitrogen rather than trying to reduce phosphate with GFO or other removal method. The only thing is, that will likely further fuel my algae outbreak. I'm already spending multiple hours a week siphoning out hair algae to keep my corals from being overgrown/outcompeted, which is pretty much my limit in terms of time/effort I can dedicate to algae removal. Snails don't seem to be helping much at all (the ones I have don't seem to be eating much, and I've had surprisingly low survival rates when trying to add more). I do have three urchins which are clearing up small patches of algae at a time (and seem to be the only critters who will eat the tough turf algae), but these alone are nowhere near enough to keep up with the current growth rate of the hair algae). I technically do have chaeto in my sump, but most of it melted at the same time as the beginning of the hair algae outbreak and what remains has since been pretty much overtaken by the hair algae. I have some red macroalgae holding its own in the sump and display, but it doesn't seem to be enough to combat the algae situation. I also have some clean chaeto and grape caulerpa that I've been quarantining and are ready to add, but I don't want to add them without doing anything else in case they just get overgrown by hair algae again. One of my options is to dose nitrogen to enable my corals and macroalgae to use up the excess phosphate, and add cleanup crew to hopefully handle the existing algae as well as any increased algae growth (with the plan to rehome or supplement feed when/if the algae is mostly gone). Another option (though I understand this has additional risks) is to use an algaecide like fluconazole or "Vibrant" (I have API Algaefix which is apparently the same thing) to provide an opportunity to reset the algae situation, and then I could add the clean chaeto and caulerpa I have ready (and the existing red macroalgae, which I would pull out of the tank during treatment) to hopefully handle the nutrients released by the dying algae. Any thoughts on what I should try first? Any good options I haven't considered? Thanks in advance!!

I literally just saw this post by Capital Aquarium in Manassas: Happy New Year Everyone! We wanted to start the new year off right by getting in what y'all have been asking for! That's right, copepods are back in stock, and in various sizes too! They sell out fast so hurry in before they go! Tisbe Pods 8oz. - $16.99 Tisbe Pods 16oz. - $32.99 Apocyclops 8oz. - $22.99 Apocyclops 16oz. - $39.99 New saltwater fish this week Convict Tangs Blonde Naso Tangs Sri Lankan Midas Blenny Diamond Gobies Exquisite Fairy Wrasses Redfin Fairy Wrasses Male AND Female Lyretail Anthias Red Coris Wrasses Lemon Meringue Wrasses Red Linckia Starfish Dalmation Linckia Starfish Red Fromia Starfish We didn't forget about our freshwater folks too! New in freshwater this week: Red Beckfords Pencilfish Male and Female Dwarf Gouramis Golden Whitecould Minnow Freshwater Angelfish Golden Honey Gouramis Peacock Gudgeons We hope to see you all, Happy New Year from Capital Aquarium!

Great event today and I'm super excited about the corals I brought home! However, these were all over a zoa frag I got today. They look like maybe flatworms? Almost stereotypical ghost shaped, and very dark maybe purple? Moving around surprisingly fast - I took a video but can't seem to post it. On a scale of "don't worry about it" to "fight it with fire", how concerned do I need to be about these guys? For now, I've removed all the visible critters and am going to quarantine the frag in a container separate from everything else, but am curious if I'll need to treat it with anything in particular. The dips I have available are CoralRx (my default) and Bayer's (only if really needed, which might be applicable here), plus hydrogen peroxide.

No way, really??! I guess I did add the yellow clown after having the sexy shrimp for a while (green clown goby was my first livestock), but before losing the first shrimp, but it's hardly even looked at them twice! I think these shrimp are bigger than its mouth, so I doubt it could just swallow them whole... and wouldn't I have seen it going after the "out-of-it" first shrimp that didn't seem to have any injuries but died after I isolated it? I thought maybe my octospawn or hammer or a nem stung the first shrimp but it got away, and it just outright ate the other two (or CUC got to them before I saw them), but I never even thought twice about the clown gobies...

Hey guys, like the title suggests, I started with 5 sexy shrimp at the beginning of the summer and am now down to 2. I tried to include as much info as I could that might be relevant, so it's a rather long post - please stay with me! I got 4 sexy shrimp together from a LFS a few months ago (2 males, 2 females) and added a singleton female from a local reefer who was moving out - not sure how old that one was. They'd been doing very well for a while, all hanging out together, with at least one of the females carrying eggs pretty frequently. The first loss was a female, I noticed her being oddly still in a weird position on the rocks, but no visible injuries. Checked in later in the day, she had move around some but wasn't really responsive. I netted her (easily, so I suspected the prognosis wouldn't be good) and had her in a hang-on box overnight, but she was dead in the morning. I didn't think too much of it, figured maybe it was age or something. Given that none of my tank residents even took notice that she wasn't doing well, I didn't think it was likely any other resident was the cause of death. A little while later (week or two, I think?), I noticed that I was no longer seeing a male sexy shrimp. No signs of anything wrong that I noticed, just wasn't there one day, no body found. I quite frequently check in on them and count them all, and they're essentially always all visible - before this, I don't think I've ever not seen one for more than a day. The tank is a 30 gallon peninsula on my desk and I work from home, so I'm looking at them multiple times a day. And now, a week or two-ish after the male disappeared, I was checking in on my tank extra frequently because I've been trying to capture larvae when they spawn, to try raising them. Frustratingly, my about-to-spawn female just disappeared - no unusual behavior, no body found. At this point, I'm getting suspicious that something more serious is going on. I don't think it's any of my fish - the only one that's paid any sort of attention to the shrimp is my small male ocellaris clown, and even that was mostly when they were first added. He's absolutely too small to swallow them whole, and was completely ignoring the first female that was just lying around, so even I really don't think he's the culprit. Along with him, for fish I have a female ocellaris clown, a yellow clown goby, a green clown goby, a pair of firefish, a tailspot blenny, and a female molly (currently in a separate tank for treatment for what seems to be an eye injury, so is definitely not a candidate for the last loss). Other tankmates are a bunch of snails, two tiger conchs, two pompom crabs, a scarlet hermit crab, and a tuxedo urchin, none of which I suspect. I do, however, have a bubble tip anemone that my female clown loves, and relatively recently (after having all the sexy shrimp but notably before the deaths/disappearances started), I added two fairly large rock flower anemones, since I thought the shrimp would like having a host. The shrimp tend to hang out on, under, and around a rock bridge in the center of the tank, so I added one to the sand bed on each side under the bridge. I've seen the shrimp standing on them occasionally, and the nems seem to react just like they or a coral would to any other touch, kinda shrinking up where touched. Would a rock flower nem possibly eat sexy shrimp, even though sexy shrimp are supposedly hosted by them? I noticed what almost looks like a large air bubble inside the larger RFA the same day I couldn't find the latest missing sexy shrimp, so I'm a bit suspicious. That's literally all I can think of in terms of a hazard in this tank, other than the very low-flow HOB filter intake with a guard that I've seen a shrimp standing on with no sign of suction/stress. And that wouldn't explain the loss of the first female, seemingly without a mark on her. Are there any corals that might sting/incapacitate a sexy shrimp? Alternatively, is there a sexy shrimp disease/virus that could be to blame? If the later two missing shrimp died overnight, maybe my CUC could have taken care of them before I noticed the bodies? As you can probably tell by this long post, I'm at a loss. Anyone have any ideas of what might be going on?

This is brilliant! I tried to make a larval trap the other day based on a funnel design I found in an old Coral magazine with a 2L soda bottle - cut the bottom off, cut the top off and inverted it to make a funnel up into the main body of the bottle, and attempted to attach the top and middle with hot glue (and learned in the process that hot glue is hot enough to melt soda bottle plastic...), then glued on foam at the rim (originally the cut where I took off the bottom of the bottle) to keep it floating but it took some wrangling and doesn't pull from the very surface, nor does it have any air/water flow to help the larvae in or keep them moving/aerated once inside. I didn't have a light over it either, and it didn't seem to work - my sexy shrimp must have spawned overnight after I went to bed (female carrying eggs the night before, and not carrying them in the morning), but I didn't find any larvae anywhere (including in the trap) in the morning. A USB-powered air pump would be really easy to put on a standard outlet timer, as would a small corded/USB-powered lamp! Combined with another air line to the bottom of the collection container to keep the larvae moving around, maybe it could work for overnight collection of less sensitive larvae?

A mystery indeed! What's your tank stocking? Maybe we can narrow down the possibilities? I haven't started a thread for the sexy shrimp yet, though that's not a bad idea - had been waiting until I had something of interest to report! In the meantime, I've been keeping notes on my phone

@therootcause I think sexies all start as male, but am not sure if they all convert to female eventually, or if they would have viable larvae without explicitly having a male present. RE fertilization, I think that's true but don't know how large of a window there is.

@DaJMasta Interesting that your sexies have been spawning around 2-3 am! I actually saw what I think is the same female spawn like 10 minutes before lights out at 10pm exactly 2 weeks ago, and had read that others found similar timing right before/after lights out, but maybe that previous one was unusually early - I guess time will tell! I haven't noticed a green color, but both times the eggs have been practically spilling out during the day beforehand and thus provided a visual cue. I'll have to pay more attention to their color in the future, especially for the second female that I haven't seen spawn or noticeably have/lose eggs yet. I might try trapping the female in the future, but like you said, she might not have another batch at the next molt. I suspect spawning frequency is going to be more helpful than larvae number for my first attempts, so will hold off on that for now. Although I potentially saw mating behavior mid-day today, so maybe it wouldn't be too late if I added her back in the morning.

Larvae every 2-3 days, wow! I didn't realize it was that frequent, though I guess with 5 that all can carry eggs, it makes sense. I'm waiting on my sexy shrimp - I've got two females, and they apparently release larvae every 2 weeks. Annoyingly, it seems I completely missed one last night, despite staying up late to try to catch it, and setting up a DIY larvae catcher as an overnight backup. The female had eggs practically spilling out yesterday, and none today... time for more waiting! Though that will give my pods some time to get going - I would have had to try this run with dry food if I'd caught it.

I had a good experience with a group order from Reefcleaners. I know others here have done group orders from them also, to save on shipping! If you're considering an order, I'd suggest posting to see if anyone else wants to jump in and split shipping (or add up enough purchases to get free shipping!)

I actually just saw these videos a few days ago - I don't know about their long-term success but something like this might be an option

I've done an old 20 long for freshwater that has been fine for 2+ years now, but I don't know that I'd go bigger than that. My 29 tall (rims still intact) sprung a leak on its own a few weeks ago, and cleanup was a huge headache

That is really interesting! The internet has it that they are one of the best black-box options, but it's cool to see an actual store owner relying on them also.

I recently acquired two black mollies from a freshwater hobbyist who was moving, and acclimated them over to saltwater. The mollies have been in my display tank for about a week now, and I'm noticing some small white spots on them (and one possible white-ish projection near the gills). From what I read, very few freshwater diseases can survive in saltwater except maybe some internal parasites. All the other fish in my display tank are looking fine (except for a blenny who has shown some flashing/rubbing and I plan to treat for parasites soon). Is this a dead ringer that my display tank is infected with ich or velvet, and I need to remove/treat the fish and let the display tank go fallow? Or is it possible that there could be another cause for the white spots on the mollies that I haven't considered? I tried to get some photos of them, shown below. Apologies for the photo quality - these little guys are active! A few streaks and maybe some spots are due to stuff on the glass, but certainly not all.

I'm excited to check it out, thanks for sharing!

As a newb who doesn't really know anyone yet but am going to be picking up some pre-sold items at the coming meeting, I think this would be super helpful!

Super interesting, thanks for sharing! Hopefully this will become more widely available soon!

Thanks! Might bite the bullet and just get one... unless anyone has one they're looking to rehome for less?

I recently picked up a 29 gallon tank from a fellow WAMAS member, with the idea of replacing/upgrading my 10 gallon tank that sits on my desk (I work from home). It's a standard rimmed tank (right down to the fake wood grain on the plastic trim, lol), and the label in the bottom suggests it's from 1998. After testing to make sure it held water and giving it a bit of a cleaning, I partially drained my 10 gallon and moved it over on my desk, so I could see how the 29 gallon tank looked in the spot where I need it to be (peninsula style, flush with the right-hand edge of my desk). The problem is, the 29 gallon tank isn't sitting flat - it rocks slightly on the diagonal, such that the raised corner is a hair over 1/16 of an inch off the desk surface. I can't shift it forward or backwards because it would hang off the desk. I have a 20 long tank (freshwater, also rimmed) peninsula-style on the left side of my desk, and have had no issues with it rocking, so I'm guessing that it's the 29 gallon tank's bottom rim that's warped, rather than the desk surface. Exactly how bad of an idea is it to ignore the wobble and move ahead with filling this tank in this spot? Is it possible that the rim and silicone holding the glass will compress to flatten out as the tank fills, like a foam mat would do for a rimless tank? I did the leak test in a rounded-ish bottom bathtub, so maybe it wasn't set flat there and the frame warped to fit the bathtub bottom, and it'll warp back when filled on a flat surface? Or is this a disaster just waiting to happen?

Good idea, I'll have to find mine - I used it a lot when I started out in freshwater, but I think I misplaced it when moving here... Then again, I might just get another, given the low prices of the ones you linked!

Honestly, I hope they're lightning doves - that would be pretty awesome! They're supposed to reproduce in the aquarium, though apparently much more slowly than regular dove snails. I haven't seen any eggs, though. I think the tiny snails go down into my sand bed during the day, which the lightning doves have not done at all - they're visible 24/7, mainly on the tank glass and rocks. So as cool as it would be for them to be lightning doves, I'm kinda doubting they are. I don't have any nassarius snails - just the lightning doves, some stomatellas, and formerly two ceriths (shells are empty now). The shells on these tiny guys looks more defined than the shells of stomatellas, so I don't think it's them.

Their shells seem to come to a bit more of a blunt point than the collonista snail pictures I found on Google. But maybe a different/closely related species? I'm pretty confident they're not Pyramidellid snails, at least - definitely not pointy enough, and not grouped near/associated with my lightning dove snails.

Hey everyone, it's me again! This time I've discovered 50+ itty bitty nocturnal snails (I think, anyway, they look and move like snails and have two little antennae) on my tank's glass walls. Is this anything I should be concerned about, or can I leave them be? I tried to get some reasonable clear pictures of them with my forefinger and a standard squeeze pipette tip for scale. I do have lightning dove snails which are known to reproduce in the aquarium (which I'm hoping for, honestly), but I haven't seen any eggs that they supposedly lay on the glass, and my snails have been active during the day, whereas I've never seen these tiny ones before tonight (I try to check in on my tank at night after the lights go out but maybe I've missed them in the past? I'm certain I've never seen them during the day). Given there's so many of them all at once (they are tiny, but I do only have a 10 gallon tank(, I'm wondering if there's anything I should be concerned about. Thanks in advance! The two snails in the photos are the biggest I saw. Please ignore the messy desk in the background! Also, I have no idea why these photos keep posting upside down...