AlanM Jellyfish Art Nano

[AlanM]

The tank cycled for about a month with additions of the cycling juice each Monday.  I just got the three jellies today and they look perfect.  Even after the FedEx guy was holding them sideways under his arm and kind of bouncing the box along up to the door.  They pack and ship really well.  

 

The water was at exactly 31ppt, so I matched my nano tank water to that and they're acclimating right now.  I'm going to leave them alone over the weekend and feed them for the first time on Monday.

 

 

 

[BowieReefer84]

Oh man, I want to come visit!

[AlanM]

Come on over on Monday!  

 

Acclimation is done.  They're in the tank.  I had been worried that they are so fragile that I'd damage them just in acclimating them, but the instructions for getting them from shipping bag to acclimation bag to tank are pretty good.  

 

Right now they're pretty immobile floating near the top, but also according to the instructions that is to be expected.  The feeding tentacles are moving around a bit, but only very occasional pulsing so far.

[Origami]

It won't take long for them to achieve balance and make their way around the tank. They're pretty cool and the nano tank makes a great night light!

[AlanM]

Cool. Hope they make it. I have it next to my desk at work. A few others in the building have bettas. I had to one-up them, of course.

[AlanM]

Still on the surface a few hours later.  I can put a little motion in the water with the baster and they'll float down, but they then float back up.  Hmm.  Will check on em tomorrow.  I did put a vanishingly small amount of the food powder into the bottom of each one and can see that they are hanging on to it.  Pretty cool.

[Origami]

You may want to dilute the water some. It sounds like they're less dense. Lowering the SG some should help.

 

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[AlanM]

They're going around fine now.  Water is at 30ppt, so lower than my reef at home which I run at 35ppt.  I've been emailing with Jon, and he advised me to turn up the bubbles quite a bit to get more circulation in there.  That seems to have done the trick.  With a very slow bubble rate the jellies seem to conserve their energy and just hang out in one spot.  In the couple of days that I've really been feeding them I can see a lot more movement, but even still they don't doo much, heh.  They're very peaceful.

 

I ordered the cool Hobby Artemia brine hatcher that they have on their site now.  Looks like a really easy way to do baby brine.  When it comes I'll update on how that is working.

[Origami]

They're going around fine now.  Water is at 30ppt, so lower than my reef at home which I run at 35ppt.  I've been emailing with Jon, and he advised me to turn up the bubbles quite a bit to get more circulation in there.  That seems to have done the trick.  With a very slow bubble rate the jellies seem to conserve their energy and just hang out in one spot.  In the couple of days that I've really been feeding them I can see a lot more movement, but even still they don't doo much, heh.  They're very peaceful.

 

I ordered the cool Hobby Artemia brine hatcher that they have on their site now.  Looks like a really easy way to do baby brine.  When it comes I'll update on how that is working.

 

That's interesting about increasing the flow. I just turned down the bubble rate in one of my tanks to make it a little quieter. I'll have to check how the jellies are doing there. 

 

I've been hatching BBS the last few days and feeding them to the jellies. They seem to increase activity when they're in the water. I've been hatching them in water that's around 1.018 sg, (24 ppt) but I think that I may try to increase that to 1.023 (30 ppt) which is the same as the jelly tanks. I'm concerned that the BBS don't tolerate the change and, if not caught immediately, may not survive and may wind up on the bottom as debris. I also feed the dry food that they provided. 

 

I went a little long last week on the water change and that wasn't good for them in one tank, it seems. They seem smaller this week. I did a 50% water change and have changed the feeding schedule to 2x per day in an attempt to improve water quality and to see if how the jellies respond. 

 

It would be easy to add a small sump with live rock and stuff, but that would just complicate the all-in-one desktop approach. I wonder if anybody's tried putting rubble or marinepure back there instead of the sponge?

[AlanM]

How often do you water change and how much do you do?  Those of us with basically unlimited supplies of salt water can change lots of water in this little tank if we want.  Unlike someone who just has the jelly tank.

 

I have a piece of rigid airline attached to some silicone air line that I use to do the water changes.  The flow through it is kind of slow and I can siphon up most of the stuff on the bottom each time.  I do about 1/3 gallon every couple of days.

 

I'm going to hatch the BBS in 30ppt saltwater.  

[Origami]

How often do you water change and how much do you do?  Those of us with basically unlimited supplies of salt water can change lots of water in this little tank if we want.  Unlike someone who just has the jelly tank.

 

I have a piece of rigid airline attached to some silicone air line that I use to do the water changes.  The flow through it is kind of slow and I can siphon up most of the stuff on the bottom each time.  I do about 1/3 gallon every couple of days.

 

I'm going to hatch the BBS in 30ppt saltwater.  

 

I started changing about a half gallon a week at the start. That's 25% a week. I confess I went about two weeks (maybe three) this last go-around. Things got busy. (Isn't that always the excuse?) Yesterday, I did a 50% (1 gallon) water change. With amounts like this, I may just change out 50% once a week.

 

I have the same rigid airline (1/8"?) + silicone tubing setup that you described. You don't want a fast siphon (like you'd get with a larger airline): It'll draw a jelly in too quick if you're not careful. I use a plastic drinking cup to pour water back into the tank - slowly, and into the back so that I don't create too much of a disturbance in the tank.

[YHSublime]

Alan, can you post more pictures? 

[AlanM]

I'll try.  I have to say, it's really hard to get good pics of the jellies in the tank.  The strongly curved front, black back, underlight, and room reflections make it difficult to get a good picture.  In person they look great.  On phone pics they are all out of focus.  

 

Maybe a video would work better to convey what they're up to.

[AlanM]

Here are some pics right after feeding.

 

You can see how the food that gets caught around the rim kind of causes a long string of mucous to slough off with the food stuck to it.

 

Then the jelly pulses a bit to try to get their feeding tentacles stuck to that string of food.  

 

One guy seems to have succeeded at that and one failed.  You can see the string of food sitting on the bottom in the last photo.  Still a lot got in to the stomachs.

 

[AlanM]

Now they're having a fight over the food.  One went back and picked up that string of food on the bottom and another grabbed it too.  They're attached together by their feeding tentacles.  I can see them pulling it back and forth like a dog with a bone.

 

[DrReef]

Now they're having a fight over the food.  One went back and picked up that string of food on the bottom and another grabbed it too.  They're attached together by their feeding tentacles.  I can see them pulling it back and forth like a dog with a bone.

 

Alan! They look great! 

[Origami]

Alan! They look great! 

Hey, Jon! I was just thinking about dropping you an email.... Will probably still do so. Hope you're doing well.

[YHSublime]

That's awesome! Thanks! This looks like maybe it should have been the direction I should have taken, although just started cycling a nano now, so I'm in it.

[AlanM]

Now one guy seems to have balled up all the food and is dropping it.  Like he's pooping it out or something, but another one is trying to grab it since I took this picture.

 

So drama, such excite!

 

[AlanM]

Now new guy grabbed it, but it's heavy and it's anchoring him to the bottom, lol.  I think his eyes (nonexistant) are bigger than his stomach.

[AlanM]

So I ordered the Hobby Artemia Hatchery from Jellyfish Art on Tuesday and it arrived yesterday.  It's a very cool design.  No bubbler needed and easy to separate brine from eggs and shells.  

 

https://www.jellyfishart.com/collections/jellyfish-food/products/artemia-breeder

 

I put in some eggs and this morning already had a bunch of baby brine shrimp.  Piles of them by lunch.  There are videos of how it works on youtube.  

 

Anyway, now I'm enjoying seeing the baby brine popping around in the tank and getting netted by the jellies as much as I enjoy watching the jellies.  It ends up looking like the jelly gets ich because they are covered by lots of little salt grains that were, until recently, live artemia nauplii. 

 

Video below, sorry for all the reflections.

 

[Origami]

That's some hatchery. It's based on a design that was available back when I was a kit (in the 60's). The slot in the side of the hatchery is so you can use an airstone inside to increase the hatch yield. Nice, simple design. I like the built-in sieve. 

[AlanM]

Just today, a week after they arrived, they are starting to get more intrepid and actually using their discs to pulse a bit and swim around.  They were also relatively featureless previously, and now it is looking like they are kind of getting ridges down the underneath of their discs from the center to the edge.

 

Maybe they were encouraged to move around to get more brine, heh.

[AlanM]

The hatchery works great.  This is 24 hours after adding eggs and 2 hours after harvesting everything.  Piles of BBS.  The jellie's bellies are orange and full, but these shrimp are ready.  I am still trying to figure out how many eggs I need to put in.  Clearly not this many.

 

[AlanM]

I lost one jelly.  It just got smaller with holes on its bell and faded away.  Likely because I can't feed on the weekends.  I'm going to try to get in at least one weekend day, though.  One is doing great.  It's huge now.  One is in the middle.  Hasn't grown much, but is pulsing around a bit.  I am target feeding that one a bit more now.

 

The big one is kind of turning orange from the large amount of BBS I gave it.  Maybe it's a trick of the light, but I swear it's kind of an orange/pink color.