things not to use or buy during your first 6 months in the hobby: FYI

[Purple Penguins]

I guess im doing pretty good since my 24 gal has 1 nassarius snail and a few bristle worms, however the only reason for just 1 nassarius snail is in one of your previous threads... they creep me out

[Sk8r]

Lol. Just your local undertakers. The nassarius are actually kind of fun the first time you see a tank with a dozen of them: drop food on the sand and they erupt up from the sandbed like so many B-movie villains bent on mayhem.
I never knew my lfs stocked them, until I asked if they had any: my guy said: "Yep," walked over to the tank, dropped in some raw shrimp, and here they all came.

[Purple Penguins]

its like night of the living dead to me

[leoslizards]

lol I've never seen them in real life but I saw a vid of them not too long ago. It kinda creeped me out also. The guy dropped food on top of the sand and they immediately crawled out to eat. How do they know that food just hit the floor?

[Sk8r]

They have an incredible sense of 'smell'. That wavy proboscis seems to be a 'food probe', connected to whatever passes for an olfactory bulb in their neural ganglions. Translation: if it stinks, they go for it like bees to honey.

I rather like them for their variety from the ordinary algae-eating snail---there's a whole ocean of beautiful shells, most of which belong to beautiful carnivorous snails we wouldn't dare harbor in our tanks. The white nassarius [beautiful shell] is to my knowledge THE only carnivorous snail we can manage, and that simply because [so far as I have ever proved] it will not or cannot kill to eat. It goes only for dead things and abandoned fish food.

Cone snails, now [may you never get one as a hitchhiker] not only have a spear that harpoons small fish, it will harpoon us, with lethal results.

So treasure the lowly nassarius as representative of a huge, huge class of creatures we ordinarily cannot safely represent in our tanks. We only set their shells on shelves and admire them.

[Canarygirl]

1. no anemone
2. nothing guaranteed to make your tank do something faster: no miracle tonics, doses, reef-in-a-bottles, or instant-cycles, instant coralline, ****no red slime algae cures. ****[And very probably after 6 months experience with a tank you will have read enough on this site to make you doubt you ever want to, but after then you're on your own.]
3. no get-out-of-jail-free cards: no easy-fix dump-in-your-tank ich cures. Garlic honestly can help, and of all the folk remedies, it actually does not hurt your tank, but don't bet your other fish on it.
4. no sea cucumbers or sea hares, sea apples or medusa worms. Get a refugium for your algae problem. One of these creatures dying in your tank is a real mess.
5. no rare fish. There's a reason they're rare. Don't add to it.
6. no mandarin or scooter that is not demonstrated in the store to eat prepared food.
7. no butterflyfish.
8. no starfish except the black and white brittle star.
9. no crabs except the green mithrax
10. read up on the coral banded shrimp before you decide on that one. Pretty, but predatory.
11. no elegance coral
12. no goniopora coral.
12. no fish, device, nor critter to mess with your sandbed except [above 20 gallons, a yellow watchman] Under 20, one to two true nassarius snails. [Somebody on Ebay has been selling non-true ones.] Above, snails and micro-hermits are ok.

Let's see...in my first six months I violated rules 1, 6, 7, 8, and 10. Results included one dead butterflyfish, one dead mandarin goby, one trip back to the LFS to return the sand-sifting starfish, one tank tear-down to get the coral banded predator out, and one extra-tank build to find a safe home for the RBTA.

Could be worse.

[Redstratplayer]

Sk8r: I bought 5 nassarius snailsfrom my lfs and the first thing they did was kill and eat a very healthy and well feed conch(1'').
Is it possible thet they are welks?

[cd77]

Ticket me officer, here are my violations:

#1. I added an anemone (BTA) after four months. Result: Knock on wood so far, so good. The BTA did sustain a serious injury shortly after being introduced though and has fortunately pulled through wonderfully. To no surprise, my perculas want nothing to do with it.
#2. Very early on I added a pH buffer (CO2 was preventing me from breaking 7.8) then started dosing kalk. After a lighting upgrade I ran into serious problems with this. No kalk for now, and never again on the ph buffer.
#8. I added a starfish very early on. The very same day it went back to the pet store after some advice from members here at RC.

I did add scarlet hermit crabs -- my Ceriths weren't too happy about that, but a fellow RC'r found me an eBay link to shells that the hermits prefer over my Ceriths so now all is fine.

In retrospect though -- I'm very much appreciative of the advice I've received here at RC -- it's certainly prevented many a disaster I'm sure!

[kware]

Thanks for the post sk8r.
Why don't you like anemones. I'm guessing they are very sensitive to water quality and lighting. What is your reasoning.

[gimme09]

sk8er...
You mention dsb for larger tanks but how do you feel for a 3"-4" sandbed for a nano 28g tank? Do your recommend the same placement of sand via tube and placing 'mounds' of sand in various locations? Once there is a successful cycle... you are recommending to get 1 ywg and 2 nassarius snails? Anything else for a first time CUC?

[Canarygirl]

What? Cone snails can harpoon us...with lethal results??? Holy Crap!

[Thelonius]

Originally posted by gimme09
sk8er...
You mention dsb for larger tanks but how do you feel for a 3"-4" sandbed for a nano 28g tank? Do your recommend the same placement of sand via tube and placing 'mounds' of sand in various locations? Once there is a successful cycle... you are recommending to get 1 ywg and 2 nassarius snails? Anything else for a first time CUC?

I have a similar question sk8ter, in that I have a 30 gallon cube with about 4-5 inch DSB and plan on housing a young jawfish. I was going to put in some nassarius snails and a couple of scarlets as a CUC and some sort of snails to help clean the glass. Can you suggest a list or amount for me?

Thanks,

[JC_UF_ITK]

So starfish are never good to add to your tank? Or just after 6 months? My tank is about 8 months old and I have a sand sifting star.

[Nanz]

Originally posted by cd77
#2. Very early on I added a pH buffer (CO2 was preventing me from breaking 7.8) then started dosing kalk. After a lighting upgrade I ran into serious problems with this. No kalk for now, and never again on the ph buffer.

Just currious but what problems did you run into? How did the lighting upgrade affect you dosing buffer or kalk?

[Sk8r]

Yow! More questions than I can easily remember, but in a nano, I'd say 3-4" sand will work.
In a very small nano, or pico, make sure your nassarius is very small. They get up to an inch long and might do too much.

Dripping kalk, you do need adequate evaporation. My 54 evaporates a gallon a day. That would be about 1 in 80 of total tank system water volume.

Stay away from starfish unless you have a species specific tank or are willing to sacrifice other diversity to keep them. If you want a starfish tank, cool, but they're destructive little beggars.

'mounds of sand' don't last long---they're only to describe the method by which you introduce a micro-patch of new sand via funnel. Snails and hermits will flatten it and work it into your regular sandbed.

If nassarius kill and eat things, they're likely whelks. I've kept nassarius with conchs, no problem. Nassarius typically have pretty white shells. Brown shell, likely whelk. [Whelks are predatory carnivores, eating other snails.] SOmebody on Ebay has been selling brown Caribbean snails as nassarius. Banish those guys to the sump, where they will do no damage---except to other snails. I'd get rid of them.

Cones, yes, cones, along with one of the sea snakes, the box jellyfish, the blue-ringed octopus and the poison arrow frog, are some of the deadliest creatures on the planet.

[cd77]

Originally posted by Nanz
Just currious but what problems did you run into? How did the lighting upgrade affect you dosing buffer or kalk?

First thing that happened was the entire top-layer of sand directly exposed to light become clumpy, and began to form bubbles -- not cyano. I was told (here at RC) it was most likely new life in the sand bed; a good thing -- also read similar accounts at wetwebmedia. Following this, the pH increased (during this time I made no changes). Noticing the pH increase, I stopped dosing kalk immediately, and ever since then the pH reaches 8.3 during the day without any supplements. That was the best info I could get at the time anyhow.

Either way, sk8r is right on about the magical cures and dosing advice IMO. pH alone; the cause of the low pH should be determined before deciding on a course of action, or if you really need to take any action at all (just because your pH is 7.9 doesn't necessarily mean your reef is in dire straits) -- not to mention all the courses of action you can take (surface agitation, ensure pumps and skimmer working properly, check CO2 and ensure any pumps aren't whirlpooling in CO2, etc., etc..)

[leoslizards]

Originally posted by Sk8r
... and the poison arrow frog, are some of the deadliest creatures on the planet.

WOOT! I knew they where poisonous but not to the point where they could kill you.

[Sk8r]

They got their name [poison arrow, poison dart frogs] because local hunters use the poison of 3 species for their arrows. Curiously, they do not seem to be poisonous in captivity: theory says that they are eating something they concentrate in their 'sweat'. So if you have a pet, it is likely to be safe: if you meet it in the wild, do not take similar liberties.

While we are at it, what you are likely to meet in the tank that is somewhat seriously poisonous: some crazy people are keeping blue-rings---though there is some debate about their toxicity in captivity, too; the rabbitfish; the lionfish---both highly unpleasant, especially to some individuals. I've seen a rabbitfish sting, and a whole area of the hand had turned black and looked necrotic; and I believe the marine catfish back spine is quite, quite nasty. An interesting looking fish, but definite expert-only on that one.

One problem is that your average hard-working ER person does not instantly and off the top of his head know what to do about some of these toxins, and that's a time-loss. If you are keeping something for which you should have your head examined, I'd have a printout in a file re the toxin, the chemistry of the toxin, and if stung, I'd take that with me to the ER.

[Sk8r]

Tank citizens that can poison a tank, btw: things that can kill the whole tank---either by emitting poison or diminishing the oxygen.
1. some cucumbers [toxin]
2. puffer fish [toxin];some species: I'm not sure, but I think cowfish and boxfish can also do this.
3. caulerpa [light change triggers sporing] turns water milky, void of oxygen.
4. big anemone: floats loose, stings everything in tank and dies, perishes in toxic soup of nematocysts, smell incredibly bad.
5. sea apple: either toxin or oxygen deprivation.

There may be a few others, but these are the timebombs: these items die, and the tank goes with them, being a closed system.

The only hope you have if you come upon the scene in time is running massive lot of carbon and a 30% water change asap. You may save some of your hardier specimens.

These are on my personal list of DO NOT BUY. If you long for puffers, please visit the reef fishes forum and find out which species are safe.

[gimme09]

Let me ask your opinion again but more of a format opinion...

Regarding smaller tanks (Nano) tanks... it is advisable to purchase a cleaner crew from a website (ie www.reefscavengers.com) and pick up the package that contains these:
10 Juvenile Nerite Snails
10 Nassarius Snails
5 Juvenile Stocky Snails
5 Dwarf White Leg Hermits
5 Blue Leg Hermits
1 Juvenile Porcelain Crab
1 Juvenile Pencil Urchin
1 Juvenile Green Emerald Crab
1 Juvenile Lettuce Nudibranch

or just add your own at a slower pace a few at a time?

[Sk8r]

I'd say that would be huge overkill. An emerald is a lot all on its own. A porcelain crab is one of the few safe ones, but even so---what will he eat? 10 nerite, maybe, couple of trochus snails or astraea, 2 scarlet hermits, 3 dwarf bluelegs, no urchin [shoves rockwork] and lettuce nudi will just eventually starve, which is cruel.
Even on a 50 I tailor my own cleanup crew. And I don't trust those brown 'nassarius'. They don't look like nassarius to me: the only ones I have ever used are snow white, maybe with a faint beige band.

You'll always have to replenish the crew. Things happen, snails get where they shouldn't go, etc. I like ceriths---unfortunately so do hermits, so be sure to get the hermits extra shells: a desperate hermit will evict a shell occupant.
But my rule is no more than 1 cleaner per gallon, and better to go a little light: they do have to survive after the algae bloom. I do run about 1 bristleworm per gallon, in addition, maybe 1-2 real white nassarius.

For the rest, what they propose to put in your 28 is more than I have in my 54, and I would never put in a pencil urchin unless I had a fishonly tank and didn't mind my rockwork being knocked about.

[Swanwillow]

some other things that don't do well in captivity; (don't buy in the first 6 months, and only after research!)

Basket starfish. Slowly starve unless its needs are met
cleaner wrasses. Beautiful, but really need to be left on the reef. Use neon gobies instead.
filefish -various species. Hard to get eating.
sea slugs-go into powerheads and overflows a little too often.
sponges- Hard to get to reattach if it was just broken off, necropsis slowly sets in.
carnation type corals-unless the tank can handle the feedings. Same with sun corals-need to feed them daily. EACH polyp.


On a side note-some people accidentally get in stonefish, so know what your buying!!!

[Sk8r]

Good list, swanwillow.
A real good rule of thumb is---if you've never heard of it, never seen it, and you're just awed by it---resist. Don't buy until you've rushed home and posted a query on RC as to care and feeding. Or, at certain lfs's, ask to see their species book and look it up on the spot. Some creatures you've never heard of like stonogobiops nematodes are real easy to take care of in the right tank; others, like the basket star, are a challenge to a major public aquarium, and are little understood.

If it turns out waiting lost you that particular specimen and you still want it, your lfs ordered it once---let them order it again.

And omg, stonefish and toadfish---experts only, please! These guys are seriously venomous. If you'd worry about keeping a cobra, worry about these guys. They're not going to come after you, but one wrong move and you're trying to explain yourself at the ER.

[leoslizards]

Originally posted by Swanwillow
...carnation type corals-unless the tank can handle the feedings. Same with sun corals-need to feed them daily. EACH polyp.

What are carnation type corals?

Thanks for the info about the sun coral. I wanted to get one before you said that you have to feed each polyp daily! That's too much work.

[Swanwillow]

carnation corals are the real pretty ones. REAL pretty. AWESOMELY pretty.


scientific is Dendronephthya sp.

This also covers most of the 'chili' corals you see touted; small polyped obligate zooplankton feeders. I had a chili that lived and slowly starved to death over a 4 month period.