Our Tbs

[techreef]

well Jay, if they were bad bugs, I'm glad you were able to net them out of the tank. My cirolanids were good swimmers, but they definitely didn't jump on and off of their host fish. they bit and hung on to the blenny until he scraped them off by rubbing against a rock. i haven't seen anything swimming around the tank at night.

how much poetic justice would it be if the gobies or wrasse had eaten the cirolanids? i guess I'll give my tank another month or so before I add any more new fish. if my current fish don't get preyed upon by cirolanids, then I guess I can move ahead. one of my theories is that the dead midas blenny was feeding the cirolanids for a while after they killed it, thereby explaining why they hadn't killed any of the other fish.

[bobt2]

let me try posting here first with a problem. 75 gal setup all tbs, running 14 months now [this is my third tbs tank ]. 1st fish i added was a flame angel, that was a year ago. since than i,ve tried adding a few other fish, latly bottom loving like a ywg and later a firefish. they all dissipear after a while. i,ve even seen small wounds which heal, but thenup and vanish! the tank has all the usual tbs critters including 3 pistol shrimp. they are all fine as are all the corals. any ideas of what could be the cause.

[dwculp]

Originally posted by bobt2
let me try posting here first with a problem. 75 gal setup all tbs, running 14 months now [this is my third tbs tank ]. 1st fish i added was a flame angel, that was a year ago. since than i,ve tried adding a few other fish, latly bottom loving like a ywg and later a firefish. they all dissipear after a while. i,ve even seen small wounds which heal, but thenup and vanish! the tank has all the usual tbs critters including 3 pistol shrimp. they are all fine as are all the corals. any ideas of what could be the cause.

Hmmm, possibly cirolanid isopods? I know when my Royal Gramma got one on him it left a small wound. Observe the tank and fish at night if you can and see if any little vampires are attaching themselves onto your fish.

[BrianPlankis]

Originally posted by bobt2
let me try posting here first with a problem. 75 gal setup all tbs, running 14 months now [this is my third tbs tank ]. 1st fish i added was a flame angel, that was a year ago. since than i,ve tried adding a few other fish, latly bottom loving like a ywg and later a firefish. they all dissipear after a while. i,ve even seen small wounds which heal, but thenup and vanish! the tank has all the usual tbs critters including 3 pistol shrimp. they are all fine as are all the corals. any ideas of what could be the cause.

What do the wounds look like? Small round holes?

I agree it could possibly by Cirolanids from your description. A stinky water trap might be more helpful than nightly observations (although those are helpful too).

Brian

[techreef]

Just wanted to celebrate the incarceration of my 4" gorilla crab, aka Poleax Killer Crab! Caught him over the holiday in a shrimp-baited tall glass.

Bobt2, I agree w/ Brian that the type of wounds may help direct your suspicions. If they are more slash/tear type of wounds, i would suspect inverts like crabs or shrimp. Please keep us posted.

[bobt2]

well the firefish looked more like a slash along his side, long and thin, that healed and now a month later he's gone. it seams to happen to fish that rest on the bottom or in a hole at night

[Spiffyguy]

I am going to be moving from my 24 gallon nano to a 55 gallon with an in tank sump. I will need about 20 pounds of rock and was thinking about getting a small package from TBS. That way I get the sand and critters. My concern is the existing fish I have and Cirolanids. ANy suggestions on the best way to do the move and integration? The 55 will go in the same spot as the 24.

[techreef]

Spiffy, I'd suggest that you set up some sort of QT-like setup for the additional TBS rock, and observe it for a while for bad hitchhikers. Like 3-6 weeks, given your patience levels. Use tall shot glasses baited w/ shrimp and Brian's stinky water trap to look for and maybe catch bad stuff like gorilla crabs and cirolanids. and since this is a smaller order and the rocks will most likely be of a manageable size, don't hesitate to yank a rock out of the holding tank and drive any mantis shrimps or other pests out of hiding holes w/ seltzer water if you spot them.

[techreef]

bobt2, that sounds more like an aggressive crab attacking your fish to me. what types of inverts do you have in your tank along w/ the fish?

[Spiffyguy]

Techreef I ahve thought about setting up the 55 in my work room and run it in there with the TBS rock for awhile. I wasn't too sure about doing a move after placing it in there. Only QT I have is a 10 gallon but that is being converted into a mantis tank minus the mantis. But I think the 10 gallon would be too cramped with 2 clowns and a blenny for any period of time.

[bobt2]

everything that tbs rock has. there are 1-2 small gorillas, 3 lg pistols, 1 very large longspine urchin, lots of porcline crabs and of course hermits. at one point i thought mantis but i,m sure theres none. also 3 serpent stars and 1 tiny flower anemone under a rock

[dwculp]

I bought new light bulbs and the tank looks great except for some residual algae, I am also switching salt from IO to IO Reef Crystals for the added calcium and alk.

Anyways, a few pics for today:

[techreef]

Spiffy, I think there's a little misunderstanding of what I meant to say. I'm saying that you keep only the new TBS rock in a separate tank. In your case, that could be your current 24G nano. You could get your 55G set up w/ SW, receive the TBS shipment, and dump the TBS LS into the 55, then move your nano's contents into their new home in the 55G tank after the LS settled and completed any cycling. I'm still a newbie, but I would hazard a guess that the LR in your current nano would be able to handle any small spikes that the LS would cause, and that you could just add the LS and your nano's contents in the same day and not worry.

Does anyone know if cirolanids live in sand, or solely on LR? If they live in sand, then that complicates things a bit. In order for Spiffy to be safe re: cirolanids, it would require QTing the LS too, which doesn't allow for moving the 24G contents in w/ the new LS right away.

Whether cirolanids live in LS or not, I still think you should keep the new TBS LR by itself in some sort of tank, and look for baddies on it. I'm just trying to brainstorm a way for you to use your 24G tank to do that, instead of you having to go buy a tank just for that purpose, since you said that your 10G tank will most likely be too small to hold the new TBS rock.

bobt2, how much do you feed your tank? are your various crabs getting any leftover food, or are they hungrily patroling your tank, keeping it spotless? I have all of the animals you listed except for the urchin. I think you can rule out the porcelain crabs, as they feed on plankton which is suspended in the water column, but I read over and over that crabs are obligate scavengers, and the bigger they are, the more problematic they get. My 4" gorilla crab was munching on snails and I suspect he also mowed down all four shaving brush plants that TBS sent with my package. I'm taking out all gorilla crabs I can find. I've got 1 left, and a mantis in hiding.

[Spiffyguy]

I could move the contents of the 24 into the 55 then get the shipemnt of TBS and use the 24 as teh QT tank but I have no skimmer on the 24. I will have a skimmer on the 55. If I want to play it totally safe I will leave the 24 where it is at and use teh 55 to QT. After everything is going well ammonia wise, and I get all the bad guys out I can then move the 24 and 55 contents into holding and put the 55 in position. I will have the 55 set up anyway to make sure my little in tank sump idea will work.

[Red_Six]

bobt2 Your problem sounds like a mantis shrimp to me. I know for certain that I have a mantis and I blame him for the disappearance of a lawnmower blenny and a green clown goby, both bottom dwellers. He also got a fin and put some long scraps on my blue tang. When the tang was smaller he would sleep in a cave in one of the rocks. He is too big now and fortunatly he has healed up nicely. The only bottom dweller to survive the mantis is my tiger goby that came with the tbs rock.

[bobt2]

if its a mantis, why doesn't he touch the pistols, cleaner shrimp or anything else?

[bobt2]

well i did the dark thing last night. i found something i,ve never seen before! this is on a large keys rock. the best way to discribe it is comming out of a hole on top were starfish arms, light colored, about 3" long and curly. very light sensitive. started retacking right away when the light hit it. there were 2 of them in different spots. don't think i could ever get a picture. these were not the typical tiny white stars under the rock. i have no clue as to what they are or even if they were stars.

[techreef]

you should have lots of serpent stars in your TBS rock. mine are varying sizes/diameters, white w/ some black striping, and they stick out of holes in the rock all over the place. but they aren't really light sensitive. I also have something else that I think matches your description better: eunicid worms. They elongate out of holes in the rocks, and retract extremely quickly if they detect light or movement. They come out once the lighting is dim or off. I believe they feed on corals, but I have only the hitchhiking corals from my TBS rock in my tank, so I'm not particularly worried. I haven't seen any coral retraction or die-back either. I have however observed a worm go and grab a hunk of flake food and eat it, so I guess Formula I suits their diet as well. I don't think I could ever catch mine, but if you try and succeed, let us know how you managed to do it! They are super fast.

[bobt2]

there not serpent stars, i have 3 of them. there not worms either. they have multiple arms

[dwculp]

They should actually be small serpent stars, I have literally hundreds in my tank. You will almost never see them except for their arms. The arms should be thread thin and white with black striping. They are tiny and delicate serpent stars.

They only time I have ever seen anything othefr than their arms stiking up from the sand was a few times when I was moving around a rock or two and once I saw one sitting out on a rock, he lifted one arm, sprayed some milky stuff into the water and crawled back under a rock.

[dwculp]

Here is a dark and blurry pic of a tiny serpent star sticking its legs out from nder a rock to feed. This should be what you have.

[krajacich]

Originally posted by bobt2
well i did the dark thing last night. i found something i,ve never seen before! this is on a large keys rock. the best way to discribe it is comming out of a hole on top were starfish arms, light colored, about 3" long and curly. very light sensitive. started retacking right away when the light hit it. there were 2 of them in different spots. don't think i could ever get a picture. these were not the typical tiny white stars under the rock. i have no clue as to what they are or even if they were stars.

My first thought was that it was a filter feeding cucumber. There's a pic on the TBS site:

http://www.tbsaltwater.com/thepackage/organisms.html (number 55)

[bobt2]

trust me, i have 3 tbs tanks, these are not serpent stars! these are IN the rock and much bigger. maybe in the basket star family?

[dwculp]

Spaghetti worm maybe?
Also, some of those stars can get pretty big, the one sitting out on my rock was the size of a small adult hand.

[techreef]

i think spaghetti worm tendrils are the thickness of dental floss. They are in my tank. I get the feeling that bobt2's mystery creatures are thicker than spaghetti worms. Hmm...