OK! Enough chat...Starting a 1000g+ Reef - Page 33

jnarowe · #**801** 10/18/2006, 10:32 PM

Well I made a new batch of food ala melev yesterday. It includes:

zooplankton (jar)
Hikaria Ocean plankton (flat)
mysis (flat)
brine shrimp (flat)
dried nori
Selcon
Garlic Guard
Mixed Seafood (octopus, clam, oyster, crab)
Spirulina

(I forgot the cyclopeze)

It is a little finer than the last batch. Total cost around $40 for 10 lbs. of food that will last a long time.

Tonight I discovered that my Orange Shoulder tang has a fairly deep gash. He doesn't seem to be bothered by it but it is about an inch long and nearly 1/4 inch deep.

sherm71tank · #**802** 10/18/2006, 10:35 PM

If you blame that on the Sailfin I quit!

And where was that article on the goddamn garlic....

jnarowe · #**803** 10/18/2006, 10:39 PM

Actually the last time he got a gash I didn't have the sailfin. I suspect either the foxface or a mythrax crab. Garlic is goooood, dude!

There are plenty of articles supporting the use of garlic too you know!

I sure would like to read the one you are talking about though.

bskiba · #**804** 10/19/2006, 12:19 AM

Ok so saturday I am planning on meeting you around 1 pm or so. and then off to the south. Here is a pic of my table that we rescued.

slowly coloring up

after it started receeding from STN.

jnarowe · #**805** 10/19/2006, 01:19 AM

Looking good and healthy Brad. Sherman may decide to go and bring me around, but I will let you know when he decides.

jnarowe · #**806** 10/19/2006, 10:53 PM

I was mowing the lawn in the fuge a couple days ago and discovered scads of snail babies!!! I am so stoked. My initial inspection leads me to believe they are from the DIBS project Turbo sp. and I will keep an eye on them. Too small for me to get pics unfortunately but the color and shape match the DIBS Turbo sp. Yay!!

BrianPlankis · #**807** 10/20/2006, 11:33 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jnarowe
I was mowing the lawn in the fuge a couple days ago and discovered scads of snail babies!!! I am so stoked. My initial inspection leads me to believe they are from the DIBS project Turbo sp. and I will keep an eye on them. Too small for me to get pics unfortunately but the color and shape match the DIBS Turbo sp. Yay!!

Jonathan,

Awesome! I'm glad to see they finally....got down to business

They won't stay small for long

Brian

AVALover5498 · #**808** 10/20/2006, 04:48 PM

This tank is stunning

Enderrea · #**809** 10/20/2006, 04:52 PM

you should see it in real life the pictures do not even come close !
i want to live in the box under the tank! bee the reef troll!

jnarowe · #**810** 10/20/2006, 08:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BrianPlankis
Jonathan,

Awesome! I'm glad to see they finally....got down to business They won't stay small for long

Brian

To be honest, I am a bit surprised that they propagated in the main system considering how many predators there are and how much I skim. I wish you could come visit Brian because I think you would really enjoy checking out my snail population. I will extract a few babies in a week or two and isolate them in a grow out tank.

jnarowe · #**811** 10/20/2006, 08:53 PM

AVALover5498: Thank you for the compliment. I still have a long way to go before I feel "accomplished" in the marine aquaria hobby but I am pleased with my progress so far.

Enderrea: Well if you do the dishes and laundry you are most welcome to live under my tank!

rdmpe · #**812** 10/20/2006, 09:14 PM

Man! I had to go all the way back to page 29 just to get a couple of pictures

Come on, lets see some more pictures

jnarowe · #**813** 10/20/2006, 09:24 PM

haven't cleaned the glass in over a week, or two. no time right now to mess around with the tank and I am actually buying a commercially made kalk stirrer because I don'thave the time to build a good one. At least it will tide me over until I can. and I need a new camera dammit! I have some really cool stuff to shoot macro but my damn digital doesn't do that well at all. and I need a maid too. (two)

Oh yeah, and I just spotted another batch of maroon clown eggs...

BrianPlankis · #**814** 10/20/2006, 10:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jnarowe
To be honest, I am a bit surprised that they propagated in the main system considering how many predators there are and how much I skim. I wish you could come visit Brian because I think you would really enjoy checking out my snail population. I will extract a few babies in a week or two and isolate them in a grow out tank.

I have not heard of anything eating the DIBS Turbo egg masses yet, so I'm not suprised at all they bred in your main tank. I wish I could come visit too, I would love to check out your setup and talk shop with you!

Of course I have started the aquarium reef club speaker circuit (I'll be speaking in Pittsburgh in April next year), if you have a local reef club, maybe we could work out a guest speaker visit and then I could see your tank

Brian

jnarowe · #**815** 10/20/2006, 10:28 PM

We have a great club, PSAS. Frag swap tomorrow!

jnarowe · #**816** 10/24/2006, 12:36 AM

So an interesting effect of the baby turbo sp. in the fuge: I now have a very difficult time harvesting cheato because it is filled with the babies. I have to pick them out. I usually harvest a qt.+ every other day but this is insane. I did drop a bunch in my larval tank though so we'll see what happens with that.

I also found what looks like limpet babies...or some similar animal. Also too small for me to get pics. I have got to get a good digital camera that can do real macro!

jnarowe · #**817** 10/29/2006, 05:59 PM

OK I know it's been a while but to be honest, with the work I am doing on our store expansion, I haven't been keeping the display glass very clean. I will be posting more soon as I am getting in a kalk stirrer and will be upgrading the skimmer as well.

Couple pics to keep you going:

This is the fuge currently and there is good news and bad. The good news is those mangroves erupted after being in the fuge for about a week. The LFS owner had them for months and they never opened. Maybe that is because he didn't have any friggin' light on them??? Doh!

Also my fuge has recovered from a major blowout rather quickly and nicely. It's hard to tell in the picture but I estimate there to be about 20g of cheato in there plus other macro. The bad news is that I have to export the cheato and it is filled with DIBS baby snails. It is really painstaking to sort them out and the main reason for my post today is to get ideas on how to do this efficiently. I must get the cheato out, but I really want to keep the snails alive. I spent about an hour pulling out snails today from a 2g load of macro and I dumped the snails into a grow-out tank.

Anyone have any ideas? The other bad news is that this cheato seems to be a very good breeding ground for aiptasia. Drat!! I need 40 peppermint shrimp STAT!

And here's a pic of one of the buggers doing its business:

And by-the-way, the unidentified "JAT" is still alive and well in the fuge.

BrianPlankis · #**818** 10/29/2006, 10:44 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by jnarowe
It is really painstaking to sort them out and the main reason for my post today is to get ideas on how to do this efficiently. I must get the cheato out, but I really want to keep the snails alive. I spent about an hour pulling out snails today from a 2g load of macro and I dumped the snails into a grow-out tank.

A couple of ideas:

1. would be to just shake the cheato over a towel or something, the snails can't have that good of a grip on it.

2. Swish the cheato in a bucket of tank water very vigorously, this is what I do when I export cheato, you won't harm the snails. They fall into the bucket rather easily, then I just pour most of the water out and put the babies into the main tank, or in your case a growout tank. That way the can get more food in the main tank and it slowly reduces the population of them in your fuge.

Brian

jnarowe · #**819** 10/29/2006, 11:12 PM

Thanks for your response Brian. I tried the shaking deal but any that did come out got lost on the floor. The bucket idea is my next step. The other issue is am I losing egg masses when I get rid of the cheato?

BTW, I have not totally figured which these are. They appear to be the DIBS turbo sp. but some have interesting colorations like the nerites.

BrianPlankis · #**820** 10/30/2006, 12:19 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by jnarowe
Thanks for your response Brian. I tried the shaking deal but any that did come out got lost on the floor. The bucket idea is my next step. The other issue is am I losing egg masses when I get rid of the cheato?

BTW, I have not totally figured which these are. They appear to be the DIBS turbo sp. but some have interesting colorations like the nerites.

Yeah the bucket idea works best for me, also pull the thickest part of the cheato apart and then shake, it only takes a few seconds, but I only export a baseball sized clump every 2-3 weeks. I don't know if the DIBS Turbos lay egg masses in the cheato, but I would GUESS they don't, every time I've found an egg mass it was attached to a hard surface so I think they would skip the cheato.

Only time will tell with the snails growing up if they are the Turbos and Nerites, odds would favor the Turbos, but if you get Nerites that would be WAY cool.

Brian

jnarowe · #**821** 10/30/2006, 10:04 AM

I'll give it a try. Also, there are some babies in my overflow that appear to be stomatella or possibly limpets. Way to small to get a pic. Flat underside primarily foot. Edge of shell that meets the glass is serated. Any suggestions as to were I should look to ID?

BrianPlankis · #**822** 10/30/2006, 10:26 AM

It could be a limpet as the stomatella shells are usually smooth on the edges. There are MANY reports of these small limpets breeding in aquariums, but they rarely get larger than 1/4" so people usually don't notice them. Also hard to get pictures of them due to their size. In all the reports I've read I've never seen even a Genus ID. If you can get a picture you can always try Dr Shimek, but other than that I don't have a suggestion.

Hop · #**823** 10/30/2006, 03:06 PM

Fuge looks good J. I keep looking at it, wondering why my chaeto quit growing

I hear you on the time to scrape and clean the viewing pane. It's been a month here. I'm trying to get the motivation to do a water change, scrape the panes, syphon some diatris and clean the sump today. But I'm not certain I'll be batting a .1000 when the day ends

jnarowe · #**824** 10/30/2006, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BrianPlankis
It could be a limpet as the stomatella shells are usually smooth on the edges. There are MANY reports of these small limpets breeding in aquariums, but they rarely get larger than 1/4" so people usually don't notice them. Also hard to get pictures of them due to their size. In all the reports I've read I've never seen even a Genus ID. If you can get a picture you can always try Dr Shimek, but other than that I don't have a suggestion.

I have a 94" external acrylic overflow that I like to keep an eye on. I have several resident snails in there and pods so I am more apt to spot small creatures than most. I really enjoy the micro world of reefs and in fact, when I was diving, spent more time examining the rockwork than looking at the pretty fish. I will try to get someone over with a real macro lense to get some pics. I really should buy a good Digital camera with a macro lense but I find it hard to swallow that i bought a nice Nikon SLR right before the digital boom. I never use the SLR.

jnarowe · #**825** 10/30/2006, 04:00 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Hop
Fuge looks good J. I keep looking at it, wondering why my chaeto quit growing

I hear you on the time to scrape and clean the viewing pane. It's been a month here. I'm trying to get the motivation to do a water change, scrape the panes, syphon some diatris and clean the sump today. But I'm not certain I'll be batting a .1000 when the day ends

My cheato stopped growing when I added the extra light. I had a major blowout and I think primarily because I forgot to burn the lamps before I installed them. It looked a lot like Marc's blowout and I just cleaned out most of the diatoms and HA and tossed in new cheato. We may find out from future research that the blowout is what actually created the apparently massive snail spawning event I had. The two events do coincide.