Our Tbs

[bkelley02]

I've been feeding my tank VERY lightly lately too. On Saturday, my daughter wanted to watch me feed the starfish, so I did. The sand errupted with the Vibex coming out and two of the remaining gorilla crabs became VERY brave. I just wasn't prepared to grab them. The Peppermint shrimp were even braver then usual. I'll be waiting till this coming weekend setting some traps and see what I come up with!!

[bobt2]

i was looking at an add for a product called az-no3. it it suppose to get rid of nitrates. it's it just something else to part us from our money or will it work?

[H2OLUVSME]

Originally posted by bobt2
i was looking at an add for a product called az-no3. it it suppose to get rid of nitrates. it's it just something else to part us from our money or will it work?

it wont eliminate the source of the nitrates. it may give you a temporary fix, but it wont solve any long term problems.

[bobt2]

landon, right now i'm at 15ppm, but as you know it slowly builds.since my phospate is 0,it's the only thing that could be feeding the red algea

[dwculp]

Not exactly true, you red algae could be using the PO4 fast enough that it doesnt show on a test kit.

[bobt2]

i don't know if thats true. i have the phospate reactor running too.

[bobt2]

well the weather looks good in tampa for the whole week

[BrianPlankis]

Bob,

I haven't heard of az-NO3, and I agree with Landon it is only treating the symptom. However, I do use chemicals sometimes too

I found this interesting page from Marc:

http://melevsreef.com/chemicals.html

Brian

[patsan]

Sorry your fish didn't make it Sally.

Maybe you should try and get your next one some place else. I know you said the store is great, but you haven't had much luck with the fish from there.

Bob, I think that stuff is only a temporary fix to the nitrate problem, and you should probably try to get to the root of the problem to get rid of it without dosing. Glad the weather will be good all week down in Tampa. I'd still be worried about the quality of the rock after all that red tide they have in those waters.

[H2OLUVSME]

Bob, this is one place where a sump/refugium would be a great asset. adding faster growing (or at least competitive) plant life to a refugium would reduce the amount of nutrients available in the display.

i agree with Dave, and have said it before, i think you should throw out most test results when you are having an algae problem. they may help you find the root of the problem, but most of the time they just give a false sense of confidence, IMO.

if the algae is using the PO4 and NO3 at a fast enough rate it may never show up on a test kit.

i think it may come down to manual removal or multiple massive water changes, in your case.

have you tried emerald crabs?

[bobt2]

i.m not sure there is a water problem, nitrates build up over time. there is no red slime, green or brown algea, only these red " plants" growing in a few spots that i don't like

[patsan]

Originally posted by bobt2
i.m not sure there is a water problem, nitrates build up over time. there is no red slime, green or brown algea, only these red " plants" growing in a few spots that i don't like

But didn't you say that it was slimy with the 2nd type algae you had?

[bobt2]

when i pull it off the rocks theres a clear slime with it, but its not the red slime that grows on the sand bed

[lossman]

Originally posted by patsan
Sorry your fish didn't make it Sally.

Maybe you should try and get your next one some place else. I know you said the store is great, but you haven't had much luck with the fish from there.

Thanks Pat, but these fish are not readily available in any stores....at least not around here. They must be wild caught and then hope they survive the trip from the Keys to the shop, then the stress of going from the shop to our place. I think our best bet is to skip the middle man and find someone that can get these fish directly to us. We can't mail order them either because no one is usually home during the day to receive them.

We'll wait a few months until temps are better in the Gulf and then try again.

[lossman]

Bob, gracilaria (which is what your red algae looks like) has a slimy feel to the leaves, is that what you mean by slimey? Brett and I have actually gone out and bought this stuff trying to keep it in our tank because we like the looks of it. Unfortunately, our crabs love the taste of it and eat it almost as fast as we put it in the tank. LOL Tangs and Angels are supposed to enjoy eating this stuff too.

[bobt2]

picture 1 has a slime feel to it. picture 2 actually has a clear slime that comes off with it when i pull it off the rocks. none of the clean up crew will touch it and the tank is too small for a tang. 48x12x13

[lossman]

want a mithrax crab that loves any kind of algae???

[jnb]

Before - I had numerous algae problems.

I attribute:

1 my skimmer, its skimming wetter setting,
2 more snails the kind that go into the sand,
3 emeralds for the bubble - ,
4 time

for getting it under control nicely - despite the fact that I am feeding more

the two I value most highly are the skimmer setting and time

[bobt2]

i had 1 of those crabs and took him out. i'll try to find him in my f/o tank. i also have the urchins in there. wonder what they would do to it?

[Fred_J]

Sally--Sorry about your loss. I find it very puzzling. Years ago when I was younger and even "more" foolish I tried some of the same fish without spending more than ten mins. float acclimating them. Then used a fresh water dip with formalin added and a quick rinse in freshwater again before gong into the display tank. I still had relatively few or no losses after my tank was mature. The few losses I did have were attributed to the fish being captured with cyanide , a popular practice at that time.
I know your fish are being treated with less stress and proper acclimation procedures. I wonder if you could get a test vial of water from the LFS to check for something vastly different from your water.
You are doing everything right with your acclimation procedures.
I know you believe they are stress related but I know in the 1970's I put tremendous stress on my new fish with a very low failure rate and I freely admit I did not know what I was doing. I just cannot seem to come up with a reason for the deaths, except they were doomed to start with.

Fred

[BrianPlankis]

Originally posted by bobt2
i had 1 of those crabs and took him out. i'll try to find him in my f/o tank. i also have the urchins in there. wonder what they would do to it?

Bob,

My TBS urchins would eat the second kind of algae you have, they would wipe it out completely in the paths that they ate on the rocks(along with the coralline). My problem was that the urchins seemed to enjoy eating other stuff more and only ate it if they passed over it randomly. It quickly regrew from the areas they didn't eat.

Brian

[bobt2]

i may try it. i can afford to give up a little coraline

[lossman]

We just finished having some plumbing work done on our tank. We had a more powerful return pump put on, all the returns replumbed with ball valves and a spray bar added to spray water down behind the rocks against the back glass. I'm really happy with the results. This is all going to add more flow to the tank and the spray bar will eliminate any dead spots down behind the rock work.

We also changed out half of our bulbs and the new ones really make the red and orange sponges pop. Before the predominant color in the tank was purple, now the red and orange sponges really show up and add a really nice visual touch to the tank. It also really makes the tank bright. I can't wait to see what happens when we change out the other set of bulbs!!!

[H2OLUVSME]

Bob, I have two (now large) urchins that I have in my TBS tank. they don't seem to have any negative effect on the coraline and I don't have any other accessible algae for them.

the main reason I recommend emeralds is because of their diverse diet. I had one in with my mantis and it destroyed every kind of algae I tried to add (for nutrient export). it ate halmeida (sp?) multiple types of caulerpa, GHA, and everything else I tried. also, when I started getting a little die off and algae outbreak in my tank they handled it for me. I was adding to an established tank and knew it would be a while before I got my part two, so I added 5 emeralds to combat algae and dying sponges. within a few days there were no visible dying sponges and no algae. also, I think you'd be better off getting hungry ones from the LFS (as long as they aren't too expensive) then you are adding well fed ones from an established and fed tank. hungry crabs eat a lot more and are a lot less picky than well fed crabs

[bobt2]

landon, i like your ideas