repeated bad answers: myths current among newbies

[Sk8r]

1. worms are bad. NO. 99.99999 percent of all worms are good. Forget the bit about 'if bristleworms get big enough they eat your fish/corals/grandmother.' They can be 3 feet long and they still can't eat anything that isn't dissolved. THere can be hundreds in your tank, and if you think there are too many, cut back your feeding and you'll have fewer worms. Kill off the worms and your tank may crash---because they're all that's between you and a nitrate rise. That's what they do: they eat crud. Less crud=less worm population. If a worm does not have 4 tentacles [obvious ones] on its head, it is NOT a bad worm. There may be exceptions, but they are rare beyond anything you are ever likely to meet. There must be a hundred posts a day from people proposing to wipe out all the bristleworms in their tanks. DON'T! Bad idea!

2. coral banded shrimp are good in your reef. NO. They're showy, but they're predators who are one of the worst threats you can have in your tank.

3. you need to clean your sand. NO. Fastest way to crash your tank is to mess with the oreo-like layers in your sandbed. If you are getting too much detritus you need 1) more bristleworms 2) some nassarius snails 3) at most a small sandsifter like a yellow watchman goby if your tank is between 20 and 100g. AVOID: sandsifting stars and diamond/dragon gobies unless you have a 200g tank.

4. you need a filter. NO. Not unless you're a FOWLR. Your live sand and rock should be enough otherwise. If they aren't, you're overfeeding, and a filter, bioballs, etc, build up nitrate and then lose it all when you clean it, an endless rise and fall of nitrate that is not good for corals, either soft or hard. Just because something is included in your sump kit [bioballs] does not mean everybody should use them. They're there in case you're a FOWLR [fish-only/live rock]. NOT if you're a reef. YOu can sub live rock rubble in the space provided for the bioballs or filter and that will be fine.

5. green serpent stars are reefsafe: NO. They eat sleeping fish. The stripey black and white brittle stars are safe..

6. If you're having a problem, there must be a chemical to fix it. NO! Ten thousand times no! Not in a new tank. Ask a senior reefer for help and act only with advice---which you can get in about 10 minutes on a good day, or repeat your question in a different forum. If you've personally dumped in some 'miracle fix' and gotten out of it without a tank crash or dead corals/fish, you were lucky, that's all, lucky even if you followed directions meticulously and got a good result.

These myths are being repeated far too often and far too energetically for us old-timers to track down all the bad info: if someone repeats a myth, please pass the correct information politely but definitively.

[barbra]

here here.

And then we can address the issues with live rock: What it is, what it does, and the proliferation of definitions for "curing".

[pikachusalad]

Crap. Well...what's the best chemical to get rid of a serpent star?

Good post sk8r.

[Vin7250]

is there a chemical i can use to help resist the urge to blow my paychecks on this hobby or will that ruin my tank too?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? lol

[nyvp]

copper

[Savas]

Sk8r,

Great post as usual.

Can you also deal with cyanobacteria which is a constant question.

[reef3r]

So these:
http://www.premiumaquatics.com/livestock/serpent.jpg
Are the reef safe sea stars, right?

[Muggle]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11127571#post11127571 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Sk8r
3. you need to clean your sand. NO. Fastest way to crash your tank is to mess with the oreo-like layers in your sandbed. If you are getting too much detritus you need 1) more bristleworms 2) some nassarius snails 3) at most a small sandsifter like a yellow watchman goby if your tank is between 20 and 100g. AVOID: sandsifting stars and diamond/dragon gobies unless you have a 200g tank.

I thought you are not supposed to disturb a DSB but if you have just a thin layer it should be fine. Am I wrong? I slightly stir up the sand before a water change everytime to siphon out the detritus. I have bristleworms, my nassarius snails and watchman goby are lazy and only care when there's food in the tank...

[daven]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11128846#post11128846 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Muggle
... I have bristleworms, my nassarius snails and watchman goby are lazy and only care when there's food in the tank...

And I suppose you work for free? :)

[jimbo78]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11128004#post11128004 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by nyvp
copper :rollface: :rollface: :rollface:

[uscharalph]

Amen!

[Muggle]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11128906#post11128906 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by daven
And I suppose you work for free? :)

lol.. the point is (!!) they only eat what I feed them rather than the detritus :mad:

[Sk8r]

Re: copper: don't! Only in a hospital tank, and ONLY treat sick fish, not well ones. Copper is poisonous when ingested, and you're just timing it so the parasites die before your fish do. Naturally you don't want to expose your fish to a poison needlessly. There are also other treatments, like hypo. Consult the fish disease forum.

Re shallow sand beds: if you had deeper sand, you'd have less detritus, and your nassarius, etc could forage at depth as they're accustomed to do. I wouldn't recommend stirring a sandbed where corals are present.

Re that brittle star in black and white: safe.

re your paychecks: no answer for that one. I have heard of people freezing their credit cards in a big block of ice, so they can use them only with some effort. It could work with a checkbook, I suppose. ;)

re cyanobacteria: no, it's not algae, yes, some varieties are toxic, and the best cure for it in a new tank is a 3 day lights-out followed by a one day actinic, repeated monthly if needful. Don't panic if it's just a little cyano. If it's in thick sheets draping every surface in your tank, you've got a serious problem: turkeybaster out every bit of it you can, THEN try the lights-out method---and if you ARE using the lights out method, remember to test 2x daily for ammonia and nitrates. It is an animal [or a sheet of them] and does produce nasty decay, and it's asking a lot of your sandbed to handle a really bad sheet...in which case, have a really killer skimmer, test like crazy, and stand by to do a 20% water change any time the nitrate starts to rise. Treat it with lights-out before it gets bad, do water changes, and be sure no ray of sun gets to your tank from a window. It's an ancient creature, it's an extremophile, it's always present, and you will see it turn up if you don't protect your tank from sun and watch your water quality. Howzzat for the short version?

[GoingPostal]

How bout curing ich by adding cleaner shrimp/wrasses? That seems to be a common answer to newbies which I've yet to see any proof they eat or have ever eaten ich.

And what is with the filter thing? No one I talk to can grasp that all my tanks have no filters, I do have empty filters running for flow until I buy more koralias but they aren't doing squat for filtration, just live rock, movement and low bioload.

[Sk8r]

THank you, goingpostal! THat's a biggie!
Nobody should be buying a cleaner-anything in a tank under 100g. Ever been cornered by a drunken aunt at a family gathering? Wants to pinch your cheeks and straighten your hair? You'd like to be elsewhere, but in a small living room there's no choice.
Same with cleaner-critters. They don't eat ich, just pick at the pustule, and in a small tank the unfortunate fish has no place to get away from the persistent so-and-so. Submission to the clean-er's display I'm personally convinced is like a group yawn: the fish sees it, and goes over there to have a suddenly imagined itch scratched, never mind if it bleeds.
IMHO, over-cleaning creates more problems than it possibly solves, and pretty soon, in the absence of abundant parasites, the cleaner starves to death, wasting your money. I don't think cleaners that won't eat anything else ought even to be sold.

NO FILTERS IN REEF TANKS!!!! YOU DON"T NEED/WANT FILTERs!
Sure people want to sell you one! They make money on the deal. But they're BAD, BAD, BAD for a reef tank! Hey, izzat enough to say? They disrupt your live rock/sand balance: they send down an alternate glut and famine of 'food' and mess up your system. At worst, they're nitrate factories that drive your nitrates up, make your fish miserable and kill your corals.

[Sk8r]

All right, here we have the amended statement on worms from Leslie H, who is the guru of inverts, particularly of worms, and this is the absolute straight stuff. I made some errors in my statement, and I want to quote Leslie here, to be absolutely sure you have the most up to date info.

"It hurts me to say it but not all worms are good, not even 99.99999% of them. The harmless amphinomids feed by everting the sac-like proboscis (think "Alien") and engulfing whatever they want to pick up. They can exert a bit of suction there. It may be that they produce chemicals to dissolve their food before swallowing it but they can eat swallow solid bits as well. The bad amphinomids tend to engulf then swallow or engulf, tear off, & swallow their prey. Eunicids have either 1, 3, or 5 head appendages, never four (unless they're damaged). The biggest species that show up in tanks seem to all be in the genus Eunice which have 5. Oenonids - the feared mollusc predators - don't have any head appendages at all and lots of people report them. Many worms are switch hitters when it comes to feeding, including eunicids & oenonids. Juveniles may eat different foods than adults & certainly they eat much smaller things. An adult of some species may prefer detritus or hydroids but unless it's an obligate feeder it may eat anything it can find. That might be a problem if there's hundreds of good amphinomids in a tank - they'll start eating other food if there's not enough debris. Yes, the population will crash but they might do some damage first. I don't know for sure and it's hard to get an objective observation from most reefers about what happens in these cases; they're too emotional or opinionated about things."

Now read that through several times and memorize the salient correction bits: eunice worms are bad, but have not 4 tentacles, but an odd number up to 5 [the photo I use must have one hidden one]; worms who get very, very large [over a foot] possibly could take to food you wouldn't want them to have, and most that do get that big are eunicids. I'm glad to have the 'suction' info, which explains how the blighters can make off with food pellets; and oenones [a rather pretty worm] are not good company with molluscs---that would be snails. Those are the basic corrections to my initial statement---and I'm glad to have them: the last thing I want to do is spread yet one more myth. With Leslie's input, I'm confident we have the absolute, definitive, and true statement on worms, and you can quote THAT without trepidation.
One thing I like about RC is that we do have some working scientists/experts in various fields that can tell us really interesting things about the critters we keep.

[delafe]

I have to throw in my two cents... Cleaner shrimp are the ONLY way to "cure" ich. I have photos of fish lined up to be cleaned and the shrimp going to town on them.

-Alfred

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11131103#post11131103 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by GoingPostal
How bout curing ich by adding cleaner shrimp/wrasses? That seems to be a common answer to newbies which I've yet to see any proof they eat or have ever eaten ich.

And what is with the filter thing? No one I talk to can grasp that all my tanks have no filters, I do have empty filters running for flow until I buy more koralias but they aren't doing squat for filtration, just live rock, movement and low bioload.

[Haksar]

I would like to add on cynao bacteria curing.One of the few marine guys at our end(I just started using it ) use a method of siphoning the top layer of DSB which has cyano on it,storing it in a bucket for 02 days and treat it with 5ml chlorex cleaning detergent.After 02days remove the chlorex by using aquarium antichlroine drops of approx 10-20ml and storing for another two days more.After this treatment you can throw out the water and use the sand once again in your tank.This treatment has proved successful if repeatedly done for a week to 02 weeks.Then periodically done after every 03days in week and cutting down once you see your cyano decreasing.
Not sure if this is the ideal method but there is some improvement but please make sure you do not overdose CHLOREX.

Thanks,
Haksar

[cplklegg]

When sk8r writes, people read---else they SHOULD read. Thanks again for the knowledge. Some clarification and opinions on the skunk cleaners please. Scavenging and detritus removal versus pestering of corals and fish especially in nano's?


I have to throw in my two cents... Cleaner shrimp are the ONLY way to "cure" ich. I have photos of fish lined up to be cleaned and the shrimp going to town on them.

-Alfred



quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by GoingPostal
How bout curing ich by adding cleaner shrimp/wrasses? That seems to be a common answer to newbies which I've yet to see any proof they eat or have ever eaten ich.

[GoingPostal]

There are studies out there you can look up to see what exactly has been found in the stomachs of cleaner shrimp/wrasses and ich is not one of them. The wrasses eat isopods that aren't terribly common in our tanks and cleaner shrimp couldn't reach the ich even if they wanted to, it's under the skin and they clean the outer mucus. Ich naturally drops off after a few days and people attribute this to the cleaning these critters are doing but it's just not true.

[acrouse]

Sk8r-very good information (as usual). I know when I started, I got alot of my USEFUL information from you and many other experienced users. You and select others actually spent time to answer newbie questions with specific /helpful answers. Thanks again.

What I notice more and more now on Reef Central ( New to the Hobby Forum) is that more people are answering questions with (1-4) words all for the sake of " gaining # of posts beside their name"! Not much time or thought is put into answering or helping out the problem. I think it is a shame because people ask the question to get honest helpful answers-not just a comment to raise the posting #'s. I do realize some questions can be answered with a few words, thats not what I am referring too-most people on RC can relate to what I'm saying.

I feel users should stop and think before posting and if they really do not have a helpful answer-or really don't know about the subject-then do not reply. (just read and learn)This is how the myths and misinformation gets out and for a new person, its hard to decipher the information.

Everyone knows what it is like to be a new member-have a serious problem (or so we thought at the time)-post a question-get 20 replies-with only 1or2 people truly trying to help you solve your problem. And sometimes you were lucky to get that. It was so exciting to get a reply from (Sk8r, Bertoni, etc) because you could have confidence in the answer. So everyone just keep in mind before you post replies that it is not all about raising your posting #'s. Its about getting good -truthful information out!!
( Ask yourself: Do I have 10 posts and have helped 10 people:or do I have 100 posts and have helped 0)
thanks
jolene

[jadeguppy]

sk8r, Thank you for the post! Will you please define what you mean by filters? Hob, canister, sump, phosban reactors, etc.

[delafe]

GoingPostal: I can only speak from personal experience. Prior to using cleaner shrimp, I had a run of horrible "luck" with all of my fish dying due to ich. At this point in time, my tank was doing great and had excellent coral growth, I just could not keep any fish alive.

A friend that was a lecturer and writer for Aquarium Frontiers (Craig Bingman) looked at my tank and recommended I get a pair of cleaner shrimp and get fish, not to worry about the fish getting infected. Well, they were covered in ich within a day, and were lined up at the "cleaning station" where the shrimp worked overtime.

I have repeated this same experience above in my fathers reef aquarium and with several friends.

Based on observation and long discussions, I think the primary way that the cleaners help is that they get into the gills. I have seen fish lay on their side with their gill plates open wide and mouths wide open as well so that the cleaners can get in their mouths and gills. If you research how ich kills, basically in our closed systems the fish sufocate. In the wild, ich is nothing more than a "cold" that seldom kills it's host.

The fact that the fish recognize the cleaners for what they are and invite them to probe in their mouths and gills should speak for itself.

-Alfred

[delafe]

acrouse- Was that comment about newbies directed at me? I have had a reef aquarium for more than 12 years (My profile is from 2002) and I have learned from some of the best.

I consider myself very fortunate, I joined the Brooklyn Aquarium Society at a time when some of the most advanced researchers and hobbyists were members and benefitted greatly from their experience.

I agree with just about everything sk8r posted concerning "myths" except for cleaner shrimp. I do not keep a deep sand bed, so I purposefully have ditritivors that keep it turned over and healthy. Never kept a plenum, thus never had the "joy" of crashing my tank.

-Alfred

[acrouse]

delafe-the response was not directed at you or any other response on this post. It was posted in hopes that when people read this post (about myths, misinformation) they will think twice before posting just to raise their posting #'s.
You however, are a prime example of why posting #'s do not matter-(that was the point of the post)-it is the content of the post that matters.
It is not ment to be mean, nasty, hateful, etc. There are people with very educated responses that have very few posts and very educated responses with 1000+ posts. We all start at 1. The only real numbers that matter -is what our fish test kits say!
Sorry if you took the post wrong.
jolene