Head First Into The Salt

[wildechild_01]

ok quick question,

i picked up a frogspawn friday night from a local guy breaking down his tank, big beautiful purple tip with 9 heads, was living in his sump under MH lighting. I dripped it for about 1.5 hrs and then placed it in the tank after lights out about half way up the tank in a low/medium flow area. There was whitish stringy stuff coming off it, but the galaxy did that too and from reading i think thats kinda normal from the stress... anyway, it barely extended at all yesterday and so far today is still retracted almost all the way. Now my galaxy did take a few days to open up, but i was hoping since i dripped the frogspawn it would open sooner... should i be worried? or more precisely how long should i wait for it to extend before being worried?...

UPDATE: Well 5 of the 9 heads Died, i think they got damaged during transport but the remaining 4 are doing well, going to let them be for a while cause they've had a stressful run but once they seem healthy and established im going to frag the dead heads off... i removed as much of the dead stuff as i could and the peppermint shrimp were constantly picking at the dead heads as well, so water quality stayed good... had to empty skimmer cup a few times though... but at least its working

 

[wildechild_01]

ok just a quick update and question.

For the most part the tank is doing pretty good, i added 2 skunk cleaner shrimps and finally got some snails to survive the acclimation process... not sure what i was going wrong, but this last time i just took it a lot slower and it seemed to work.

My concern is... I added and Orange Spot Prawn Goby, who the first night was happily swimming around sifting sand and helping clean it up, first night he dug a "burrow" against the glass, was kinda funny. Anyway the next day he dug a new one against the glass, and then started digging one under the rock. the rock he chose is firmly grounded on the bottom glass but has a bit of an overhang he was able to dig under, first night he spent there was fine, he came out the next day but then since that second night in his newest burrow i haven't seen him at all........ just wondering if its normal for him to dissapear for a day or two or if i should be trying to remove the rock (difficult given rock structure) to see if he is even still in there..... Water stats are OK, but with relatively little stock i fear a fish his size could decompose and me never even see the Ammonia go up...

other than the missing fish though things are going good, corals and all other fish/inverts seem to be doing great... im getting all my ingredients together to make my own food for the ttank.. im hoping to make a frozen cube that has food for Fish, and corals, and inverts so when i need other people to watch my tank its easy for them... also cause im Ambitiously lazy, meaning i will do the research and work to make the food if it makes feeding my tank easier down the road.

Any thoughts or advice is greatly appreciated

 

[wildechild_01]

well, scratch the goby question, i just fished what was left of him out from the clutches of one of the Emerald Crabs.......

 

[GGtank]

Sorry to hear emerald crabs are opportunistic feeders... without any algae, they will go what whatever they can get their claws on...

 

[seffieuk]

Any photo updates?

Seffie x

 

[-Nemo-]

I've missed too much!! You barely had the tank full of water last I saw
Like the scape and of course the clowns
I'm with seffie.... I demand more pictures Trev!

 

[wildechild_01]

haha, its late but will take/post some new pics tomorrow and give an update on how things are going.... still having snail issues... im wondering if they are getting too cold during drip... i do then re-float for temp acclimation, but maybe tthey are getting ttoo cold and dying ignore the extra T's the keyboard on my lappy is annoying.

 

[black jackk]

Well, Nice post, And I found here a couple pics from this last summer that come out a nice farm pond that a friend of mine owns. Hate to say it but at 5lbs its the biggest bass I have ever caught.... anywhere. But i was still pretty happy with it. Even happier knowing that I put it back so it could grow a bit before next time.

 

[wildechild_01]

ok so here are some not so good pictures of my tank...

having some camera issues that make me sad, so had to snap these with my old cheap one, but i guess better than nothing

Tank inhabitants now include

A Pair o Clowns
A M/F pair of Royal Grammas
Flame Angel
And Powder Brown Tang
Various shrimp, snails, hermits and 2 emerald crabs

BTA Green with pink tips(i know shouldn't be in tank as young as mine but with weekly feedings it seems to be doing great)
Galaxy coral
Green torch coral, (doesn't show up in picture very well)
Various Zoo frags

FTS

 

[seffieuk]

So where is the of the Nem?

Couple of thoughts, you see those bubbles on your back wall, increase the flow to that area and they will disappear, also, you look like you have an excess of nitrates, check out the sand, probably time for a water change and/or run a nitrate remover

Seffie x

 

[wildechild_01]

So where is the of the Nem?

Couple of thoughts, you see those bubbles on your back wall, increase the flow to that area and they will disappear, also, you look like you have an excess of nitrates, check out the sand, probably time for a water change and/or run a nitrate remover

Seffie x

So funny story... i jsut went through all my tank pics and i dont have one of the nem, but i will get on that.

Regarding the bubble on the back wall: i have moved some things around and gotten a little more flow going, but i am hesitant to change it too much for fear the Nem will decide there is too much flow and start wandering around... so i may just slowly increase the flow over a week or two and keep an eye on the nem, who i must say looks terrible when expelling waste... was doing it this morning when i got up.. i came down looked at the tank and went OMG whats wrong with... oh wait... now its looking happy again.. today is feeding day... probably getting some squid today i think.

on the sand/nitrate front. The sand has slowly gotten worse and worse as i was having trouble with snails dying during acclimation and so i was hesitant to add other forms of CUC until i had that sorted out. I think it was a case of temperature... i was placing the bags in a container on the floor and dripping into them letting the bag overflow into the container... usually a fairly long/slow drip anywhere between 1 and 2 hrs most of the time... then one day i felt the water compared to the tank and went.. OMG they are really really really really cold... i mean if i can feel the temperature difference then its rather signifigant.. so then i tried floating the bag in the sump while dripping... this means i need to pay a little more attention so i can remove some of the water rather than just letting it overflow out of bag, but this seemed to work, so now i am building my CUC up. I

Ok so back to the Nitrates.... both my API and Salifert test kits (purchased in Jan this year) give me readings of 0.... now this is something that i feel is very close to a chemical impossibility given that there are fish in the tank.

Ammonia, nitrIte, and Nitrates all read 0....
phosphates read at .025 (im not sure what an acceptable level is on these obviously 0 is ideal) but figure a level this low isn't too bad since all the corals seem to be doing well and from what i have read that wouldn't be the case with high phosphate levels. anyway i am probably making a FS trip today for some more snails and maybe a starfish of some sort.. i would say sand sifting, but to be honest im not a fan of them.. so maybe a Brittle star or 2? i dunno for sure at the moment... anyway, i am taking a decent sized sample of water in and am going to have them test it for everything that they can. I am also going to do another round of tests on my end and take the results in with me to compare, hopefully i can figure out whats going on.....

Learning is Fun right???

On a side note: I Drank WAY Too much last night

 

[wildechild_01]

PLease forgive the disastrous back of the tank, its a work in progress and the algae has started peeling off.. haha....

Ok so here is a pic of the nem, with no flash, the lights had just come on and he (not sure why i say he, but i do) always stands up a little taller when they first come on

here is one with the flash

Unfortunately given the exact area he decided to settle, even when he does lay out, i can still see a fair bit of the outside of the body/foot... i don't really mind, mostly im happy he found a spot so quickly that he felt was suitable.

He has almost doubled in size since i got him, and the clowns seem to be eyeing him now and again but i have no idea if they are or not, would love for them to move in, but not sure what if anything i can do to encourage it... the nem had a pair of clowns living in it at the store.


As per my last post, i took a water sample to LRS (local Reef store) they only sell salty products and they aqua culture tons of corals.. they did a round of tests for me and their results matched mine, so... a little confused as to the snail situation.. although i have noticed that it is only Turbo snail species that seem to not survive the acclimation process..... Ideas?

Also looking at hatching BBS for live food for the tank, as well as starting pod culture.. i have a 10g tank i am thinking of throwing a divider in and using for the pods so i can have 2 cultures going....

Also i am off work for a week since i am switching employers and current/previous decided to let me go when i gave notice and i dont start with other till the 8th... so... yay research time?

well thats all for now, will try to start updating more frequently.

 

[wildechild_01]

Regarding the bubble on the back wall: i have moved some things around and gotten a little more flow going, but i am hesitant to change it too much for fear the Nem will decide there is too much flow and start wandering around... so i may just slowly increase the flow over a week or two and keep an eye on the nem, who i must say looks terrible when expelling waste... was doing it this morning when i got up.. i came down looked at the tank and went OMG whats wrong with... oh wait... now its looking happy again.. today is feeding day... probably getting some squid today i think.

well, Nem is now on the bottom of the tank, in a very different place, i have turned off my vortech for the time being to avoid hurting the nem while it finds a new spot, if it doesn't move by morning i will turn it back on.. i run it surprisingly low because wow can it move water.

anyway, just thought id post the update.

 

[wildechild_01]

Well,

Nem seems to have picked a new spot and the clowns while not in it yet seem to be showing some interest, ive been looking all over for things i can do to encourage them to host and people seem to have actually had luck with the sticking a picture of clowns hosting on the side of the tank so i may give that a go.

 

[wildechild_01]

Ummmm.....................................................................................

i mean seriously, why would it do that