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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Today's Experiment


MrAnderson

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good read, very informative, thanks for the link.

 

no problem - thanks (really) for scaring me - it made me look stuff up besides pretty pictures!!

 

also thanks for the interest diane and needreeffunds!

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Trimma cana. get 2

 

hmmm.... NONONO! NO FISH!

 

I THOUGHT YOU FOUND THE SPECIES OF WIERDO I HAD IN MY TANK!

 

WHY ARE PEOPLE WHISPERING?? T.G.I.C.L.F.!!!!!!

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WHAT PART OF NY ARE YOU FROM? MY FIANCE'S SISTER LIVES IN MANHATTAN. THE NEXT TIME WE HEAD THAT WAY TO VISIT I'LL HAVE TO BRING YOU SOME FRAGS IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU WANT FROM MY TANK IF ITS NOT TOO FAR.

 

EDIT: FOR TEH CAPS.

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WHAT PART OF NY ARE YOU FROM? MY FIANCE'S SISTER LIVES IN MANHATTAN. THE NEXT TIME WE HEAD THAT WAY TO VISIT I'LL HAVE TO BRING YOU SOME FRAGS IF THERE'S ANYTHING YOU WANT FROM MY TANK IF ITS NOT TOO FAR.

 

EDIT: FOR TEH CAPS.

DON'T BOTHER.... APPARENTLY MR. A THINKS IT'S WEIRD TO MEET OTHER N-R MEMBERS WHEN VISITING ANOTHER CITY. JUST ASK HIM ABOUT CHICAGO.

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I JUST DIDN'T HAVE TIME!!!1!! I WAS ONLY THERE FOR A FEW DAYS! NEXT TIME, I SWEAR!

 

anyhow, *puff puff*, i can only yell so much... lemme catch my breath...

 

OMG THANK YOU VIC THAT'S SO NICE!!

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YOUR AQUASCAPE = 4 ROCKS

 

actually 5, but who's counting.

 

REEFAPPRENTICE ARE YOU TRYING TO START SOMETHING??!

 

lol, i keed, i keed. thank you!

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already puts most tanks to shame. From all I've read and heard that's incredible to keep so much on the rocks alive through shipping. I think you've stumbled on a crucial update to the cycling process if it works out; letting it cycle with all the die-off in the tank has never seemed to make sense to me when using LR. Nice job

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already puts most tanks to shame. From all I've read and heard that's incredible to keep so much on the rocks alive through shipping. I think you've stumbled on a crucial update to the cycling process if it works out; letting it cycle with all the die-off in the tank has never seemed to make sense to me when using LR. Nice job

 

jeez braskey, thank you so much for the kind words! :blush:

 

allowing the ammonia to spike just didn't make sense to me either, especially if one takes a few considerations into mind.

 

first, if the goal is to achieve a steady state level of nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria, then it would make sense to try to get as close to the equilibrated state as soon as possible, even if it's artificially induced in the beginning. so assuming the bacteria for both is already present on/in the natural rock then one actually does not want them to grow in numbers to have to deal with the artificially high ammonia and nitrite levels seen during an old-fashioned cure. why? because once the die-off is done, you have exponentially high levels of bacteria with no nutrient source, leading to more die off - it's a self-fueling cycle, spiking and dropping over weeks until it finally equilibrates.

 

second, what exactly is the goal? if it's strictly an equilibrated water column, then it doesn't matter what course you take. the nitrogen cycle is ubiquitous and unstoppable. it occurs in the soil in your yard, in the lakes out in the sticks, in the ocean, anywhere ammonia is found, and this nitrogenous waste is found everywhere. so no matter what you do to your tank, it will eventually equilibrate. read "eventually" with a grain of salt, because if you have rotting crap in the tank it will take longer, but eventually it will get there. a tank simply can't not cycle.

 

third, keeping in mind exactly what the goal is, live rock is home to a lot of life. is the goal to keep it all alive? for me it is, so i gave it a happy, nice clean home from the start. that means trying to keep the ammonia low from the start. because the nitrogen cycle bacteria is ubiquitous and found everywhere, including the live rock coming through the mail, you simply do not need to expand this population. It's already there!

 

third, one should look at the bacteria themselves as living inhabitants of the tank. what does this mean? not stressing them, not allowing them to outgrow their habitat and food source, even acclimating them. letting ammonia build up may make nitrifying bacteria happy, but everything else suffers in that environment, meaning denitrifying bacteria too. allowing ammonia to spike throws everything off-balance. once off balance, it stays off balance for a while.

 

most importantly in this context was that i was able to get very good quality live rock. thanks to premium aquatics for all the special care they take to obtain their rock - they take a lot of steps to insure as little die-off as possible, and without that as a starting medium, i couldn't try this approach at all.

 

anyhow, these are my thoughts while setting up this tank. i'm really glad that people are "getting it"!

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Perfectly logical to me.

 

But you know some of the "reasoning" behind the more traditional route...people have this idea that if they get this huge ammonia spike, they are going to have this huge capacity for bioload right off the bat, ie "I can fill this baby up with fish!"

 

DOH!

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yeah but the problem with that is that everyone waits till everything reaches zero to put the fish in. the tank equilibrates back to it's steady-state level of nutrient cycling - of an empty tank. they may have been approaching the capacity for fish somewhere during their cycle, but once everything reaches zero the bacteria have mostly died off - it's not like the masses of bacteria can stick around without nutrients waiting for fish pee to come along. that's why once a fish gets introduced, you usually get another spike - everything needs grow back up to meet the new capacity - and re-equilibrate, stressing everything else in the tank once again, and stressing the fish too.

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OK!

 

so far, the Sinularia has grown substantially, and the polyps extend farther than they are wide. in some places, you can't even tell where the coenenchyme is. they look like a little forest of trees.

 

despite running my skimmer 24/7 which would remove particulate organics and microorganisms (read:food), the sea apple is looking better than before. it extends is mouth/tentacles much farther than in the earlier pic. it also has a really neat bright orange mouth. it looks like a little flower, actually.

 

one thing i keep waiting for is diatoms or algae. i had a very small diatom bloom, but only near the supply outlet against the glass about a week ago, you can see it on the right side of the tank in my last full tank shot. but it was gone in a day or two and now there's nothing. same for algae, but i attribute that to water changes. all n-cycle params have been zero so far, but i've been doing 50% water changes every 5-7 days to keep phosphates down.

 

the Halimeda is growing fairly nicely as well.

 

one thing that i'm doing which is also a bit of prophylaxis is keeping my photoperiods short (6-8 hrs), and only using a single 18W 6.7/10K, instead of also turning on the dual actinic for a total of 36W. my fear of algae is one obvious reason, but the other is that when i've left the full 36W on all day (10-12 hrs) the coraline loses color and gets "bleached" looking. luckily it recovers when i back off on the lighting, and the velvet red has regrown to fill in some white areas where it had receded.

 

to illustrate the pic of the velvet red area about a week ago:

 

DSC000382.jpg

 

the white areas in the center of the mainly red area are all filled back in now. you can also see the "bleaching on the pink/purple coraline in the left background. that's fixed as well.

 

so far, so good. i think i'm going to try to add a coral soon!

 

can anyone recommend a small reef safe crab? i'd like to add some critters besides snails and i don't want to add a large bioload. something that stays small would be nice.

 

thanks for the interest!

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Pom-Poms are a great addition although I must say I do not see mine very much. Usually only when I turn the pumps off at "sunset" (actinics only) and feed the coral with pumps off for 20 minutes or so. Then I see him out and about picking things up to eat, and sweeping his nems across the substrate to feed them. What a cool critter though, keep in mind that they are normally Hawaiian and if your looking to keep your tank Fiji well..................

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The Propagator

No carapace crabs. Stick to Hermits. NEVER trust a crab in your reef. ( other than an acro crab, or anemone)

I wouldn't put a pomp pomp crab in my tank either. Potential mobile death on its claws for everything it

touches :(

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leaning toward sea apple:

 

SeaApplethumb.jpg

 

the body has longitudinal rows of "feet", and although the... thing... in my tank has longitudinal ridges (more obvious in the part that comes out in the pic), i can't tell if they're actually "feet". additionally, according to an article i read by Toonen, the feet are always yellow. however, mine seems to be coated in reef detritus, which not only covers the feet making coloration hard to discern, but also seems strange since all pics of sea apples i've seen have nice smooth bodies. the good news is that they don't get bigger than 4" apparently.

 

we'll see!

 

I have keep one before.

Its kinda cheap $5.I gave it away after 3 months or so.

Its starting to creep me out.

-_-

Its hardy actually and is not stupid enough to move near powerheads.

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holy crap. disaster narrowly averted.

 

i did a water change the night before last, and as i was putting drops on the refractometner i was called away from the tank for about 15 min. i came back, read it, and it was PERFECT, 1.025. ok, cool.

 

so i get the water up to temp and do the change. suddenly, the Sinularia looks terrible, and the skimmer is making no bubbles. i'm like wtf, and check the salinity of the tank first.

 

OMFG 1.013. PANIC.

 

i literally RUN and get the salt and distilled, pour a buttload into the pail with a gallon, mix it for2 or 3 minutes get it to aver 1.040, and start pouring it in a bit at a time. i got it back to 1.025 within about 10 minutes, figuring that correcting osmotic shock rapidly is the right course of action.

 

next day, most everything looks ok. snails, coral, Halimeda, even the sea apple. the only "injury" seems to be on the purple coraline, it has bleached slightly as if the lights had been on for 14 hours full intensity. i THINK it's recovering, and it's only the purple in spots. so i think everything is ok.

 

scary.

 

i've gotten some PhytoMax concentrated phytoplankton for the sea apple - it's been out quite a bit more lately. i hope it's a happy home for it!

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Ive always liked those yellow cucumbers, C. robustus or the rainbow looking varieties. You think their care is similar? Kinda scared about the toxin thing on them as well

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Calfo and Fenner, in Reef Invertebrates, devote several pages to Holothuroids. I'd highly recommend taking a look at their discussion sometime, but meanwhile here is a relevant excerpt (p 310):

 

"The legend of Holothuroid toxicity in aquarium kept specimens is a matter much in need of perspective. First and foremost, a few popular species of Cucumarids commonly known as Sea Apples are indeed potently toxic [italics and boldness from the book] and potentially fatal to fishes in mixed marine aquariums. However, the overwhelming majority of Holothurids (Sea Cucumbers) seen in the aquarium trade present no significant if at all measurable risk of toxicity with reasonable aquarium husbandry. They present no greater danger than the keeping of many other discreetly potent invertebrates like sponges or zoantharians...Aquarists will easily recognize the few significantly dangerous species as colorful Sea Apples or Violet Sea Cucumbers. Aside from these Pseudocolochirus and like species, most sea cucumbers are less toxic than many popular fishes, corals or other invertebrates..."

 

(Note, however, that they do go on to imply that all zoanthids contain palytoxin, a premise I believe to be largely debunked by now...)

 

Of Colchirus robustus they say:

 

"A delightfully attractive species that has proven durable in captivity and frequently reproduces asexually by simple fission...This filter-feeder moves and demands little beyond good water flow and a source of plankton. Mature aquariums with fishless refugiums to generate plankton are highly recommended for long-term success with this species." (p 310, picture caption)

 

Of other Cucumarids, they say:

 

"...Please note as further evidence that such toxins are specialized to reduce predation by fishes...Nearly all toxic events can be prevented through sensible system designs and responsible husbandry: compatible tankmates, good water quality, guarded pump intakes, etcetera. It is very important to note that if a Cucumarid is ultimately stimulated to exude toxin, all fishes in the sysstem are at risk of sudden death."

 

FWIW,

 

Diane

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