Afraid of the unknown

[iamborg]

Hi all,

I just begin to cycle my SW nano 12G Cadlights AIO 2 days ago, and since then I have been

"terrified" and "excited" with my new aquarium.

 

Terrified because I dont know what is growing on the LR, or what is hiding in the pores of the LR.

How do I know that none of these is poisonous, or will any of them bite. For example, I found some

"coral" that moved. It moved from hole inside the LR to the top of the LR and attached itself there.

I literally see it packed up and moved. I posted the pick in the ID section and all I got was some sort

of aneomes. Is it good? or bad? Should i juice it?

 

There are probably many billions of creatures in the oceans, how do we know that we are not

introducing any strange creature to our home?

 

Excited because I am new to SW. I already captured 2 crabs, 1 mantis shrimp. I also saw a couple of

star fish which I left in the tank. There seems to be some "worm" that pops in and out of the rock,

and some "fan" shaped thing that contracts into the hole everything it senses movement.

 

Just some thought from a newbie SWer. Happy new year.

[Lalani]

Don't panic!

Most hitchhikers are good, imo. Just post pics of things here and we can ID them for you.

Pic on the left looks like a zoa polyp and on the right.... not sure. What does it look like in the water?

[iamborg]

Actually both are the same creature or coral.

Picture on the left is when it was packed and on the move and when I took it out of water, and the pic on the right, when it stopped and begin to open up in the water. When I shine a light at it, the "head" will move to the light.

[BKtomodachi]

Just leave it be and let nature take its course.

Nothing to be afraid of.

 

[sark76]

They do make gloves for tanks if your really scared, I personally have to wear them because I have Plauqe Psorisis with open wounds on my hands.

 

I'm new to this hobby too...i've been at it for 4 months or so. If you are terrified of things dying, thats a problem...I don't think anyone new to this hobby has a 100% survival rate. I've killed 2 poor fish already, its gonna happen, I think its just part of the learning curve. Be wary of things dying, you don't have to like it...but if it terrifies you or puts you though emotional stress, i dont know how you could ever really enjoy the hobby. Thats just my feelings anyway. You can't listen to everybody cause you can ask 10 different people a question and you will get 6 different answers. I even hear radicaly different opinions from different LFS. So i wouldnt worry too much about mistakes no matter how much reseach you do, something will probablly go wrong. Research is great (especially here) but I think something just come with failure as was my first experience acclimating a fish. Now that I failed at it, I'm better prepared each time i do it. Less scared = more fun IMO.

 

BTW 4 months later and i still see new creatures coming out of the live rock. I think there is much more good things that can come out of LR than bad. Hey at least your pics don't show apitasia like my rock had. That picture doesn't look like a mantis shirmp to me anyway. Like i said before though I'm still pretty green. I've heard that you can hear an audible clicking sounds from inside the rocks if you have mantis shrimp. I think i do see amphipod and the starfish you talking about (i can't see it) might be altreal(sp?) starfish...i had a few of them. BTW could the worm be a bristol worm?

[StevieT]

I am scared daily of my tank

[thebrainbot]

Yup... Gloves!

 

Those are what you should try to get. I'd recommend wearing gloves if you have to put your hand in the tank. While most fish for nano tanks won't bite you, you would really want to avoid getting stung by a coral or scraping your hand on LR and getting an infection.

 

I think someone on here had a pic of someone who had gotten an extremely bad infection from putting his hand in the tank. Anyway, SW annoys my skin so I wear gloves when doing anything in the tank.