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Innovative Marine Aquariums

Man o' War!


Nate Dawg

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carbon-mantis
I thought studies have shown not to use vinegar on man o' war stings cuz it's a different family vs jelly fish.

 

But I dunno... IMO carbon-mantis has like the most useful signature ever and I scramble to find his posts when I'm looking for something so who am I to question ;)

 

I was thinking for a second that their stings were similar, so scratch out the idea about vinegar. Apparently it works the opposite way on Man O' War stinging cells, and causes them to fire off even more :(

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Any jellies you find at the beach are receiving a favor to live their last few days in captivity. They all end up dying on the beach anyway. Its not like I pulled it off a dock or something. It was laying a few meters away from the water.

 

I found another one twice as big, but I didn't want to take it back to the hotel because I don't have a tank big enough.

 

ALSO...

I caught a lobed comb jelly on the beach a few hours later! It has a large hole in its bell. I'm working on writing the post now.

 

3 Jellies on the beach in one day! Sorry, I get really excited, I live in New Mexico and finding sea creatures is like being at Santa's workshop.

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Don't use Image Shack again

 

Thanks! I almost forgot.

 

feed it fish.

You say I need to feed it fish? Silersides? Should I do zooplankton also? I can't do artemia naups 'cause I'm on vacation but I can buy some frozen at the LFS here. What do I need to feed it?

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brandolando4

When I used to live in Hawaii and see them all the time they always had fish tangled in their tentacles!!

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Its beyond me why someone would want a jelly fish in thier tank. Esspecailly a mow. But to each his own. When(not if) you get stung take some pics and post them.

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you're insane. Let it go back to the sea.

 

My husband said they get called blue bottles where he lived in south africa. they have a sting but there was a grass or a plant on the shore that people would apply to the sting. Paul said it worked well. I will query him about it later. He just left for work.

 

Admittedly it's a beautiful blue.

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Where you vacationing at, did you get that off the gulf of mexico.

Yep!

 

you're insane. Let it go back to the sea.

 

I'm sorry. I would but there's no place I can let it go. There's little children at the beach so I'm not going to just throw it back. And the beach stretches for like 100 miles here and I'm right in the center.

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Monochrome5

You know that MOWs get over 50 meters long, yeah? That's gonna be one tall tank if you get it to live...

 

Anyway, as this is my area of research in the lab, maybe I can help? Low flow is key with these guys. They move by using their pneumatophore as a sail (the bubble thing on top). Their diet consists heavily of fish. Studies have shown that a 2 meter MOW can eat up to 40 pounds of fish a day (or more), so I hope you're prepared to feed it a lot. The reason it needs so much is because it is a colonial syphonophore, a collection of animal polyps rather than one single animal. Every polyp needs food :) They will also filter feed plankton, though they cannot live off of plankton alone. Basically if it sticks to the feeders, they'll eat it haha. Be careful of the tentacles - enough stings can be fatal.

 

Most attempts to keep them in captivity end in failure. They require so much food that it quickly fouls the water, even under the heaviest filtration systems. They, like most inverts, are horribly intolerant to bad water params and usually succumb to ammonia poisoning. If memory serves me, Monterey Bay Aquarium had one for a few months, but it eventually died. You need some serious hardware to keep one alive for more than a few days.

 

As someone else said, these things are nowhere near endangered (they're actually experiencing rapid population growth right now due to warmer water temps around the globe). Letting it live out it's last few days in a tank keeps people from getting stung by stepping on it on the beach, and who knows - maybe this will lead to a discovery for keeping them alive in captivity :)

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very cool looking jelly but very hard to keep alive... but i agree with Monochrome5 better to keep it off the beach and in your tank, some little kid mite step on it and die from and allergic reaction from its sting!

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gulfsurfer101

Nate, if you want to find some really cool stuff, go out past where the middle waves are breaking and with a fine mesh net scoop up some of that brown sargassum seaweed that will floating by rolling in the waves and fill it into a 5g bucket. On land have a container with beach water in it and shake out the seaweed over and watch all kinds of pipefish, anglers, nudibranches, even seahoarses on occasion along with small crabs and fish fall right out of the seaweed. I use this stuff to feed my live food only species and it is pretty cool to see all the stuff you find. Just yesterday I found a few blennies, sargassum angler, a few tiny crabs, and small shrimp to feed my dwarf octo.

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Nate, if you want to find some really cool stuff, go out past where the middle waves are breaking and with a fine mesh net scoop up some of that brown sargassum seaweed that will floating by rolling in the waves and fill it into a 5g bucket. On land have a container with beach water in it and shake out the seaweed over and watch all kinds of pipefish, anglers, nudibranches, even seahoarses on occasion along with small crabs and fish fall right out of the seaweed. I use this stuff to feed my live food only species and it is pretty cool to see all the stuff you find. Just yesterday I found a few blennies, sargassum angler, a few tiny crabs, and small shrimp to feed my dwarf octo.

 

really? I'll have to try that today; its my last day in florida! =(

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gulfsurfer101

Oh that's too bad. Things are just now returning to the gulf on the texas coast as well. I give it about another month before things start to pick up as to what you can find out there. Once the water heats up a bit more things really start to take off. How'd the MOW fair the long trip home.

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