Peter's petite pair of picos

[castiel]

Kinda funny that it's a florida ricordea here in Australia =0)

 

Yeah the polyps do have a pretty pattern on them, just not brightly coloured.

 

And a gorgon? Will have to look that up!

 

So I tried that little pump in Ang's tank (given the need for high flow for the sponge/gorgon thing, and it works great! Tucks away quite neatly in the corner, the wire fits where a lid attachment goes (lid still opens and closes okay), and it's giving great surface agitation and flow around the tank! Definitely ordering two more of those.

 

In the tank (wow that tank is dirty!):

 

Surface agitation (you get the idea):

[lljdma06]

The new powerhead looks a lot like my rio 50s. Very cheap and pretty versitile (It's too early to spell).

[castiel]

Wow well the red tree gorgonian (which I think my research confirms) has its polyps open this morning! Very cool - I had read they can take up to a month to do that. Now I need to make sure we get it the right kind of food and look after it properly. Sounds like I chose one of the hardest things to keep, so I am determined to try and keep it well. Spot feeding a variety of foods including mysis, phtyo (which I have), etc.

[amiralisomji]

does the small pump you have in your hand not fit into the back chamber? looks pretty small so im just wondering if you chose not to put it in there or cause it wont fit?

[brandon429]

the algae is not a bonus its invasive, must remove

[DonnieP]

the algae is not a bonus its invasive, must remove

 

I agree Brandon, I have that crap in my 28g and it is a royal pain, can't hardly pull it off with tweezers. You need to get that stuff out now while you can, take the rock out and pull the stuff off with pliars, tweezers, whatever will work.

[jgpico]

Those polyps you got will look sweet once they color up. They are a people eater morphine, you can tell by the green mouths. Hopefully they color up. Lookin good man.

[castiel]

Pump - it would just about fit in the back chamber, but that would require me drilling a hole and I don't currently have the tools. Maybe at some point.

 

Thanks for the note about the algae, I'll remove that tonight. Luckily I haven't attached any of the rocks yet.

 

As for polyps, this is what it looked like this morning! Slightly blurry pic but you get the idea.

[lljdma06]

I agree Brandon, I have that crap in my 28g and it is a royal pain, can't hardly pull it off with tweezers. You need to get that stuff out now while you can, take the rock out and pull the stuff off with pliars, tweezers, whatever will work.

 

One man's pest is another man's treasure, what a lovely piece of ochtodes, if the id is correct! But I'm doing a planted marine, so I'm a little biased. One of the species I'm considering as I like the texture a lot.

 

It does grow fast, though, so if you don't want it to overun your system, I'd remove it.

[castiel]

Interesting. I have been considering adding a piece of macro algae or two ... so you think I should keep this, or at least see how it does?

[lljdma06]

Interesting. I have been considering adding a piece of macro algae or two ... so you think I should keep this, or at least see how it does?

 

If I were you, I'd opt for a macro algae that grows slower. If this is ochtodes, it'll overun the tank.

 

llj

 

The other possibility is that it could also be chondria, but this is also invasive.

[Builder Anthony]

I would keep that little red plant you have in there it will help filter out your tank.Its not like its hard to remove if it grows alot.

[lljdma06]

I would keep that little red plant you have in there it will help filter out your tank.Its not like its hard to remove if it grows alot.

 

Fair point as both species are good at nutrient uptake.

[DonnieP]

I would keep that little red plant you have in there it will help filter out your tank.Its not like its hard to remove if it grows alot.

 

NOT TRUE??, this stuff is impossible to remove, it puts down holdfasts into the rock crevaces and hangs on, nothing will eat it and its so tough you can hardly break a piece in two. I would opt for a decent macro like calerpa that can be removed, trust me on this one I have it in my 28g and have been trying to get rid of it for over a year. Check out the link below if ya don't believe me, I know what this stuff is and how hard it is to get rid of. Besides the only thing any algae does is bind up the nutients in its cells, the only way to get rid of these nutients is to remove some of the algae there by physically removing it from the tank but you aint gonna get rid of any of this stuff.

Red Turf Algae!

[castiel]

Sounds like the kind of thing I should remove, thanks for the links, Donnie. If this were in a larger tank, I would be tempted to keep it and 'see what happens', but in such a small space can't really afford for it to take over at all.

 

I'll just need to be careful not to damage the ricordea too much as it is on the same rock. Or I could even remove and rehome the ric, and remove the algae rock altogether ...

[brandon429]

peroxide is so powerful both ways will work.

 

its true I am a total biomass remover. I don't play with invasive organisms, cuz once you get a reef out to three years and then one of these infests every nook and cranny you'll kick yourself for entertaining the poor dinner guest.

 

but there are two factors in your favor giving you a wider range of handling it now that we know about post facto removal.

-the tank is new and not stored up for waste, the domination effect is worse in older tanks

-peroxide will beat any level of invasive plant organism even if you wait until its infested to treat, you just may have to redo it a time or two to kill all the holdfasts. There is no algae that can beat peroxide as a drain-tank spot treatment. <---a statement that could not be made last year. thats cool new peace of mind.

If that was my tank Id have already treated the algae, I wouldn't even remove it any other way but this is just my opinion. farm it if you want to at least its purple looking thats pretty neat.

[Woogalie]

Crazy how much life you has in your rock. I've been enjoying watching these tanks. I wish some stuff would come out of my new live rock... even if its just white #### lol

[castiel]

peroxide is so powerful both ways will work.

 

-peroxide will beat any level of invasive plant organism even if you wait until its infested to treat, you just may have to redo it a time or two to kill all the holdfasts. There is no algae that can beat peroxide as a drain-tank spot treatment.

So take the rock out, put peroxide on the affected area then scrape off? How quickly does it kill?

 

Again just worried about the ric on that rock ... don't want to damage or injure that.

 

Thanks

[brandon429]

its ok if you want to keep it for a while to see how it does. but yes if you wanted to treat it either fire or peroxide will work Ive done both. you keep peroxide out of your main tank if possible, so what I would do is remove the frag, tweeze, pull/scrub only the algae off in another container to remove most of the biomass.

 

then with your frag that only has whiskers left on it, you drip peroxide out of the medicine cabinet on the algae portion and let it sit for a minute. the ric will not be hurt by a minute exposure...you then rinse the frag in saltwater in another container and replace back into your tank. the whiskers/holdfasts will bleach and turn white within three days.

 

in another couple weeks you'll see a pop up whisker possibly, one more treatment and its likely gone for good in that spot. what I like to recommend is avoiding scraping or treating the pest in the main tank if at all possible.

 

I treat my actual tank with peroxide in the bad spots, when its drained for my weekly changes, but its safer to recommend external only treatments, peroxide is tough stuff. used as a spot treatment outside the tank, then well rinsed, its safe.

 

I used to also fire burn stuff like that. Using a blue jet flame lighter with a pinpoint spot is also easy, ive burnt every reef pest you can think of including zoanthids to a withered up shrivel of a pest.

no poisons, side effects etc and fire is a thorough way of stopping pest growth. the rock is usually too wet even upon being drained of water to conduct much heat. I use foil strips as heat shields, if I was burning octodes off I would tin foil block the ric and fire blast all the base of that algae.

 

fire or peroxide works equally. fire is probably safer for your overall ecosystem, but I use peroxide now because its super fast and effortless.

 

this stuff sounds crazy I know lol. its the opposite of a hands off/all natural approach that fails more than it succeeds. Much is to be said of tanks kept in careful balance where snails/crabs/water quality etc does all the algae restriction. its ok to strive for that in any combination you want to...just know that if any of it lets you down, an unnatural approach is a fine cheat to keep handy. ive used it to keep perfectly algae free pico reefs for a decade. the reason I don't just physically remove the growth (what grazers do) is because I don't want any regenerative parts of it left behind. fire and peroxide are abiotic measures that can be taken against hitchhikers/

[brandon429]

I didn't mention much about correcting water quality. thats because on an aggressive water change schedule no pico reef has water quality issues anyway. Most invasive algaes can be coaxed to grow in any tank, even with seemingly pure water, so striving for pure water is a waste of time although its a method some choose to use because dissolved nutrient is usually the reason we have algae.

 

try keeping a zero phosphate zero nitrate reef tank algae free while using 5 year old power compact or mh bulbs for example... algae will still find a way to grow if you don't keep bulbs fresh on certain lights. You can grow algae by tweaking one or more variables even in the face of great water quality so in having a 100% thorough removal method, water quality is not what determines algae loading in a tank. weekly water changes, fire and peroxide make invasive pests a non issue going forward in pico reef care...

[castiel]

Okay, so blowtorch it is! The rock is small and removable, so I will do this outside of the tank. Might even be able to setup in a bowl so that the ric stays in saltwater, protected by foil, while I blast the algae away.

 

I have the phosphate remover in this tank too, so I imagine the algae wouldn't do so well anyway?

 

I'll save the macro-algae experimentation for the larger tank I have in the plans.

 

Thanks

[brandon429]

maybe over time the phosphate remover would limit it who knows, thats hard to predict. thats part of the fun of farming it, its a guess until the test is ran. The after pic will be neat to see, same frag only no purple fuzz~any follow up treatments will be faster and easier after the bulk is gone.

[Builder Anthony]

I dont see what people get all crazy about plants for in tanks.Its evasive yada yada.Come on you cant just trim a small red peice of algae and are going to resort to blowtorching it?That probally wouldnt get rid of it anyways seeing its most likely growing in the rock.Same thing with peroxcide you have to probally soak the rock in there then your probally going to kill whatever else is soaking in it.And still theres a small chance of it coming back.So i guess if you want to do all this drama a few times and resc..........You know im done i dont care if people soak there rocks in oil or whatever....

[brandon429]

I promise anything I type is based on years of experience in typing./

 

 

 

people are free to go about their methods as they please. I track them as the years go by, theres not alot of wiggle room in sub three gallon pico design when they are aged... all the design differences converge by year 3 Ive seen so far. this little growth won't do much in the early phases of a tank because it can be removed so easily.

[castiel]

And the benefit of such a small tank is that you can try something, and if that doesn't work you can just remove the offending rock altogether.

 

We're talking here about a piece of rock the size of a walnut. So I will be blowtorching this little thing tonight and then monitoring. If it keeps regrowing, I'll just rehome the ric and throw the rock away. Of course there is a chance it will spread to surrounding rock, but I guess we'll see.

 

(by the way, just bought this little thing - looks perfect for the purpose)