msscha Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 This was the first time I have ordered online -- my lfs just isn't taking care of things the way I want and I was looking for CUC that I knew would be Florida-friendly. My order arrived within two days; it was delivered directly to the house -- I was expecting the post office, and called the post office, so was a bit worried when it wasn't there. Came home to find the box sitting in the package drop box, which is shaded! Because my tank is at work and it would be several hours before I went there again, I opened the packages and added about a cup of fresh salt water to each (I'd just purchased it, so yeah!). Almost immediately, some of the snails started moving. This morning, I temperature acclimated them for 15 minutes, then added them all to the tank. Within two minutes, at least half of the dwarf ceriths were up and moving around. Next, the nerites started moving. The larger Florida ceriths have shifted only a little, but since I have a hitchhiker, I am familiar with this. And as a bonus, there was a tiny hermit crab in the mix! I have a few extra shells in the tank, though they are quite large for it. I won't worry about it for now. Pics below show bags + amounts, and some pics of moving, quite alive critters. (fyi: ordered the 10 gal package) Snails in Bags Snail Party! Bonus Hermit (not sure what type) Link to comment
eddiecorrea Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 John is the man. Always hooking people up. Link to comment
johnmaloney Posted October 18, 2012 Share Posted October 18, 2012 Thank you much! The crab is a P. maclaughinae, (reasonably close spelling) Link to comment
msscha Posted October 19, 2012 Author Share Posted October 19, 2012 Thank you much! The crab is a P. maclaughinae, (reasonably close spelling) Lol! I've established that "P." stands for Paguristes, but I can't find a picture of that particular species, attributed to Martinez-Iglesias & Gomez, 1989 -- perhaps named after Patti McLaughlin, who's been extensively cited in connection with marine hermit crabs! Aaah, the internet. I did find another picture of one, but it was identified as a "common marine hermit crab"! It certainly moved faster than I was expecting and was clearly enjoying the algae-infested LR ! I'm curious about the nassarius -- the one I have in the tank is white, but these are darker shelled, though the body look the same. Just different species or phenotypic variation? Originally, I had two nassarius, and before the one died, the two deposited eggs on the glass quite regularly. I wonder if this mix will add some more plankton to the system?! Link to comment
johnmaloney Posted October 22, 2012 Share Posted October 22, 2012 should be someone on NR with a picture if you do a google search here Link to comment
R1_ERIC Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 just ordered 30 breeder kit from john . im sure it will be great Link to comment
ny300z Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 hell yea John at reef cleaners is great. got my rock and 20L cuc from him. I have about 40 total snails in my 20L and still had to put about 50 extra in my nano. i got snails everywhere Link to comment
Mstefa1 Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 This was the first time I have ordered online -- my lfs just isn't taking care of things the way I want and I was looking for CUC that I knew would be Florida-friendly. My order arrived within two days; it was delivered directly to the house -- I was expecting the post office, and called the post office, so was a bit worried when it wasn't there. Came home to find the box sitting in the package drop box, which is shaded! Because my tank is at work and it would be several hours before I went there again, I opened the packages and added about a cup of fresh salt water to each (I'd just purchased it, so yeah!). Almost immediately, some of the snails started moving. This morning, I temperature acclimated them for 15 minutes, then added them all to the tank. Within two minutes, at least half of the dwarf ceriths were up and moving around. Next, the nerites started moving. The larger Florida ceriths have shifted only a little, but since I have a hitchhiker, I am familiar with this. And as a bonus, there was a tiny hermit crab in the mix! I have a few extra shells in the tank, though they are quite large for it. I won't worry about it for now. Pics below show bags + amounts, and some pics of moving, quite alive critters. (fyi: ordered the 10 gal package) Snails in Bags Snail Party! Bonus Hermit (not sure what type) I'm glad you followed the ReefCleaners.org Aclimation process! Link to comment
dormreefer Posted October 24, 2012 Share Posted October 24, 2012 I couldn't help but see you lived in Gainesville. I feel for you man, my girlfriend goes to UF and I make the trip up for weekends quite often. I decided one Sunday to head out and see the LFS up there. I believe the place I found was Aquatropics? It was a dump. Literally a mess all over the place, incompatible fish crammed in old tanks and the show tanks were straight fails. Are there any other decent stores up there? I presume otherwise in future you'd have to buy everything online? Link to comment
msscha Posted October 26, 2012 Author Share Posted October 26, 2012 I couldn't help but see you lived in Gainesville. I feel for you man, my girlfriend goes to UF and I make the trip up for weekends quite often. I decided one Sunday to head out and see the LFS up there. I believe the place I found was Aquatropics? It was a dump. Literally a mess all over the place, incompatible fish crammed in old tanks and the show tanks were straight fails. Are there any other decent stores up there? I presume otherwise in future you'd have to buy everything online? Interestingly, I shopped at aquatropics for 20 years when I kept only freshwater tanks. For saltwater, I was introduced to Ocean Exotics, and that was my lfs when I started my tank. It has changed owners, though, and I've been less confident about the new owner. He's looking to move the shop to a new storefront, since the current location is in a business park, meaning no walk-in business at all. Not sure that walk-in is necessarily a good thing for saltwater, but it makes better business sense. The former owners are still in the business, but mostly in maintenance and big set ups. They are tossing around the idea of re-opening a store front, but haven't made the commitment...for the time being, they'll take orders for specific stock, but that won't work for someone coming in out of town . Since my tank is fully stocked, I don't need to buy livestock, and instead, will be moving onto the "how do I frag this stuff?" stage of development! I do think there is an advantage to shopping online -- definitely cuts down on impulse buying! Link to comment
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