MrObscura Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 I like twizzlers, might add some to my tank st some point. 1 Quote Link to comment
Griever Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 On 1/27/2019 at 6:39 PM, Griever said: I just got a frag of these today as well, can't wait till I've got that many! Definitely one of my favorites. Aaaand it melted. The only one of 5 new zoa additions that did... 😭 1 Quote Link to comment
StinkyBunny Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 2 minutes ago, Griever said: Aaaand it melted. The only one of 5 new zoa additions that did... 😭 What are your parameters? Mine do best in the swamp tanks, those with 15ish nitrates and .05 phosphates. Everyone that has issues with them seems to have super clean tanks. Quote Link to comment
michaelbarfield Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 I dont even have any corals yet and you could start your own store!!!!! So lucky.... Quote Link to comment
Griever Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 24 minutes ago, StinkyBunny said: What are your parameters? Mine do best in the swamp tanks, those with 15ish nitrates and .05 phosphates. Everyone that has issues with them seems to have super clean tanks. Nah wasn't parameters, it was a rogue asterina starfish. Caught it in the act. Must have been eating some of the algae near the base of the single polyp and damaged the polyp as collateral damage. I blew it off as soon as I saw it, but the damage was already done. First time something's been bothered by them in my tank. 1 Quote Link to comment
StinkyBunny Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 14 minutes ago, michaelbarfield said: I dont even have any corals yet and you could start your own store!!!!! So lucky.... Take your time, nothing good happens fast in a reef tank. 2 minutes ago, Griever said: Nah wasn't parameters, it was a rogue asterina starfish. Caught it in the act. Must have been eating some of the algae near the base of the single polyp and damaged the polyp as collateral damage. I blew it off as soon as I saw it, but the damage was already done. First time something's been bothered by them in my tank. Are you sure? I have them in a lot of my grow out runs and have never had an issue with them. They got to the point in 3 that I brought in 5 pairs of Bumblebee shrimp to lower the population. I know there are 2-3 species, maybe I've lucked out and gotten the good algae eating ones. 1 Quote Link to comment
Griever Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 Just now, StinkyBunny said: Take your time, nothing good happens fast in a reef tank. Are you sure? I have them in a lot of my grow out runs and have never had an issue with them. They got to the point in 3 that I brought in 5 pairs of Bumblebee shrimp to lower the population. I know there are 2-3 species, maybe I've lucked out and gotten the good algae eating ones. Yeah positive. It wasn't centered on the polyp, so I don't think it was trying to eat the coral, just an unfortunate case of collateral damage. The polyp was fine beforehand, and after I blew away the starfish with a baster, the poylp was noticably damaged. Like I said this is the first time they've bothered anything in the tank. Just unfortunate circumstances I suppose. I'm definitely keeping an eye on my other Zoas for now. If I see anymore starfish hurting polyps and it'll be time for some starfish eating shrimps. 2 Quote Link to comment
Tamberav Posted February 2, 2019 Share Posted February 2, 2019 44 minutes ago, StinkyBunny said: What are your parameters? Mine do best in the swamp tanks, those with 15ish nitrates and .05 phosphates. Everyone that has issues with them seems to have super clean tanks. Ya zoa's are so-so for me. I wish I could get 15 nitrates in the softy/LPS tank. They did great in my 1st reef years ago because it was more dirty... the days we used to jam rubble in our back chambers, ect. 2 Quote Link to comment
HookedOnAquariums Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 1 hour ago, StinkyBunny said: Take your time, nothing good happens fast in a reef tank. Are you sure? I have them in a lot of my grow out runs and have never had an issue with them. They got to the point in 3 that I brought in 5 pairs of Bumblebee shrimp to lower the population. I know there are 2-3 species, maybe I've lucked out and gotten the good algae eating ones. There’s quite a bit more than 3 speiceis. There’s hundreds but only about 5 percent eat corals. And most only eat zoas. 2 Quote Link to comment
Tamberav Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 I had one type that definitely ate zoas, they were browish/tan, and then I had little white and grey ones that only eat algae. I removed the zoa eaters manually. Luckily they are easy to catch 😛 I love the algae eating ones. They seem to do a good job cleaning. 2 Quote Link to comment
StinkyBunny Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 4 hours ago, HookedOnAquariums said: There’s quite a bit more than 3 speiceis. There’s hundreds but only about 5 percent eat corals. And most only eat zoas. I thought I read that here were only 3 species, but I was wrong. We used to get them in on wild collected Fiji rock all the time, them and little tiny white urchins. The urchins stay about 3cm and aren't bulldozers like their larger kin folk. I was not aware that there was one that ate zoanthids. 1 Quote Link to comment
ninjamyst Posted February 3, 2019 Share Posted February 3, 2019 nice trade! i am slowly building up my zoa collection too. trying to get a pink diamond for cheap.... 1 Quote Link to comment
DaveFason Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Keep your head up. The AEFW suck but with a small tank like this it should be easy to locate the issue quickly. 1 Quote Link to comment
JBM Posted February 4, 2019 Share Posted February 4, 2019 Good luck with the aefw. Im sure you will be victorious. 1 Quote Link to comment
teenyreef Posted February 25, 2019 Author Share Posted February 25, 2019 The AEFW war seems to be going well. I've done six weekly dips now, alternating between Bayer one week and Melafix the next. I replugged all the frags with visible damage after cutting off the damaged bases. Since I can remove all the acros from the tank for the dips I haven't set up a quarantine tank. There's been no sign of the AEFW since the first dip, and all the frags have survived the dips, although they've turned brown. One more week, and then I'll stop dipping and wait to make sure they don't come back. 3 Quote Link to comment
teenyreef Posted July 1, 2019 Author Share Posted July 1, 2019 I've been crazy busy with work and family, but here's a long-awaited update 🙂 The tank is doing well overall. I think I've beaten the AEFW, although I need to do a test dip just to make sure nothing comes off anymore. The biggest problem I have now is aiptasia multiplying rapidly all over the tank. I've given up on using Aiptasia-RX and similar methods because it just seems to result in even more popping up all over. I've put in some berghia nudibranchs, but it's only been a couple weeks and it's too early to tell if they're doing anything, or if they're even alive. I also picked up a baby filefish, so we'll see if he can do anything without starting to eat corals too. I haven't been selling any frags since I got the AEFW and then had so many aiptasia, just because I don't want to risk passing on pests. Once I get rid of the aiptasia I'll be back in the sharing business! I've had some alk spikes, I think due to heavy use of Aiptasia RX, all the way up to 11. It happened slowly enough that nothing bad happened, but I did have some corals brown out at the same time, so it may be related. I've been slowly bringing it back down, and it was about 9.5 last time I checked. I also did some major maintence by pulling some of the egg crate and scraping the coralline algae off the bottom glass. I soaked the egg crate in bleach, and then in vinegar, to clean them off, then put everything back in. It looks much better now! I've been doing some zoa trading with a local collector over the past few months. I haven't really done anything with the new ones yet, I've just been letting them grow over their plugs for now. 2019-06-28 DB30 FTS: 2019-06-28 DB30 Top Down: 7 Quote Link to comment
jack1978 Posted July 1, 2019 Share Posted July 1, 2019 1 hour ago, teenyreef said: I've been crazy busy with work and family, but here's a long-awaited update 🙂 The tank is doing well overall. I think I've beaten the AEFW, although I need to do a test dip just to make sure nothing comes off anymore. The biggest problem I have now is aiptasia multiplying rapidly all over the tank. I've given up on using Aiptasia-RX and similar methods because it just seems to result in even more popping up all over. I've put in some berghia nudibranchs, but it's only been a couple weeks and it's too early to tell if they're doing anything, or if they're even alive. I also picked up a baby filefish, so we'll see if he can do anything without starting to eat corals too. I haven't been selling any frags since I got the AEFW and then had so many aiptasia, just because I don't want to risk passing on pests. Once I get rid of the aiptasia I'll be back in the sharing business! I've had some alk spikes, I think due to heavy use of Aiptasia RX, all the way up to 11. It happened slowly enough that nothing bad happened, but I did have some corals brown out at the same time, so it may be related. I've been slowly bringing it back down, and it was about 9.5 last time I checked. I also did some major maintence by pulling some of the egg crate and scraping the coralline algae off the bottom glass. I soaked the egg crate in bleach, and then in vinegar, to clean them off, then put everything back in. It looks much better now! I've been doing some zoa trading with a local collector over the past few months. I haven't really done anything with the new ones yet, I've just been letting them grow over their plugs for now. 2019-06-28 DB30 FTS: 2019-06-28 DB30 Top Down: Teeny..... glad you're not dead!! I did the berghies in my 40 years ago. Never saw them after the first night or two. Thought they became wrasse food. Fast forward about a month and I started seeing patches of rock through the AirAsia fields ...... a couple more weeks and they were out 24/7 and multiplying like rabbits. My tank was so bad the turbos had AirAsia growing on them. Within a couple of months I had hundreds of slugs and zero AirAsia....and they never came back. Love the berghies! 3 Quote Link to comment
spectra Posted July 2, 2019 Share Posted July 2, 2019 24 minutes ago, jack1978 said: Teeny..... glad you're not dead!! I did the berghies in my 40 years ago. Never saw them after the first night or two. Thought they became wrasse food. Fast forward about a month and I started seeing patches of rock through the AirAsia fields ...... a couple more weeks and they were out 24/7 and multiplying like rabbits. My tank was so bad the turbos had AirAsia growing on them. Within a couple of months I had hundreds of slugs and zero AirAsia....and they never came back. Love the berghies! WTF is airasia...........you flying the friendly skies 5 Quote Link to comment
jack1978 Posted July 2, 2019 Share Posted July 2, 2019 1 minute ago, spectra said: WTF is airasia...........you flying the friendly skies Damnit.......auto correct!! 1 Quote Link to comment
teenyreef Posted July 2, 2019 Author Share Posted July 2, 2019 Lol, I sure hope those berghia take care of the "airasia" soon 😂😒 4 Quote Link to comment
jack1978 Posted July 2, 2019 Share Posted July 2, 2019 1 hour ago, teenyreef said: Lol, I sure hope those berghia take care of the "airasia" soon 😂😒 Oh, they will. I actually started wishing I could keep a constant supply of AirAsias so I could keep the slugs around ..... they are awesome little assassins. 1 Quote Link to comment
teenyreef Posted October 3, 2019 Author Share Posted October 3, 2019 After several months, the combination of berghia and a small file fish have completely eliminated the aiptasia. Woo! 4 Quote Link to comment
teenyreef Posted April 26, 2020 Author Share Posted April 26, 2020 Long time, no update! The tank is still going strong but I've been struggling with various challenges - more aiptasia after the filefish jumped out, high nutrients due to lack of water changes which led to algae problems, vermetid worms (since I lost Doug, the leopard toby puffer), and hydroids. I got another filefish last week for the aiptasia, and I also added a sixline wrasse to help with pests in general. I've increased water changes and I think things are headed in the right direction. I haven't been selling or trading any frags for the last six months since I don't want to share any problems with my friends I've been manually removing the hydroids (they mostly live on the zoas) and after reducing feeding and increasing water changes, they seem to be going away finally. Hopefully they'll continue to dwindle away. I don't have any algae problems any more, and I can live with vermetid worms. So here are a couple pictures so you judge for yourself how things are going! 2020-04-25 DB30 FTS: 2020-04-25 DB30 Top Down: 5 Quote Link to comment
debbeach13 Posted April 26, 2020 Share Posted April 26, 2020 That tank is stuffed! 1 Quote Link to comment
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