You Should Be Jelly

[vlangel]

That is very cool.  I will definitely be following since I know absolutely nothing about caring for jelly fish but it will be interesting to learn.

[duderubble]

You just feed them jelly once a week. 

[el fabuloso]

2 hours ago, Christopher Marks said:

This is really cool @el fabuloso, I have always been curious about these jellyfish tanks and mail order delivery. I have been trying to ignore them  

 

It all seems pretty painless, what's the planned maintenance routine like? Did you cycle the tank in some manner? They are absolutely fascinating.

I ignored it for so long. I got this tank almost two years ago when they were running it as a kickstarter. It was a really good deal so I figured why not. Honestly I just wanted the tank itself but that wasn't an option so I ended up with the kit along with it. Turkey baster, cleaning brush, a hydrometer, water conditioner, "jelly salt" that I'm pretty sure is just Instant Ocean repackaged with a jellyfish on it, "jelly food" (probably Cyclop-eeze),  

 

Anyway I kinda freaked out at the idea of starting a tank so I shoved it deep in my closet. It wasn't until a couple of months ago when I read some random trivia about jellyfish. "Did you know that jellyfish are 98% water?" That's when I realized that I was really just freaking out over water.

 

As for maintenance, I plan to keep everything simple with weekly water changes. I left the tank running for two weeks, ostensibly to cycle? Although with just water and not much else I'm not sure exactly what that means but it's "cycled."

 

I've decided to go the live food route to help minimize the mess so I'll be hatching baby brine shrimp regularly. I already have a nifty little hatchery set up that I'll cover in a later post.  

[el fabuloso]

On 11/14/2017 at 9:21 PM, vlangel said:

That is very cool.  I will definitely be following since I know absolutely nothing about caring for jelly fish but it will be interesting to learn.

They're really fascinating. Obviously they're a lot like corals but in some ways they're a lot easier especially since they're non-photosynthetic. But they also have a whole set of challenges that's pretty unique. I'm learning a lot as I go along and will share them here.

[el fabuloso]

 

So it's been a couple of days with the jellies and I feel like I have it down now. I think the biggest hurdle with jellies is in understanding how simple they are. Really not that much different than corals except that for the most part corals generally stay in place. Instead you have these coral like creatures that swim around aimlessly, running into things and hopefully running into food.

 

On day one I ran into an issue with the bigger jelly. I came home to find it inverted, which is not uncommon but it's also not a good thing. Basically I've learned that because they're 98% water, sudden changes in their environment can cause the proteins in their bodies to reshape and in turn causing them to turn inside out. And because they're so simple and completely unaware of this, they lack the mechanism to right themselves so I had to reach my hand in the tank, stick my finger under the jellyfish and nudge it through the water to pop it back in place. It took a couple of tries but it worked. The whole experience wasn't all that different from flipping contact lenses.

 

As for feeding I've learned that they're incredibly effective at turning sea monkeys into poop. I overfed them the first couple of times mostly because I didn't know how much they could grab in one feeding and because I underestimated my brine shrimp production. I now have enough baby brine shrimp stored away that I won't need to hatch them regularly. This is a good thing.

 

All in all the jellies seem pretty happy, although I doubt that they're actually aware of this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jahnje]

1 hour ago, el fabuloso said:

so I had to reach my hand in the tank, stick my finger under the jellyfish and nudge it through the water to pop it back in place. It took a couple of tries but it worked. The whole experience wasn't all that different from flipping contact lenses.

So do they don't sting?  I have no clue about jellys so following along other than trips to the beach... 

 

translation:

So, don't they sting?  I have no clue about jellys other than trips to the beach, so I'm following along.

Edited November 16, 2017 by jahnje
Because i sound drunk...

[Thrassian Atoll]

So how long before you step up to a box jellyfish or Man O War?  ?

[el fabuloso]

@TILTON well these jellies are supposed to live for at least a year so I'm hoping I can keep them for at least that long. Not sure what I'll do after but I wouldn't rule out a man o' war. 

[el fabuloso]

1 hour ago, jahnje said:

So do they don't sting?  I have no clue about jellys so following along other than trips to the beach... 

 

translation:

So, don't they sting?  I have no clue about jellys other than trips to the beach, so I'm following along.

Moon jellies do sting but not strong enough for people to feel so they're completely harmless.

[el fabuloso]

The jellies are belling nicely and have been exhibiting some new behavior in the past couple of days. Belling is what you would typically associate with jellyfish when you picture them drifting gracefully in the water but this behavior depends on several factors. Water quality, stress level and more importantly the amount of flow in the tank. If there's too much flow then they curl up into a ball and tumble around like socks in a dryer. Too little flow and they end up sinking to the bottom. But with the right amount of flow the jellies can take their proper form, extend their oral arms and actually seem to ride the current instead of just drifting around. Basically belling is the jellyfish equivalent of full polyp extension.

 

 

 

 

 

It took some fine tuning on my part to dial in the right amount of flow especially during feedings when I reduce the flow from the air pump to keep the food suspended in the water column long enough for the jellies to catch them. And as these jellies get bigger I will have to continue adjusting the flow to suit their needs. After witnessing this belling behavior firsthand it's now clear to me why jellyfish need to be kept in specialized tanks.

 

Also while they look great in photos, the photos alone don't do them justice. So here's a little clip for the full effect:

 

 

[debbeach13]

So cool thanks for the video. It must be mesmerizing!

[vlangel]

What fascinating creatures!  They are mesmerizing.  Thanks for the video.

[Lypto]

That's awesome! BTW, If you see any little polyp like things, try to save them and see what they do . You might have gotten lucky with a male and female.

 

* they could also be hydroids, which is less than ideal.

[el fabuloso]

10 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

So cool thanks for the video. It must be mesmerizing!

10 hours ago, vlangel said:

What fascinating creatures!  They are mesmerizing.  Thanks for the video.

Far more mesmerizing than I imagined. Watching them float around the first few days was interesting enough but there's something so primal and mesmerizing once they started belling. And it's even more fascinating when you're reminded that they're just simple organisms that are mostly water just held together by thin pieces of protein and tissue with no organs or a nervous system and yet they appear to swim with a purpose.

[el fabuloso]

5 hours ago, Lypto said:

That's awesome! BTW, If you see any little polyp like things, try to save them and see what they do . You might have gotten lucky with a male and female.

 

* they could also be hydroids, which is less than ideal.

It would be awesome if that happens! I'm trying to figure out their sexes. Since their bodies are transparent and their gonads are totally visible it's supposed to be easy to tell them apart. Females should have a more reddish tint but the tank's brightly colored LED lighting makes it hard to determine.

 

This reminds me of the baby jellyfish I once found in my tank when I first setup my pico. I got it on video, too.

 

 

And just like that, it disappeared. I probably should have quarantined it to see what it was. Probably just a hydroid anyway but technically speaking I guess you could say that was my very first jellyfish.

[cfaye@Delaware]

Fascinating !!!!!

[el fabuloso]

QUICK UPDATE

 

The jellies aren’t happy at the moment and neither am I. As I mentioned in an earlier post I had opted for monthly water delivery thinking that was the most efficient way. I figured I could ration my water until the next shipment. Well I ran out of water a lot sooner than I thought and the water delivery ended up being a week later than scheduled so I now I have a tank of cloudy water with some sad jellies. 

 

 

 

They’ve all shrunken up and one has completely given up swimming and decided to hang out at the bottom of the tank. At least they’re still eating, though it’s not helping with the water quality. 

 

I finally received my water shipment so I’ll be making a water change stat. In the mean time I’ve canceled my subscription and got a 50 lb. jug of Kent Marine Salt (on sale at DFS for $15 so not a bad deal) and will be making my own water from now on. I don’t need that much water anyway and it shouldn’t be hard to mak a two-gallon batch here and there. At least I’ll have a steady supply as opposed to going through the stress of waiting a whole month for water to show up. 

[debbeach13]

Well that is unfortunate. I hope they perk back up for you after the W/C.

[Lypto]

Travis Brandwood has a excellent blog on keeping jellyfish, He went through a lot of troubles and managed to fix most of em. I found it helpful. water changes should be enough to perk these guys up though

[Christopher Marks]

How are the jellies doing @el fabuloso? Hopefully the water change does the trick!

[el fabuloso]

@Christopher Marks they're good! I was pleasantly surprised to see them bounce back so quickly after the water change. They're still a little shrunken up but they're getting back to their normal movements and activities.

 

4 hours ago, Lypto said:

Travis Brandwood has a excellent blog on keeping jellyfish, He went through a lot of troubles and managed to fix most of em. I found it helpful. water changes should be enough to perk these guys up though

Yes! I stumbled into his blog a while back and it's helped me a lot.

[TheUnfocusedOne]

A-a-ron, give us an update.

[el fabuloso]

 

[cfaye@Delaware]

Merry Christmas.....Happy Holidays.....To you and your Jellies.....

 

 

 

[Watson315]

This whole thread was a great read!  I was cracking up.  Thanks for sharing!