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ADA - the 2 island reef


Andreww

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Noticed some interesting purple sponges that grow on the rock as well as form some kind of tentacles that are like 4” long. Pictures taken from different sides of the rock , they’re growing in the shade..I’ve got some yellow short ones as well and a really pink one growing on my ricordea rock.

 

Reminds me why I switched to saltwater from a planted tank...you always discover some new thing in a reef whereas with the planted tank I was trimming plants once a week and that’s it:) 

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Purchased a gold / purple maxima clam along with a rainbow montipora from Diver’s Den on LiveAquaria. Pretty stoked and can’t wait for them to get here on Thursday. 

Here’s a pic of the clam. It’s supposed to be almost 3”...missing an eight or so. I’m gonna start it on sand and go from there.

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Thank you . Order has shipped.

I was never a big fan of ordering online but I have to say, LiveAquaria makes it easy with their 15 day warranty (30 days for CCGC coral). I could have gotten a pretty similar clam for the same price at my LFS which was gonna take the shipping stress out of the equation but I asked the kid working there how is he gonna remove the clam if I was to buy it.

 

He’s like “just lift it up slowly”...and while he was doing that ,the byssal organ /threads were attached to the glass (I was looking from down under). He was twisting and pulling and I said you know what man, no thanks. You’re probably going to rip that foot or at least damage it the way you’re doing it then it’s going to die in my tank with no warranty on your part. He’s like ok no problem I have a derasa if you’re interested. Umm ok, I just told you I have a nano and only clam I’m interested in is a maxima or crocea. “

Rolled my eyes and got out of there.

 

Went to another store that had some big nice Maximas but close to 300$/piece. No warranty , again, not that I was going to buy at that price but overheard a conversation between a customer and the lady working there.

 

He was trying to buy a purple tang, and the lady started asking about his system, if he had more tangs in there and what kind of tangs. Poor guy had a 60 gallon tank with another 4 tangs in there. So she’s like no way sir, this purple tang is going to bully all the other ones so I do not recommend it especially in 60 gallons of water. 

Well he insisted so she’s like ok , I have no problem selling you a 150$ fish but just know you’ll end up having problems.

 

Thats what I call good people that look after your own good and not their pocket. Wish more stores were like that.

 

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46 minutes ago, Andreww said:

Thank you . Order has shipped.

I was never a big fan of ordering online but I have to say, LiveAquaria makes it easy with their 15 day warranty (30 days for CCGC coral). I could have gotten a pretty similar clam for the same price at my LFS which was gonna take the shipping stress out of the equation but I asked the kid working there how is he gonna remove the clam if I was to buy it.

 

He’s like “just lift it up slowly”...and while he was doing that ,the byssal organ /threads were attached to the glass (I was looking from down under). He was twisting and pulling and I said you know what man, no thanks. You’re probably going to rip that foot or at least damage it the way you’re doing it then it’s going to die in my tank with no warranty on your part. He’s like ok no problem I have a derasa if you’re interested. Umm ok, I just told you I have a nano and only clam I’m interested in is a maxima or crocea. “

Rolled my eyes and got out of there.

 

Went to another store that had some big nice Maximas but close to 300$/piece. No warranty , again, not that I was going to buy at that price but overheard a conversation between a customer and the lady working there.

 

He was trying to buy a purple tang, and the lady started asking about his system, if he had more tangs in there and what kind of tangs. Poor guy had a 60 gallon tank with another 4 tangs in there. So she’s like no way sir, this purple tang is going to bully all the other ones so I do not recommend it especially in 60 gallons of water. 

Well he insisted so she’s like ok , I have no problem selling you a 150$ fish but just know you’ll end up having problems.

 

Thats what I call good people that look after your own good and not their pocket. Wish more stores were like that.

 

So sad to hear :(

 

Surely animal cruelty law should apply to situations like this?!

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I doubt anything like that could be implemented . After all there’s a lot of people hired in the aquatic departments of certain stores that don’t know anything other than filling up RO water buckets and giving wrong advice. But that’s the management problem , they should hire only people that know their stuff and not just low paying jobs to sell high end corals just to fill up their pockets .

Like selling beta fish in 1qt containers and anemones and clownfish to people that think they can keep them in freshwater. Seriously the clown story in freshwater is true, and happened not once but multiple times.

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The package is here. Started the acclimation process and found the perfect small rock to mount the clam on.

Pictures with the clam and rainbow Monti to follow in the afternoon when they’ve been exposed to my water and lights for a few hours. 

 

 

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Well here’s the not so good news. After float acclimating I opened the bag to drip acclimate and I was about to throw up. The clam water smells really bad and the shell is open.

Called LiveAquaria immediately and they told me it’s not a good sign and continue with drip acclimation.

If it’s gone then they’ll obviously refund my money but that would really suck cuz this was the best looking gold clam on DD.

Oh well, I’ll report back in a little while. Don’t want to shine any light on it to stress it even further but the water was slightly cloudy and the smell , Ill never forget that one.

Box was not cold and picked it up directly from the UPS guy so it wasn’t exposed to the elements. 

Heat pad on top . Not sure what to say at this point on what could have caused this...

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Well it’s in the tank, called LiveAquaria second time they told me if the mantle is still there even though it’s gaping it still has a chance , (a low chance)

If it’s dying, the clean up crew will start eating it in the next 24 hours.

I have 15 days either way to get a refund so we’ll see how it does after a few hours in my tank under the lights. 

The Salinity in the bag was low and even with an hour of drip acclimation (2-3 drops a second) I wasn’t able to bring it up to 1.206. 

Im wondering what SG they keep the clams in their systems.

At least the rainbow Monti is happy .

 

 

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13 minutes ago, Justind823 said:

Ah! Yea that's a goner...

:eek:

I have a feeling you’re right. There’s still the 1% in me that wants to believe this little guy will pull through ...lol

 

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23 minutes ago, Andreww said:

I have a feeling you’re right. There’s still the 1% in me that wants to believe this little guy will pull through ...lol

 

Well here's hoping! fingerscrossed

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Not sure where you are from but shipping right now is the worst. It is worth your time to find one at a LFS or wait until it gets warmer. I think LA is located in WI. 

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Seattle. Yes DD is in WI. Overnight shipping with a heat pad I though what could go wrong?Apparently a lot can go wrong...

LFS has really small ones or really big ones.

Not willing to gamble on the tiny ones nor pay the price for the huge ones.

Oh well...It’s a waiting game now.

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Here’s the rainbow Monti ...still getting acclimated (Duh)...called LiveAquaria AGAIN lol to ask about their DD lighting. He told me they use MH and they kept my specific frag mid tank. It’s great when you get that info cuz you kinda know where to put the frag in the tank from the beginning.

 

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Well, new clam will be here on Saturday morning. They took care of the issue right away and included Saturday shipping at no additional cost...

This guy is in pretty poor shape and if it lives it’ll be a miracle. 

Heres the new one...not quite as nice but hey, I can’t complain.Still has some purple hues and is a little smaller at 2-1/4”

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So crazy. Hope the next one does well.

 

I'm totally waiting for this cold weather to pass before getting anything else shipped. Even with a heat pad, that box can get SUPER cold.

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Here’s the weird thing. They asked me how the heat pad looked. It has separated itself from the lid right on top of the clam bag. 

The lady I spoke to was 100% positive that the heat pad had cooked the clam, she said when they break the pad and install it on the lid it is very hot, and that the foul smell leads to the heat issue rather than anything else.

 

Could that be it? Gotta say, the heat pad was hot when I got it out so Im only thinking right when they put it in it must have been super hot and cooked the clam ...had the pad not separated from the lid and landed on the clam bag, I’m sure it would have been alive now.

The monti was in a smaller bag under some foam nuggets so it survived.

 

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