A Flexible Bucket Transfer QT/Hospital System

[jahnje]

Got my first signs of briny life today. Not sure how many have survived, but it's really nice to not have to deal with all of the shells.  I did pick up a proper brine shrimp net , which I can only imagine would increase the survival rate even more.  Now we'll have to see how long I can keep them living and reproducing in here.  I dropped in a bit of spirulina powder for them.

 

Apparently the mentioning of Algae Barn in the latest BRS video about their ULM tank cycling caused a run on algae and pods! So still can't start that project yet.  Hopefully next week. 

 

[Christopher Marks]

How cool! I'm still shocked the bleach soak was no issue! Thanks for sharing @jahnje!

[Halo_003]

This is an awesome thread, thank you for sharing. 

[jahnje]

1 hour ago, Christopher Marks said:

How cool! I'm still shocked the bleach soak was no issue! Thanks for sharing @jahnje!

I'm going to give it a few more days and really get a good count. I can only imagine I'd have much better luck if I hadn't soaked the little buggers in 50% bleach for almost 12 minutes.   I didn't expect any survivors. 

[vlangel]

On 1/21/2018 at 8:04 AM, jahnje said:

I guess you might be able to use a container for a growout tank then.  When you see a female fanning her eggs, take her out and place her in a separate container until the eggs hatch, then remove her and put her back in the main 'dating' tank.  That way you don't have to move the fry, just the mom.  

Ok, I am going to try your advise and see what happens.  I am moving the berried (pregnant) shrimp into the cheap breeder containers for guppies and such.  When the mother shrimp have their babies I will move them back to the main 'dating' tank, ha ha! 

There are 2 moms in there now.

[jahnje]

Got my shipment of pods and algae from Algae Barn yesterday.  So I started an Algae culture, and a Pod culture.  But first a brine shrimp update:

 

The brine shrimp are continuing to grow. I'd say I got about a 2% hatch rate from from my capful of eggs.  I think I'm going to suck out the unhatched eggs on the bottom, then try again in the same brine water. Since the decapsulation has prevented any floating shells, I think it should be pretty straightforward to remove the waste since it's all on the bottom.  I've been putting in a little spirulina powder when the water looks clear, which seems to be every other day. 

 

 

Got home late last night, so couldn't do anything with the pods until today. So just set them in the water overnight.  Nice to have a handy water bath laying around. 

[jahnje]

Ocean Magik Algae Culture  from Algae Barn:

 

Mixed up 2L of 1.025 SG saltwater last night.  I mix quickly using a mag stirrer and microbubbles, so it can take a few hours/ overnight to get an accurate SG reading.  This morning I mixed in a tiny bit of fertilizers.  I used reef crystals for the salt since I had it, and it's already got magnesium and other trace elements in it.  I'm treating the algae like a planted tank for the most part.  I put this under a PAR 38 coral bulb timed at the same rate as my corals.  So I don't think I'll get any fast growth, but I should get some because of the ferts and light. Will just have to keep an eye on container and watch for visual changes to measure success. 

 

Mix:

2L RO/DI

136g Reef Crystals.

60 ml of Ocean Magik 

less than .01g of Plantex   

less than .01g of KNO3

less than .01g of KH2PO4

 

I get my ferts from green Leaf Aquariums 

 

 

I think I'll add just a bit of air for stirring.

 

[jahnje]

I got Algae Barn's 5280 pod mix. Had some movement in it upon arrival. And let it sit in correct temp water all night. This morning I added half ~250ml too my pico tank, and the other half to an at temp 4L container of 2L of 1.025 SG reef crystal water.  I added 15 ml of live algae as food.  Also a little bit of air for movement.  I may add some rocks or something for the pods to settle in. I'll check for life over a long period of time to know if this was successful. I'm not really sure how to measure an increase in pods. Suggestions welcome.  

 

 

Mix:

2L RO/DI

136g RC

15ml Algae Magic

air

~79f temp.

 

 

[jahnje]

On 1/27/2018 at 11:29 AM, vlangel said:

Ok, I am going to try your advise and see what happens.  I am moving the berried (pregnant) shrimp into the cheap breeder containers for guppies and such.  When the mother shrimp have their babies I will move them back to the main 'dating' tank, ha ha! 

There are 2 moms in there now.

 

I've been having a heck of a time getting ghosts from the LFS. They sell out of them as soon as they get them. It's crazy. I've managed to get 3 over the last week or so.  Current problem is that my 'dating' tank is a little too planted to find them when there are so few.. I know the little folks are in there... I think it'll work fairly well if I can get enough in there to find some some of the time. I'm willing to accept a few losses if I can find some berried females every so often, even if it's not all of them.  I'm trying to get about 20 in here to start.  I think they'll be happy in here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[vlangel]

If I were a ghostie I would like to live there?.  It looks like a great neighborhood to raise a family!?

[jahnje]

Weekly Update

 

Brine: Got some big guys in there now. Can be seen from a distance. Continuing to feed spirulina powder every few days. Still have cleaned out bottom yet. Things are growing though.

 

Algae: I use what's called PPS-Pro dosing on my planted tanks, though, as needed.  I'm using this same dosing regimen on the algae as well. At a rate of about  0.1ml/L. This should provide all of the fertilizer needed..  hopefully.  I'm doing this about every 3 days. Sunday and Wednesday. So we'll see how it goes.  Light running at 50%.

 

Pods: Still seeing a little movement esp. when i turn out the lights and use a flashlight.  Added 20ml or RO/DI to put the SG back at 1.025. Also added .1 ml of OM algae from the bottle. Will probably continue this daily.   I added a travertine tile to the bottom as well incase they needed a place to settle. 

 

Coral QT: Still has a number of pods running around. Trocus and Margarita snails doing fine. SPS seems to be coming back, could be related to pods. I'm wondering if it was feeding on the dying goniopora and when I removed it, it lost its food source.  Killed a few veritas snails on the bottom of my monti. 

 

                                 - BRINE

PODS - CORAL QT - ALGAE

 

 

 

 

  

[jahnje]

So went to the wife to the LFS for some Koi food. Left with four tiny freshwater angelfish that she thought needed a home.   So here's how I put put freshwater fish through my QT system.  For simplicity's sake I always have the LFS bag no more than two fish per bag, and each bag with a decent amount of water. A liter or more works best, so that I've got a pretty good idea about the dosing requirements.  You can get away with about 1" of fish per liter, but I find I 2"/L gives you a little more wiggle room, and reduces likelihood of fights due to overcrowding. 

 

First I dump each bag into its own 4 liter container, and set them into the main water bath. I dump out any excess water over a liter. And I add an air supply.  This will keep them warm and get them up to temp just like floating a bag. It also gives you time to prepare some QT water just incase they showed up unexpectedly. 

 

 

Next prepare 3L of QT water in your 4L container. The Cambro containers have a nice lip at ~3L to make it easy. 

 

 

Skip this step for marine fish:

I like to have my QT water match all my tanks in the house. So I mix up something that's going to hit about ~3dKh.  Your mileage may vary, but my recipe is as follows:

• 0.26g - Soda
• 0.21g - Mg
• 0.14g - Ca
• 0.3g - K
• 1/2 tsp - NaCl

Now for a reality check, mixing this every day once per container is a pain. So I just figured out how much to mix into 250ml of RO/DI where I can dose 5ml/L to make measuring easy. So in the end what i really end up doing is the following remineralization recipe:

• 3x1/4 tsp - soda
• 3x1/4 tsp - MgSO4
• 3x1/4 tsp - CaSO4 (optional)
• 3x1/4 tsp - K2SO4
• 1 Tbs - NaCl
• 250 ml - RO/DI

I stir this until it's clear and all of the salt is dissolved. If you put in Calcium, then it's going to stay cloudy and most fishes don't seem to mind it's absence. 

 

 

From here on should be the same for Marine and freshwater fishes:

Next up it's time to add the medications and whatnot. I have had good luck only adding three things. 

 

Prime, ParaGuard, and Stress Guard.  I use the following amounts for each 3L batch.

• 0.1ml - Prime (this is really about 1 drop/L)
• 0.2ml - Stress Guard
• 0.375ml - ParaGuard 

 

 

My wife always says "you can't teach someone to cook if they don't know where the kitchen is." So here's what's going on. And probably the most important thing. The Prime and the RO/DI combination is what makes this system work... You cannot do this with conditioned tap water! I've tried.  

 

edit: faulty memory here. You can't do this system with tap water unless it's freshly conditioned. I have not tried it this way. I had a 32 Gal tub of water that I'd condition when filled once every couple of weeks. When I used that stored water assuming that it had remained conditioned it killed my fishes pretty quickly, even when adding a few drops of prime to each container. 

 

Prime and other water conditioners only hold NH3 (free ammonia) and Chloramines in check for 48 hours at best. They way they work is by binding them to make them safe for your fish, while your biological filter consumes them. Since this system has NO bio filter nor will it ever have one. The Chloramines will never be consumed. Chloramine is made from Ammonia and Chlorine, and does NOT evaporate in water. So since most US. municipal water systems ues this now it effectively means they're trying to kill your fish.  Back to the point, this causes real problems in the system because suddenly all of your Prime got used to hold this stuff in check, when what we want it to do is hold our new fishes ammonia output in check.  And you're really not supposed to overdose fish with Prime, esp. for two+ weeks.  The daily small dose of Prime is enough to keep all of the fish from getting ammonia poisoning from their own waste. 

 

Moving on...

So now it's time to drip the fish into the system:

I have a shelf above my water bath that I run airline tubes down from the prepared water into our new friends containers.  I tend to run a very slow drip, so it may take 3 - 4  hours drain the QT water into the fishes container.  Because we have 1L in there container and 3L in our QT container, we end up not overflowing. But if we do, it just goes into the bath and doesn't matter. The Prime in the water slowly coming in  seems to handle any waste the fish might produce for the night. And by going slow, I don't have to heat the supply of QT water. 

 

 

Once all of the water is in the fishes container prepare a second batch for the next day. I really don't like to keep them in their diluted store water for a full day. And you always want to have the next days water on hand ASAP. I also like to let it sit overnight with air running into it to keep things mixed and fresh. I generally take a few minutes each morning to switch out the fish to a new container. Which I'll post about later.

 

Because of all of the other projects going on, I went ahead and prepped another water bath, and moved all of the freshwater stuff into it once the water was up to temp. But got to take my time since I already had a bath up and going. You can see tomorrow's water, and the fish in their current containers in one bath. While all of the marine project are on the right.

 

 

 

 

Edited February 11, 2018 by jahnje
bad memory, and indicated where fresh and marine steps diverge.

[jahnje]

So some updates:

 

Brine Shrimp:  Well these guys are doing just great. They've produced offspring and are just going to town. The issue at the moment is to decide who to feed them to. They've been getting a fairly steady diet of spirulina powder every day. As well as about 30 ml of top off water to keep the salinity down.

 

Copepods:

These guys also seem to be doing quite well. Daily 40 ml of Ocean Majik from aquabarn seems to make them happy. Plus a little top off water.  Kinda difficult to determine numbers increase. But they sure seem more easy to see and find now. 

 

Algae: Well, that didn't work at all. I've ordered some more as well as got some F/2 algae fertilizer, and will try again.  Completely crashed after only a couple of days. Could be not long enough light cycle, so will adjust after the next crash if I need to.  

[vlangel]

On 2/5/2018 at 1:36 PM, jahnje said:

So went to the wife to the LFS for some Koi food. Left with four tiny freshwater angelfish that she thought needed a home.   So here's how I put put freshwater fish through my QT system.  For simplicity's sake I always have the LFS bag no more than two fish per bag, and each bag with a decent amount of water. A liter or more works best, so that I've got a pretty good idea about the dosing requirements.  You can get away with about 1" of fish per liter, but I find I 2"/L gives you a little more wiggle room, and reduces likelihood of fights due to overcrowding. 

 

First I dump each bag into its own 4 liter container, and set them into the main water bath. I dump out any excess water over a liter. And I add an air supply.  This will keep them warm and get them up to temp just like floating a bag. It also gives you time to prepare some QT water just incase they showed up unexpectedly. 

 

 

Next prepare 3L of QT water in your 4L container. The Cambro containers have a nice lip at ~3L to make it easy. 

 

 

Skip this step for marine fish:

I like to have my QT water match all my tanks in the house. So I mix up something that's going to hit about ~3dKh.  Your mileage may vary, but my recipe is as follows:

• 0.26g - Soda
• 0.21g - Mg
• 0.14g - Ca
• 0.3g - K
• 1/2 tsp - NaCl

Now for a reality check, mixing this every day once per container is a pain. So I just figured out how much to mix into 250ml of RO/DI where I can dose 5ml/L to make measuring easy. So in the end what i really end up doing is the following remineralization recipe:

• 3x1/4 tsp - soda
• 3x1/4 tsp - MgSO4
• 3x1/4 tsp - CaSO4 (optional)
• 3x1/4 tsp - K2SO4
• 1 Tbs - NaCl
• 250 ml - RO/DI

I stir this until it's clear and all of the salt is dissolved. If you put in Calcium, then it's going to stay cloudy and most fishes don't seem to mind it's absence. 

 

 

From here on should be the same for Marine and freshwater fishes:

Next up it's time to add the medications and whatnot. I have had good luck only adding three things. 

 

Prime, ParaGuard, and Stress Guard.  I use the following amounts for each 3L batch.

• 0.1ml - Prime (this is really about 1 drop/L)
• 0.2ml - Stress Guard
• 0.375ml - ParaGuard 

 

 

My wife always says "you can't teach someone to cook if they don't know where the kitchen is." So here's what's going on. And probably the most important thing. The Prime and the RO/DI combination is what makes this system work... You cannot do this with conditioned tap water! I've tried.  

 

edit: faulty memory here. You can't do this system with tap water unless it's freshly conditioned. I have not tried it this way. I had a 32 Gal tub of water that I'd condition when filled once every couple of weeks. When I used that stored water assuming that it had remained conditioned it killed my fishes pretty quickly, even when adding a few drops of prime to each container. 

 

Prime and other water conditioners only hold NH3 (free ammonia) and Chloramines in check for 48 hours at best. They way they work is by binding them to make them safe for your fish, while your biological filter consumes them. Since this system has NO bio filter nor will it ever have one. The Chloramines will never be consumed. Chloramine is made from Ammonia and Chlorine, and does NOT evaporate in water. So since most US. municipal water systems ues this now it effectively means they're trying to kill your fish.  Back to the point, this causes real problems in the system because suddenly all of your Prime got used to hold this stuff in check, when what we want it to do is hold our new fishes ammonia output in check.  And you're really not supposed to overdose fish with Prime, esp. for two+ weeks.  The daily small dose of Prime is enough to keep all of the fish from getting ammonia poisoning from their own waste. 

 

Moving on...

So now it's time to drip the fish into the system:

I have a shelf above my water bath that I run airline tubes down from the prepared water into our new friends containers.  I tend to run a very slow drip, so it may take 3 - 4  hours drain the QT water into the fishes container.  Because we have 1L in there container and 3L in our QT container, we end up not overflowing. But if we do, it just goes into the bath and doesn't matter. The Prime in the water slowly coming in  seems to handle any waste the fish might produce for the night. And by going slow, I don't have to heat the supply of QT water. 

 

 

Once all of the water is in the fishes container prepare a second batch for the next day. I really don't like to keep them in their diluted store water for a full day. And you always want to have the next days water on hand ASAP. I also like to let it sit overnight with air running into it to keep things mixed and fresh. I generally take a few minutes each morning to switch out the fish to a new container. Which I'll post about later.

 

Because of all of the other projects going on, I went ahead and prepped another water bath, and moved all of the freshwater stuff into it once the water was up to temp. But got to take my time since I already had a bath up and going. You can see tomorrow's water, and the fish in their current containers in one bath. While all of the marine project are on the right.

 

 

 

 

This looks like a mad scientist's lab, ha ha!

[jahnje]

Trying the algae culture again today. Got my 2nd Ocean Magik shipment from Aglae Barn last week so we'll try again.  Varying the recipe a bit since it crashed last time. 

 

90 ml - Ocean Magik

3L - H2O+Reef Crystals mixed to 1.025 SG

0.5 ml - Fritz's Guillards F/2 Part A

0.5 ml - Fritz's Guillards F/2 Part B

No Silica

16 hrs/day of white LED light

Enough air to keep things stirred up, but still short of a rolling boil.

 

I put one of the unused light hoods from one of my fresh tanks behind the tub, and then set some magazines in front of the parts of the tub that I don't want illuminated.  Makes it easier to look at, and hopefully less likely to grow algae in the tub itself. 

 

bucket moved away from edge for picture.

 

 

hopefully this will be enough light to make things go this time. 

[jahnje]

started new algae culture on Monday.  Culture #2 died 7 days in. was going well, then subtle discoloration, taking a few more days to be really noticeable. 

 

I bumped the f/2 to 1.5ml from 1.0 ml combined in the previous culture.  We'll see if I starved it. If it goes a day or two further, then I'm going to assume that's the case. The lights seemed to be enough, so not changing those. 

 

You can see in day 7 where the blue tint suddenly disappears.  I use manual setting on my phones cameras so I can see subtle daily changes.  Like the aerator line disappearing over time. 

 

 

[jahnje]

Status update:

 

Brine Shrimp: Still growing just fine. Sadly I don't really have anything for them to be feed to at the moment, So at this point I'm just seeing how long I can keep them alive. They are still being fed a little bit of spirulina powder every day(ish). No water changes. 

 

Copepods: I have a pretty dense population at this time. They seem to be doing well. I'm pretty sure the population is based on amount of algae added to the system.  I'm adding about 20 ml of ocean magik per day. Pulling 50 ml of pods for pico reef, and adding 30 ~ 50 ml of NSW each day. 

 

Pico Reef: Getting 5 ml of Ocean Magik and 50 ml of pods per day. 50 ml of RO/DI per day.  0.025 ml of some NZ coral vitalizer and sponge power per day.  Reef Chili  and NZ SPS aminos twice a week. 100% WC every two weeks.  Everything is holding on pretty well. Still getting decent encrusting from the acros.  Got some algae growth of various kinds, but nothing out of control, nothing that feels overly nuisance like.   

 

Algae Culture #3: Crashed again after 5 days. Event with addition of 50% more fertilizer in the beginning. 

 

Algae Culture #4:  Started 3/13 , 1 ml F/2 in 3L of straight tap water + RC.  Just about died off completely, so added 3 drops of prime and 30 ml more of ocean magik. Seems to be growing now in a similar fashion to the previous cultures. Will just have to see if it can get over the 5 day crash hump. 

 

Algae Culture #5: Started 3/15, back to 1 ml F/2 in RO/DI +RC. Air increased to roiling boil, and adding additional 1 ml of F/2 every other day.  I really think my crashes are coming from starvation. The idea behind using tap water is that there's a lot more nutrients in the water vs. RO. So we'll see which culture does the best.  I really don't like the idea of Algae from tap water in my pico though, even if it does survive. So I'd like to get the RO version working. 

 

I think "The Lab" currently looks pretty cool in the dark, between the algae and the coral.