Hannah’s tank journal

[Hannahhhh]

I’ve been such a pain in the butt to liveaquaria this past week or so, and poor them, now I’m at it again. I ordered a Goni from them which arrived today. I got it from divers den and was listed as having a one inch skeleton. It looked small when I got it and so I measured it. Lo and behold, it’s barely over half an inch. 

I know it’s probably petty to be annoyed by this, but I’m just so frustrated with them. 

[Seadragon]

18 hours ago, Hannahhhh said:

I’ve been such a pain in the butt to liveaquaria this past week or so, and poor them, now I’m at it again. I ordered a Goni from them which arrived today. I got it from divers den and was listed as having a one inch skeleton. It looked small when I got it and so I measured it. Lo and behold, it’s barely over half an inch. 

I know it’s probably petty to be annoyed by this, but I’m just so frustrated with them. 

 

No, you have every right to let them know what they did wrong.  I say this because I also order from them a lot (I did a couple $150+ orders in the past couple months) and in my last order, I ordered 6 Banded Trochus Snails and they sent me a package that smelled of death -- 3 were Banded Trochus Snails, 2 were empty shells, and 1 had a HERMIT crab in a Banded Trochus shell!  They gave me an account credit of $12 to replace the 3 snails and they expect me to either do another large order to get the free shipping or to pay $30 for overnight shipping + $10 for the box fee.  Thing is, this was their mistake, same as with yours, and in my opinion, it should be a credit back onto our credit card, not onto the account with them.  So give them hell for me too.

 

[Ratvan]

9 hours ago, Hannahhhh said:

I’ve been such a pain in the butt to liveaquaria this past week or so, and poor them, now I’m at it again. I ordered a Goni from them which arrived today. I got it from divers den and was listed as having a one inch skeleton. It looked small when I got it and so I measured it. Lo and behold, it’s barely over half an inch. 

I know it’s probably petty to be annoyed by this, but I’m just so frustrated with them. 

Was it a WYSIWYG? I would complain that it is not sold as described 

[Hannahhhh]

8 hours ago, Ratvan said:

Was it a WYSIWYG? I would complain that it is not sold as described 

It was WYSIWYG. I’ve bought from live aquaria lots of times and I know they often list things down to the 8th of an inch. They’re definitely capable of measuring better than this. I’m thinking I will ask for 40% back since the frag is 40% smaller than they said. Does that seem fair?

[Hannahhhh]

17 hours ago, Seadragon said:

 

No, you have every right to let them know what they did wrong.  I say this because I also order from them a lot (I did a couple $150+ orders in the past couple months) and in my last order, I ordered 6 Banded Trochus Snails and they sent me a package that smelled of death -- 3 were Banded Trochus Snails, 2 were empty shells, and 1 had a HERMIT crab in a Banded Trochus shell!  They gave me an account credit of $12 to replace the 3 snails and they expect me to either do another large order to get the free shipping or to pay $30 for overnight shipping + $10 for the box fee.  Thing is, this was their mistake, same as with yours, and in my opinion, it should be a credit back onto our credit card, not onto the account with them.  So give them hell from me too.

 

That is seriously so annoying. I personally think they should refund the box fee and the shipping fee for any items that arrive dead. I actually stayed on the phone with them for a really long time when my harlequin shrimp arrived a day late and dead and eventually they gave me a full refund back to my card. I was very polite and nice but I also wasn’t going to accept lost money since it was their decision to ship the package into a huge snow storm.  

[Hannahhhh]

Even though the goni is smaller than I anticipated, it really is so beautiful. It’s my first goni and I think I may have to get another one at some point. I love the movement. I’m trying to read up on gonis, I really want it to do well in my tank. If anyone has advice, feel free to tell me! 

 

Also I included the photo from live aquaria and the photo of what I got. It looks so much smaller. 

[Seadragon]

5 minutes ago, Hannahhhh said:

Even though the goni is smaller than I anticipated, it really is so beautiful. It’s my first goni and I think I may have to get another one at some point. I love the movement. I’m trying to read up on gonis, I really want it to do well in my tank. If anyone has advice, feel free to tell me! 

 

Also I included the photo from live aquaria and the photo of what I got. It looks so much smaller. 

 

Kind of reminds me of a burger commercial, although your goni looks much better, just smaller. 🙂

 

[Hannahhhh]

I’m super annoyed by liveaquaria’s response to my email. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but the size of the coral skeleton shouldn’t change based on the coral being stressed right? This seems like something they should know...

They listed the coral as having a 1” skeleton. 

“Thank you for contacting LiveAquaria.  We do apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.  Our Aquatic specialists have reviewed the image and noted the following.  The coral is the photo is the correct specimen that you had ordered, however they note the image you had sent shows the coral closed due to shipping stress and movement.  The image and measurements of the coral on site are from when it was open in a relaxed state.  The coral should open over time as it acclimates to your tank.

 

In regards to returns, we are unable to accept any live specimen returns due to the danger return shipping presents to the animal.”

[Hannahhhh]

[mitten_reef]

21 hours ago, Hannahhhh said:

Even though the goni is smaller than I anticipated, it really is so beautiful. It’s my first goni and I think I may have to get another one at some point. I love the movement. I’m trying to read up on gonis, I really want it to do well in my tank. If anyone has advice, feel free to tell me! 

 

Also I included the photo from live aquaria and the photo of what I got. It looks so much smaller. 

based on their posted photo of the frag, it is conceivable that the actual skeleton is a lot smaller than 1".  maybe whoever did it was eyeballing the size of the coral base when it was puffy, vs fully deflated coral.  Look around the edge of the plug, there appears to be "matching" coralline algae splatter along the rim.  With a full 1" skeleton, I would expect to see a frag larger than the base plug when in fully extended state such as pictured.  

 

as far as keeping and growing them, they enjoy the water slightly dirtier and feeding fine particulate food (reef roids is pretty good for it).  the polyp extension is very temperamental, both in puffiness and the length of the tentacles, due to varieties like flows, light, feeding time, etc.  

 

 

[Hannahhhh]

Wow live aquaria actually gave me 100% back to my credit card. Very happy about that!

[Illumin-8]

On 12/12/2019 at 2:06 PM, Hannahhhh said:

Even though it was a total pain, your (credited-ish freeeeeee!!!!!) frag is so beautiful!   

[Hannahhhh]

10 minutes ago, Illumin-8 said:

Even though it was a total pain, your (credited-ish freeeeeee!!!!!) frag is so beautiful!   

Thanks!  I agree it’s super pretty. Considering that I got a full refund, I’m psyched at how it all worked out!

[Hannahhhh]

My mushroom rock fell onto my yellow hammer at some point today. One head looks perfect but the other looks damaged.. it’s got some brown on it which is stressing me out. I don’t have any coral dip at the moment, but I’m thinking I should maybe go buy some and dip the coral? I’m not sure though. 

[A.m.P]

You could gently siphon the brown out with a baster, I wouldn't recommend a coral dip, those are meant for pests and stress the animals out, you would want a disinfectant -some use antibiotics-proper but most use something iodine-based.

[Hannahhhh]

4 minutes ago, Amphrites said:

You could gently siphon the brown out with a baster, I wouldn't recommend a coral dip, those are meant for pests and stress the animals out, you would want a disinfectant -some use antibiotics-proper but most use something iodine-based.

Oh I didn’t know those were different things! I was thinking lugols, but I don’t actually have any right now. I’m also contemplating fragging off the healthy part, but the heads are still kind of close and I’ve never fragged a euphyllia and I don’t really want to learn on my favorite one. 

[Hannahhhh]

Can I use regular iodine?

[A.m.P]

Lugols is what most use, you can find plenty of guides and how-to's. Coral dip usually refers to pest dips like Coral RX or Revive.

[Seadragon]

Personally, and I know a lot of LFS use the same thing, there is Seachem Reef Dip which is iodine-based that has 4.5 stars on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Seachem-67106160-Reef-Dip-250ml/dp/B0002APIMI/

 

Their description: Reef dip contains elemental iodine complexed to a protective slime coat for safely and gently disinfecting corals. It is effective against bacteria, fungus, and protozoans. It may be used prophylactically (without evidence of disease) or to remedy diseased specimens. It is safe to use with both stony and soft corals. It is also safe for anemones and polyps.

 

I've used it on many of my corals and nothing has died -- just follow the directions so you don't use too much.  Actually, it even somehow got rid of flatworms off my one Pom Pom Xenia.  I know if one of my corals got damaged and/or infected or has bacteria/fungus/protozoans on it, I'd use this.

[Hannahhhh]

I ended up bringing it into my LFS yesterday to have them frag it for me, but they didn’t think it was necessary. They gave it a dip with two little fishies revive, and told me to move it to a lower flow lower light area for a bit. So far it’s looking a bit better. I’ll post a picture later today. 

[Hannahhhh]

Here is my yellow hammer, looking better than before!

[A.m.P]

Hmm, I'd say flow might have been your issue to begin with, from the look and sound of things at least.

[Hannahhhh]

7 hours ago, Amphrites said:

Hmm, I'd say flow might have been your issue to begin with, from the look and sound of things at least.

I don’t think flow was my primary issue, as the coral looked great until something fell on it. But it may have been in a too high flow area and having a rock fall on it just set it over the edge. 

[Hannahhhh]

So the goni I added this week seems to be not super happy in the location I have it. It looks ok, but it isn’t really extending its polyps. The first day I had it, the polyps we’re all stretched out. Now they’re relatively shortly. I’m about to go away for 10 days, so I want to pick an acceptable location for it before I go. I’m thinking of putting it in a lower light lower flow area until I get back, but I’m not sure. What do you guys think? Do your gonis prefer high or low light and flow?

 

[A.m.P]

They adapt to flow, but if the tentacles are stubby it's likely in too much flow, too much light isn't as likely since they seem to be able to thrive in just about anything.