icenine's nano

[icenine]

Ah... well ya know, just when you think that things are going smoothly...

The lights come up on the tank the other morning and I notice something crawling on some of the new zoas that I've got in my tank. Wanna take a guess as to what it was? Looks like a slug. no shell, frilly things coming off it's back, crawling on my zoas.... yep a nudibranch. So, I don't bother trying to figure out if its a good nudi or a bad one, it's crawling on my zoas so I'm gonna get that sucker out.

My latest additions were not dipped before I placed them in my tank. Shipping was a little rough and I thought I was better off getting them in the tank asap without stressing them anymore.

Big mistake, always dip no matter what.

So, I left the door open and they came in. I need to put a stop to them before they get out of control. I can't tell you how many posts I read regarding how hard it was for some people wanting to keep these things alive because they actually wanted them in thier tanks... well I can only hope I'm so lucky and they croak before they take my zoas out, I want these slugs dead and gone from my reef.

Here is what I did:

All of my zoas at this point are on two pieces of live rock really. So Even though the other corals got dipped when I first put them in I decide to dip both rocks entirely. The dip I'm using is just fresh water. It was at the same temp as my tank and I jacked the PH to match as well. So in go the rocks and I let them sit for a couple minutes upside down, then begin swirling them around a bit. Off of some of my new polyps come four nudis right away. Next I start to comb the polyps for sings of eggs. The pictures I'd seen were of a kind of circular swirling pattern of eggs laid at or near the base of a polyp. And yep... I find exactly what I had seen in pictures and described in other posts. The egg patches are sticky but come off with a tweezers. I only find two polyps with eggs on them and though it may have been overkill I just yank the polyps off completely in case I left an egg or two behind. I'm also scanning for more nudis while I look over the polyps as well but don't find any. I was kinda surprised at how quickly the slugs were effected by the fresh water, luckily they must be very sensitive to such a shock. The zoas all closed up when dipped... but other than that they don't seem to be too adversely affected by the dipping. Once I examined all the polyps for eggs I dipped them and shook them around in the FW again.

The freshwater dip also chased out a couple bristle worms from the LR... but I popped those back in the tank and after a minute they scurried away. The nudis got flushed, good riddance to them too. The dip did not however chase out the xanthid crab I've got... and I know one of the rocks I dipped is where he spends his days. He was back out and about later that evening... so I'm going to have to trap him some other way. I've still never seen him touch a coral and I'll admit he's kinda fun to watch, but he's still gonna go.

 

I hope I got all the eggs, they are the scary part. I can pluck a couple of these guys out of the tank no problem but the thought of hundreds of eggs waiting to hatch and chew up my corals gives me shivers. I have not seen any nudis since the dip... all my zoas are looking ok but I guess I'm just going to have to be vigilant, watch for a re-emergence of the slugs or closed up zoas and make sure I never deviate from dipping and carefully examining new corals before they go in. ...if anyone has any other tips for making sure these things get eradicated let me know. I've read of people using flat worm exit for nudibrachs but I'd be really hesitant to poison the tank. There are too many other snails, worms and other inverts that I would rather not kill off along with the nudis unless it was a last ditch desperation move.

If I had a better camera there would be pics attached to this post. But with no macro lens there is no point in trying to snap an image of nudibrach eggs or the buggers themselves. A search on the topic here or RC will produce pics that look exactly like what I had.

[holyherbiness]

By the way, The pack I got w/ith the nudis was the first one you got, the one with the candy cane and pink red zoos I think.

[icenine]

No sign of the nudibrachs since my eradication attempt, so I'm hoping it worked. If I never see another nudi it will be too soon. And holliherb, I hope you're successful at getting those things out of your tank as well.

Polyps are spreading, in particular the GPE, there are about twenty of those now.

I added a few more Protopalythoa frags... I just can't resist those things. These came from a local reefer (non nano). One was a dark maroon skirt with green and purple centers, really kinda neat.... The other is a an orange on orange with a yellow center and the third a purple and green splatter. I really dig the larger polyp size of the Protopalythoa. From the same reefer I also acquired a couple of stalks of Pink Pumping Xenia. The xenia were a little floppy by the time I got them in thank, but they perked up as soon as I got them acclimated and were pumping away the next morning. So the coral count is now at 17 varieties. 13 different zoas/protopals, two candy cane, the GSP and Xenia. That sounds like alot but since these were all frags some of those zoas and such are only 5 or 6 polyps, the tank still looks a little sparse IMO. ..I made sure I examined these new additions carefully and dipped the zoas before I dropped them in the tank.

 

I've moved most of the zoa frags off the bits of rock they came on and mounted them on my Haitian rock. I'm getting proficient at (or at least more comfortable with) removing the mats with and exacto knife and gluing them back onto my rock. I've been using loctite gel in the brush bottle combo to mount. I find the brush really easy to use and allows me a pretty good amount of control in the glue placement. ...maybe by the end of the year I'll start to frag some of the colonies...

 

I'm getting ready to take the tank on a short move this weekend. The new house is less than a mile away, so I don't envision it being very traumatic for the reef. A couple of five gallon buckets to hold the live rock (corals are all attached) sand and about half of the water. I think the whole process should be done in about half an hour, forty five minutes tops. Yes, I knew I was going to be moving the tank this month when I started to plan it's set up. I'll watch for an ammonia spike but I don't really expect much of one.

Actually, the nano is the easy move ..... the big Cichlid tank... now that's another story. I'm not looking forward to breaking that down and setting it back up.

If things look OK a few days afterwards it'll be time to get in touch with Mary at Seacrop so I can polish off putting corals in the tank.

I'll snap a new pic when I get settled into the new place. I'll be buying a new camera next month as well so there will be better pictures coming soon.

[icenine]

So.. the reef took the move pretty well. There was a noticeable dip in my pod population but the numbers came back up again quickly. Other than that nothing seemed to really notice the move.

I did get a little wake up call in maintaining water temperature in a small tank since we've been in the new place. We had a string of 90 degree days in Chicago the second week in the new place. ...now in my big tank a heat wave was pretty much a non event, but wow does it work differently in a nano. About the second day of the heat wave the tank temp was up around and above 90, before we cranked up the AC and stuck a fan on the tank. I was able to get it back down to 81 and 82 (I had previously been running around 78-79) with a fan, but not before I lost a couple stalks of the xenia. Fortunately I did not lose all of it, and the stuff was growing like a weed so hopefully soon it will be back to what it was. None of the other corals suffered any damage due to the high temp and the swings back and fourth while I figured out how to cool it. I've mounted a couple of PC fans in the hood to blow across the overflow and front of the tank, that should keep the temp manageable in the future.

 

Zoas are practically indestructible: Just after the move about a dozen of my green and teals came loose from the mount (hermit crab knocked it off) and wound up buried in the rock work. I saw them fall, but knew I would have to tear up the rock work to get at them so It was a couple of days before I got around to making an attempt. When I did get in there I wasn't able to locate them and figured they had died and were consumed by my clean up crew. Well, this past weekend I was re-mounting a couple other frags and had most of the rockwork out of the tank when what do I see buried in complete darkness? ...the missing zoas. All closed up and in the dark for pretty much an entire month (in addition they went through the temperature woes like the rest of the tank). I re-mounted them back out in the light and within minutes they were opening back up. ...pale compared to the same polyps that stayed out (they actually looked very yellow, and kinda neat really) and they stayed pale for a few days but it looks like they are going to be just fine.

 

I also discovered another unwanted hitchhiker as well, an Aiptasia anemone. The other day I look in the tank and this guy is sitting right up front and pretty darn big (about 1/2 in). This was the first I'd seen of one. I was actually kinda surprised that I had not spotted any to begin with considering where my rock came from, and I'm still surprised it took so long for one to pop out. I pulled the rock it was on and yanked him off with a pair of tweezers (he retracted pretty tight to try and avoid that, darn near dissapeared) and scraped the spot it had mounted itself on too. I have been looking for more to pop out but have yet to have seen any. I'm confident I eradicated those nudibrach by now, I have not seen one for a couple months and none of my polyps are showing signs of being munched on. I hope this eradication effort is just as successful.

One thing I do wonder about though is the propagation of Digitate hydroids .... there have got to be about 20 or 25 of these in the tank now. Some have even attached to the astria snails. Now, nothing seems to be bothered by them (including the snails) they grow among the polyps it seems with no adverse effect. but seeing that many of them makes me consider trying to at least cull them back even though I'm not quite sure how I would go about doing that yet.

 

And to sing the praises of another NR member...I bought a nimble cleaner from the user C.Jerome, it's a real nice little tool to use and he is an excellent seller to work with.

I'm using it on my acrylic without leaving any (more) scratches. (Yes, in case you were wondering I'm STILL ####ed over the big scratch on the front of the display, acrylic is still a terrible material for a nano, but I won't be upgrading to a new tank anytime soon...... and I'm not yet confident in the scratch removal kits I've looked at...)

 

I'm heading out on a three week vacation soon. So I've decided to hold off on that seacrop order till I return. (just in case things go wrong while I'm away) I have someone staying at the house that can top off while we are out (I just have not become comfortable with auto top off yet) but there will be no water changes while I'm away (a big one before I leave and another when I come back). Since my overall bioload is low (no fish yet) and I'm running a skimmer everything should be fine.

When I come back next month the rest of the corals will go in, and so will the pair of percs and cleaner shrimp I plan to add.

 

New digital camera, a Nikon .... so the pics are considerably better and I can actually get some close up shots. Since it's been a while I'm posting a bunch. The tank has been running for 18 weeks now, moving slowly but for the most part things have been pretty successful. This whole process is taking quite a bit of patience considering that the tank won't be stocked with most of the intended corals and any fish till it's been running for a little over five months. (it's been REAL hard not to buy fish before my intended timeline in August, but so far I'm glad I havn't)

[icenine]

[Babycakes]

yowzer, i just read about the arm swelling and etc! i would def. wear gloves when it comes to uncured rocks and etc. i'm ordering one of those arm length latex ones soon.

[icenine]

[icenine]

[icenine]

[icenine]

[icenine]

[icenine]

If you take a look at my gallery you can blow some of these up for more detail. ...more to come soon.

...and yep babycakes aqua gloves are a must as far as I am concerned.

[icenine]

[icenine]

[icenine]

[icenine]

This is a close up of the largest rock at the bottom center of the fts.

 

You can see a couple Digitate hydroids in the upper right corner.

 

 

[icenine]

This shot (and the one above) also gives you an idea of how porus the haitian rock I got from jean_pool on e-bay is.

 

[icenine]

Well, I suppose getting rid of the first Aiptasia I saw and never seeing one in my tank again was wishful thinking. About a week after removing the first one... I saw another. This one was on one of the upper rocks in my auquascape so it made following the same drill I did before a bit easier. I took the rock out and yanked him off with a tweezers, scraped the area he was mounted to clean and rinsed off the rock with sw.

Then literally the day after doing that what do I see spread out over two other rocks? About half a dozen more Aiptasia. Very small, but half a dozen none the less. Now my current pull, scrape and rinse method was obviously not going to cut it any longer. I looked into Joe's Juice and a couple other syringe methods of destruction but decided to pass. These guys are currently very small and would be very hard for me to reach with the rock in the tank, and when the rock is moved or they are disturbed they curl up pretty quick. I'm not to eager to let them grow a bit so I can kill them properly.

I decided it was time to go off and find a peppermint shrimp. I know there are mixed reports as to whether this was a solution for controlling Aiptasia. I really had not intended to have one in the tank, preferring a skunk cleaner instead. But I talked to enough people that had positive experiences to give it a shot. One of the keys in getting a peppermint to control Aiptasia it would seem is actually getting a peppermint shrimp, lysmata wurdemanni. There is the camel shrimp, Rhynchocinetes durbanensis which looks fairly similar, is often confused with the peppermint and is far more likely not to eat Aiptasia but tear into some of your corals. I got the chance to look at them side by side and the peppermint has a more of a transparent "clear" body in between it's red stripes and the camel is more white. (makes me think the camel is more peppermint looking, but hey, I don't get to name these things)

Now, after making sure I got the intended shrimp I was left to wonder if it's going to search out the Aiptasia. I think that question got answered, there are already two fewer of the pests in the tank. I'll post a pic as soon as I get the chance to snap a decent one.

[icenine]

Well, getting a picture of the peppermint shrimp I added might never happen... I should have taken a pic in the bag or when I first dropped it in, it's a bit on the skittish side and mighty quick.

The shrimp has however gone right to work on the pest anemones, two days and they disappeared. I was kinda impressed with how quickly the shrimp searched them out and ripped them up. Chalk one up for lysmata wurdemanni being an effective control for Aiptasia. Now I just need to make sure I'm properly feeding a peppermint shrimp or try and get him out and in the hands of someone who needs some aiptisia wiped out.

Got some new polyps too... small rock with purple zoas with a white mouth and green skirt along with some larger maroon polyps with green centers. I'll post a pic later on, they will be easy to snap since they sit still.

[JustFin]

very nice diary thread

 

how is the scratch looking since your coraline growth has taken off? any problems with it or cleaning the front panel in general?

 

and wasn't this supposed to be a "nemo tank" for your son? has he been asking when are you going to buy a fish?

 

its hard enough for us adults to be patient, I can imagine a kid looking at the corals and thinking "yeah, those are nice, but when are we getting my Nemo?":happy:

[icenine]

Yes, it's still going to be a nemo tank... clownfish are the only option for fish. And yes, he's been extremely (and surprisingly)patient while I continue to put "flowers" in the tank instead of fish. He's actually away for the summer wich is part of the reason for not adding fish till August.

I'm not getting any algae growth of any sort in the scratch, I had figured it would have turned some color other than white by now but it hasn't. I use the nimble to clean the acrylic and it's done a great job, other than the big nasty scratch on the front the panels clean up very well.

[icenine]

[icenine]

The duster has been adding to it's tube, all the lighter shade of the tube has been added in the past couple of weeks.

 

[icenine]

This is a new rock I added... the pic was taken after they had been in for about 20 min... they all opened quickly and are a more purple than they look in this pic (still figuring out the new camera).

 

[icenine]

Remember when I thought one of my Astraea snails had offsping? Well, it didn't and the parasite is still there. No harm seems to have been done to the Astraea, so I've left it there.

 

Here is a pic of the duo: