Inland Aquatics Order

[flaunt]

i just finished acclimating and introducing some new critters that just came in a shipment from Inland Aquatics today, so i thought i'd share some pics with you all.  it's hard to find people who have had experiences with ordering from websites, so hopefully this will help anyone who is thinking of ordering from them.

 

i wanted some more critters running around in and on my sandbed so i ordered the following:

12 baby bristleworms

6 mini brittle stars

3 Stomatella (cap snails)

3 peppermint snails

 

well first off, i'm basically positive that everything that came was alive... the bristleworms were a little harder to tell because some of them were curled up in a little ball.  anyway, i took some pics of the stuff in my acclimation bucket... first here are the mini brittle stars:

 

hmm... i ordered six...

 

...whoops, left one in the bag!  there he is!

 

now i can understand why these are called "brittle stars," they're brittle!  besides some broken arms, i think these guys are in pretty good shape, you can see in the images where some of them have arms already growing back.

 

next are the baby bristleworms.  

 

hmmm... i ordered 12 of them...

 

...and i think i got atleast 15!!

 

the last picture i have is of the cap snails (stomatella), which is a larger image since the snails were pretty small:

 

 

the peppermint snails are extremely small, so the picture i took of them is extremely blurry and you can't even see anything!  anyway, all of the snails took off as soon as they made it into the tank.  the snails are really cool looking, and the peppermints have very shiny, pretty shells on them.

 

i acclimated the livestock according to Inland Aquatics' recommendations; floating the bags for atleast 15 minutes (i did it for more like 30), then adding a cup of tank water to the bag water, waiting five minutes, and repeating 2 more times before adding the animals to the aquarium.  i took my time and did each bag individually and things seem to be doing well!  anyway, hopefully my good experience will give some others confidence in ordering from them, cause i was a tad leary of ordering online myself.  god, nobody better accuse me of being associated with Inland Aquatics :-P  i have nothing to personally gain from saying i got a good shipment from them!

 

(Edited by flaunt at 10:11 pm on May 30, 2002)

[Korbin]

Thanks for the info and pics!  Its so helpful to see what people get when they order stuff.

[flaunt]

no prob.  i forgot to mention that i also took the advice of Inland Aquatics and heavily fed my coralbanded shrimp (bristleworm predator) prior to introducing the animals, but in spite of that the sucker grabbed a bristleworm and started eating it!  i chased the shrimp around the tank until he dropped the contraband... then banished him to my surge container (sitting above the aquarium) for atleast the short term.  i started thinking about it though and he might be happier in there than in the main tank since the surge container doesn't get much light!

[karlas]

i got my kit from IA also. the tank has been running 9 mths.  i didnt get the bristle worms because i had some in my lr already. but the peppermint and stomatella snails seem to come out at night but great cleaners. also the stomatella will reproduce and after a while you will be finding babies. i got the micro stars and mini brittle i had 5-6 each and now they are all over the place. several micro stars and at last count found 16 brittles. i only see them when i feed the fish then all their arms come out trying to catch food. pretty cool to watch

[mxpro32]

  you are adding bristleworms to your tank or your refugium?  i thought we were trying to get bristle worms out of our tanks?

[flaunt]

well most of the things i have read and heard from others is that they are more beneficial than they are harmful.  they're detrivores, and help oxygenate the top layer of the sandbed.  there are certain types of bristleworms that are not reef-safe and may pose a threat to some corals, but most of them are ok.  i already had several bristleworms in mine and although i've seen them eat things like macroalgae, i've never witnessed them attack corals or other inverts.  and if i ever get an overpopulation of bristles, i can just throw my coralbanded shrimp back into the main tank and let him munch!