George Monnat Jr

Be careful on qt tanks with sterilizers, it will heat the water and cook the fish!

Great point, I hadn't thought about that. Another reason to run only at night/morning.

I haven't noticed a problem with Ca/dKH/Mg, but then I have a really light load for all three. I dose kalkwasser (pickling lime & 5% vinegar) out of a DIY dripper just upstream of my UV intake. Maybe I'll start to see weird readings after I add Ca/dKH/Mg loads.

I know for a fact it's helped with microalgae. Anecdotally, I haven't seen any diseases since I started it (but added few things, too).

Thanks to all for the information.

My scarlet cleaners anger me. Everytime I try to feed the BTA and Sexies, 1 or 2 of the cleaners run over and try to steal everything. They're like LSU's Honey Badger - they don't care. They just run right across the BTA and grab what they can.

Welcome!

Is BAMF Aquatics in SE Houston? If so, I still have family in Alvin and can stop by on my way.

Crinoids will host most of the same corals that your sexy's will host. Anything frilly basically.

You're getting me to build quite a wish list for All WYSIWYG!

I know it's weird (to some) to want these tiny, typically cryptic crustaceans for a 125g and not a nano, but without predators mine stay out in the open. The tiny sexies and the even the fire shrimp hang out in the front. None of them want to miss a feeding! I have a harder time getting them to scavenge in the LR like a proper CUC should than staying out in the open.

Tonight I'll get a shot of the 6-9 sexies on my BTA.

I'm excited about the coral and crab/shrimp/lobster combinations you've all mentioned. I need to get back to work...

Wow, I hand't seen the crinoid squat lobsters before. I don't want to try keeping a feather star alive. Did anything else host your squat lobster?

Thanks for the info, I think that'll really help me plan stocking my DT.

One other route you may go, as my sexy shrimp isn't picky, is other anemone types. Mini-carpet anemones, LTA, condylactis, or just about any soft coral. My sexy shrimp hosts my anthelia, xenia, clove polyps, and devils hand at various times.

That's an intriguing idea.

* Which seems to be the sexys' favorite?

* Which is your favorite?

* Which are more hardy (I'm probably not ready for LPS and definitely not ready for SPS)

* Which are peaceful and don't engage in chemical/bio warfare?

* Are any the answer for all four?

I only have experience with BTAs.

Thanks!

Hi All,

While I've been waiting for my tank to mature, I paid more for a more interesting CUC. Instead of more hermits, I got a bunch of shrimp, mostly Sexy Shrimp. I still don't have large fish or corals, and I plan on choosing those that won't harm my Sexy Shrimp and others (no wrasses, coral banded shrimp, etc.). The tank is still mostly empty, so I was thinking about adding 1 or 2 more BTAs that can host interesting crustaceans.

I currently have one large BTA that hosts a group of Sexy Shrimp. I'm thinking about adding another BTA to host a pair of Porcelain Anemone Crabs (Neopetrolisthes ohshimai or N. maculatus) or maybe 1 or more White Spot/Ghost Anemone Shrimp (Periclimenes brevicarpalis) or even better Anemone Saddled Cleaner Shrimp (Periclimenes holthuisi).

Here's my setup

6' left-to-right, 18" front-to-back, 19" water depth (constant water level down to top of substrate) 125 gal DT w/ 33 gal sump and 190# LR

Here's my current bioload

10 small bumblebee snails

30 nerite snails

~16 cerith snails

3 small (1/2"-3/4") red-legged hermit crabs [still waiting for them to die and stop eating my cerith]

1 large (2") tiger pistol shrimp

13 small (1/4"-1/2") sexy shrimp [i bought 12 but now have 13 :eek1:; 4-8 stay on the BTA at any time, the others have a couple of other spots, like swinging on my poor Hawaiian Feather Duster]

4 medium (1.5") scarlet/skunk cleaner shrimps

2 medium (1.5") blood red fire shrimp

1 medium/large (4" dia.) brown BTA

1 large (2" dia.) Hawaiian Feather Duster

3 medium (1/2", 3/4" & 1" dia.) purple feather dusters

1 yellowtail damselfish (1.5")

1 Randall's Prawn Goby (2.5")

1 bicolor blenny (2")

I'm thinking about adding a harem of anthias (probably Threadfin), but everything I've read says they're reef and small invert safe (I hope so!)

Does anyone see a problem with those inverts being hosted by BTAs or having a conflict with my other critters? I've read that the porcelain crabs do well in pairs, but if I go with the shrimp, how many?

Thanks,

George

Fishy business is open until 9.

Yep, Fishy Business has good salt water (I believe Kent Marine) for $1/gal and RODI for $0.50/gal (IIRC).

I just found a great site: Pictorial Fish Disease Guide

If you're lucky, your fish has Lympho (scroll down to Lymphocyctis virus) and you just need to remove it's source of stress.

Does it look like the Koran Angel in this pic (you might need to scroll down some)?

Here's the one I just bought which is a 24w rated for 100g. This and the new fluval filter I ordered should K.O. this algae problem I've been battling.

http://www.ebay.com/...163505595771673

Yea, that should be very good. From what I've seen, such as this table:

If you have 24W if you have < 200 gph going through it (24W * 8 gph/W = 192 gph) then you'll have great sterilization (Level 2).

I bought a Tropical Marine Centre (TMC) Vecton V2 600 (25W UVC lamp) from American Aquarium Products. It's pricy, $164, and probably requires plumbing. I planned on putting it just after my sump return pump, but that Mag 12 has 1375 gph flow. The Vecton V2 600 is meant to have 500-750 gph for level 1 sterilization and 250 gph max. for level 2. I bought a cheap MJ900 that pumps 230 gph through the sterilizer, and everything looks great.

I've read a lot of articles by experts (not shills for UV) that state the bulk of the "good" bacteria is not in the water column, so the UV sterilizer in my sump shouldn't affect that at all. I dose kalkwasser (pickling lime and 5% vinegar) every night, and my Ca/dKH/Mg levels are really high (granted coralline algae, spirorbid worms, ornamental shrimp, etc. are my only Ca sinks for now). I need to shut of the sterilizer when I dose kalk or anything else, just to be sure.

If you're running your sterilizer for 1/3 of each day, I guess before feeding, then the food should be cycling for 16 hours every day without UV, right?

Thanks for posting that. I've been running a UV sterilizer for about a month now, and I always wonder if it's doing a good job or not. I know that I was cleaning microalgae off of my glass every day or every other day before the UV sterilizer and now I don't need to clean but once a week - and that's more for keeping the spirorbid worms and coralline algae from growing on the glass than algae.

Another newb, so I figure it's safer to resurrect this thread than start a new one Let's see if I can make these quotes work right.

I have a similar situation to that above - a slow-growing, macro-algae-looking brown growth on my LR. I posted this ID question on RC last week, but I haven't received any responses there. Does this look like Lobophora or something else?

Any thoughts or comments are welcome.

http://www.reefcentr...519&postcount=1

My Setup

6' 125 gal DT w/ 33 gal sump

I upgraded from a year-old 20 gal 3 months ago moving 25# LR then

190 pounds LR total (I think the original 25# LR was Fiji and new 165# maybe Tongan? LFS on the phone just now said what sounded like "Tonaka"' date=' whatever that is)

AquaC EV-180 skimmer

Lights are TMC AquaRay like this (front of DT at bottom of diagram)

[img']http://i209.photobucket.com/albums/bb16/GeorgeMon/Pets/AquaRayLighting_Current.jpg[/img]

My Bioload

My tank's still immature, so I don't have corals, big fish, etc. Mainly just ornamental shrimp for CUC.

2x small (1/2"-3/4") red-legged hermit crabs

1x small (1”) emerald crab (in sump/refugium)

1x small (1.5”) orange linckia star (in sump/refugium)

10x small bumblebee snails

30x nerite snails

~16x cerith snails (**** hermits)

1x large (2") pistol shrimp

12x small (1/4"-1/2") sexy shrimp

4x medium (1.5") scarlet/skunk cleaner shrimps

2x medium (1.5") blood red fire shrimp

1x medium/large (4" dia.) brown BTA

1x large (2" dia.) Hawaiian Feather Duster

3x medium (1/2", 3/4" & 1" dia.) purple feather dusters

1x yellowtail damselfish (1.5")

1x Randall's Prawn Goby (2.5")

1x bicolor blennie (2")

1x tailspot blennie (1.5")

3x clumps of Chaetomorpha in sump (floating around one piece of LR ~1-2#)

My Water Parameters

pH 8.18, 80°F

salinity 53.3 mS/cm

Calcium 460ppm

KH/Alkalinity 3.3 Meq/L or 9.2 dKH

Mg/Magnesium 1310ppm

Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate about 0 (haven't checked in about a week, but my Seachem Ammonia detectors have stayed yellow [good] and my Poly-Filter pad has stayed white [good])

My Concern

I've noticed these dinner-plate looking spots of brown, film algae on some of the newer LR.

I've scoured all of the nuisance algae ID threads and online ID sites I can find, but nothing looks exact. My best guess is that it's a Lobophora sp. brown algae.

It's been growing pretty slowly but steadily for a couple of months now, and it's on multiple LRs across the DT from 5" deep to about 13" deep. Most are between dime-sized and nickel-sized (US). I tried tweezing some off. It's definitely too soft for coralline algae, but it doesn't peel off in chunks, either. I don't think I can manually remove it (maybe if I take a couple weeks to pick off each tiny bit as it breaks apart instead of peeling off), and it's on too many rocks for me to want to boil them (only as a last resort).

The LR it started on is the new Tongan/Tanaka? LR and is still mostly on that - but that may be because the new LR is piled up high in back and the old Fiji LR is at the bottom along the front.

The one under the red arrow in this next picture is about 7.5" under the surface of the water.

Here's another picture from further out to give you a better idea (again, under the red arrow).

That's just right of center, so it's under the back, left corner of the TMC AquaRay 1000 HD Ultra Marine White square (70W; 10x 14kK white LEDs) and almost under the TMC AquaRay 600 Ultra Reef Blue stick (35W; 5x 50kK blue). A couple of days ago I took a PAR reading with an Apogee SQ-110 reading 130 µmol/m2/s at the BTA (14" deep), so it's probably closer to 200 at that spot. My white lights are on for 9 hours/day (blue stick on for 11 hours/day).

In the last picture there's another large group in the bottom left of the picture under the yellow arrow at about 13" deep and under the TMC AquaRay 1500 XG Ultima square (70W; 10x 9kK white). So they have about 130 for PAR.

I think that's all I've got after reading the How to Help us Help you Identify Algae sticky.

Anyone have thoughts on ID and how to handle it? It's not critical, yet, but I want to get ahead of it. Especially before I get zoas or anything else.

But I'll just stick all these into one of my spare tanks to clean up all that nasty aptasia, I imagine it should get cleared out pretty fast.

After they do their job I might let them go with a rehoming fee of $3 each to make sure they go to good homes

If they clean up all of your aiptasia and you still have a few needing homes, I'd gladly swing by and pay the relocation fee.

Okay, Ill try putting it on a rock and see how he does. Thanks for the help guys!

Is it doing better? I want to add a maxima, so I'm curious to see how yours is doing.

Hello All,

I had FW tanks growing up, and I never wanted the hassle of SW tanks. A little over a year ago my wife finally got her SCUBA certification. After we went blue water diving she got excited about a SW aquarium. That's when I ran across a LFS, Fishy Business, a few blocks from our previous residence. Shane there set us up with a 20 gal w/ 25 pounds of LR, and I was hooked.

At the beginning of this year we bought a house and moved out near 620 and Anderson Mill. I decided since we were moving it was a good time to upgrade. I did so to a 6' 125 gal DT w/ 33 gal sump and 190# LR (again, through Shane at Fishy Business), hoping to start getting coral and clams. I didn't realize what a huge undertaking that was from a simple FOWLR 20 gal to a reef 125 gal with the lights, skimmer, sump/refugium, etc. Now I'm hooked and spend too much time on it (a story I'm sure that you're all familiar with).

I've been reading a lot, mostly on the Reef Central forums. Last week I exchanged PMs with a guy on RC, and he asked if I was a member of ARC. I didn't, but I've joined up now. I guess SirReal63 deserves credit for a reference.

My DT is still fairly immature, and I'm trying to be patient. I have mostly CUC with ornamental shrimp and a couple of blennies.

3x small (1/2"-3/4") red-legged hermit crabs [waiting for these to die off, so my cerith may live]

1x small (1”) emerald crab (in sump/refugium)

1x small (1.5”) orange linckia star (in sump/refugium)

10x small bumblebee snails

30x nerite snails

~16x cerith snails (**** hermits)

1x large (2") pistol shrimp

12x small (1/4"-1/2") sexy shrimp

4x medium (1.5") scarlet/skunk cleaner shrimps

2x medium (1.5") blood red fire shrimp

1x medium/large (4" dia.) brown BTA

1x large (2" dia.) Hawaiian Feather Duster

3x medium (1/2", 3/4" & 1" dia.) purple feather dusters

1x yellowtail damselfish (1.5")

1x Randall's Prawn Goby (2.5")

1x bicolor blennie (2")

1x tailspot blennie (1.5")

3x clumps of Chaetomorpha in sump (floating around one piece of LR ~1-2#)

Almost all of the above have been great for a couple of months now, and all of the fish except the tailspot came over from the 20 gal. My skimmer's been working great and my parameters are good, so I'm starting to get antsy about adding zoas, rica, etc.

That's my BTA shaped like a heart with a Sexy Shrimp on it. Too bad it wasn't Valentine's Day (which is also my anniversary), the wife would've loved that.