Kaplanm

My fiancee caught something for me. I hadn't noticed that my purple firefish was apparently not eating well. Feeding once a day obviously wasn't enough, but in order to lure him into food he needs small particles in suspension. With the foodstuffs I have it would necessitate overfeeding in order to insure that he's not out competed for the types of food that he likes best.

I think my answer would be to use a suspension of baby brine, the problem is I don't know where I could source a reliable supply. I know they're not amazingly tough to raise yourself, but at this point I'm simply out of space to set that up.

Any suggestions on either alternative food stuffs that'll stay in suspension, or where to source baby brine?

OK,

The Neon Goby also vanished yesterday. The Firefish and Cardinal are still OK, and looking perfectly healthy. Is there an easy way to tell if I've got a predatory shrimp or crab in there?

At some point in the future I'm going completely digital. Alas, that's an expensive conversion, especially for my current tank.

Luckily I'm buying a house so I can get my 220!

Your nitrates are fine. I run all the way up to 15ppm before I start to get concerned.

Your PH is fine. I would leave it alone until it gets to 8.5-8.6

What is your p04 at, that is a very Important measurement.

I just ran a PO4, and according to the Salifert kit it came back at 0.5ppm. That's too high isn't it?

Water Params As of Today:
Salinity: 1.023

pH: 8.3

NH4: 0ppm

NO3: 0ppm

NO4: 8ppm

Alk: 7dKH

PO4: .5ppm

I can already see a Nitrate and a pH problem has cropped up. A week ago my pH was no higher than 8.2 max. Isn't going any higher than that bad news? I've been using the Red Sea Coral Pro as my salt mix.

Correct me if I'm wrong but the next steps I should take are perform probably a 30% water change with a mix of something in the 1.025 range and a pH of around 8.0?

I can possibly add a *very* small refugium and run some chaeto, but the size we're talking is a drop in the bucket. (Wouldn't hurt for the pods though)

Are there any other steps I should be taking? Is it time to bust out some NO4 removing resin?

I'll add the test in, if I'm having an issue I'll add GFO. I'll have to jury rig a reactor, I've got the GFO on hand.

No that's absolutely the kind of in depth analysis I was hoping some people could provide.

As for test kits, for the NH4, NO3, NO4, pH, and Alk I'm using the Red Sea "Marine Care Test Kit". For Mg, PO4, and Ca I've got the Salifert kits. I'm using a refractometer for Salinity.

Since the Serpent Stars died, I did a test found both toxic levels of ammonia and nitrite. I let the tank rest for a bit until those levels returned to 0, although I still had a nitrate reading of 5ppm. I performed a 20% water change at this point.

At that point all growth of the turf algae had ceased, I manually removed most of what was there, the rest is slowly being taken care of by the Cerinths. I've been vigilant in making sure no snails etc. have died and the one or 2 that haven't made it have been immediately removed.

As for cleanup crew I was following that old, and lousy reccomendation of 1 snail / hermit per gallon. They're all chomping away happily at this point, but you're right I can see a time shortly where I will have to probably start pulling them.

Today is tank maintence and I'll be running a full water panel, plus I'll add in a PO4 as well. I'll post results of all of that later.

I lost my first Royal Gramma about a week ago, never found the body. I figured it may've just been the stress of the move (My current QT setup is only good for a couple hours, just enough to do a visual inspection. I know that's poor form.)

Today I lost my second Royal Gramma. I found the body and there were no visible signs of disease. (I don't really know how to perform a proper necropsy) It however had been fairly scavenged by the time I got to it.

The 50k dollar question is who am I hunting? From what I can tell some of the likely candidates are hitchiking crabs and mantis shrimp. A small chance it's a bristle worm. Is there anything else I should be looking for? Is there any easy way to hunt down this critter before it strikes again? (My purple firefish has burrowed in a nearby region) Any advice is appreciated.

Now both Grammas wound up nesting in about the same place. I know there are some reasonably sized bristle worms within the rocks over there. I pulled one about 4" or 5" out of the corpse and doused it in bleach. My other fish are all currently fine. Water has tested out fine.

Here's the full lowdown on tank stock:
1x ORA Neon Goby

1x ORA Banggai Cardinal

1x Purple Fire Fish

25x Astrea Snails

3x Margarita Snails

17x Cerinth

5x Scarlet Hermits

2x Emerald Crabs

1x TIger Conch

Various SPS, Mushroom, and Octocorals.

I have had a Flame Angel for 2 years and it has never bothered anything. I know angels are hit or miss but the Flame is on the safer side.

Do you also have any clams? I've been toying with them as an idea also. But I know that all angels are notorious for enjoying clams for dinner.

That much I understand.

I've got a pretty solid filtration system for a tank of this size, and I do regular water changes and testing.

I can see where I stand now, but if I pull the trigger to drop in a small group of Chromis it's not the kind of deal I can really do 1 by 1 and see where the breaking point is.

Chromis are easy, but I think the problem is 5-7 of them fully grown would max out the bio load by themselves.

Last I'd heard the rough rule of thumb reccomendations were for between 1" per 4 or 5 gallons in saltwater. The 1" per gallon rule is for fresh.

I was toying with a Flame Angel, but I know they can be cranky around corals. I'd rather keep my coral than an Angel. (Just barely. Someday I'll run a FOWLR setup)

One of the Orchid Dottybacks, or their hybrids also caught my eye. I much prefer Aquacultured specimens where possible and I know I can get these aquacultured.

I had been toying with a small shoal of Black Axil Chromis, but they're going to outgrow that tank.

Anyone have any nifty ideas for something with color that is *not* a clownfish?

Lost the 2 Serpent Stars, that's my fault. Had a nitrate spike, stocked them too early. That issue has now resolved and I've been able to begin stocking again.

I've gotten some neat coral specimens. Picked up several nice Paly's from phamily.

Blue pocillipora

Green/blue montipora

Pink bird's nest

Green Mushroom

Blue Mushroom

Red Mushroom

Green fuzzy mushroom

Pom Pom Xenia

Teal Brain (not positive on the genus yet, working on identifying it still)

Picked up a few more inverts

Tiger Conch

5x Scarlet hermits

10x Cerith snails

3x Margarita

7x Astrea

3x Banded trochus

1x Tuxedo Urchin

Also picked up some fish finally!
1x Neon Goby

1x Banggai Cardinal

1x Purple Firefish

1x Royal Gramma

I've got a Yellow Diamond goby on the way. Should be able to pick him up either this weekend or sometime next week.

I'm also planning on a 6 line wrasse.

I'd also like to replace my stars.

Here's the $64k question. Am I at my stocking limit? That boils down to full grown about 1" per 3 gal. Now that I do the math out in full I think I've got my answer. Still I'd love to hear people chime in.

I'd love to come!

If anyone wants some free Kenyan Tree let me know. I've a plethora of it.

I've read that the Lettuce Nudibranch was useful in chomping down on GHA. Has anyone had any luck using this critter for algae control.

I'm having a similar problem. Nitrates finally bottomed out, I've added an Urchin to help, but he seemed disinterested. I've got a Dove conch on the way. Plenty of Snails (no turbos, they're just too big) and a couple of Hermits and Emerald Crabs.

Forgive my naivety, but why wouldn't you want to boil them off?

I have a cerameco frag rack I'd really like to keep but it got some fairy dust palys on it and of course they are quickly taking over. I need to get them all off before they get on my aquascaping. I can easily remove the rack but am undecided on how to safely remove them and be able to put the rack back in the tank. Thinking of boiling them off.

Just kidding, just kidding!!!! Other ideas?

Tried leaving a clam in a breeder box last night, was still there in the morning. I don't think the slots would be too small given it as a flat worm.

So either the little bugger wasn't hungry, or it couldn't smell it. I'm not sure where it is so I'm left trying to get it to come to me.

Any ideas how to make the frozen clam smell better? Is there like a "flat worm love potion" I can spray on it?

How would you do that? With Kalkwasser, or just with a concentrated solution of reef salt?

To accomplish that I'd have to remove the rock from the tank correct? All that assumes I could follow the little bugger to it's home. I've seen it taking free reign of the tank.

If I can get my nitrates problem under control, I've heard that Arrow crabs can be used to control flat worms. Is that something worth trying with this type of flatworm?

If you know what rock the worm is in, then hyper salinity will get it out without killing the rock.

I'll give it a shot. This thing's pretty big from what I've been able to *****. Maybe about as big as the first segment of your thumb. I was thinking tonight I might try retrofitting a plastic veggie container and baiting it with their favorite, clams. Then it's a matter of buckling and waiting for the little bugger to show itself.

That's on the menu. The tank's been cycling for about 3 weeks. 40lbs dry rock 46lbs live rock. I'd added snails, the 2 stars and a coral banded and peppermint shrimp to try and take care of some nuisance hitch-hikers. What I did do, that I just recognized is I changed out my filter sock and removed my activated carbon at the same time I added the critters, that filter sock must've been holding some of the worst of it at bay.

I'm running a reef octopus nwb100 for a protein skimmer, other than that I'm not running anything with any regularity. (Occasional activated carbon when desperately needed to clarify the water some)

So what was a barely stable system, just tipped over the edge.

Only had it since Tuesday. No other damage, Ran a water panel, Ammonia spike. Looks like the bloody flat worm that's killing my snails isn't cleaning up after itself. Went on dead things hunt, pulled what I could find.

Is it worth trying Zeolite to get me through the crisis?

I've found what appears to be a polyclad flatworm in my tank. He stalks around my tank at night eating my snails, which for now I can deal with. Astrea aren't too expensive to replace. However I want to get a nice clam, and from what I've been reading, that's their food of choice.

My question is, has anyone had any luck eradicating these things?

I've got FlateXit if I have to, but I don't think it'll work on something this big.

I've done the whole sit out at night with only red light and try and find the beast, but it's eluding me now that I'm on to it.

I had a pair of lovely serpent stars, one of which has already kicked the bucket and I'm not certain why yet. (water panel to follow this afternoon)

The other one however dropped an arm last night. Is this something they're known to do when threatened, or is this a sign of predation?

Is that a sea apple on top? All i know is that I saw those tendrils come out of it's mouth and it seemed like something out of a horror movie.