Bill B

When you mean it "disappears", is it because your fish or snails have eaten it? If that's the case, it's not cyano. Alot of my rock was covered with it, and it seems to be going away. Of course, my tangs and astrea snails keep on munching on it. There maybe some other factors that have contributed to this decline of algae for example: we upgraded to a more efficient skimmer, added an AquaZone (ozonizer/redox controller), reduced my fish load=less food=less nutrients in the system, and that's in the past 4 to 6 months.

I really don't know where it 'goes'. My first tank has only a bi color blenny that eats algae at all. I do have quite a few snails and they certainly crawl over it, but I can't say I ever saw a path eaten away. This is not something I have observed closely and it is a gradual process, but my general impression is: I will notice a 'patch', very dark red ,with an almost velvet appearance. Usually it is relatively small say 2"x2". Sometimes it will extend itself a little more but eventually I will notice it is beginning to reverse. Perhaps the edges are beginning or recede a little or it just looks like it is becoming less dense. Eventually it will be completely gone. I am a little shaky on this last observation but it 'seems' the final stage will be that pinkish red 'residue' which sure looks like coraline. Now, my oldest tank, ( 5 months, but running when I got it) is definitely growing coraline as there are little circles of it all over the glass and some rocks are definitely getting more coverage. Perhaps the pinkish residue, which sure resembles coraline will eventually flake off with more time or perhaps this velvety growth is somehow making a more attractive/conditioned place for coraline to attach - but I am relatively certain that at least in some cases an area which was once red velvet growth is now bubble gum pink coraline in several instances.

Bill

I believe your right Andrew.....from my observations. Before we do a water change I check my water parameters, and if the magnesium is low we add enough supplement to raise it to 1350 ppm. After a 24 hr. period we check again and magnesium is up where we wanted, then BOOM your corals also put out some growth. Also keep you phosphates levels low to zero. This is just from my observation.

Hello - Sorry to horn in on the general topic but as a newbie to SW I wondered if you could tell me what the velvety dark red growth on my rock is. It sometimes seems when it dissappears the bubble gum red stain of 'coraline algae' remains but don't think they are one and the same nor is this necessarily the case.

Thanks

Bill

my xenias were doing great for the last month or so, but as of late ive noticed they arent pulsing anymore and they seem to be declining in health. How can i get them to plump back up? any sugestions? also ive got some turbo tiger snails that seemed to have reproduced. Ive noticed that i went from about 3 to 30 in a few weeks. how offten do these guys reproduce?

I am still very new to the hobby and both of my tanks are still trying to meet a nice balance, but in my personal limited experience the single most important factor for xenias is water flow. The more they get the more they like it. I am still trying to find that 'perfect' spot where they are happy most of the time and yet not looking like they are in a hurricane because the current is so strong. Another wild shot would be water temperature. I have had to adjust my heaters up a little now that the days and house is not so hot during the day. Just a couple of thoughts.

Bill

I still think it's some sort of copopod.

Thanks - From the generic descriiptions I have read of this family, it does sound like a good possibility - assuming there are not salt water spiders :)

Bill

how are your coral and inverts doing in the hyposalinity?I thought that was a fish only thing.I agree with gabe.when my hippo tang starts "bouncing" off of stuff I feed him more and add garlic.it never lasts mor than a day or two.

I did not change the salinity. The only references I found were "you could probably go as low as ____". Sounded too iffy for someone with no experience at saltwater disease. The only article that sounded very empirical actually put them in a QT and lowered to .009!

I had not considered food at all. The tang and fox face both spend a lot of time trying to graze, with little to graze on. I had assumed this was just their nature. When I first put them in I was having a small hair algae problem but they took care of that pero pronto. I'll add that to the regimine, especially more veggies.

Thanks

Bill

For as long as I have been in this hobby there have been ongoing arguments about the best treatment for Ich. I tend to agree with store B. Although raising the temp really only makes the Ich go through it's cycle faster. I personally feel that stress is the biggest problem for the fish dealing with Ich. So I would try to keep the tank as stable as possible and feed more. A healthy stress free fish will be better able to fight it off. UV would only kill any cysts that happen to be free floating and make it through the filter. I think John at Kingfish was telling me about a new product they had tried that was reef safe and had some success. You might give them a call.

Thanks for your input Gabriel. Even in FW there are two camps - chemicals or environment. Unfortunately one of the key changes with the environment people is to add salt. It also seems that FW ick has a much shorter life cycle especially at higher temps. It also seems much less fatal, as about the only fish that die in FW are those that have epidemic outbreaks before they are noticed, so most discussions are primarily intellectual as both work the vast majority of the time. I still find it very curious how quickly the white cysts appear and disappear. Is it possible I have diagnosed the wrong thing. I does seem so much like classical ick - small salt pebbles, twitching, occasionally quick bursts of swimming and rubbing against things. The Tang is the most unusual. I have seen it skipping along the sand as if to scratch it's belly and he really likes to rub against the Fox Face. I am concerned his surgeon blades might injure it. As mentioned it seems to also be a daily occurrence that it appears to have no cysts in the morning and have more than just a few in the evening. All three of the 'infected' fish act differently. The Gramma will appear to have a fairly heavy amount around it's face but does very little scratching or the like - they are often also gone in the morning. The Fox Face mostly twitches and bolts. He is never cyst free and I would say the numbers increase and decrease much less. Right now he has maybe 10 cysts I can easily see. If form holds this number will perhaps double by the evening. I have never seen anything like this with ick. It seems normally they may have quite a few: this decreases (with treatment) till there is none and if they return it is in the opposite numbers (few to more). This normally takes 2 or 3 days, each direction and not 24 hours. Hopefully this is moot and this time they are really dropping off - but I doubt it, as I predicted a similar outcome yesterday.

I did read an interesting anecdote about stable environment. One person said they had a fish who seemed to have a small infection for some number of weeks. So he finally decided to move it to a QT and try something a little more aggressive. He was hoping this would put it in new water where in tank ick didn't already exist. It died within hours, with no treatment added.

So - keep the opinions coming. Probably it was intentional but there was no opinion on Cleaner Shrimp - myth or legend. I am sure Gabriel is against freshwater dips and I dread the picture so I didn't even bring them up. I did find a few more opinions on UV. They all concurred that while they might reduce numbers in both the cyst and free swimming stage they would not get them all to happen to get sucked into the UV.

Thanks

Bill

Sounds like your everyday copopod

something like this?

It's a darn good thing that I don't write for a living. This guy did not look at all like that. Perhaps if I quit talking about insects. If anything this looked much more like a crab than a shrimp. The legs were the dominate feature of the creature. It's body was proportionately much smaller than the legs. My mental picture is fading slightly but it seemed actually white and not primarily colorless. The 'feelers' I mentioned were not much longer if any than the legs. They were just obviously protruding from the head/front area and not the side. I don't know if this is a helpful addition but it was on the front glass and seemed to be walking effortless on the glass as opposed to clinging to it. I do think the body was a little longer than wide but only slightly, and this may be an incorrect memory as it was overall very small which means the body part was really small. This may be difficult to identify with a picture, must less without.

Thanks

Bill

Well, I have been posting several what's this and that questions and I think I better mention the serious stuff. I have ick in my 75 gal and would like some suggestions on what 'you' do. I have been keeping FW for 4 years so I am well familiar with the phenomenon of different opinions, but I would love to hear them all. I have a 3" Fox Face and Spotted Cheek Tang, a 2 1/2" Maroon Clown, a 1 1/2" Royal Gramma and a tiny 1" Chromis. I have a few palys and zoas, some star polps, shrooms, a xenia and a torch. I have a 4 Mexican turbo snails and about 20 red legged crabs.

I talked with two of the LFS and they were different, of course, and I am sure they have both dealt with this problem. One said hospital tank, Copper Safe and possibly lowering the salinity to .017. The other said Kent Extreme Garlic and raise the temp to 84. Both said Metro. might help but wouldn't be a cure. Currently I am going with plan B but am very open to any suggestions. Frankly thus far (5 days) I am not seeing much progress. Strangely, perhaps it is just the lighting, but sometimes it seems most are almost cyst free, and then by the evening they will have considerably more - this has happened two days, including now. I am curious about suggested salinity and temp. Store A thought 84 was very high. My Torch (and only stony) in particular doesn't seem very happy. I do have an empty 29 gal but was concerned about cycling problems with this many fish in a 29 for 6 weeks? otherwise I probably would have gone with the 'tried and true' copper treatment - that and having to break down the tank. Both stores acted like UV should help at least, but possibly they hadn't actually done this?? I read all 4 posts here and was interested in comments about Cleaner Shrimp. One googled forum had a 'pro' who suggested shrimp and 6 lines was an urban myth. Cited some U Fla study which said various parasites were found in their guts but no ick. This of course was right after several people had already responded that they were wonderful and in tandem with any other copper free method should be bullet proof. BTW the clown and chromis have been in the tank almost from the start (6 weeks) and currently seem asymptomatic, but I am not depending on this to remain the case. I do also have a 29 which seems problem free, but I am assuming moving any corals or inverts may cross contaminate?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated to perhaps lessen my errors here. Frankly I was stunned when I realized ick is a big deal in SW, because of all the extra inhabitants. In FW, for me anyway, it's been quick cure 3 times wait 10 days, the ick is gone and you're done - easy stuff.

Thank you

Bill Brister

I realize there are lots of different critters in SW tanks but just being about 5 months into them I am fascinated by all the hitchhikers. Sorry this all happened so fast I didn't even get a vain attempt at a picture, but I thought perhaps it was something very common you could identify by description. This was actually hiding around my sea weed clip. At first glance it looked like a powdery white insect or spider. It had 2 or three sets of legs sticking out to the side, and a set of 'feelers' coming out from it's head area, all very thin. Looked like it could move relatively quickly although it didn't get much of a chance as my (newly identified) Spotted Cheek Tang saw me looking at it and made lunch out of it. I only got to look at it 10-15 seconds but as I recall the body was a little more elongated than the round shape of my spider suggestion. It was maybe 1/4", if that. It most struck me as looking like a little white bug. I'm betting there are no saltwater spider

Sound like anything familiar, or even type of critter?

Thanks

Bill

I bought this fish and was told it was a surgeonfish. Of course, I later realized this is a very generic term. Unfortunately I cannot get a good in focus photo. The attached photo is of a brown tang, which mine is very similar to but with these differences: At times mine is very brown and very few features are visible. At others it turns an almost cream tan. Then you can see the 'freckles' around its face. However, rarely would I say it is the same tone as the picture. Mine also has a little cream band at the base of it's tail fin, it does not have a crescent shaped tail (even along the back) and when it is lite there is a series of vertical but bowed purple lines near the middle of it's body. It does have the purple outline around some of it's fin - but much more purple when it is dark brown and might fainter when it is cream tan. It is only about 3 inches long.

Any guesses?

Thanks

Bill Brister

John you are right. The picture is a Lavendar Tang aka Brown Tang, aka... I think I am content to go ahead a call it a, oh I don't know, I like the spotted cheek tag 'variation'. It did find some on the net that were very cheap and a couple very exotic, and exotically priced, but again similar. It does seem very similar to the Tennenti but the tail is different and this has a bar rather than the big spot around the 'scaples'. I am attaching two more pics I got after maany tries. I still haven't figured out whether it gets light because it is excited, good or bad, or just cuz it feels like it. It is light much more often. Several of the Spotted Cheek pictures I found had the same cream bar on the tail but none have the stripes - just another variation I suppose. The light picture is a little more yellow than actual but it is not the soft powder tan. Anyways - thanks for all your help.

I have a couple of Stealths now and they are my favorite. I don't think they have a particularly good reputation but my second favorite is All Glass. I particularly like the rubber thingy on the bottom of it. It makes it very convenient to put it where you want it without worrying about it touching glass or substrate. I think the extra girth also helps the rubber suction cups stay attached easier. The only thing I don't like about the Stealths is the absence of an 'on' light. Ebo Jaeger is good but I don't see why they are worth the extra money. HTH

Bill

How much are you asking, and what does it include?

Thanks

Bill

I bought this fish and was told it was a surgeonfish. Of course, I later realized this is a very generic term. Unfortunately I cannot get a good in focus photo. The attached photo is of a brown tang, which mine is very similar to but with these differences: At times mine is very brown and very few features are visible. At others it turns an almost cream tan. Then you can see the 'freckles' around its face. However, rarely would I say it is the same tone as the picture. Mine also has a little cream band at the base of it's tail fin, it does not have a crescent shaped tail (even along the back) and when it is lite there is a series of vertical but bowed purple lines near the middle of it's body. It does have the purple outline around some of it's fin - but much more purple when it is dark brown and might fainter when it is cream tan. It is only about 3 inches long.

Any guesses?

Thanks

Bill Brister

Hello - my first post here. I have been lurking for a while but resisted the urge to post. I have a tendency to spend waaay too much time learning (and occasionally helping) on these hobby boards. But perhaps someone can save me some money - a topic most dear to my hear.

I have 'inherited' a Berlin skimmer which I would like to use on my wet/dry sump of a 3 week old 75. However it does not have a lid on the collection cup. Is there some else I can put there instead, rather than trying to hunt one down - who knows where, on the net. Also would appreciate suggestions about the size pump/flow I should use for the pump.

Thank you in advance!

Bill Brister

I have a 5 gallon bucket almost full of my old sand. It has been sitting outside for a couple months so it would need to be cleaned well. It is yours if you want it. It is behind the Photina on the side of my house. I am at 1605 Charolais Dr. I will remove this listing when it is gone.

Hello

I picked up the sand the afternoon. Thank You.!

Bill