Bobbyb3's budget 130 mixed reef.

[Bobbyb3]

Is there a centipede looking animal that eats hermits. There is something that looks like a crushed shell and something keeps poking out of a rock.

[Bobbyb3]

And did about a 12 gal water change today

[Timfish]

Is there a centipede looking animal that eats hermits. There is something that looks like a crushed shell and something keeps poking out of a rock.

The centipede animal is most likely a bristle worm, won't kill hermits but will use their shell as protection if the hermit has moved on.

Crushed shell thingy probably is a chiton, cousin to limpets, both good types of snails to have.

For the thing that keeps poking out a hole look up Spaghetti or serpulid worms. Another possibility to look up are vermitid worms

Definitley time to add an urchin or two. I've got some royal urchins that are done with QT if you're interested.

[Bobbyb3]

OK how that I looked those up I do have Spaghetti worms on the live rock up top but the thing that was poking its head out was the centipede thing. It maybe a bristle worm but you will have to see it in person I may try to get a video but pics never want to focus right there its like bigfoot lol. yes on the urchins just message me and let me know how much.

[Bobbyb3]

Here is an update

[Timfish]

I am really happy with the looks of your corals and inverts. All the different algae are what I would expect to see but we need to be sure to siphon off as much as possible with weekly water changes. I would think long term only one or two urchins will be all you need for now though we should look at getting several more in the next few weeks. Just remember do not get any pencil urchins, they're lousy at cleaning algae off rock. Keep adding easy corals and inverts as fast as you can.

[Bobbyb3]

Ok did the 15 min dip on the coral I got today in Coral rx. Then placed them in. Will put up pics tomorrow. Also yellow tang was looking good he hid alot behind the big rock. Hopefully he is a little more open tomorrow.

[Bobbyb3]

Leather and brain looking good and you can see Yellow tang and yellow tails are liking it too. yellow tang was a little shy the first day but is acting from sociable now

Brain under blues

Volcano is looking good

volcano under blues

Acan, zoas and cabbage doing well

under blue

[Bobbyb3]

I took Mikes advise and used the new monti on the overflow to take up some space

under blues looks better in person

Acro look a little bleached pic is out of focus so makes it look worse

other monti looking good

and the urchin is really liking the skull

[Bobbyb3]

10% water change done and scrubbed a lot of the algae off.

[Timfish]

I'll need to get over there with a PAR meter so we can get a better idea on where to set stuff but most of the stuff is looking pretty good considering the system is barely a month old. I'm tempted to throw the BTAs in and as much as I'd like to keep adding lower light corals and inverts it's best after adding stuff this weekend to wait a couple weeks to make sure most if not all the new stuff is doing well.

[Bobbyb3]

Ok and if you have a person you order from. I would like to put in for a couple clowns and a blue tang. And is there a reefsafe starfish?

[Bobbyb3]

I did an ammonia test tonight came up 0 and nitrates came up in around 18.

[Bobbyb3]

And as we were talking about today I didn't notice in my previous post of the new red cap monti. That there was a thin white line and now a corner of the monti is died. Here is what it looks like now.

[Timfish]

That can be discouraging to see new animals die but there can be several causes for it. Since you got this from ARC's meeting on fragging it's important to note Dan's comments about not mixing different colonies, varieties or species so their slime doesn't cause problems. So one possibility is slime from another coral (for practical reasons we couldn't avoid it at the meeting). Handling is another possibility looking at the pattern and timing of dieoff and where it seems to have stopped at least for the present moment.

Temperature swings are another consideration and one I think plays a bigger role than people suspect when transporting animals. A small bag can see a quick change in temperature which might stress an animal. For illustration, Green Slimmers, Acropora yongei, I know from experience will tolerate 12°-14° F seasonal temperature swings without any apparent adverse effects but a study on heat and cold stress* with them showed an sudden 8°F (± 5°C) change either way would cause them to completely bleach. When transporting corals myself I prefer to use a bucket of water or an insulated box. Either will greatly reduce sudden temperature swings. (It's not always practical but advantages I like of using a bucket is a coral tends to be handled and jostled less moving it straight to a bucket than sticking it in a bag and there's plenty of water to rinse the coral slime off.)

*http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3270498/

[Bobbyb3]

Over the weekend the monti had showed no more loss. Clown fish have come out of QT and in to DT and seem to be happy. Think the shrimp is hiding somewhere new. I set the trap at his normal spot and all I got was hermits. I also haven't seen him under his normal rock. here is a video update for today before I do my 10% water change.

[Bobbyb3]

well this was a wild day. I put the clown fishes in my DT and a few hours later I didn't see one of them. looked all around and didn't see him finally found him. he was in the overflow. I went past the egg crate, then pass the filter floss, the bioballs and then past the last layer of egg crate to be at the very bottom. I emptied it all out. Then filled it back up with the drain plugged. when he started swimming up high I pulled the plug and he made it in to the sump and was easier to get. The other thing was that one of my yellow tails but have tried to do the same thing a few days ago cause found him died trapped in the top egg crate.

[Bobbyb3]

Ok did what yoy said and got the plastic screen from hobby lobby. So hopefully no more fish tring to kill themselves.

[Bobbyb3]

royal tangs are in the QT.

[Bobbyb3]

Tangs seem to be happy in their new home. I also found a tiger tail at Aqua Tech today and have him adjusting right now.

[Timfish]

3 of those Regal Tangs have what I would consider typical behavior in QT but there's one that is staying out in the open in the center. That one is what I would consider very stressed out, it should be either looking for some place to hid or looking for food. I would add several more pieces of PVC or small terra cotta flower pots. There are some species I would isolate if I saw this behavior in a group but isolating this species is the kiss of death. I learned the hard way a long time ago they need to be kept in a group or with dither fish while in QT. I usually don't have a problem just feeding a quality pellet but you might try frozen brine shrimp with algae to help get that one eating if it's not eating pellets.

Long term you can expect them to grow to 4"-5" TL* or about 2/3rds larger than they are now in a year or so and then slow down so you'll see about 1/2" to 1" a year. You "probably" will not have much of a problem keeping them in a group until they are about 4-5 years old but you will need to keep an eye out for one being overly aggressive and sooner or later you will need to rehome two or three.

Rehoming can be a sore subject with some aquarists but if you keep your animals for their expected life span it is a certainty you will need to rehome many if not all the animals you'll keep. How easy it is to rehome an animal should be a main consideration with all your acquisitions. It's a more important consideration in my opinion than whether or not something is reef safe or is compatible with other animals in your system.

I like having sand sifting cucumbers in my tanks and Tiger Tails are one of my preffered species along with another Holothuria species that's yellow. The Holothuria spp cucumbers are excellent sand sifters and will reproduce in aquariums by splitting in half if they can find enough food. You want to avoid all the various filter feeding species, in 3 decades I've never known anyone to successfully keep any while I've have Holothuria spp specimens 1 - 2 decades old. Even though it's gotten a lot of attention over the years "Cuke Nuke" or a cucumber killing off a tank by eviscerating itself and poisoning a tank I've never known to happen and only have heard of it anecdotally, it's not something I ever worry about with the species I buy but if you're going to try one of the more exotic species it'll be something you'll want to keep an eye out for.

*Fish length can be a bit of a vague term. If you see the letters TL after a given length it stands for Total Length and measures fro the tip of a fish's nose/mouth to the edge of it's caudal or tail fin. With fish that have lyretail shapes to their tail fin for example it may or may not include the "pennants". If the tail fin has been damaged it can be misleading. Consequently you may see the letters SL which stands for Standard Length. This is measured from the tip of a fish's nose/mouth to the base of the caudal fin. This eliminates variations due to damage to the fin or variation in the tail fins when you have "pennants" (like when "pennants" are unique to dominate specimens only in a species).

[Bobbyb3]

As we have been talking offline. I went and got some frozen food for the tang that is stressing out. Everywhere was out of garlic so will stop by aqua techs on the way home tomorrow and get that. Here are the anemones I got from you. They are looking good.

[Timfish]

Anemones looking real good for only being in your tank an hour or two.

The problem we're having with the one Regal Tang I think brings up a good point about dealing with sick fish. If this was just a singular purchase we really would not have any clue as to what the cause is. But since we got 6 together and we have them split up into two different QT and 5 of the 6 are doing well it's pretty easy to conclude this particular one already had issues. Shipping stress certainly didn't help any but we can be cautiously optimistic the other 5 don't have the problem.

[Bobbyb3]

The clown is loving the anemones. Hopefully the frozen food and garlic help.

Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk

[Bobbyb3]

Ok had my monthly training this weekend so wrote everything down and asked my wife to look after it. came back and all test were looking good. The only thing was that the tang that was not doing well pasted. The other 3 are still doing very well.

Here is also and update on my tank. All is looking and showing new growth.