what did i bring home on this LR

[Chrispar]

really I have no idea

[Rjohn]

where did you get the rock?

[Chrispar]

aquatek

[caferacermike]

Majano anemone. Any shop could accidentally send you home with this.

Don't freak out. Cover them with a thick paste made with some kalk powder and distilled water applied with a medium syringe. They will dissolve as if placed in acid within an hour. The rock looks to be a new addition, so you should be able to easily remove it and place it in a 5g bucket in water overnight so the Kalk does not alter the PH in your tank. One or two small ones might make it through the night, just reapply in the morning. This way you will still save all the wonderful stuff that comes on live rock.

If you don't have any Kalk I can give you some to do the job. Already have it mixed and ready to go with syringe. Just nuked about 20 I was "farming" in my display.

[420reefn_it]

Majano anemone. Any shop could accidentally send you home with this.

Don't freak out. Cover them with a thick paste made with some kalk powder and distilled water applied with a medium syringe. They will dissolve as if placed in acid within an hour. The rock looks to be a new addition, so you should be able to easily remove it and place it in a 5g bucket in water overnight so the Kalk does not alter the PH in your tank. One or two small ones might make it through the night, just reapply in the morning. This way you will still save all the wonderful stuff that comes on live rock.

If you don't have any Kalk I can give you some to do the job. Already have it mixed and ready to go with syringe. Just nuked about 20 I was "farming" in my display.

i agree it looks like some form of aiptasia, kinda looks like small rock anemones, i used the same technique to kill majanos awhile back , never saw em again

[Chrispar]

thanks everyone that helped. CRmike thanks for the kalk powder, just hit about 12 that i saw on the rest of the rock hoping thats all. really really nice tanks you got there mike, cant wait to see the 400 up an running(also first time i saw a skimmer that was taller than me)

Edited August 30, 2009 by Chrispar

[Rjohn]

I know you can bring home most anything from buying at LFS, however I feel that our LFS have some sort of obligation to keep this sort of infestation to an absolute minimum. It seems to me that they don't make much of an effort. When I walk through the stores and I see aiptasia, bubble algae, majanos, diatoms, etc., it makes me very leery about buying anything at all. AND they want to give me advice about how to administer my tank? I realize that most of these people are making minimum wage and they do just what they have to but you'd think the owners and managers would want their tanks to look more pristine. It raises my levels of skepticism to the max. I have issues of my own, I don't need to add their problems to mine.

[caferacermike]

Not me and I disagree to some extent.

We as hobbyists put over more pressure on the hobby week to week. In our quest to always have the shiniest and most rare toy on the block you certainly cannot expect to have the most rare sit around in quarantine. Some risks are involved, kinda like that same risk we all take at some point with that beautiful woman we met at the bar. Sure it is risky to take her home without knowing anything about her past, but this might be your only chance. Same can be said about nice rock, corals, or fish. Sometimes if we see exactly what we want or need, then it's all bets off. Many shops in town have varying degrees of pricing for different grades of rock. Generally rock that just came in is the cheapest, and good clean rock is more expensive. With all the new hobbyists always wanting to buy ever more rock, just how much do you expect the store to stock? Remember they have to pay per square foot for the building they rent. If they use up 1,000sqft setting up holding vats then rock would be $20 a pound and you'd scream about that. It's all relative. To keep prices low you need to move the product quickly. To keep exciting pieces in stock, it has to move quickly. And so forth and so forth.

So I ask you, if you want to buy risk free rock, would you be willing to spend $20 a lb on it? I know that at one point Kingfish was set up to hold out and quarantine rock, but such as anything "boutique" it is much more expensive and even less convenient to shop there. In fact you cannot walk in off the street to make purchases, and most of the customer base understands that price is no object for the things they want.

I don't know. I could go on and on about agreeing that shops could do more but how that would offset our abilities. I could then counter with the fact that we as hobbyists should expect some risks and need to know how to properly deal with them during our quarantine period, one thing most every hobbyist skips over. I could also offer up the fact that these are all naturally occurring organisms in the wild and that we are horrible monsters for attempting to alter them and play God as to which ones get to live. I could also argue the fact that many of these small creatures can take days, weeks, or even months to show themselves in our tanks. That leads us to the idea that the water parameters at the shop may not have been ideal for the anemones to have shown themselves while in holding but that the near perfect parameters of a tank that was just put together coaxed the inhabitants out of hiding.

I do agree that if a shop looks totally wretched or disgusting and unkempt that you as a hobbyist should weigh that risk and that you should make a judgement call as to whether you should shop there with your hard earned dollars. I've seen several shops in town go out of business due to neglecting the tanks and people choosing not to shop there. In the end it all sums up with the individual hobbyist's wants and needs.

RJohn I'll end with this thought. I was once in a shop with a fella that was not very current with reef husbandry. He had a crappy 40g with bad lighting and poor filtration. The guy kept telling the employee that he wanted anemones in his tank. The employee kept telling him that he did not have the lights to keep anemones. Shortly there after he saw the employee moving around a rock covered in aptasia that was in a tank with peppermint shrimp. The guy told the employee that the rock was awesome and asked what they were. Not thinking the mployee quickly replied "glass anemones". The guy asked why they were so prolific in such an underlit tank. The employee mentioned that they would grow anywhere and even under bad lighting. The guy asked "how much for the rock?". The employee told him it was not for sale and if it were it would be $200. The guy demanded it be bagged and was willing to spend $200 so that he could keep anemones. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. They sold him the rock at $4 a pound complete with aptasia for a total of $8 and explained what a poor decision he was making. Guy couldn't have been any happier.

[Chrispar]

This was in no way intended to start people bad mouthing our LFS. was mearly a question of what is this strange object on my rock. I really like the stores we have here in town. Ive never really had any problems with any of them. I will still give business to aquatek, ill just be inspecting my rock a lil more carefully from now on. (was prolly written while mike was posting his)

Edited August 30, 2009 by Chrispar

[Rjohn]

I did not intend to start a war here. All I meant was if a LFS tank is showing larging amounts of aiptasia, couldn't they throw a few peppermint shrimp in it? In a tank where they are cultivating live rock, add a couple of emerald crabs to eat the bubble algae that crops up. For heaven's sake, take out the dead fish. I am always pointing out to employees in nearly every store every time I go in that they have a couple of dead fish. I am not expecting pristine rock, but they have access to a lot more of the natural defenses against pesty critters than most of us.

[mhart032]

You always take a risk when we buy from anywhere. even from some reefers. you never know and they mite not even know either. most the shops that i have been to are pretty busy. its rare you see someone standing around. with that said we know how difficult it can be to look after our own tanks and they are at home. now try to do it with people asking questions and talking to you and looking for advice all at the same time but insted of 1 or 2 tanks now you have 20 or more. it would really take alot to get everything done i could even say its probably hard to even just get the necessaries done before the shop closes. just my .02

[Rjohn]

OK fine, I am just too picky. However, I do not have any bubble algae or majanos or hair algae. I have never had a brown diatom outbreak and I have one and just one aiptasia anemone. I do have a nitrate problem that has been consistent for 4 years and causes my rocks to be a bit green. I occasionally have a little Bryopsis growth. I tend to be very cautious and will just say no to something that looks nice if it is in a tank with what I consider problems. My tank system is a LONG LONG way from perfect but I am happy with it, mostly.

If LFS employees do not have time to see dead fish, then don't look at me with such disdain when I point them out. It is not MY fault the fish died.

[mhart032]

got me on the dead fish. i dont understand that eaiher. i cant stand that..

[+Razor]

+1 for the dead fish??! Takes less than a minute to remove them. Hell, give me a net and I'll get it out.

I understand that these fish are very sensitive and will die quickly in a LFS without the proper time devoted to its individual care. However, my wife doesn't realize the same because she hasn't read the books or studied like I have. So when she seeing a dead fish just rotting away it's kind of hard to convince her that I need that $300 set of lights or $200 protein skimmer two isles over.

[Zarathustra2]

+1 on the care. I have to admit that I have stopped buying livestock from one of our LFS's due to problems I was seeing week over week going into there. This isn't to bash any of our local stores. I understand the time and effort it must take to run that many tanks. Just a piece of feedback that I hope they read and understand.

You take a risk with any new "wet" addition to your tank. Why would I exchange a risk of a parasite or nuisance algae for an almost certianty that the item I am buying has one?

[caferacermike]

Oh and unless something has changed recently, our 3 main shops in town pay their employees much better than minimum wage. An employee might get hired on at or near minimum wage for a short test period but I've certainly seen that quite a few of the employees actually make a cost of living wage. Just a shout out to the wonderful owners of our shops.

I will agree that a dead fish in a tank can be a turn-off, however as stated you generally only see them when the shop is quite busy. Most of that is right after a shipment comes in. This is when the employees are at their busiest, trying to both help us with our needs and to place the fish in tanks. Many of the fish are under a lot of duress at this time and unfortunately many don't make it through the tank changes.

However the topic here was about LIVE ROCK and what comes in on it. We've already done a great job of helping the author's issue, we've then had a discussion about live rock and the perils of not properly quarantining our new purchases. Not sure how we are now onto a discussion about dead fish and proprietor obligations. I'm not sure at all how tying a dead fish to aptasia works out, they are 2 totally different situations and should be judged as such.

[prof]

Just a few more comments:

No one has 'just one' aptasia They are much to prolific to just have one. It is very easy to have hundreds of small aptasia in your tank and never see them. They tend to stay quite small and out of sight. Tanks full of aptasia are also full of nutrients.

If you look carefully at any tank in the hobby (including your favorite lfs) you are almost assured to find multiple nussiance creatures(bubble algae, diatoms, aptasia, mujanos, etc.)

Yes, dead fish should be removed quickly. When wholesale orders come in to any location the fish and corals are horribly stressed. It is inevitable that something will die, but it is also very possible for that tang that comes out of the bag swimming sideways will pull through.

We buy live rock because it has creatures on/in it. But you will get some bad with the good.

In this hobby it is not a matter of if, but when. I prefer a much more hands off approach to my tanks. I have aptasia, mujanos, algae, etc. I work to control these creatures but I don't worry about them until they become so numerous that they are a problem. I know plenty of people who scrape xenia, star polyps, and even zoas off their rocks because they grow like weeds.

Ok, that is all for now. I could go on forever.

[offroadodge]

I agree with PROF, if kept under control then not a problem. If i may say yesterday i purchased some LR from PROF and didnt see a thing on it, but once i got it in my tank under alot more lighting(after inspection) yes there were 5 amptasia, I bought 30lbs of LR and only 5, WOW..... Just took care of them B4 they could become a problem. Now on the other hand, i let my last tank go for about 2 weeks and the majonoes took over. Its all how you approach the issue. I have only begun to realize all the aspect of SW aquariums and ive been doing it for 5+ yrs. If you dont like what u see dont buy it, DIP DIP DIP EVERYTHING!!!! Thanks to all the wonderful guys/gals whohv help me out. (mannings,dapettit,prof, etc) If it were me with majonoes, id put the rock in a 5 gal bucket for AWHILE and NUKE them until they are gone. Just change the water a little every other day or so. Hopefully I havent stepped on anyones toes.