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Pest tank


Islandoftiki

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I have a 55 gallon tank like that. It is "The Rodney Dangerfield Memorial Aquarium for Corals that Can't Get No Respect". Need worlds ugliest ricordea? Star polyps? Purple cloves? Bluish grey toxic palythoa? Coral eating starfish? You should throw a few red and/or purple mushrooms in there too. In the sump I have a pest crab but I don't know if I can find him without touching the bristleworms, which I am now allergic to. I have a super ugly plating monti that is borderline pest. Grows well, is bright beige. For one week every other year it turns bright red. It's too big probably anyways. I might still have a red tabling acro frag with red bugs you could add too, someone gave it to me and it never made it out of quarantine. Then the quarantine tank broke so I tried to feed it to the filefish, they would not eat it. So I threw it in the 55, where of course it did really well. Red bugs and all.

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If you ever get up to WA I have a big majano I think - I haven't killed it because I'm not positive that's what it is, and he behaves...

 

When he does a water flush, he's green - he was there when we got the tank, and I'm thinking he's just a big majano...

 

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Hey folks, I've entered the pest tank in a competition on the Nano-Reef.com forum for tanks 3 gallons and under. To do it fairly, I had to break the tank down and start over. No worries, I was able to reuse the live rock with the hitchhikers, so I still have all of my pests that I started with.

 

This weekend I stripped the tank down, cleaned it out, put in a new sand bed, made a couple modifications/improvements and put it all back together. I'm pretty sure it won't cycle again, or if it does, it'll be a mini cycle that won't bother the majanos, aiptasia or the poop-brown palys.

 

Here's a link to my thread that's been entered into the competition: http://www.nano-reef.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=297134

 

The rules are that the tank can be assembled, cycled and clean-up crew added, but no additional stock is permitted until April 1st. Then the tank can be fully stocked.

 

So, I'll be holding off on stocking anything for the next couple weeks until April 1st, then I'm going to need any available nasties that you all can donate. Start saving anything icky you can find. I also have a separate spare tank that is cycled that could temporarily hold things like pest crabs or fire worms. I don't think I want to put aiptasia or majanos in that tank though.

 

Can anybody think of any special or weird pests that I should keep an eye out for?

 

I'm also thinking as a joke, photoshopping a couple of tangs in there.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Ok boys and girls, the pest tank has been sitting quietly on my workbench doing not a whole lot of anything as I wait for the official start of the pico competition on Nano-reef.com...

 

On April 1st (Sunday) I can start stocking it! So, I'll be revisiting all of the offers for pests and looking for any new ones. I'll contact folks in the next couple days who offered stuff before to see if they still have the goodies. If anybody has anything new that they want to donate, please let me know.

 

Here are some current shots of what the tank looks like:

 

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Stocking plans:

 

I have a frag plug of the seafoam green pallys that Kimberlee gave me at the last meeting. I was warned to keep them off of anything that I didn't want them to take over.

 

I also have a frag plug of poop-brown zoas that look like they're going to be prolific.

 

There's enough aiptasia in there to choke a donkey. Little baby ones popping up all over.

 

Plenty of brown majanos.

 

I have two Green/Red majanos in there, but I need more of those.

 

I'm going to frag my xenia in my main tank and put in a good size frag of that.

 

I'm going to rob some GSP's from my main tank if I can get them off the rock. Or if someone has a nice sized mat of them (like a couple inches square) that I could stick to the back wall of the tank, that would rock.

 

I have some little red mushrooms that love to split and spread.

 

I need some plain green majanos. I have several folks who have offered those up.

 

I think some clove polyps might be a good idea as I hear they can overrun things.

 

As for critters, I have one mexican red leg hermit and one dwarf blue leg hermit in there right now along with a small cadre of snails.

 

I would love to have some sort of appropriate invert in there. Does anybody have a hitchhiker pistol shrimp they would like to get rid of?

 

I'm going to add some bubble algae and possibly some caulerpa to the main display.

 

What else would be good to put in there? Anybody have anything really cool that they don't want?

 

Cheers!

 

John

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Oh man, so the guys at Rose City Aquarium came through bigtime for me. I can't tell you how stoked I am. So... What would be the ultimate pest for a pest tank?

 

What about, say... a jet black mantis shrimp?

 

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He'll be chillin' in my 7.5 gallon emergency tank until Sunday when we're allowed to start stocking our tanks. He's little, about an inch and a half total length, so the 2 gallon tank shouldn't be too small for the duration of the contest.

 

It looks like he's a basher and not a spearer. I couldn't ask for a better main character for this tank. I'm really stoked.

 

The fiance is also surprisingly excited about him. :-) I'm going to have to get him onto a hand-fed diet.

 

Now I'm going to have to re-do the rockwork to include a cave for him.

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Today is the day we can start stocking our pico tanks!

 

I'm in the middle of building a new rockscape. With the surprise addition of a Mantis shrimp that I have identified as a (Haptosquilla glyptocercus), I've had to re-do my rockscape with the addition of a mantis shrimp home. I'm building a new base layer with an irrigation pipe coupler to house the Mantis. I've coated the visible part of the tube in epoxy and aragonite to make it look more natural.

 

 

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While I was doing this, the Mantis shrimp came out to see what I was doing and then promptly disappeared when I tried to take a picture. Cheeky little devil.

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And here it is... I may make a few minor adjustments to the rockscape over the next couple days, but I want to let the corals settle down and heal up a little. The xenia just got fragged and it's not too happy, but who would be after getting cut in half and glued to a rock. I threw the Chemipure elite into the back chamber and some filter floss to help clear up the water and remove some of angry-coral chemical warfare agents. I did a 100% water change after messing with everything so much. They all look quite pissed off, but the palys and zoas are starting to open back up and the xenia is waving a little. I won't add the Mantis shrimp for a couple days to make sure the tank doesn't mini-cycle after all of the trauma.

 

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That is looking awesome I love the mantis cave. how big will he get are you planning to keep him if he outgrows the tank? Either way this is a really awesome I dea. I just got done killing my app with some kalk paste =)

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I'm pretty sure now that he's nearly full grown (if I've ID'ed him correctly). Recommended tank size is 2.6 gallons, so he should be good in this tank unless he gets to the maximum 45mm that they can get to, but if he turns out to be an average 35mm size, then the 2 gallon could do him just fine. This particular type spends 95% of it's time in it's cave, so it doesn't need to roam much.

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A few new things happened today in the pico reef pest tank.

 

Added some new stock:

 

About 10 new green majanos with red tips. (courtesy of Rose City Aquarium)

 

Bubble algae. About 10-15 bubbles of various sizes. Popped a couple.

 

Hair algae, small clump about dime sized. (Courtesy of Rose City Aquarium)

 

Various other macros. Caulerpa, some red, some other green stuff. (Courtesy of Rose City Aquarium)

 

A new piece of live rock for the back to give it some height. Came with some green mushrooms that I hacked up with a razor blade; threw half of the bits into the tank randomly.

 

A small mat of GSP that I robbed from my main display tank, about dime sized. Glued it to the back wall of the tank.

 

Mantis Shrimp going in! (Also courtesy of Rose City Aquarium)

 

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