How do you make pump intakes and overflows safe for lettuce sea slug?

[siskiou]

Any ideas?

 

I'd like to give a lettuce sea slug a try to get at some of my HA (I've been scrubbing the rocks I can take out, but some of them would require ripping everything in the tank apart).

But I have several Tunze pumps and an MJ mod in the tank.

I think the MJ mod is the most dangerous.

[dsoz]

look here http://www.karensroseanemones.com/coverpowerheads.htm It is for anemones, but it would probably work for sea slugs as well. scroll about half way down the page to see the plastic mesh screen to make into covers. Add some zip ties and you are good to go.

 

dsoz

[siskiou]

Thanks!

I even have some of that stuff around, so I'm going to give it a try.

Not sure if anyone in Eugene even has any of the lettuce slugs, but at least I'll be prepared.

Does anyone know if the Tunze pumps (a 6000, a 6055 and a 6025) are safe the way they are?

The intake slots are pretty close together and snails seem to have no trouble with them, but I'm not certain.

[pledosophy]

Here is what I did.

 

 

Cost a few bucks.

[siskiou]

And I have some of *that*, too!

Thanks for the ideas!

 

Does anyone know if I should be looking for a lettuce nudi, or a sea hare for true hair algae. It's not derbesia.

I've been doing a lot of water changes, feeding only once a day and have been scrubbing the rocks that I can take out, but the stuff is not retreating.

 

Going to run some phosban, too.

[dsoz]

What is your lighting cycle?

 

I had trouble with bryopsis algae. I cut my lights to about 7 hours a day, only fed every second or third day.

 

What finally helped (not cure, but help) was I got a foxfaced rabbitfish to eat the stuff. Now it is in an equilibrium situation where it stays short. When it gets long the rabbitfish eats it and turns it into fish poo, which is mostly cleaned out by the skimmer. It is a long, slow, trip to getting rid of this stuff.

 

BTW, I have seen sea hares here in portland at Seahorse, and lettuce nudis at Saltwater FantaSeas. Contact Woody or Patrick to see if they can get you one.

 

dsoz

[siskiou]

My lights (T5s) are on for 11 hrs a day.

I can't feed less than once a day, because the Anthias wouldn't make it.

The algae I have is not touched by my rabbit fish. The Powder Brown tang nibbles on it very occasionally, but clearly doesn't like it.

It's regular hair algae, not bryopsis or derbsia.

[fishyman1957]

I'd reccomend the reticulated (open pore) sponge. It should hold far more debris before cloging up. The dacron (blue) material will really clog fast. Oddysea has a fine blue filter pad (10x18") that stays open a long time. But the open pored sponge will actually start to pull even harder when it is partially plugged. Fish may even feed food from it. We use them when changing water for fry and growing Brine Shrimp. I have also learned that food particles will enter those normal screens on intakes and thes pump will blend them into gravy. Not producing those ultr-fine particles sure does cut back on red-slime algae and hair algae. If they require cleaning, great, that is because your normal system was not getting it done. Our baby clowns are often feeding from the particles against the filter sponge. Our Lettuce Nudibranchs and snails feed there too reducing cleaning the sponge. Lettuce Nudies should be about $9.99 at any outlet. We had them last week for $3.99 and 3/$10.

The blue material is normally Kapok or Dacron 88 and available at dealers and fabric store too.