LadAShark

42 minutes ago, Bicyclebill said:

I'm in for 10, but @LadAShark sold me a bunch back in March. Let's see if he still has any.

I have some but unfortunately life's caught up to me since then and there's not enough of them for me to sell. I will be ramping back up production of them for good though as I have just recently had more time and am getting together a better setup for them+ the aiptasia (the latter is really the limiting part). Getting aiptasia to explode when you're continuously chipping away at its population needs a lot bigger and more dedicated of a setup than I initially expected (and if you feed them too much, you get algae that competes with/slows them down).

Long story short, don't have enough now, will have enough probably given a month or two. Sorry about that.

I'll take the next available slot on Saturday. Pm sent.

Best wishes for you and your move. Hope all is well now and down the line.

4 hours ago, Blue Z Reef said:

That’s awesome. They are weird little buggers, I put in about 30 into my 210. About 20 in the display and 10 in my sump/grow out fuge that had aptaisa in it. I thought my wrasse wiped them all out but did finally see some in the display a few days ago. Slowly the aptasia are disappearing, but not sure they will make It to all of them. They take a while, still have lots of work to do. Wouldn’t mind getting some more in the future from you 👍 saltyunderground wants a mint for them...glad I bought during the sale.

Good luck on that front. 
In my experience with them in my tank, when you start to see aiptasia disappearing is about when berghia populations are hitting critical mass, but the wrasse may change the dynamics of that a little. 

4 hours ago, obrien.david.j said:

Okay, let's cut to details.   

• What's your feeding regime of the aptasia farm?   
  • tell us about growing out aptasia.  daily feeding, multiple times a day feeding, heavy feeding, light feeding. 
  • Light or no-lights ...
• How have you outfitted the farm, to enable harvesting aptasia to feed to the berghia?   
  • Is this just a low flat tank, or do you have struture in it?
  • course gravel bottom, so it's easier to pull out an aptasia to feed, or just razor blade them off flat glass

Pictures?  

In terms of feeding I feed lightly, and my food of choice is fish roe. I have no lighting on them but have them near a window where they get the most of the day's sun. I could give them more lighting but this has been effective in the past.

In term of outfitting the tank, it's been simple, it's a flat clear container. I don't have structure in it. I just pluck them off glass with forceps, but gravel does make for a decent idea.

In terms of pictures I wouldn't have much to show. I have minimal aiptasia left as I haven't been able to get them to take off, probably because I haven't been feeding them all that much. Can they actually handle multiple feedings a day? Anemones tend to have issues with food rotting while still in then if they're fed too often, but perhaps that doesn't apply to aiptasia. The populations cannot keep up with the feeding of the berghia, though perhaps it's because I just don't have the time/schedule to really work at reproducing the aiptasia en masse.

I finally have my second successful batch (though not large) of berghia! 
They're tiny for now, so I need to feed them to get them up to sellable size, but the work has paid off! Thank you all who provided me with aiptasia to keep my efforts going! (Though the aiptasia farm is another work in progress, and I probably am in need of more since I'm still fine tuning that).

2 hours ago, pdxmonkeyboy said:

I think the way to get more aptasia is to wish that you didn't have any aptasia.  In my experience this increases the population. 

You must be right. They seem to be fueled by spite!

Anyway, thanks to everyone who gave me some. I have enough for now. Hopefully this will be enough to really kick them off and outpace my berghia. 

2 hours ago, obrien.david.j said:

If (When) I find another load, I'll give you a proactive ping.    I'll look again tonight in the overflow, maybe there's more in the box itsefl.

Thanks! That'd be great.

6 minutes ago, The ReefBox said:

I got a friend in need of Berghia asap

Wish I had some to spare right now, if I could get my aiptasia supply going more steadily and my berghia supply balloons again you'll see me in classifieds/I'll ping you. It's unfortunately kind of in the trial and error phase right now and I'm trying to replicate my initial success sustainably.

16 hours ago, GOBY said:

so I still have a few things left I need to get rid of:

see title, I put 3 groups of the baby galaxea on rocks for them to grow.

one large fiji rock with some orange Recordea on it.

Rainbow Recordea

hammers.

have scoops of coral shells with tons of copepods or amphipods.

Lots of white sand, needs cleaning.

BRS Dual Deionization Canisters with digital readout.

BRS GPO reactor.

Orphek optimus 3000NDC pump , think the control board is bad.

100 gallon square glass tank

74 bowfront glass tank

PM me I am very happy to take any offers.

 

What are the dimensions on the aquariums?

and you meant GFO instead of GPO right?

16 minutes ago, obrien.david.j said:

Crap.  Just last night I found a robust population of Aptasia on the stand pipe in the overflow box of my frag tank.  I thought of you, but hadn't heard any I-need-more in a while...  So i just bleached the crap out of them (stand pipe is removable).

The odd part, was looking like I've knocked my aptasia population down to invisible again.  (in all visible tank space)  And then I found this corner of them!    Really shows how aptasia stay a pest.  Only takes one protected spot to be the source of them spreading again.   These were huge, and I could see they were loaded to release new babies.  (tentacles swollen, lots of little white rings up and down them.  I think they just break off and release them free floating.)

Think I'll take the frag tank down this weekend and bleach the Whole Thing!

Darn! That would have been great on my end. Let me know when they eventually show up again! My berghia are huge and eat way too much to be able to easily sustain them. I've been struggling to be self sufficient in terms of aiptasia, because it seems like when I want them to they don't reproduce nearly as fast as when I don't 😂😒

8 minutes ago, Matteo said:

Yo, I have a handful I can scrape off my in my media baskets in my aio.

 

I'm shutting the tank down today to transfer over to my upgrade so if you can swing by sometime I can try and bag some up for you.

will do, pm sent

P.s: worst part of all, "you are what you eat" seems to apply to berghia too. They lay tons of eggs but seem to hatch and take off when they want. It's going to take some fine tuning to get this really going.

Haven't had luck with keeping up with feeding my berghia lately and am running short on aiptasia. Does anybody have some extra?

Alternatively, a magic trick to make the aiptasia explode in population would be appreciated. I've been feeding them semi regularly, and while they're vigorous, I am slowly getting outpaced by the few breeder berghia I have. 
 

Edit: thanks everyone! Seem to have enough for now, hopefully this will make me more self sufficient in terms of aiptasia.

Darn I missed out. Been wanting some gold stripe maroons for a while.

I'll take them if the deal falls through.

I'll take some green sinularia, pm sent.

If you google "colonial green hydroids" you pretty much get a spot on image of whatever you have. It's hard to say if they'll definitely be a pest but they very could be if they start to reproduce.

I personally would err on the side of caution and put putty on them to wipe them out (hopefully before they've managed to spread).

40 minutes ago, miketoohey said:

i don't have a saltwater tank.so i got this snowflake eel thinking it was brackish but it isn't.still in shipping box need a home for him before he dies

How saline is your setup? 
If you're on the very high end of salinity it may be doable at like above 1.015 with a good acclimation process.

7 minutes ago, Micah said:

@miketoohey hey, sorry, didn't see your location.  I can't make that drive.  

 

Hopefully somebody else can.  Don't let that gorgeous creature die please.

 

Yeah whew I was going to pipe up but Lake Stevens is not a drive I can make.

Preferably with length dimensions  under 5'

Just want to see what's available. Been meaning to upgrade for a long while but haven't seen many seriously large glass tanks for sale.

Didn't want to buy new and haven't had the time to custom build my own, so I want to see if anyone has anything decent to fit my purpose.

I think I can use it. Message sent

Text sent.

20 minutes ago, pdxmonkeyboy said:

I need some!!  Sent a PM. 

Sorry, forgot to update my post.

Supply is low for now. Need to rebreed some more since my backup aiptasia cultures crashed. Sustaining a small batch of berghia and trying to increase my aiptasia asap. Might have more berghia in a few weeks depending on how soon I can get my hands on more aiptasia.

Bump, I still have supply, but don't know how long it will last. It's a matter of time, not number of berghia.

Let me know if anybody still wants some. Looking to sell a bunch tomorrow and Sunday.

3 hours ago, obrien.david.j said:

Okay, I'm confused.  How is a clam "Fine meaty powdery".   Even if you chop the heck out if.  Or are you putting them in a blender on super-high?

Hmm. There's this clam I can get from H mart (sold in their seafood mix which contains calamari, octopus, clam, shrimp) that seems to release a huge cloud of dust when I rub it between my fingers underwater. I suppose blending it would work too. I see a lot of movement out of the aiptasia when I feed that. 
 

And wow, that website sheds light on so many questions I had, including why I once didn't have success on trying to breed them in a large jar that I fed. Aiptasia too large for the juveniles to eat I suppose.

19 minutes ago, obrien.david.j said:

10sqft of Aiptasia is bigger than a 4'x2' classic aquarium footprint.  Full Sized Aiptasia.  Amazing.   While raising the Berghia, did you have any feeding schedule on the aiptasia/food source tank?

For comment #2, that's not a bad idea.   Rock cleaning service;

• Local Petco
• any local fish shop   
• Any PNWMAS club members

Heck, they may get a free berghia hitch hiker when the rock is returned to them.   Question is how to get paid.   

Next time you want to raise Berghia, maybe it's a call out to club members who'd be willing to setup and grow out an Aiptasia food source aquarium on the side.  And in return, you'll give them grown out Berghia when the time comes.   I was thinking I could route the output from my auto-water-changer setup into a drilled tank to grow out aptasia.  Then they'd get a source of fresher water, and it wouldn't cost me anything.  (except floor space)

Have you experimented with what food makes aiptasia grow the fastest?

 

Fine meaty powdery foods definitely make them explode in population, especially clams.

The biggest downside to rocks is the potential for hitchhiker pods which can decimate berghia larvae.

But a kind of crowdsourced aiptasia food source is not a bad idea at all. As for using water change water, they don't seem to suffer from poor water quality much, the only thing that really bothers aiptasia seems to be significant amounts of algae growth.

2 hours ago, obrien.david.j said:

I've cultured Berghia twice or three times over my reef tank lifetime.  First batch I picked up from an "online" friend on the east coast in the EARLY 90's.  (usenet, alt.aquaria, if anyone knows what that is)   A few observations/conclusions;

1. propagating Berghia is Easy!  They lay eggs often, do it in 1pint or 1qt plastic food containers with the simplest of bubbler, kept in a water bath tank for temp control.
2. Caveated with, as long you feed them
3. They're Veracious eaters, really do like Aptasia
4. Bigger they are, the more Aptasia they eat
5. Therefore, you must have a large and Accessible supply of aptasia 
6. And then what do you do with all those bergia?  In my case, gave as many away as I could, and then released every last one into my display tank.  Aptasia gone (for a couple of years), and then Berghia just vanish. 

I've thought about setting a Berghia system up again, just for fun.  Tried the mental exercise to design the Aptasia grow out farm needed first.  Maybe a shallow frag like tank, with floor covered in cheap 1" tiles with little gravel/rock shards glued to them.   (aptasia like structure)   Then you could count your food supply.   one tile per tub, maybe 2x per week.   How much food would you need to feed the aptasia tank to get them to REALLY grow out fast.  How much light would you need. ...    Such interesting things to plan out.

Does your experience match, any other observations?    What was your Aptasia supply like when you started, how fast did you run out?

I started with 9 tiny berghia and easily 10 square feet of full sized aiptasia, and ended up with no aiptasia and innumerable berghia in a matter of about 40 days. Some of my largest berghia are probably about 0.75 inches. Pretty surprising how fast they proliferate and how big they get.

I've been culturing berghia lately and have managed to release my first big batch, however I sorely underestimated the amount of aiptasia they can eat.

So I'm looking out for anybody who can get me the most ridiculously aiptasia ridden rocks or whatever they're willing to give me. I'm planning to dedicate a part of my garage to culturing aiptasia and berghia so I can start to locally supply cheap berghia, but at the current rate it's going I won't be able to keep my berghia cultures from crashing as I'm basically all out of aiptasia.

2 hours ago, Bicyclebill said:

Where you at? 

Mb, saw this late. I'm in Bull Mountain area, Tigard.