LadAShark

That’s a real shame. Hopefully when you get back on your feet you’ll be able to start it back up in full. I know I’d happily donate a frag or two once you’re doing well again if my reef is still up and running.

That aside, for now I think I’d be interested in the halloween urchin and the rw15. Need to think on if I want or can add any frags now, though I likely will acquiesce and add some after I find some room in my tank for them. I’d love to have some of the snails and the peppermint shrimp if possible too.

I’d be willing to take him too if it ends up falling through with dakotapi.

If you’re topping off your water near there I’ve had that kill off macroalgae before.

Iron supplements help. I use ferrous gluconate. 

But otherwise yeah, aside from trace minerals being low (which shouldn’t happen due to water changes), iron, and lighting, there’s no apparent reason chaeto should die off except being outcompeted by your coral.

9 hours ago, Woodstock said:

I have a bunch of chaeto I pulled to convert my Fuge into mangrove and macro garden 

 

looking to trade for a frag or free to anyone in need🤘🏼 

Would be interested in taking it if you aren’t too far out from where I’m at.

On 9/12/2020 at 2:40 PM, rsb123 said:

LadAShark, you would likely be doing a great service to the community if you had a supply of berghia nudi's.  I know I would be interested in buying some.

It’s a work in progress, but I have plenty of eggs laid so hopefully it will turn out well. I’m still fine tuning how I should exactly go about this, as I’m thinking the adults may be outeating the invisibly-small larvae that hatch (yes they also eat aiptasia).

I also somehow need a lot more aiptasia. I have a ton in my tank but none I can easily reach. 

But yeah, that’s the idea. I think having a local provider of berghia would be a huge help to the community, so I thought I might as well step in and see if I could fill that gap.

19 hours ago, Bighoho said:

Thanks for the support @LadAShark let me know when the nudies are ready, I'll come snag a few from you

 

Yeah no worries. The eggs were laid at least a week and a half ago; based on what I have read I could expect to visibly see young nudis as soon as in 2 weeks, but only time will tell.

In the meanwhile you should be fine with regards to aiptasia for a while. It takes them a long while to start showing when the contamination isn’t huge. Considering how voracious these guys are for aiptasia I’d imagine if you added any now they would quite simply starve.

I’ll let you know when I have some visible nudi young. Hopefully that will be soon.

43 minutes ago, half-astronaut said:

You think they synthesize bicarbonate from scratch? I think it's mostly mined, or made from mined soda ash. SDS and ingredient lists don't list contaminants. My understanding is there can be significant amounts of aluminum contamination. 

That’s a myth. As long as you buy baking soda and not baking powder there’s 0 chance you’ll get any aluminum in your tank.

And on another note, people with their chemipure blocks already end up getting high quantities of aluminum in their tank. If you already use GFO or have macro algae in your tank you’d be somewhat fine with small amounts of aluminum even then. But that was _if_ you had aluminum in your tank somehow. 
 

Baking soda, however, is almost entirely synthesized unless you’re specifically buying “all natural” ones that are mined. It’s simply too cheap to produce baking soda synthetically, and much more expensive to mine it.

On 9/8/2020 at 4:45 PM, Bighoho said:

So I got a beautiful new Derasa clam today... covered in a few pests. Aptaisa, vermited... and some friendly isopods and such.

Couple of things about our cleaning regiment:
We QT everything regardless of what it is...
We clean all livestock as advised... scrub, razor blade, glue whatever needs to be done to get the job done.. etc.
I always wear gloves... been stung too many times by bristleworms

So what's the problem? After cleaning off the two small aptasia I used the gloves to wipe off the blade, aptasia guts remaining on the glove. So the clam is still acclimating, I decided to go check on the DT... and what do I do I stick the glove with the guts on it into the sump not thinking about what I just did. So the big question is: Did I just contaminate my DT with aptaisa? It's bugging the crap out of me and I'm having a mini meltdown over it... Need some community support, thoughts.

I will mention that I preemptively ordered some peppermint shrimp and am thinking of ordering some apt eating nudi's just in case.

Thanks all for your support/advice in advance!
#stupidreefermistakes
#aptasia4free
#mindlessreefing

 

Don’t worry. Even though there’s a solid chance you did contaminate your tank with aiptasia, I am in the process of breeding some berghia nudibranches. Already have significant batches of eggs. If I can scale it a bit more I think I can supply the local community with a cheap source of berghia.

Considering the material safety data sheet of Arm and Hammer baking soda says 100% sodium bicarbonate and the only possible impurity in the sodium bicarbonate synthesis  process is sodium chloride, I highly recommend in this one case that you just stick to Arm and Hammer. Anything else is likely just repackaged Arm and Hammer. Snd even in all of the chemical reactions that I can think of that sodium bicarbonate is used for, I can’t really think of many that are sensitive to extremely low sodium chloride impurities, hence even the lab grade sodium bicarbonate will with most probably not be much if any better.

If the deal falls through I’ll take it. Sure wish I had service to respond to this when I saw it earlier in the day.

You likely wouldn’t even need to put that much effort for the oregon coast tide pool tank because it would likely do just fine in the 60s. Much of the species that live in the tidepools are subtropicals (with some temperate species).  It’s only when you start to think about doing some of the deeper water species that you’re really moving into cold water territory.

I’ve been able to keep some of the nems from the tide pools, collected responsibly, with minimal effort for a few months at a time without anything besides just an airstone and some top offs while being kept outdoors. Aside from the summer months, you could get by keeping them at room temperatures or perhaps preferably a little lower (if your room temp tends to be in the 60s like mine). Or just set out said tank in your garage for most of the year and only need to consider a chiller for about 3 months of the year. Though I’ve had success keeping some of the crabs in the 70s for a prolonged time (they escaped and were found dried up, unfortunately). 

It is worth noting however that the tide pool tank would likely not end up being that exciting considering the little fish in the tidepools predate upon the clonal anemones and the crabs obviously eat anything they can get their claws on.

Unfortunately my real goal was to see whether the clonal nems would do decently in our lower temperature reefs, but I didn’t have the courage or chance to introduce them into my reef. 
 

So all in all I’d say the whole idea ends up devolving into: do you want the fish, the crabs, or the nems? If you like the colors, like me, it ends up being the third option, in which case it’s still somewhat drab considering the lack of variety. And if you want to solve that you need to take the plunge and go full on coldwater with some of the deeper water nems that inhabit the oregon coast.

On 8/18/2020 at 6:59 PM, Higher Thinking said:

I have some in my sump. Never tried scraping them off the glass, but I imagine I could. I'm in Scappoose. If you wanted to head this way, I could scrap off a decent little group.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 

I am interested but it is a long trip. I may pass by sometime down the line, if so I could hit you up then? If that works for you.

On 8/19/2020 at 3:28 PM, Lazyreefer said:

I have some rock covered in them, is that something you would want? 

Yes, that is something that I would want.

18 hours ago, techymechy said:

Just out of curosity, why do you want an aiptasia culture.   This is a legit question...I'm just trying to learn.

I have a large tank with a predatory reef. The only option for me are berghia nudibranches and the quantity I would need is prohibitively expensive. Berghia only eat aiptasia, so I would be using the aiptasia culture to keep a berghia culture fed, which would then increase in population until I have enough to take care of the aiptasia in the tank. If it works out well enough I could give back to the community too. 

It’s not really a good solution for anyone who can just keep peppermint shrimp, filefish, or copperband butterflies instead, but it’s the only one for me that will not be eaten by my triggerfish and/or won’t eat my corals.

That, and I find aiptasia pretty interesting. They’re used for a lot of studies on corals/anemones so keeping a culture will be interesting enough. But having them in my display (admittedly unintentionally) is not really a viable solution. 

Pm sent.

Interested in taking both if the deal with matteo falls through.

4 minutes ago, SuncrestReef said:

Too bad, I just threw out a big chunk of chaeto that had quite a few aiptasia in it.  Luckily my peppermint shrimp are keeping it under control in my display tank.

Too bad indeed. The next time you get such a bountiful harvest please let me know. I wouldn’t mind some chaeto at the moment either 😉

Haha. I’m surprised someone has went ahead and gotten one. 
 

I don’t even keep regular hermits anymore. Although, I am considering a blue spiny lobster at some point, but I hear they have a tendency to knock everything down and I’m already kinda getting tired of my urchins and my trigger doing that.

8 hours ago, Nicknjo said:

 

So I lost my first blue jaw trigger in copper qt. Heartbroken I recently wanted to try again and since I was getting a wrasse too, I decided to try black molley qt. I was under the impression that bule throats were reef safebwith caution but this jerk has killed 4 molleys now. Now i have the molleys separated in a basket so he can't get to them but I have doubts to the reef safeness of blue jaw triggers. Has anyone else witnessed murderous carnage by a blue jaw or did I get the jeff dhalmer of triggers?

 

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

 

 

 

Fish are always opportunists, but also some are just more aggressive than others. It doesn’t help that mollies don’t have any capability to run or fight back. A big enough size difference could also double down on its predatory instincts. 
 

I’ve both seen my past niger and my current indian triggerfish alternate between being very docile and also fairly aggressive. Notably, it seems like both were a lot more aggressive in copper QT, whether it’s because of the copper, the tank size, or both, I don’t know.

Ah that does sound the slightest bit too far.

I’ve always found filefish too risky since they also nibble on corals, no?

Have some in my tank, but nothing that’s easily accessible without tearing down my rockwork. I’m looking to get a lot to start an aiptasia culture. Does anybody have some they’re willing to loan to me... permanently? 😉

7 minutes ago, PowderBlue said:

I’m not really looking for much of a project but feel free to shoot me some pics and info if it doesn’t need much I might snag it


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Correction: I meant to say my tank is currently running, with livestock. Are you looking to start a system from scratch or are you interested in a tank with some (albeit not that much) livestock?

I might be interested. I have a 120 setup that is pretty decent all things considered, but might need some work. Are you looking for a running tank?

1 hour ago, Count Percula said:

I am seriously considering selling everything, but I do love my tank.  It's just a bit more maintenance than I can fit in my life right now.  But first, I have an outbreak of rose colored bubble-tip anemones.  I mean like 20 of the things.  If anyone is interested, I'm thinking about selling them for $5 apiece.  What a nuisance - I should have never added them.  Also, my two frog spawn torches have grown way out of hand.  I split the one I had and now each one has around 15-20 heads!  My tank is a three year old 180g Starfire with halides and T-5 lights. I'll take a few pics when the lights come on.

Anyway, I'm in Oregon down by Salem.  If you're interested in any of this, just let me know and we can figure something out.

Thanks

I’d be interested in any torches/frogspawns. Might also be interested in some nems for a nem tank I was considering setting up.

I’ll take everything that micah leaves behind (or everything if micah ends up not taking anything). Have been meaning to do some more aquascaping. Pm sent.

Would love to have them. PM sent.