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optikalus posted:Have you bought from them before? I'm curious as to how well the stuff do in shipping from them. I bought from Drs. Foster & Smith before and shipping was amazing -- >100lbs of stuff for like $16 shipping. Liveaquaria is run by DrsF&S, and the shipping is good. I've ordered from them several times. I now have 5 Sexies, the 3 Pipeshrimp that immediately buried themselves, and the Pipefish. The Pipefish is eagerly picking pods off my back wall as we speak. My tank has been up and running for a year before I got this guy, so it's pod city. I plan to start up a mysis hatchery within the next week or so as well. I'm trying to get photos of the Pipefish, but he's only 2 inches long!
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Feb 17, 2009 23:17
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So I'm probably going to tear down and sell my setup. Not only would the extra cash be nice, but I can't get ahold on what the gently caress is going on in my tank. I just have an occasional coral that just decides its time to die and does it. My anemone has split like 4 times so I definitely have some sort of irritant in the water, but I don't know what it is. It's not a bug parasite, it's no water parameter that I can figure out, and everything else looks healthy. It's just too loving frustrating. After losing my dendrophylia, a bunch of nice looking SPS I'm just going to stick my B&W clowns in my cube, move over my zoos and give up for a while.
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Feb 18, 2009 04:36
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Psimitry posted:So I'm probably going to tear down and sell my setup. Not only would the extra cash be nice, but I can't get ahold on what the gently caress is going on in my tank. I just have an occasional coral that just decides its time to die and does it. My anemone has split like 4 times so I definitely have some sort of irritant in the water, but I don't know what it is. It's not a bug parasite, it's no water parameter that I can figure out, and everything else looks healthy. Ugh, I felt the same way after my tank mini-cycled and I lost almost everything.  Sometimes it's best to take a little break and start over when you get your confidence back.
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Feb 18, 2009 17:21
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Hood Ornament posted:Ugh, I felt the same way after my tank mini-cycled and I lost almost everything. Yeah, I'll be keeping my lights, pumps and a few other misc items so that when I do get back into it (with a 180G tank), it will be a lot easier. But the tank, stand and canopy are probably going to go.
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Feb 18, 2009 19:56
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I just got a 14gal biocube but I have a couple of questions about putting things in it. I'm a salt guy from 10 years ago but things have really changed in a lot of ways and I'm relearning a bit. I don't need tips about starting it, but between this thread and that nano-reef site I seem to be part of a largely silent group of saltwater people. I DON'T plan on getting any corals or sponges or even any delicate inverts. I really just want live rock (yes I know it has some of everything on it), some crabs, maybe a shrimp and a couple of gobies. End of story. If my rock comes alive with some corals, fantastic but they're not going to be added on purpose. Guy at the store told me they've been running their biocubes loaded beyond where they should be and aside from water changes every 4-5 days, they run them totally stock. the nanoreef site talks about all these mods people do to them, additives I remember being only for reef setups, etc. Should I have any problems running this little guy without loving with the filters in the back or needing an array of water additives?
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Feb 18, 2009 20:14
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Morbid Florist posted:I just got a 14gal biocube but I have a couple of questions about putting things in it. I'm a salt guy from 10 years ago but things have really changed in a lot of ways and I'm relearning a bit. I don't need tips about starting it, but between this thread and that nano-reef site I seem to be part of a largely silent group of saltwater people. For a FOWLR tank, stock lighting and filter should be fine, the only thing I'd say is to take out the bioballs in the back. You can also upgrade the pump or add something like a koralia powerhead to up the flow, if you like. But honestly, for a bare-bones tank like you're describing, you should be fine running it stock.
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Feb 18, 2009 21:25
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That bioball removal is another one I don't fully know why I should get behind it. I've read and understand the base reasoning, but not everything adds up. I've seen people say they replace them with other media, leave it wide open, throw a skimmer in it, etc. Taking them out to reduce places for crap buildup, ok. But replacing it with something else isn't doing that, and I've seen it said you can rinse some of the bioballs periodically so you don't totally kill the bacteria but remove some of the poo poo. They also say the carbon filters are useless. So now I'm hearing people say to essentially remove all the filters, and that makes NO sense. I guess my main problem is a lack of faith that live rock alone will filter the tank...
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Feb 18, 2009 21:43
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Morbid Florist posted:That bioball removal is another one I don't fully know why I should get behind it. I've read and understand the base reasoning, but not everything adds up. I've seen people say they replace them with other media, leave it wide open, throw a skimmer in it, etc. I've run my tank for a year without any filter besides the liverock and a course sponge in the back to catch debris.  I am getting a skimmer soon, but only because I want to keep sensitive seahorses.
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Feb 18, 2009 22:01
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I have a question involving some sand that I received while getting a 46gal aquarium package from one of my professors. He had 2 bags of sand that he didn't use in his freshwater aquarium he had set up, so he gave them to me. By handling and moving the bags they have since opened. My question is, is the sand safe to use in what I plan on being a reef aquarium now that the bags have been opened for a little while? They have been open maybe a couple months. I mentioned it to one of the employee's at my local aquarium shop and they said it wouldn't be good to use. I just can't wrap my head around why this and why the sand would be bad? Is it bad to expose it to the air? Or are they just trying to ploy me into getting more equipment?
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Feb 19, 2009 00:15
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The one and ONLY advantage the bioballs give you (though admittedly it is a big one) is that if you remove the bioballs, it tends to gurgle a bit. Replacing it with some other media is ok, but IMO the best thing to do with them is to remove the bioballs, and put in either a big chunk o' sand, or a bunch of live rock rubble.
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Feb 19, 2009 02:03
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Concept Theory posted:I have a question involving some sand that I received while getting a 46gal aquarium package from one of my professors. He had 2 bags of sand that he didn't use in his freshwater aquarium he had set up, so he gave them to me. By handling and moving the bags they have since opened. My question is, is the sand safe to use in what I plan on being a reef aquarium now that the bags have been opened for a little while? They have been open maybe a couple months. I mentioned it to one of the employee's at my local aquarium shop and they said it wouldn't be good to use. I just can't wrap my head around why this and why the sand would be bad? Is it bad to expose it to the air? Or are they just trying to ploy me into getting more equipment? It has nothing (or very little) to do with the air exposure and everything (or mostly) to do with the composition of the sand itself. Freshwater species are far more tolerant of things like metals or odd salts in their water, and are usually gathered from freshwater sources. Saltwater substrates likewise are gathered from saltwater sources. I probably wouldn't use crushed coral or aragonite sand in a freshwater tank because it would likely taint the parameters of pH, calcium and magnesium. The small grain size could also be irritating to the freshwater fish. Likewise, I wouldn't use freshwater substrate (especially colored substrate) because you never know how the more acidic saltwater will interact with whatever might be in or on the freshwater substrate.
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Feb 19, 2009 02:07
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Here are some pics from my new 25G setup. My 3 fish, and cleaner shrimp  And because I know SA loves 3D images, here are a couple shot of my clam. If you are not familiar with this sort of photograph you need to focus in between the two images and sort of go cross-eyed (like a magic eye) and a 3d version will appear.   Here is a shot from my 2.5G Sexy Shrimp tank: 
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Feb 19, 2009 04:51
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Wow great pics. I can't wait to put fish in my tank. I just put the salt in and letting it mix so I can make small adjustments in SG. The water is really cloudy but it'll clear up soon. I went to the LFS and decided I want to get a copperband angel. Sorry to hear about your tank Psimitry .
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Feb 19, 2009 05:01
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Hood Ornament posted:I've run my tank for a year without any filter besides the liverock and a course sponge in the back to catch debris. What would you say about the kind of fish I could keep in a 14gal cube? I've kept a lot of kinds when I had my old 30 but I was told that normally calm fish will get nasty in such close quarters. I was hoping I could put in a wrasse or clown but they said both of those will go after crabs/shrimp in that small of a tank. I forget where I got the link, might have been here, that had a list of popular fish and how nano of a setup they'd be ok in. Pseudochromis' oddly enough made the list for a few varieties but I've only EVER seen those things be pricks. Royal Grammas were supposedly OK too, but I had one wholesale a shrimp and a crab in one night before. The store had some kind of orange hawkfish in their display 14gal with crabs but I'm wary of that guy too, though I LOVED my hawkfishes before. Besides gobies, what fish might do ok in a 14gallon rig WITH crabs and and a shrimp?
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Feb 19, 2009 16:52
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Sixline Wrasse. They're so cute! 
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Feb 19, 2009 18:32
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Hood Ornament posted:Sixline Wrasse. They're so cute! REALLY! I'll look more into that little guy. Wrasses rule. edit: boo it says it will go after slow fish (goby, correct?) and shrimp http://www.nano-reef.com/fish/?fish=3 Morbid Florist fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Feb 19, 2009 |
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Feb 19, 2009 18:42
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Morbid Florist posted:REALLY! I'll look more into that little guy. Wrasses rule. Huh, I've never known them to be aggressive, personally. Honestly it probably depends on what shrimp you have. I would expect them to pick on the tiny shrimp like Sexies, but something like a Cleaner Shrimp or a Fire Shrimp would be just as big as the wrasse!
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Feb 19, 2009 18:51
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Hood Ornament posted:Huh, I've never known them to be aggressive, personally. Honestly it probably depends on what shrimp you have. I would expect them to pick on the tiny shrimp like Sexies, but something like a Cleaner Shrimp or a Fire Shrimp would be just as big as the wrasse! Well I've got a good month, at least, before anything is going in the tank so I've got time to get different opinions about what will and won't turn my tank into a bloodbath. My first step seems to be figuring out what I don't want to live without and then figuring out what won't kill or be killed by them.
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Feb 19, 2009 19:03
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A sixline will leave most stuff alone EXCEPT other wrasses. It will gently caress with them to no end. I have had several six lines (not at once) and they all were perfectly friendly until I made the mistake of trying to put a carpenter's wrasse in with one.
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Feb 20, 2009 00:22
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So far so good on our 20 gallon saltwater tank, we've had 1 casualty so far and thats the peppermint shrimp.. we have no idea what happened to the shrimp except he disappeared. Got a weird thing growing on the glass, its too small to take a picture but it looks like a little circle with small hair-thin tenticles? I cant find any pictures on google or other aquarium sites that match it.. so i doodled it. The first (big) one is on a rock, kinda has a pinkish center, and is flat. the second one is on the glass 
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Feb 22, 2009 22:53
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Vitae posted:So far so good on our 20 gallon saltwater tank, we've had 1 casualty so far and thats the peppermint shrimp.. we have no idea what happened to the shrimp except he disappeared. Deja vu from a couple pages back in this thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2867783&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=7#post353313282 As far as the peppermint shrimp is concerned, if you have a decent amount of rockwork, they'll hide either between, around, under or inside of your rocks, especially after they molt.
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Feb 22, 2009 23:04
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Vitae posted:So far so good on our 20 gallon saltwater tank, we've had 1 casualty so far and thats the peppermint shrimp.. we have no idea what happened to the shrimp except he disappeared. Try searching for "hydroid jellyfish" in google.
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Feb 23, 2009 03:03
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that mantis is awesome. also, did you ever have to put any life tigger pods or anything in there for your mandarin or is he just living off of your reef? i kept mine for 6 months and then it croaked. ha
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Feb 23, 2009 06:58
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My peppermint shrimp randomly croaked as well, I'm told they tend to do that. Also hydroid jellies are so cute! Enjoy them while you can, because they seem to have a population explosion and then just kinda vanish.
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Feb 23, 2009 17:42
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Four years ago I bought a Sea Clone skimmer for my office 10 gallon (shut up, they're not completely useless for small applications). I ran it for about a year with great success, but in that time it collected a ton of crap in the body - sediment, some coraline, calcifications, etc. Fast forward to today. The skimmer has been sitting in a box for three years and I neglected to clean it out after removing it from the tank because I am a giant tool. I'd like to get it clean now, but the drat thing doesn't come apart and there is a good deal of surface that I can't reach with a brush. I soaked it in very hot water last night, but that didn't help a lot. Any tips for something I can soak it in that won't etch the plastic or poison the poo poo out of anything the skimmer touches afterward? csammis fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Feb 24, 2009 |
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Feb 24, 2009 19:33
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Run vinegar water through it. No salt. If that doesn't get it clean, nothing will (which is probably a good thing because LOL Seaclown).
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Feb 24, 2009 19:40
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To anyone who has used Sealife Inc before, has anyone found things hitchhiking on their live rock that they DIDN'T want to end up in there? The liverock at my store is ok but far from what this place seems to have. I'll pay the outlandish shipping as long as I'm not going to get some kind of critter that eats everything or a coral that's so hard to keep alive that it dies and takes everything down with it. While I've got your attention, what is the beef against these green star polyps I've seen mentioned? They sound like the perfect rookie coral but I don't know if it's just internet rage or there's something behind it.
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Feb 25, 2009 17:13
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Morbid Florist posted:I'll pay the outlandish shipping as long as I'm not going to get some kind of critter that eats everything or a coral that's so hard to keep alive that it dies and takes everything down with it. As long as it comes from the ocean, ANY live rock is capable of harboring critters. It's kind of the nature of it being alive. Your store (at least in the very extreme probability against) doesn't have some sort of critters breeding in their holding tanks. Hitchhikers just simply are, or aren't in your live rock. To make absolutely sure, simply give your rock a good STRONG iodine dip for a while (I've gone as long as 20 minutes for complete saturation) in order to kill ANY invertibrate that is on or in the rock. Then quarantine your rock with a piece from your tank in order to re-seed it with good plankton and occasionally add some sort of food to the water in order to help them grow (phytoplankton is a good idea). quote:While I've got your attention, what is the beef against these green star polyps I've seen mentioned? They sound like the perfect rookie coral but I don't know if it's just internet rage or there's something behind it. Green star polyp CAN be extremely pretty and good for your tank. The problem with GSP is keeping it contained. It can, and will act like the creep from Starcraft and literally grow over every surface in your tank if you let it. You can use this to your advantage (by putting it on unsightly things like overflows as some people do), but it can also start growing on rocks you don't want it to. And once it's on there in any decent amount, you WILL NOT get it off unless you kill the entire rock (and by that I mean drying it). If you're going to have GSP, I would put it on a small rock for your tank (I don't know what size you have. My GSP colony is about the size of a baseball) and let it grow on that. Keep the rock on the sandbed away from your main rock structure. When it starts reaching out (and it will), get scissors or a razor and cut those tendrils off. You don't want it growing off that rock.
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Feb 25, 2009 17:27
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Keeping it away from other stuff would be hard, it's a 14gal biocube. But that's still drat good to know, thank you. If I get this liverock from sealife inc, how long would it take for everything on/in it to reveal itself? A few days to a week? I never had really good liverock in my tanks before so it was never much of a consideration.
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Feb 25, 2009 18:48
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Morbid Florist posted:Keeping it away from other stuff would be hard, it's a 14gal biocube. But that's still drat good to know, thank you. Nonsense. I have a 14 gallon biocube and had some GSP in there. I just had to keep it to a patch about the size of a half dollar and constantly trim it. GSP is surprisingly tough, so it can handle repeated prunings. But it IS a pain in the rear end sometimes. Morbid Florist posted:If I get this liverock from sealife inc, how long would it take for everything on/in it to reveal itself? A few days to a week? Personally I've yet to encounter a truly hostile hitchhiker. But you should know within a couple days. Go in with a flashlight at night and you'll have the best chance of spotting something. Especially if you put out some kind of bait (a piece of shrimp tied to a rock a little bit away from the rock you've got, for example). If the bait is consumed, it's possible you've got something (or you've got a really good group of plankton in the tank). Just make sure to try to surprise it with the flashlight. Go into the room when it's as dark as you can make it, point the light at the bait and turn it on, look quickly for something scurrying away. Hitchhikers are, for the most part, not a really big deal and they're kind of uncommon. It's just that in the times when you DO have a hostile hitchhiker, they're a bitch.
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Feb 25, 2009 18:55
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I'll stop monopolizing the thread after this last one for Psimitry. What fish have you had luck with in your 14g cube? (assuming you've also kept crabs/shrimp too) You mentioned a sixline that I'm still considering... I saw this list on nanoreef.com but the fish store said a few of these were bad ideas. Namely the clowns and gramma http://www.nano-reef.com/fish/ Morbid Florist fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Feb 25, 2009 |
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Feb 25, 2009 20:43
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Morbid Florist posted:I'll stop monopolizing the thread after this last one for Psimitry. At the moment, I don't have ANYTHING in there (I moved everything into my 90G, but I will soon be moving things back there). The nice thing about Biocubes is their enclosed hood so you can keep fish commonly known to jump in them. Case in point: Jawfish. These little guys are awesome and I was heartbroken when somehow the power to my cube got turned off and I lost both my jawfish and my black cap basslet. If I had an ideal stocking list for MY 14G biocube it would be thus: 2x false perc clownfish 1x Black cap basslet 1x Pearly jawfish 1x cleaner shrimp 1x peppermint shrimp assorted snails Notice two things here: the first, is that I have overstocked the tank. One of those fish really needs to go, BUT I've got a really good skimmer designed for nano/biocubes (emphasis on good. the AquaC nano-remora and the Current USA nano-fission do not fall into that category). The second is that I don't have crabs in there. This is especially important if you plan on keeping something excessively docile in there such as a firefish (which I don't recommend at all because EVERYTHING eats them including clowns and jawfishes). Don't feel bad about monopolizing the thread. This one doesn't get bumped all that often and we're glad to answer questions ('cause we get to feel all superior and poo poo).
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Feb 25, 2009 20:50
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Just to chime in on the GSP issue, I had a rock separated from the rest when I had a 30g. Despite my precaution of keeping it far from contacting any other solid surfaces I ended up finding a large cluster in the back of my rock work when I took the tank down. Somehow the GSP had spread around the tank despite being kept away from anything it could grow on. I'm assuming a small piece of the flesh was ripped off by a hermit or something and then floated to the back of the tank where it took off. I'm giving the stuff a try again in my pico, but I would never put it in my big tank under any circumstance, there is just too much of a risk for me. At least if it takes over my pico I can eradicate it in under an hour whereas in my 120 it'd be several weeks worth of effort unless I bleached the whole tank.
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Feb 25, 2009 21:54
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Good to know about the polyps: pretty but a pain in the rear end.Psimitry posted:If I had an ideal stocking list for MY 14G biocube it would be thus: OH man you're playing with my emotions bringing the blackcap up. Is he a "not with crabs" case? The crabs are non negotiable. I'm talking stuff like an arrow crab, an emerald (gathering opinions, iffy), I'd love a deco and pompom (haven't read about yet), couple of hermits... The fish store was giving me a basic pitch of a half dozen crabs max, a shrimp and a goby or two tops. The more gobies I look at, that doesn't bother me so much. I had no idea there were so many kinds. The wife does like purple though... Does my lust for crab really limit me that much for fish choices? Morbid Florist fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Feb 25, 2009 |
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Feb 25, 2009 21:57
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All crabs are opportunists and the arrow crab is definitely a threat to fish. Emeralds are probably one of your safest bets aside from some hermits.
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Feb 25, 2009 22:58
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Morbid Florist posted:OH man you're playing with my emotions bringing the blackcap up. Is he a "not with crabs" case? No. A blackcap just does really well in a cube. Because of the relatively low intensity of light in a standard biocube is great for a blackcap. I had mine in my 90G with my High Output T5's and it NEVER came out. Just hid all the drat time. pretty much just darted out to eat, and then ran home. As soon as I put it in the cube, it was just him and the jawfish and he spent a fair amount of time out in the open. quote:The crabs are non negotiable. I'm talking stuff like an arrow crab, an emerald (gathering opinions, iffy), I'd love a deco and pompom (haven't read about yet), couple of hermits... Re-negotiate that non-negotiable opinion. Some people have ok times with arrow crabs, some of them kill everything in their sights. Fish, coral, doesn't matter. If it's in the tank, and it's meat-like, it's dead. Emerald crabs are great while they're small, but they lose their herbivore tendencies as they get older and become carnivores. And what meat-like things are in your tank? Pompom's are pretty and pretty much reef safe. But they rarely survive very long in captivity. I've never been the type of guy to scream "if it's born in the ocean it should STAY in the ocean" or anything like that, but if it's just going to die in your captivity (when it could last a lot longer in the wild) then that's kinda lame. If you absolutely must have crabs, keep it to hermits. And then, only to scarlet hermits. They're the most reef and fish safe of the bunch. ...but I still don't trust them. quote:Does my lust for crab really limit me that much for fish choices? Your lust for crabs limits pretty much everything. I like crabs, but bottom line is that they feed on whatever they can get their claws on (in that sense they're a lot like Coral Banded shrimp. Don't get one of those either).
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Feb 26, 2009 02:04
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Psimitry posted:If you absolutely must have crabs, keep it to hermits. And then, only to scarlet hermits. They're the most reef and fish safe of the bunch. What do you suggest in place of hermits? I've not been that fond of mine ever since the first few days I put them in the tank and they removed the outer 1/8" layer of rock from all my cured liverock -- I can only imagine they had a reason for that, but I don't know. Now I see one of my largest hermits trampling my GSP (which I actually like and allow to take over a large portion of my tank) FWIW, I trust my arrow crab more than my hermits heh. I kept a very close eye on it when I added it, but he doesn't touch the shrimp or fish. He has eaten two hermits -- but no idea if they were already dead or not (I think I had too many hermits anyways)
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Feb 26, 2009 02:12
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Chiming in on the emerald crabs not being entirely reef safe. I have no fish missing but the other day I caught my emerald plucking my mushrooms and zoanthoids off their rocks. He didn't eat any, just popped them off and watched them float away.
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Feb 26, 2009 02:21
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VyperRDH posted:Chiming in on the emerald crabs not being entirely reef safe. I have no fish missing but the other day I caught my emerald plucking my mushrooms and zoanthoids off their rocks. He didn't eat any, just popped them off and watched them float away. haha what a dick. I caught my peppermint shrimp eating one of my mushrooms the other day. It sucks when you see that poo poo, but what can you do?
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Feb 26, 2009 04:39
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Psimitry posted:No. A blackcap just does really well in a cube. Because of the relatively low intensity of light in a standard biocube is great for a blackcap. I had mine in my 90G with my High Output T5's and it NEVER came out. Just hid all the drat time. pretty much just darted out to eat, and then ran home. As soon as I put it in the cube, it was just him and the jawfish and he spent a fair amount of time out in the open. You think a blackcap and a goby could get along? The more different kinds of gobies I look at I think I could be perfectly fine with a few of them instead of just one "other". They may end up being my pick... Psimitry posted:Re-negotiate that non-negotiable opinion. Some people have ok times with arrow crabs, some of them kill everything in their sights. Fish, coral, doesn't matter. If it's in the tank, and it's meat-like, it's dead. Emerald crabs are great while they're small, but they lose their herbivore tendencies as they get older and become carnivores. And what meat-like things are in your tank? Pompom's are pretty and pretty much reef safe. But they rarely survive very long in captivity. I've never been the type of guy to scream "if it's born in the ocean it should STAY in the ocean" or anything like that, but if it's just going to die in your captivity (when it could last a lot longer in the wild) then that's kinda lame. I think the biggest thing this biocube will do for me is make me long for a living situation that can support a big tank again. I miss the days of being able to pick just about anything and not worry about tank requirements
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Feb 26, 2009 15:16
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