|
I don't own a saltwater and don't think I really have the committment/patience for a tank, but I always make sure to stop and admire the pretty fish/inverts/coral when I visit my local Petco. I went in today to see if any bird toys were on sale and meandered over to the salty tanks to see if anything was new. And there was, they got in a humuhumunukunukuapuaa, lovely fish, but to my horror they had put it in with 8 tomato clowns  One was dead and in the humu's mouth, another was in the corner in the process of dying and all the others had no tail.I went and found the 'fish manager' and asked her if she knew that one of the fish was eating all the others, she freaked out and asked where. I took her to the tank and her and a couple of the other employees grabbed up the humu in a net and they tried to figure out what went wrong. Apparently the humu was supposed to go in the tank adjacent to the one he was in -.- She said they were going to medicate the water the clowns were in and they would be fine. They have no tails anymore, they won't be fine :[ I hate petco sometimes. On a positive note, they had the most beautiful green bird wrasse in another tank.
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2009 04:46
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 22:09 |
|
|
shifterdarkwolf posted:I hate petco sometimes. Hate them all the time, they're a step away from mall puppy store. A very small step.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2009 14:47
|
|
|
Double post for emergency, sorry. I come home from work today to find my purple bullseye pretty much destroyed. A little tiny stub left on the rock. He was dime sized yesterday. My orange mushroom looks like something ate 1/4 of it, it's all small and there's a crescent missing now. I don't THINK I've got anything in here that will eat corals. Hermits, astreas, trochus snails, a goby and a peppermint shrimp. No new live rock. Water tests yesterday were fine. No ammonia, ph 8, salinity in range...... WHAT THE gently caress I'm supposed to be picking up my clove polyps tomorrow but now I'm not so sure I should. ANYONE have an idea what happened to me?  edit: I do have some red slime going on, but it's not THAT bad, and these things look EATEN, not dying. I can't believe phosphates could decimate a coral overnight. There is literally almost nothing left of it, just an rear end print on the rock and a little nugget next to him that looks ok. I guess he might have split before he was done in, at least. Morbid Florist fucked around with this message at 23:06 on Apr 10, 2009 |
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2009 22:47
|
|
|
Morbid Florist posted:Double post for emergency, sorry. I think your shrimp f'd you over -- my peppermint is outgrowing his welcome as well. I think they get bored when there is no aiptasia for them to eat. I've witnessed mine nibbling on my green stripe mushrooms (but nothing serious), and it is currently killing my open brain coral (already fighting for life -- I guess I unknowingly rescued it from the LFS). They're opportunistic feeders so they'll eat anything that isn't doing 100%. Hate to say it, but if you're out of aiptasia, perhaps return the peppermint or jail it somehow. I'll be giving mine to a co-worker next week.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2009 23:15
|
|
|
He was my main suspect but I had no idea he'd go after live poo poo. Honestly these things had never been doing better. The orange one was a SPECK when I got it on live rock a few weeks ago, it was bigger than a quarter until today. The purple one was the same case, a little swollen blob when he came in on live rock and he took off. Is there a kind of shrimp that will leave corals alone or are they all potential assholes? I'll get rid of this one if I have to but this tank is getting pretty sparse now that the gramma is gone and I'm pretty much coral-less. I'll trade him in for something else if there's a mostly safe alternative, but I need some poo poo moving around in this thing.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2009 23:26
|
|
|
Morbid Florist posted:He was my main suspect but I had no idea he'd go after live poo poo. Honestly these things had never been doing better. The orange one was a SPECK when I got it on live rock a few weeks ago, it was bigger than a quarter until today. The purple one was the same case, a little swollen blob when he came in on live rock and he took off. My sexies can bug some corals by trying to walk all over them, but I don't think they're harming them. My cleaner doesn't seem to bother corals, except for the trample effect or the feeding frenzy. The peppermint is popular for the fact that it does eat reef life (even if it is unwanted reef life).
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2009 23:54
|
|
|
optikalus posted:My sexies can bug some corals by trying to walk all over them, but I don't think they're harming them. My cleaner doesn't seem to bother corals, except for the trample effect or the feeding frenzy. The peppermint is popular for the fact that it does eat reef life (even if it is unwanted reef life). loving figures. I got him to clean out those anenomes and here he is wholesaling my rehabed corals. This guy is loving gone tomorrow.
|
|
#
?
Apr 10, 2009 23:56
|
|
|
I would continue to check the tank at night with a flashlight, even after the shrimp is gone to make sure you don't have a hitchhiker that's causing the damage.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 02:03
|
|
|
shifterdarkwolf posted:I don't own a saltwater and don't think I really have the committment/patience for a tank, but I always make sure to stop and admire the pretty fish/inverts/coral when I visit my local Petco. I went in today to see if any bird toys were on sale and meandered over to the salty tanks to see if anything was new. And there was, they got in a humuhumunukunukuapuaa, lovely fish, but to my horror they had put it in with 8 tomato clowns That's weird, because in my experience both triggers associated with the "humu" nickname (Picasso and Bursa) get along pretty okay with other fish, and never seem to have a problem with clowns. It's the Undulated trigger you have to avoid. It's a monster.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 05:25
|
|
|
Nope, he wasn't mislabeled, looked around online, all the pictures match what I saw :[
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 05:28
|
|
|
shifterdarkwolf posted:Nope, he wasn't mislabeled, looked around online, all the pictures match what I saw :[ It was probably just an rear end in a top hat trigger. It happens. I wouldn't yell about Petco too much, the same thing can easily happen in a well run local store.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 05:30
|
|
|
ludnix posted:I would continue to check the tank at night with a flashlight, even after the shrimp is gone to make sure you don't have a hitchhiker that's causing the damage. Agreed. I've owned a LOT of peppermints, in every single one of my reefs. I've not once had them bug a coral. I'm definitely not convinced the peppermint is the culprit. I'd be willing to bet you have a nasty crab hitchhiker you don't know about in there.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 10:49
|
|
|
Psimitry posted:Agreed. I've owned a LOT of peppermints, in every single one of my reefs. I've not once had them bug a coral. I'm definitely not convinced the peppermint is the culprit. I'd be willing to bet you have a nasty crab hitchhiker you don't know about in there. But what are the odds he wouldn't have gone after the goby by now? That dude never leaves his tunnel. He seems like perfect crab bait. It doesn't look like anything else got ravaged over night. If this IS a shrimp issue, is it food or activity he's looking for? Since the gramma's been gone I have been putting in less food, and he has been running around a lot more when I do feed them. It does KIND OF appear as if he's not catching stuff quick enough... I'll keep him for now. I've seen nothing in the morning to make me think there's another crab going on. No new burrows or gravel mounds, moved things...
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 14:40
|
|
|
Hope you don't have one of these. 7 foot long bristle worm. http://www.oregonreef.com/sub_worm.htm
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 18:07
|
|
|
If it was a crab it would be going after what's easiest. A coral that can't move will be an easier snack than a goby that doesn't want to move.
|
|
#
?
Apr 11, 2009 20:57
|
|
|
IT'S MURDER!!! I come home yesterday to find a hermit and the shrimp feasting on a snail! Lights were on so it's not some nocturnal bastage I don't know about. Granted I can't say whether the snail just fell and they took advantage or if they jumped him. I've been turning the filters off to make sure the shrimp got food and he has been eating. The new clove polyps look loving great and they glow under the moon LEDs. If anything else gets offed I don't think the shrimp has many more days left in my tank.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 16:14
|
|
|
Wow. First aggressive peppermint shrimp I've ever heard confirmed. Shame of it is, this one will probably color your perceptions of them so you'll be unlikely to have one in the future. I've had probably 10-12 of them and never had any problem with them.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 17:18
|
|
|
In a bigger tank I'd consider one. And to be honest I don't MIND the snail murder, that's how life works for these things. It's the corals I care more about. Hell I couldn't even bitch that loud if all he did was off snails now and then but the corals are just too much to replace every time he gets bored or hungry. I remember reading these trochea snails CAN get back up if they fall over unlike astreas, which makes me think this was a hit. Guess I'll know more when I get home. Morbid Florist fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Apr 13, 2009 |
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 19:19
|
|
|
Morbid Florist posted:In a bigger tank I'd consider one. And to be honest I don't MIND the snail murder, that's how life works for these things. It's the corals I care more about. It's really funny 'cause I'm looking at (right this second as I type this) my two peps in my 14 gallon cube. They're both perfect reef citizens, and cleaned up a NASTY aiptasia infestation that I had before I moved my reef frags over to there when I switched my main tank over from reef. My cube was running in the sense that I only had the equipment running and I was adding nutrition only to keep the biological filter running, but the aiptasia anemones were exploding in there. I think I counted 50 of them at one point. Now there's not a single one in there.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 19:26
|
|
|
They're what I got him for in the first place but I only had 3-4 that rode in on live rock. He took them down slowly but I think the gramma was keeping him in his place because he never left his little cave during the day. Now that the gramma's gone this guy is all over the place and now he's apparently recruiting my hermits to his cause. The only good news is that he's not the best at his work. The purple bullseye he decimated LOOKS like it's trying to recover. If anything else catches a case of dead during the week this bastard is getting traded in for a banded coral or cleaner shrimp on saturday.
|
|
#
?
Apr 13, 2009 19:52
|
|
|
Here is a shot of my tank with just Actinics, one of the legs on the hood is busted, having a hard time locating a replacement. When I had a a leather that was growing like crazy    Picked up this brain that had been in a store for awhile and wasn't looking the greatest.  Here it is now, it gets fed everyday, it's colored up nicely and new polyps have shown up.  Here are some random shot of some of the other corals.         
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 00:29
|
|
|
Beautiful tank ToolShack, what have you been feeding the brain? I'm totally jealous of your zoanthid garden, it's so awesome when you have variety of colors that start growing into each other.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 01:00
|
|
|
He gets a squirt of http://www.rodsfood.com/ and Mysis shrimp, whatever I'm feeding the fish really.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 04:57
|
|
|
Nice tank! So the shrimp solved my problem for me by dropping dead yesterday. NO idea why. He was eating well the night before, was all running around. Everything else is doing great so the water can't be bad especially not after a little water change two nights ago. Am I correct thinking the corals would probably be the first group sign of a tank issue or could agador spartacus dying be that sign? The few tests I ran this weekend looked fine and the water change should have brought that 8 ph down a bit. While I'm here, what's a good reef safe red slime remover? The snails aren't doing the job anymore.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 14:53
|
|
|
Peppermints are experts at randomly dying.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 16:26
|
|
|
Morbid Florist posted:Nice tank! red slime is best removed with pristine water conditions and high flow. I try to remove whatever is visible when I do a water change by simply pointing the hose at it while it siphons out. I had a pretty bad (imo) case of it (might have just been diatoms), but was nearly 100% cured by modifying my MaxiJet Utility 900 return pump. Turns out that the adjustable grill on the front of it severely reduces output. Removed it and put on the included exterior mount fittings and the difference was night and day. I also put a hydor flo on it, which seems to work very well. As far as your peppermint issue, my co-worker's peppermint did the exact same thing after clearing his tank of all but one aiptasia. I guess mine is a survivor for some reason -- I've had it for at least 6 months now. As far as my peppermint issue went, the cleaner shrimp joined in on the fun and totally cleaned that open brain out, so I tossed it (the open brain).
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 18:37
|
|
|
poo poo a cleaner went for corals too? gently caress me man my list of candidates falls by the day. How about coral banded? Anyone have a horror story with those? I had good luck with my first one but it was a much bigger tank without coral.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 18:54
|
|
|
I've only seen cleaners go after something that was starting to decompose. I've probably had about 10 of them total and never had one attack a living coral. I've currently got 1 cleaner, 1 camel back, and 1 blood shrimp in my 120. All of which have behaved as expected, they hide in the coral during the day and only come out for food. If a meaty coral started to die in my tank though I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see all three of them cleaning it up. They can sense the decomposition and death of a coral a lot sooner than most people can visually so sometimes it can look like they are the cause.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 19:11
|
|
|
Yea, I'm totally convinced that the shrimps only picked over the brain because it was nearly dead when I bought it from the LFS. I'm more pissed off that the LFS I trusted sold me trash. I was hoping I could have revived it, but the shrimp prevented that.
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 20:11
|
|
|
Ok fair enough, I can't fault them for that. Hell it beats it rotting in there before it gets bad enough for me to notice. I guess I'll give one a shot. I don't really want a coral banded just because they're colored EXACTLY like my randall's goby and that would get pretty bland. Am I correct to think that in a 14gal biocube a coral banded and cleaner would probably kill each other?
|
|
#
?
Apr 16, 2009 20:40
|
|
|
Ok well how about two cleaner shrimp in a 14gal? I've read they do better if they're not solo but I also only have one fish and it's a goby, so he won't be swimming up for cleanings often. Do these guys NEED fish around or are they happy just picking around for poo poo? If I can't find a way to get the goby fed if I go away for more than one night I may have to sell him He won't eat pellets and my options for friends to ask are slim since if they're not allergic to my cat, they live too far away to make it reasonable. edit: also, I tried a Chemi-clean treatment for red slime but it didn't do much. The only phosphate sponges I saw at the store go into canister filters. Can something like that be rigged to the biocube filter system? I'm putting a skimmer in chamber 1, live rock rubble under a chemipure bag with filter floss on top of that in chamber 2. Morbid Florist fucked around with this message at 17:19 on Apr 30, 2009 |
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2009 16:10
|
|
|
They're perfectly fine with or without fish. If the chemi clean didn't work, then you either did it wrong, or you don't have red slime algae. Chemi pure bag? This doesn't sound right. When I used it it was a powder. Any chance you can get a picture of what you're trying to eliminate? With feeding the goby, have you tried decent quality frozen foods soaked in garlic?
|
|
#
?
Apr 30, 2009 19:05
|
|
|
He's already eating frozen shrimp just fine, my problem is a potential food that will work with an auto feeder. I haven't seen one that deals with non-processed foods but if there is one, I'd love to know about it. Chemi-clean was a powder for red slime, chemi-pure is a bag full of stuff that stays in the filter setup. I'll try and get a picture this weekend, but I found this and it's pretty drat close. http://www.nano-reef.com/gallery/data/500/medium/cyano_bad.jpg It's not on my sand at all, just rocks. But it's starting to grow on my snails and funny as that is, kinda, I know it's not good. I'll try and adjust the nozzle to move water towards the heaviest, but in a little 14gal I can't imagine I have much space where water isn't moving. The goby sure seems to get buffed around by the water stream just putting his back fin up.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2009 16:17
|
|
|
One of my ocellaris clowns jumped yesterday Sucks because they were the only fish I successfully kept in the tank -- everything else died or was ate. Guess I'll have to find a new mate for the other one. Also set up a 6 gallon nano cube the other day, currently cycling with about 10lbs live sand and some random live rock and poo poo from my AP24. Tossed a small chunk of brown zoas and ripped off a piece of GSP to toss in there as well (I don't really care if these survive heh). If it is anything like the cycle in my main tank, there won't be one. I was /really/ tempted to buy the smallest tang I've ever seen yesterday. The LFS had a school of little blue tangs, all between 1/2" and 3/4". I'm gonna need to set up a 'big' tank someday to have all the fish I can't in this 24 haha.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2009 18:45
|
|
|
Morbid Florist posted:He's already eating frozen shrimp just fine, my problem is a potential food that will work with an auto feeder. I haven't seen one that deals with non-processed foods but if there is one, I'd love to know about it. So did you run the powder or the bag? As far as the goby eating frozen shrimp but worrying about the auto feeder, why is it necessary that the auto feeder be able to feed him? Most people I know don't even have auto feeders as they just feed frozen once a day.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2009 21:19
|
|
|
Hood Ornament posted:Peppermints are experts at randomly dying. So true, I have a hard time keeping them for more then a month.
|
|
#
?
May 1, 2009 23:00
|
|
|
Hypnotized posted:So true, I have a hard time keeping them for more then a month. they're a lot more delicate than one might ordinarily believe. I think they need a MUCH longer acclimation period than your average invert. I also think that they're extremely delicate as far as predators (especially the small ones) - they can get eaten even by hermit crabs. But I also think that they're a lot more hardy than you might think. I had one that got sucked up against a maxijet 900 powerhead's intake. I turned it off and (not gently in the slightest because I thought it was already dead) pulled it out of the powerhead. I was about to throw it away but I saw its heart beating. I asked on some other forums what to do (i.e. should I euthanize it) and most people said drop it back in the water and see what happens. This was about two months ago. I still have him and he's doing great.
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2009 07:05
|
|
|
I've got some frags of red montipora capricornus that anyone can have if they want to cover shipping. None of my LFS want them and I'm not getting much interest on RC. My email is ludnix@gmail.com
|
|
#
?
May 2, 2009 09:40
|
|
|
I'm not surprised that there's not a lot of demand for them. They are a nice looking coral, but they're extremely hardy and grow fast. Hence there's a ton of it in the coral collector's market.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2009 09:06
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 9, 2024 22:09 |
|
|
What's surprising to me is that a lot of major coral sites still want to charge $40 for a small frag of it though despite the market saturation. Currently I'm just going to have to throw these away because I cannot find anyone to take them.
|
|
#
?
May 3, 2009 09:52
|
|