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I posted this in the basic aquarium thread, but around the beginning of May I finally couldn't stand not having a tank anymore, and made a simple one for my kids. It's a small ten gallon built with what few components I could salvage from my parents' attic the last time I took the family to visit them. As a matter of fact, the tank and more than a few components are left over from Fugly the octopus.  Click here for the full 2000x1320 image. It's doing spiffy, and is fully cycled, but the water here (inland, farming area, lots of cows and horses and fertilizer) is so full of phosphates it's scary. Hence the huge bloom of red slime. I've never had it this bad ever. Psimitry gave some good advice though, and if it doesn't start clearing up by itself in a month, I'll use it.
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Aug 8, 2008 05:33
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:05 |
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Oh, here's an update on that red slime problem I was having. I went to my LFS and asked for Chemi-Clean, and they looked at me like I had two heads. Since I wasn't going to buy it online, I just bit the bullet and for the first time ever I am now using distilled water in my tank when I change the water. I've done two twenty percent changes in the last couple of weeks now. Problem solved. The red slime algae is in full retreat. No phosphates = no problem. Man, the water supply around here must really, really, really, REALLY suck. I'm even thinking of investing in some sort of filtration system for my drinking water now.
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Aug 30, 2008 17:49
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ChloroformSeduction posted:Nifty-est thing yet though is a tiny seastar I discovered while fiddling with the filter media this morning. I thought it was dead, since it was little and hard, so I just chucked it in the bottom of the tank, and as I type this, I can see it zooming up the side of the glass. It's small - if it had all four arms, it would be just smaller than a nickel. It looks as though it should should have four arms, yet is growing three new ones where the one broke off. Not sure how that's going to work out. I actually love those little starfish guys, but I don't currently and have never kept live corals in my tanks. So I have never had any reason to want to get rid of them. As far as I know, they just skim around and eat stuff, and occasionally split in half (or drop arms) and make more of themselves, which is why they never seem symmetrical. They never get large enough to be really interesting, but they are fun to have. *The next time one of them cruises to the front of the tank I have, I'll post a pic. Ramen Pride! fucked around with this message at 04:40 on Aug 31, 2008 |
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Aug 31, 2008 04:22
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Here's a pic of one of those little asterids, from the side of my tank.
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Aug 31, 2008 04:47
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Psimitry posted:You should actually consider picking up an RO/DI system ASAP if you're going to keep corals. Distilled water usually involves using copper distilling systems and you can end up getting copper in your aquarium (which will end up killing your corals). Sadly enough, that's not in my budget, and the LFS around here looks at me crosseyed whenever I ask them if they sell reverse osmosis water. Of course, their tanks are crawling with red slime too, so it's pretty obvious they don't. So far so good, but thanks for the distilled water copper warning. I guess I'm dammned if I do and dammned if I don't.
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Aug 31, 2008 19:37
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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.
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Apr 11, 2009 05:25
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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.
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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.
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Apr 11, 2009 05:30
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:https://aquariumdepot.com/red-spider-crab-small/ That's not a crab. It's a sea spider. A Pycnogonid. In the wild they eat specific soft corals and hydrozoans. They just hang out on them and munch away and don't really do much other than that. I've collected several similar species of them off docks and they don't really do anything or bug anything, but when the bunch of hydrozoans you collected them with eventually wither and die... so do they. I may not be in the know about this sort of thing, but I don't care where a sea spider hails from, fifty bucks is ludicrous. Also don't expect a large animal. The absolute largest east coast ones I've ever collected were about an inch from tip of leg to tip of leg, and all their mass was.... leg. Fun fact: their stomachs are in those legs. Because there's literally nowhere else to put a stomach in those things. If you decide to get it, I've never really found an animal that eats them. Like I said, they just hang out until their very specific food source is used up and then they just croak while all the other tankmates ignore the drama. In my opinion you'd be just as well off twisting some garbage can ties together and telling people that it's a ultra rare mutated sea spider.
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Apr 11, 2017 21:49
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 09:05 |
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VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE posted:Yeah no way I'd get it to begin with, but knowing now it's an obligate feeder on something makes it even more hilarious. Yeah, I had no idea that people were beginning to see various pynogonids in reefkeeping and they are regarded as pests! Of course, like I said their diet is usually very species specific, but HA! Fifty bucks for a potential pest that might eat your corals. I still endorse the make your own with garbage twist-tie braggart method.
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Apr 14, 2017 22:14
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