Tank Journal Archive

[Brekel]

Hey, thanks magic - I might have to take you up on that. Had a look at Kingston aquariums yesterday with the kids - they had 3 dead turbos, don't think they were worth the money. Picked up a strombus though - he spent the night sucking diatoms on the sand, and the morning cleaning a piece of liove rock. Lets's hope 'Dyson' doesn't loose suction. How many turbos do you reckon would be good in a tank this size? (realistically, not just 'cos you may have an excess you need to get rid of :p).

@vspec: found it when researching on the net. In the past I'd looked at some of the larger forums (reefcentral, masa) but lately my searches kept finding results here, particularly when I searched just Australian sites to try and get more local info. So far I'm impressed - you seem like a friendly bunch with lots of good knowledge.

A squirt colony? That's the first suggestion I've had. The individual tube bits have occasionally been closed (makes it look like a bunch of green dots), but 95% of the time they are open. They're linked my a mucuousy looking material.

 

[MagicJ]

I currently have about 100+ ranging in size from big to very small :)

Hopefully you can get them breeding in your tank - I am happy to start you off with 20, with a variety of sizes. Let me know when you want them - the sooner the better with a new tank so that they can keep on top of any algae growth.

Interesting that you got a strombus - last time we looked they were illegal in Tassie :confused:

 

[Brekel]

Maybe the ID is wrong then, but they said it was and I thought it probably was too, although I'm not real familiar with them.

 

[Sarg]

Nice pic and yep thats a strom :)

Tank is coming along nicely... took me a while to see the roo ;)

 

[MTG]

i love strombs, its so funny when they poke their eyes out and look at you :D

 

[daveH]

Neat when they do this too.

 

[Brekel]

Cool litte critters that's for sure. The kids keep checking to see where he is and what he's doing. He's got an awesome appetite too. This morning I found him on top of a rock that, until last night, was developing a lot of hair algae. Now it has one little patch that was a bit longer, the rest is striped fairly clean.

Just have to get rid of his pile of poop now.

 

[Brekel]

Well, complete suprise this morning for a tank so new:
Either something is very happy with the tank conditions, or something is so unhappy that it's taking drastic measures to ensure the ongoing viability of it's species before it throws in the towel.

After walking past the tank with just room lighting several times, geting the kids fed, etc, I turned the lights on as I was rushing out the door to work (haven't bought that timer yet...). The tank was swimming with what I asume must be some kind of larvae - maybe 50-100 of them. Little oval white dots, with a slightly curved tail projecting from one end, whole thing would be maybe 1mm long. Turned one of the powerheads off to slow down the movement and try and grab a quick photo, but as I was already verging on being late to work I couldn't waste too much time (things always happen when most inconvenient :rolleyes). At first they seemed to be just drifting free, but in the reduced flow it appeared that every now and then they'd give a little kick. It's possible that it was just a patch of turbulence I guess.

Wouldn't have expected to see anything like this so soon. As a brief rundown:

• 16th May - live rock picked up, cleaned off a bit, spread in botom of tank, and tank 1/4 filled. 2 x powerheads, heater & skimmer added. (Well, it crossed over midnight so you could say the 17th)
• 20th May - Ammonia hit 4.0, did a 50% water change and cleaned some more stuff off the rocks.
• 24th May - after halving each day since 20th, ammonia undetectable.
• 1st June - after several days away caame home and did first Nitrite test. Reads zero. (Is there something commonly available containing nitrite that you can use to verify a test kit is working? I noticed the bottle of solution had leaked v. slightly inside the box, so may not have been sealed real well).
• approx. 16th June - added coral sand substrate and roughly arranged rock. Filled tank.

Lifeforms seen in tank:

• Fan worms of different types and different sizes, various other polychaete worms.
• Colonial ascidians of at least two different types (the one vspec kindly id'd for me, plus one that on the net is referred to as a star squirt colony)
• a few small zoanthids
• limpets
• Something (assumably a worm) that over 3 nights built a 15cm long tube out of grains of coral sand
• a couple of amphipods, but at least one is dead now.
• 1 snail - turbo?
• The strombus
• A small yellow tipped Hermit.

There could be others I haven't seen or have forgotten to mention too. No idea what is responsible for this mornings new arrivals.

​

 

[chimaera]

Those white dots are very likely copepods, a really good sign of life and one that any fish you introduce will snack on. I had lots when my tanks first started up, but I think the clown goby devoured them all as haven't seen any for months now.

 

[Sidd]

nice pic of the snail :)

 

[MagicJ]

Some pictures of 'white dots on glass' here http://www.thereefuge.com.au/board/threads/shanes-random-photos.1014/page-4#post-51077

 

[Brekel]

It crossed my mind, but none of them settled on the glass like I've heard copepods tend to do. They've remained free swimming in the water.
Sucked a couple of them out of the tank tonight and took some pics with the DSLR and also my son's EyeClops.

Not sure if they are copepods: No visible antennae, tail structure looks different to any copepods I've seen, general body structure a bt different. Mind you, I'm more familiar with freshwater copepods so I could very well be wrong, I'm only going off my experience with FW ones and also pictures off the net. See what you think of the photos.

DSLR Shots:

EyeClops shots:

 

[chimaera]

http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchpods.html is a great resource ... though I don't see your exact critters in the list. Wonder if they are larvae of something?

 

[MagicJ]

They look more like a shrimp larvae to me.

 

[Brekel]

Looks like I might have some shrimp hiding in there then.

Thanks for the suggestion Chimaera - I came across that site when I was looking up some worms a few weeks ago. Lots of great info.

And thanks for your comments on the photos Sidd and Sarg:) .

Looks like the worms are happy too: the kids and I spent about 5 minutes watching an epitoke darting around all over the place on Sunday, and tonight I found these little fellas on the inside of of the glass, probably about .75mm long. Mighta missed 'em, if there wasn't two together.

 

[Priscacara]

I'm loving your posts on your hitchhikers and how much your enjoying them, its one of the things I'm really looking forward to when my tank is up and running. Something new to see and learn about every day!

 

[Joshwaaaa]

It crossed my mind, but none of them settled on the glass like I've heard copepods tend to do. They've remained free swimming in the water.
Sucked a couple of them out of the tank tonight and took some pics with the DSLR and also my son's EyeClops.

Not sure if they are copepods: No visible antennae, tail structure looks different to any copepods I've seen, general body structure a bt different. Mind you, I'm more familiar with freshwater copepods so I could very well be wrong, I'm only going off my experience with FW ones and also pictures off the net. See what you think of the photos.

DSLR Shots:

EyeClops shots:

mysid shrimp larvae maybe????

[Broken External Image]:http://www.invadingspecies.com/Images/Invaders/bloodyredshrimp/charac.jpg

 

[Brekel]

Some shots taken on Sunday morning of the new frags I picked up Saturday evening - thanks MagicJ :)

And this one on Sunday evening shortly after lights out, when the feeding tentacles extended.

 

[chimaera]

Looking really nice! corals all seem happy.

I had some of that kind of Candy Cane, grew really well and developed new heads ... but I never once saw it with feeding tentacles out. Then again I spot fed it so it opened it mouth and expanded, so maybe it never needed to ... or maybe I just didn't catch it.

 

[MagicJ]

Brett, good to meet you on Saturday - all the corals look like they have settled in nicely :)

Hopefully the snails have started doing what snails do ;)