sagedrake690
Community Member
Heya guys! I apologize beforehand for my long post and if it's in the wrong area, this seems right though but there is a lot of information and weird thing that happened. I am somewhat new to the hobby but I have read basically everything you can about everything concerning the care of horseshoe crabs and their husbandry as well as everything I can about keeping aquatic life alive. I have even talked to some biologists, one of them referred me to Anthony derringer of Kepley biosystems. (I believe that's his last name) My goal is to balance it so perfectly you never have to open the lid lol. My main care focus is on these three cute little arachnids but I want advice from professionals about upgrading and improving my setup. I am looking to breed them to repopulate so I can say I'm helping the planet! Also I want them to be happy not like in a lab lol. I have them in a 5 inch deep acrylic tub as recommended by every online source as these creatures are NOT reef compatible. They like brackish water and troll around in the bay in sand flats as juveniles and hang out near the shelf as adults or around the shallows. They are destructive when they dig and they like to push rocks. I have been observing them for over 2 weeks now and noticed they like to push the small rock around that I have in there. I have no idea what this is for but they do it frequently. My assumption is entertainment. They are also messy.
They sift sand and eat leftovers that would require sinking food that has been softened or crushed fine and this leads to big nasty tanks fast. For this, I have a huge refugium where I gravel vac their tank into. The refugium is more like a hitchhiker tank though. It's a brackish 10 gallon at 1.019-1.021 (26-28ppt) and has live rock, some hermits, an emerald, a couple snails and some sort of macroalgae that looks like seaweed but small and it bleeds this yellow goo when you break it.
The intention is during low tide daytime, I take half their water and put it in the refugium that is running a filtration system and a flow that keeps all the seaweed flowing very slowly. it exposes the sand and allows them to come out of the water and they love to chill outside the water if its too warm. At night I put the refugium water back in to simulate high tide. I kickstarted my tank with live sand/rock/ammonia then added plants and waited 3 days. first day ammonia was stressful, next day nitrites went up but not a dangerous amount and ammonia was not present. I put small amounts of food in to rot to keep ammonia going because I had no livestock as well as gravel vacuuming waste from their tank. The macroalgae is growing green and fast so I assume that everything is being used as soon as its being made. 3rd day nothing. no nitrates, ammonia or nitrites and my ph was going up so I held my breath till I couldn't and blew my Co2 into the water and that fixed it. (that's when I added some current and flow into the tank.) On the 7th day when the ammonia and everything kept reading 0, I went and got some inverts to clean up and a pin cushion urchin too though it doesn't move much and its smaller than a dime.... I'm looking for really good filtration to get rid of all the food waste without the need to vacuum. I want to put more scavengers to feed off the food the crabs don't.
I'm getting a bloom of zooplankton or copepods because the water has a bunch of swimming squirts as well as white stringy gunky growth on my plants. I want to balance the refugium and make it a massive biofilter feeding off the wastewater from the crabs.
Pic 1 horseshoe setup (currently low tide now and just fed)
Pic 2 refugium overhead (in an acrylic tub/ not meant for prettiness. Plan on moving to a 20 gal aquarium soon and use plant substrate)
Pic 3 stringy goo
Pic 4 refugium waste still leftover but turning white and clear. (this might be the goo just breakdown in final stages?)
Pic 5-8 inhabitants. emerald crab is always in rockwork behind
Pic 9 tried to show the pods and zooplankton
Pic 10 cute happy horseshoe crab horsing around with a treat toy (glass ball filled with shrimp. Puzzle toy)
So my questions are:
1) What is the white gunk and how do I slow/stop and further prevent it? (without water changes. The goal of all this is to fix and balance)
2) What reefmates can go in my scavenging refugium? (they need to tolerate lower salinity)
3) Would a live sponge or sand sifting seas star be good for the refugium for filtration as well?
4) copepods and amphipods...What will control these before they destroy my tank by overpopulating?
5) Corals are on my list of stuff I wanna grow and put back into the ocean when we clean it/stop polluting it, What are some good starter hard corals?
6) Has anyone had experience keeping horseshoe crabs that can offer advise?
They sift sand and eat leftovers that would require sinking food that has been softened or crushed fine and this leads to big nasty tanks fast. For this, I have a huge refugium where I gravel vac their tank into. The refugium is more like a hitchhiker tank though. It's a brackish 10 gallon at 1.019-1.021 (26-28ppt) and has live rock, some hermits, an emerald, a couple snails and some sort of macroalgae that looks like seaweed but small and it bleeds this yellow goo when you break it.
The intention is during low tide daytime, I take half their water and put it in the refugium that is running a filtration system and a flow that keeps all the seaweed flowing very slowly. it exposes the sand and allows them to come out of the water and they love to chill outside the water if its too warm. At night I put the refugium water back in to simulate high tide. I kickstarted my tank with live sand/rock/ammonia then added plants and waited 3 days. first day ammonia was stressful, next day nitrites went up but not a dangerous amount and ammonia was not present. I put small amounts of food in to rot to keep ammonia going because I had no livestock as well as gravel vacuuming waste from their tank. The macroalgae is growing green and fast so I assume that everything is being used as soon as its being made. 3rd day nothing. no nitrates, ammonia or nitrites and my ph was going up so I held my breath till I couldn't and blew my Co2 into the water and that fixed it. (that's when I added some current and flow into the tank.) On the 7th day when the ammonia and everything kept reading 0, I went and got some inverts to clean up and a pin cushion urchin too though it doesn't move much and its smaller than a dime.... I'm looking for really good filtration to get rid of all the food waste without the need to vacuum. I want to put more scavengers to feed off the food the crabs don't.
I'm getting a bloom of zooplankton or copepods because the water has a bunch of swimming squirts as well as white stringy gunky growth on my plants. I want to balance the refugium and make it a massive biofilter feeding off the wastewater from the crabs.
Pic 1 horseshoe setup (currently low tide now and just fed)
Pic 2 refugium overhead (in an acrylic tub/ not meant for prettiness. Plan on moving to a 20 gal aquarium soon and use plant substrate)
Pic 3 stringy goo
Pic 4 refugium waste still leftover but turning white and clear. (this might be the goo just breakdown in final stages?)
Pic 5-8 inhabitants. emerald crab is always in rockwork behind
Pic 9 tried to show the pods and zooplankton
Pic 10 cute happy horseshoe crab horsing around with a treat toy (glass ball filled with shrimp. Puzzle toy)
So my questions are:
1) What is the white gunk and how do I slow/stop and further prevent it? (without water changes. The goal of all this is to fix and balance)
2) What reefmates can go in my scavenging refugium? (they need to tolerate lower salinity)
3) Would a live sponge or sand sifting seas star be good for the refugium for filtration as well?
4) copepods and amphipods...What will control these before they destroy my tank by overpopulating?
5) Corals are on my list of stuff I wanna grow and put back into the ocean when we clean it/stop polluting it, What are some good starter hard corals?
6) Has anyone had experience keeping horseshoe crabs that can offer advise?
