Hypo or Hypersalinity Dip for Live Rock to expel and evaluate hitchhikers?

fishface NJ · Jan 8, 2021

dochow said:
I did have one dead pistol shrimp on arrival and I left it in the tank overnight, was completely eaten by morning besides a few shell fragments.

still no ammonia after shipping in water. Will probably do a partial water change tomorrow to clean out some detritus

Any idea what ate the died pistol shrimp?

Tired · Jan 8, 2021

Everything, probably. Brittle stars are scavengers, the bristleworms I'm sure are present are scavengers, and I bet there's loads of amphipods and other worms. That's what happens to dead things in a tank with a lot of scavengers- everything becomes food real fast.

fishface NJ · Jan 8, 2021

@dochow the only worms I have seen and removed are the ones I posted here and a crab. No amphipods, isopods, bristleworms, or aphasia. I had 2 large Brittle stars and 3 Spaghetti worms that I threw in my DT. Lots of sponges and Featherdusters on the rocks. Do/did you have anything else?

dochow · Jan 9, 2021

Pulled this out this AM. Looks like a Limpet. Should be fine as far as I know.

Definitely have some pistol shrimp. Will try to catch them this weekend with bottle trap. Will keep.

Just need to sort out if I have a mantis. There are some Larvae of shrimp in there, tried to get pic but tough.

fishface NJ · Jan 9, 2021

Would be interested in seeing what larvae looks like. I could have that and not know.

Tired · Jan 9, 2021

Limpets are usually harmless, but some may chew on corals accidentally while going after algae.

Shrimp larvae don't survive to adulthood in reef tanks. They need to be treated like plankton, and can't handle the solid surface and lack of food. If you have larvae, they won't last long. Those might be amphipods or mysis shrimp, though- worth looking up pictures of to compare.

dochow · Jan 10, 2021

let’s see what’s we get overnight!

fishface NJ · Jan 10, 2021

Ahhh that’s how you do a bottle trap!

Tired · Jan 10, 2021

Yep! They work really well on most animals. The idea is that the creature goes in, and then, finding itself trapped, travels along the wall of the bottle to look for a way out. Since the wall of the bottle doesn't lead to the opening in a way they can easily follow, they stay in. Same idea as a lobster trap.

The only animal I've had reliably escape a bottle trap is something called a peacock gudgeon. It's a small freshwater fish, that happens to hover off the substrate at about the same height that the bottle trap entrance is. They go in, eat the food, turn around, and hover right back out. And the trap probably won't do much for snails. It also won't work on animals that are tiny compared to the trap- for example, mysis shrimp would swim right out, unless the entrance was rigged to be smaller.

Like any trap, they're best checked often. Not least so the animals in them won't potentially fight. If it's meant for vertebrates, it should absolutely have ventilation holes. Lastly, bottle traps should never be used unsupervised in any tank containing air-breathing animals. Betta fish and African dwarf frogs are the two most likely air-breathers to be involved. I don't think there are any saltwater concerns. If you have to use a bottle trap in a tank containing one of those, make sure it has a large air pocket in it, and watch it closely.

dochow · Jan 10, 2021

Tired said:
Limpets are usually harmless, but some may chew on corals accidentally while going after algae.

Shrimp larvae don't survive to adulthood in reef tanks. They need to be treated like plankton, and can't handle the solid surface and lack of food. If you have larvae, they won't last long. Those might be amphipods or mysis shrimp, though- worth looking up pictures of to compare.

I googled some images and these are the closest things I could find to what I saw. In the drawing it was probably closest to #2.

dochow · Jan 10, 2021

Tired said:
Yep! They work really well on most animals. The idea is that the creature goes in, and then, finding itself trapped, travels along the wall of the bottle to look for a way out. Since the wall of the bottle doesn't lead to the opening in a way they can easily follow, they stay in. Same idea as a lobster trap.

The only animal I've had reliably escape a bottle trap is something called a peacock gudgeon. It's a small freshwater fish, that happens to hover off the substrate at about the same height that the bottle trap entrance is. They go in, eat the food, turn around, and hover right back out. And the trap probably won't do much for snails. It also won't work on animals that are tiny compared to the trap- for example, mysis shrimp would swim right out, unless the entrance was rigged to be smaller.

Like any trap, they're best checked often. Not least so the animals in them won't potentially fight. If it's meant for vertebrates, it should absolutely have ventilation holes. Lastly, bottle traps should never be used unsupervised in any tank containing air-breathing animals. Betta fish and African dwarf frogs are the two most likely air-breathers to be involved. I don't think there are any saltwater concerns. If you have to use a bottle trap in a tank containing one of those, make sure it has a large air pocket in it, and watch it closely.

I did put in ventilation holes using a drill, hopefully small enough that things don’t escape because whatever inverts are in there I believe are pretty small.

dochow · Jan 10, 2021

How much longer do you think I should QT these rocks for?

There is no way I get to 72 days fallow for ich. I feel like this rock needs to get into tank or I’m going to start defeating the purpose of purchasing a good biologically diverse product as populations of bacteria and microscopic life probably will start dying off.

Btw, no significant ammonia spikes. I’m not checking nitrates and nitrites, just using ammonia alert on the tank and it’s never gone above 0.05, although the color between “safe and alert” are very similar and seems closer to “safe.”