Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Sorry Randy, haven't been following your new build (and thus not learning much). I really like your rocks and choice of mixing corals, sponges and macros! Those pink neptheas are going to look awesome when they start fanning out more. I love a happy Koji Wada:

Ignore the leopard. She's full of herself.

Nice Koji wada. How long have you had it?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I suspect lightly frozen does not kill phytoplankton.

Thanks. Hope it still does the job. :)

 

[JoJosReef]

Nice Koji wada. How long have you had it?

A few years. There are actually 3 frags from the original colony that nearly melted completely:

This was the original colony in my previous tank (more blue/purple LEDs--Noopsyches):

Then this happened suddenly:

And this was all I was able to salvage that didn't disintegrate at the touch:

I learned that they are quite sensitive to competing leathers--this nugget of info came from the person that gave me the original frag who at the time cultivated these for Unique Corals. He asked me if I had changed carbon recently, and I told him "no, actually I'm 3 weeks behind on my monthly carbon change," to which he responded "yeah, I have to change mine monthly or they do this". Since then I've been regularly changing my baggies of carbon. No proof that this is the cause of the Koji melting, but since this guy has grown hundreds of frags, I've taken his advice.

 

[Subsea]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
Did your sponge shipment come in?

I have been waiting on this development of GCE from “ear sponges” received last week.

Note semitransparent tube increase of fold on orange ear sponge.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

@Randy Holmes-Farley
Did your sponge shipment come in?

I have been waiting on this development of GCE from “ear sponges” received last week.

Note semitransparent tube increase of fold on orange ear sponge.

Yes, you can see them in the video in this post:

Randy's Tank and Learn Thread

I took a couple more pics of the column and oral disk, and folks are thinking lta in the above linked thread

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[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Clean Up Crew

The Reef cleaner clean up crew came today and looks good. I got the diverse CUC for 100 gallons. I put all but the 2 emerald crabs into the display on rocks. The two emerald crabs went into one refugium each as I read they can mow down desirable macroalgae, which is not what I want in the display (the other CUC members or the fish may too, but what can you do?).

It includes:

5 Trochus Snails -Eats Diatoms, cyano, film and hair algae and detritus on the rocks and glass in your tank.
2 Emerald Crabs - Mithrax crabs have dull claws that allow them to scrape algae from your liverock, and are good at removing bubble algae, hair algae, Dictyota, some species of Caulerpa, and other complex macroalgae.
32 Florida Ceriths - Florida Cerith snails range in size from an inch to 2''. These snails will consume diatoms, detritus, cyano, film and hair algae. They reside in the substrate especially, but will also clean the rocks and glass of your aquarium.
19 Nassarius vibex - Excellent scavenger and sand stirrer. These snails will come out whenever they smell food, or when you are feeding the fish. These snails do not eat algae; they eat detritus and leftover fish food.
7 Astraea Snails - These snails will consume film and hair algae on the glass and rocks in your aquarium.
72 Dwarf Ceriths - These smaller Cerith snails range in size from a half and inch to almost 1'', but are slender. Their tiny size allows them to reach the nooks and crannies other cleaners can't reach which is necessary for permanent removal of algae sources. These snails will consume diatoms, cyano, film algae, detritus, and hair algae in the substrate as well as on rocks and to some extent the glass in your aquarium.
7 Nerites - Hardy nocturnal algae eaters that consume Diatoms, Cyano, Algae and Detritus on the rocks and glass in your tank.
9 Assorted Hermits - This mix of assorted reef safe hermit crabs are good at removing hair algae and detritus, and fair at removing some kinds of cyanobacteria and film algae from your tank. They will spend their time on the rocks and on the substrate of your aquarium, with a preference for the rocks.
5 Turbo Snails - The Turbo Snail grows to about the size of a golf ball. It is great at cleaning algae, especially hair algae from larger tanks.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Culturing Pods

I got some phyto and tisbe pods from a local reefer today. I plan to use most of it in the display, but I'm going to take a small amount of the pods and try to see if I can culture it at all using a super simple setup. I know many folks do and with more complicated setup, but this is all I intend:

I an using a clear 64 oz plastic bottle (Dinkins phyto came in it) and drilled a hole through the lid for airline tubing. I'm going to clean it, add new salt water (not tank water at salinity matching the pods, add some live phyto, and turn on an air pump at very slow bubble rate.

Away it goes. Room temp is 73 deg F this morning in the basement, so I'm not using any heating and only ambient light from the refugium light scatter (which is significant).

I'll add more phyto as I can, but this is a learning experience that is most likely to fail, but that's OK. :)

 

[twentyleagues]

Culturing Pods

I got some phyto and tisbe pods from a local reefer today. I plan to use most of it in the display, but I'm going to take a small amount of the pods and try to see if I can culture it at all using a super simple setup. I know many folks do and with more complicated setup, but this is all I intend:

I an using a clear 64 oz plastic bottle (Dinkins phyto came in it) and drilled a hole through the lid for airline tubing. I'm going to clean it, add new salt water (not tank water at salinity matching the pods, add some live phyto, and turn on an air pump at very slow bubble rate.

Away it goes. Room temp is 73 deg F this morning in the basement, so I'm not using any heating and only ambient light from the refugium light scatter (which is significant).

I'll add more phyto as I can, but this is a learning experience that is most likely to fail, but that's OK. :)

I used a 10g tank I had laying around but basically the same set up. Tint the water green with phyto mine started consuming it in about 6 hrs after a couple days and I saw a pretty big boom in population. Fish room is pretty consistent 75F. I did add a polycarb lid to help slow evap just the double wall clear stuff available from hd or menards. My local guy crash all his phyto cultures and I ran out of phyto. I just added the pods to my reef at least what I could catch. I left the tank running and was adding ground up formula 2 flake food a tiny pinch at a time but it crash a couple weeks later. Probably too much waste with no filtration. I should have just ordered phyto from Dinkins or Reef by Steel as I have in the past but I was getting 1/2 gallons for $10 from the local guy.

 

[Kyleovski]

I’ve successfully grown copepods by simply taking some old tank water in a clear container, sticking it in a sunny area in the garden, then throwing in a super ripe banana peel into the water waiting a few days until the water goes green then chucking pods in, within a couple weeks I’ve got 1000s of pods.

 

[twentyleagues]

I used a 10g tank I had laying around but basically the same set up. Tint the water green with phyto mine started consuming it in about 6 hrs after a couple days and I saw a pretty big boom in population. Fish room is pretty consistent 75F. I did add a polycarb lid to help slow evap just the double wall clear stuff available from hd or menards. My local guy crash all his phyto cultures and I ran out of phyto. I just added the pods to my reef at least what I could catch. I left the tank running and was adding ground up formula 2 flake food a tiny pinch at a time but it crash a couple weeks later. Probably too much waste with no filtration. I should have just ordered phyto from Dinkins or Reef by Steel as I have in the past but I was getting 1/2 gallons for $10 from the local guy.

I am unsure why my phone keeps changing crashed to crash when I post lol. Maybe its just me....

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I’ve successfully grown copepods by simply taking some old tank water in a clear container, sticking it in a sunny area in the garden, then throwing in a super ripe banana peel into the water waiting a few days until the water goes green then chucking pods in, within a couple weeks I’ve got 1000s of pods.

Wow, might try that too since I have bananas. lol

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Well, those jumbo turbo snails from reef cleaners are chewing any algae and whatever down to the plastic or coralline or glass, depending on what they are on, so they are certainly not deterred from eating whatever is there. They are leaving a bare trail behind them. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Tisbe Culture Tries

OK, so most of the tisbe I bought will go into the display tonight, but a portion is going to each of two setups.

one is a clear plastic jug that will have a very slow air bubbler. It is in new salt water.

The second, with less pods since it seems crazy, is the banana peel idea that Kyleovski suggested. Also in new salt water (not tank water as he suggested). I put it in a clear milk jug on the back deck. No aeration.

I did not use tank water for either since dinos may be present.

Both were started with phyto feast live (previously frozen). The one outside will get nothing else for a while. The one inside, I will add phyto periodically as it seems to be consumed (by color). The inside one is in between the three refugium lights so there's a fair amount of back scatter that will get it.

 

[twentyleagues]

Tisbe Culture Tries

OK, so most of the tisbe I bought will go into the display tonight, but a portion is going to each of two setups.

one is a clear plastic jug that will have a very slow air bubbler. It is in new salt water.

The second, with less pods since it seems crazy, is the banana peel idea that Kyleovski suggested. Also in new salt water (not tank water as he suggested). I put it in a clear milk jug on the back deck. No aeration.

I did not use tank water for either since dinos may be present.

Both were started with phyto feast live (previously frozen). The one outside will get nothing else for a while. The one inside, I will add phyto periodically as it seems to be consumed (by color). The inside one is in between the three refugium lights so there's a fair amount of back scatter that will get it.

Having researched the Banana peel thing in the past the peel goes into tank water outside in the sun to generate green water/phyto and then pods get fed from this. I have read this for freshwater as well. Used tank water is a requirement to start the green water growing the peel gives it something to feed off of. Once green you can use it to feed your daphnia or in your case pods.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Having researched the Banana peel thing in the past the peel goes into tank water outside in the sun to generate green water/phyto and then pods get fed from this. I have read this for freshwater as well. Used tank water is a requirement to start the green water growing the peel gives it something to feed off of. Once green you can use it to feed your daphnia or in your case pods.

Right. I added live phyto in place of the tank water out of concern for it just growing dinos. Might not work, but I figured the phyto/pod combo to start was a reasonable compromise. :)

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Red Mithrax Crabs

There are at least two in the tank that came with the rock. One larger and one smaller (behind yellow leather in the second picture). They are great fun to watch. Earlier today, one was hanging onto a rock but stretching to try to get the green algae growing on unscraped glass nearby.

Here are a couple of pics:

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Salinity

My decades old American Marine Pinpoint conductivity meter seems to have lost its mind yesterday, reading normally as I was making a batch of new salt water and then suddenly maxing out, even in my standard solution.

Looks like I need to decide what type and brand of salinity determination I’ll use going forward. It’s not something I’ve had to think about in 30 years.

 

[spsick]

I’ve successfully grown copepods by simply taking some old tank water in a clear container, sticking it in a sunny area in the garden, then throwing in a super ripe banana peel into the water waiting a few days until the water goes green then chucking pods in, within a couple weeks I’ve got 1000s of pods.

This is so weird it sounds made up. Cool!

 

[Kyleovski]

I’ve successfully grown copepods by simply taking some old tank water in a clear container, sticking it in a sunny area in the garden, then throwing in a super ripe banana peel into the water waiting a few days until the water goes green then chucking pods in, within a couple weeks I’ve got 1000s of pods.

This is so weird it sounds made up. Cool!

I promise you it’s true,

Just make sure the container gets a decent chunk of sunlight, not enough to over heat the water but a good couple hours a day of maybe morning sunlight.

Give it a shot, nothing to lose

 

[Garf]

More pods.

My outside pod culture has exploded. I have millions of pods following on from last year. I will have live pods to feed until late summer at least now. So easy to culture nothing could be easier. All that's needed is a container, I use one of those under bed storage boxes, old tank water,a leaf...

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