Aiptasia - An Unwanted Tenant?
6 April 2007With the new 65W 24″ now perched on top of the new glass top for my 20L Perfecto tank, things are really starting to grow.
I picked these up a few days ago, along with three new blue legged hermits and three new turbo snails.
The total livestock in the tank is now:
5 Blue Legged hermit crabs
1 Scarlet Legged hermit crab
5 Turbo Snails
…and one small sea anenome.
It apparently hitchhiked his way along with the live rock. At first, I was excited to see this. How cool! But as I looked around a bit to find out what kind it is, nobody has anything good to say about this creature.
I can’t get a good picture of it. It has milky-translucent tentacles, only 4 or 5 of them, all in a circle around the center. It is tucked pretty well into the rock, so I can’t see it’s body very well, but it looks like it has more much smaller tentacles in closer to it’s body. The long tentacles are perhaps a centimeter long and maybe 0.5mm in diameter at the base and taper to a point.
From my research, it seems I’ve got an Aiptasia, or “glass anenome”. The concensus is that they’re a pest and can spread and take over, eating other livestock. They don’t need much light, though I’ve given it plenty now.
How to remove Aiptasia
Advice from a number of online resources suggest that physical removal is a fool’s errand and often results in helping them reproduce by breaking them up.
Sending in troops to eat them seems to be the best approach. There are a few natural predators for this anenome. Nudibranches apparently eat nothing but these anenome and would probably do the trick nicely, until the food is gone, of course. Hairy Red-legged hermit crabs like to eat these as well, as do peppermint shrimp.
Another option is chemicals — creating a paste of potent calcium or sodium hydroxide can do the trick.
I’d rather not disturb the balance of my tank since it’s quite small. I’ll see if the current hermits do anything, and if not, throw in one of the more “specialized” spieces/hit-men to deal with it.
There is some great reading on the subject at WetWebMedia.com
Algae Identification
4 April 2007The tank is now 5 days old and already algae is sprouting up all over the live rock. I have no idea what it all is except to call it “red algae”, “green algae”, and “fuzzy algae”. In fact, I’m not even sure it’s algae. So, in hopes that someone can enlighten me, here are some pictures…
The following two pictures contain red algae that’s growing everywhere. It’s growing “out” of the rocks, not just spreading out and is a light maroon color. There are also spots of much darker red algae that definitely seems like a different organism.
This one’s a bit blurry, but is the only good sample of some greenish algae that’s growing. Actually, the turbo snail above also seems to have some of this on its shell. It’s just covering the rock, not much substance. Also, there’s a bit of orange algae growing here as well. Only one small spot.
And here’s some fuzzy stuff growing as well, though not very visible here. It is greenish and fuzzy, just to the left of the blue-legged hermit.
If you have any actual names for this stuff, please leave it in the comments!
Water Tests and Light Purchase
2 April 2007I stopped by the pet shop yesterday afternoon to get my water tested. That’s three days in a row at the pet store. I’m starting to feel a bit obsessed. They must see a lot of that — new tank owners getting completely obsessed as things ramp up.
I wanted to get the water tested since I did a “speed cycle” using BIO-Spira. The water tested great, so I guess it worked. From fresh water to cycled in two-three days. Not bad for what I guess normally takes a few weeks.
I also got a basic lesson in corals and fish so I can start thinking about what to start populating with. I’m thinking soft and SPL coral and 3 or 4 fish, some blennies and maybe a pair of clowns. Need to do more reasearch!
Finally, I ordered a glass top for my 20L Perfecto tank and a CoralLife compact light which should be in on tuesday. Once that’s in, and the algae really starts growing, I’ll start adding more crabs and snails to keep everything in order.
Once I see some balance forming, I’ll start adding coral and some fish. Trying to be patient!
PRT Day 2
1 April 2007Second day of life for my new fish tank.
The water in the tank has cleared up very nicely by now (it was still a bit cloudy yesterday), and all living things seem to be still that, living.
I was concerned about one of the snails, but they have both climbed up the wall to the surface and are hanging out happily there. I am wondering if they don’t have anything to eat given that no algae has had time to grow. Maybe I need to put something in there temporarily?
I also started photographing the fish tank. Judging by the many not-so-great tank shots there are on websites and forums, it can be a very difficult thing to do. You cannot use a flash as it reflects back off the screen. In short, I’ve set my camera on a tripod with no flash. Then take the picture on the timer so there’s no movement. Turned out pretty well given that nothing in the tank is moving. Any fish swimming by will be a blur.
I’ll have to do a bit of research about fish tank photography. In the meantime, here are some initial shots:
Project Reef Tank Day 1
31 March 2007Today, I have embarked on a new hobby. I’m building a reef tank. A reef tank is a salt water fish tank in which you develop a living coral reef. I’m just learning about the process now and I thought I’d cronicle this project here.
I’ve had a bad luck in the past with fresh water tanks, and after three or so years decided to give it another go. This time, on a whim, we’re going with salt water. So much more fun, and perhaps more work. We will see.
I have a 20L tank and thought that’d be a good size to start with. I don’t know how people manage their gigantic 75+ gallon custom tanks. Scuba gear???
Yesterday I purchased the salt (Instant Ocean) and “live sand”, which is coral sand that has live bacteria in it. Got that all set up with a filter and heater to get the tank in shape for the next steps.
This morning I was back at the pet store picking out “live rock” (I didn’t realize that all this stuff was “living”). I had looked around at fish and reef hobby forums and checked out some photos of other people’s tanks to get some idea of how I wanted to rockscape my tank. I settled on a vision of two separate structures with an opening between them right in the middle of the tank, leaving some spots for live coral down the line.
Even knowing that the key to a successful aquarium is taking it slow, I still wanted to get something in there. So after consulting with the pet store staff, decide on a few snails and hermit crabs to get things kicked off along with a dose of BIO-Spira.
BIO-Spira is a product (not cheap) that shortens the cycle-time in a new tank.
Existing Supplies
- 20L Tank with cover and fluorescent lamp
- Tetra Whisper Filter 30 (though the woman at the pet store told me that I may want to rethink that one and go for a Bio-wheel for salt water.)
New Supplies
- Instant Ocean
- Two bags of live sand
- BIO-Spira
- 18 lbs. of live rock
- 1 heater
It was fun picking out the rock and setting up the tank’s landscape. The guy in the pet store was great. We pulled out a bunch of pieces and laid it out on the floor. I tried to build a structure that would be interesting, provide some shelter, and serve as a future platform for some live coral. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.
Here’s the first picture:
Apparently this rock comes from all over the world. They put in an order and guys go out that day to harvest it. He mentioned that most of it seems to come from Fiji. For all I know, it comes out of Boston Harbor!
Starting Livestock
- Two “Turbo Grazer” Snails
- Two Blue Leg Hermit Crabs
- One Scarlet Hermit Crab
So far so good, I think. Though if things are going to go wrong, I don’t know how long it takes to do so. One of the snails is quite active, making its way up the wall. The other is hanging tight, but sticks its head out once in a while.
One of the blue leg hermits is very active, crawling all over the rocks. The other one is somewhat active, but seems content sitting in one spot most of the time.
The scarlet hermit will spring to life if I pick it up and put it down somewhere, but will then settle back into it’s motionless existence, just feeling stuff floating by with its tentacles.
Fun stuff. I’m tempted to get more crabs and hermits, enough so that I always see something moving in there! I’ll resist the urge to move too fast. The money adds up!
