Journal Salty Fingers

[mort]

I ran an eheim external on our first reef tank for about 10 years and it is useful to strip and clean them periodically because you can get some weird critters living in there. I never had any issues with salt creep or the mechanical part (but we are going back twenty odd years when filters were amazing quality, it's still running today with exactly the same parts apart from a new o ring I swapped out a couple of years ago) but I've heard people who have had problems.
In our case we had an abundance of spirobid worms, tube worms and snails which could damage impellors it they made it through.

Really like the pipefish. They are amazing fish and they can snick some absolutely massive food. We used to feed pe mysis which can be about as long as a guppy and you'd just see it dissappear before a pleasing little puff of smoke flew out their nostrils. Keep a look out for the male carrying eggs in the near future.

 

[seedoubleyou]

pe mysis

PE Mysis soaked in selcon for the win.

 

[Courtneybst]

you can get some weird critters living in there

Oh God, now I'm worried what I might find! 🙃 Everything in the marine world seems so much more deadly haha.

Really like the pipefish. They are amazing fish

They are mesmerising fish. Seeing them online and in the shops they look cool but seeing them in this environment with no disturbance or predation lets them show their best sides. I could watch them all day!

Keep a look out for the male carrying eggs in the near future.

Well well, I have noticed a lot of synchronised swimming a bit of the classic body twitching. They also seem to scout out territories, all side by side constantly.

PE Mysis soaked in selcon for the win

Excuse my ignorance but what's the difference between PE mysis and regular mysis? Also, is Selcon some kind of food lure?

I've noticed the male eats very well. The female does eat but nowhere near as much. I'm keeping an eye on them during feeding times. They seem to like mysis and cyclops the most (and pods of course). They go for brine shrimp too but not as readily. It's funny what they can swallow with such tiny mouths.

 

[seedoubleyou]

PE mysis and regular mysis? Also, is Selcon some kind of food lure?

PE mysis are larger and don’t come broken up, they’re typically just a better quality, but not cheap.
Selcon is an additive that containes all the essential vitamins, fats etc… that fish need.
Selcon in my experience helps lead to fatter healthier fish.

PE also do a mysis pellet food. (The pipefish may not take to this)

 

[Courtneybst]

PE mysis are larger and don’t come broken up, they’re typically just a better quality, but not cheap.
Selcon is an additive that containes all the essential vitamins, fats etc… that fish need.
Selcon in my experience helps lead to fatter healthier fish.

PE also do a mysis pellet food. (The pipefish may not take to this)

Ok thanks! I might look at getting some myself.

 

[mort]

PE mysis (piscine energetics) are basically jumbo mysis harvested and flash frozen from glacial lakes in Canada. We used them at the rearing facility because they come whole, which can be very important with breeding, and they don't have any fillers. You can just defrost food and there isn't really any liquid to worry about.
I must say we never used selcon with it as it's already premium nutrition. Selcon is a great additive to get and use on other foods though.

Rs mysis is similar but no where near the quality ime. PE also did, think they still do, calanus copepods, which again are very expensive but amazing.


There are some very cool but naughty creatures in the marine world. One to give you nightmares but is surprisingly common is the eunice worm. They get called Bobbit worm for reasons explained here

Bobbit Worm - Eunice aphroditois

The ultimate guide to Bobbit Worms, Eunice Aphroditoisde. Learn how these Ambush Predators eat, where they live, and see how they hunt and kill their prey!

arcreef.com

 

[Hufsa]

There are some very cool but naughty creatures in the marine world. One to give you nightmares but is surprisingly common is the eunice worm. They get called Bobbit worm for reasons explained here

Now all I can imagine is @Courtneybst doing a Zefrank impression while nervously opening his filter

 

[Courtneybst]

Selcon is a great additive to get and use on other foods though.

Seems difficult to source but if I can't get hold of it, I could wait until I go to the USA next month.

I see Seachem Vitality is widely available but I presume it's an inferior product.

Now all I can imagine is @Courtneybst doing a Zefrank impression while nervously opening his filter

This video though 😂

The octopus part was the best.

 

[mort]

I wouldn't overly worry about selcon. It's great if you have it but by no means essential, they will live a long happy life without it. I think Brightwells do a similar product called advanced multi vitamin or similar. I've used it and I think it did a good job but again it's not probably needed as you are feeding a mixture of foods and they are getting live food from the tank.

 

[seedoubleyou]

@mort thanks for that further insight into PE and selcon, it’s always a pleasure to learn more about two great products.

 

[Gill]

Could you name these for me please.
I love how these look and can add to the list of what to get and order etc.
Spent an over an hour at Deans today and chatted about marines and corals and critters and inhabitants and what I could possibly try.
So it looks like I am going to be starting on a Marine soon after Payday this month.

 

[X3NiTH]

The one the left is Red Grape Botryocladia, the one on the right is Gracilaria Curtissae.

 

[Courtneybst]

So it looks like I am going to be starting on a Marine soon after Payday this month.

More saltiness! Mwahahaha

the one on the right is Gracilaria Curtissae.

I could be wrong but I'm not sure that it is curtissae. The pictures of curtissae online look really ruffled but this is more of a flat dense bush. I always thought it looked more like Gracilaria mammillaris.

Top photo is a picture of curtissae from Live Algae website. Left photo is mammillaris from Planted Reef website and right photo is mine.

Having said that, it's also very apparent that macroalgaes can look substantially different depending on the environment. Look at my blue ochtodes for example. In the tank it came from it grows densely and vivid, whereas in my tank it's a little more muted and straggly. You could almost think it was something different. Macroalgae can be really tricky to identify, especially if the source isn't sure!

Top photo is from Planted Reef website and the bottom photo is mine.

 

[X3NiTH]

I always thought it looked more like Gracilaria mammillaris.

No it is G.Mammillaris, I usually just call it Gracilaria but that’s not definitive enough for you guys so I googled and picked the wrong one, it’s a prolific spreader and will completely engulf you rockwork if you let it, still looks lovely though so I let it run wild unless it’s encroaching coral then I have at it. Not found anything that likes to eat it yet not even the blennies, my best hope so far was Augy our Tomini Tang but he also doesn’t touch it, ah well!

 

[Courtneybst]

it’s a prolific spreader and will completely engulf you rockwork if you let it

Oh yeah totally! I started with a tiny clump on the right hand side between two rocks. ALL the other 'plumes' you can see are where it has drifted off and attached itself elsewhere! I also notice lots of tiny bits of it growing all over the rock lol.

I quite like how it's established itself wherever but I will remove bits that are getting to out of control. It's lovely though, it reminds me of Riccardia but red and doesn't melt lol.

 

[Gill]

Oh yeah totally! I started with a tiny clump on the right hand side between two rocks. ALL the other 'plumes' you can see are where it has drifted off and attached itself elsewhere! I also notice lots of tiny bits of it growing all over the rock lol.

I quite like how it's established itself wherever but I will remove bits that are getting to out of control. It's lovely though, it reminds me of Riccardia but red and doesn't melt lol.

That is what I want, so feel free so send any cuttings trimmings my way

 

[Courtneybst]

Rock steady
It's hard to believe this tank is already 6 months old. I believe this is still considered 'young' in reef terms but the tank is rock steady. It's like having a medium-energy aquascape - the bliss of low energy with the intricacies and rewards of high energy. It just sits perfectly in the middle.

I'm happy to report the Blue Striped Pipefish are getting on really well. At first the female wasn't so enthusiastic about eating, and would only visibly eat one or two bites - she was much more interested in hunting pods. Now that the pod population is smaller, they're both incredibly energetic when it comes to eating and I can rest assured that they are getting the nutrition they need.

They also haven't dropped dead like my Clownfish so I must be doing something right lol. I feed them twice a day (morning and night) with a mix of frozen food including; mysis, brine shrimp, copepods, lobster eggs and 'marine nano' which I assume is just a jamboree of foods. I cut the cubes up into several pieces and keep them in a freezer bag so it's easier and I don't have to keep getting the chopping board out. They also 'sleep' in the Gracilaria plume at night which looks really cute so I know they are enjoying the macroalgae.

The fire shrimp is also not as shy as I was expecting it to be. It's not exactly amano shrimp level of boldness but it's always visible and ALWAYS hungry. It will literally trample over every coral, algae and creature to grab a morsel. Totally does not GAF. 😅

Computer Love, and Hate.
I've finally setup an auto doser for my nutrients too. It's only dosing Tropica Specialised at 1ml per week. I would do 2ml but as I'm feeding quite heavily for the Pipefish I don't think it's needed. Since it's only a DD (Kamoer) P1, it also means I'm still having to manually dose Brightwell Chaetogro every week, which I'm not sure is even contributing anything anymore. When it runs out I'll see how the tank functions on Tropica alone. I would love if it could auto dose my phytoplankton too but I don't think such a system exists yet within my space and budget constraints.

The DD auto top up that I'm using is great for obvious reasons but was also getting tripped by my astrea snails and nearly caused a flood several times. I've since fixed that by putting the sensor on a timer which comes on for 5 minutes a day instead of 24/7. I'd have to be reallyyy unlucky for the snails to be covering the sensor at that exact moment. It's not given me any problems since... until this week. I got back from a trip to Italy and my Mum informed me that literally the day after I left, the tank flooded. She told me that she 'fixed it' and I did legitimately have flashbacks to @Geoffrey Rea 's holiday situation and felt a slight panic but was relieved when she told me she'd just removed some of the water.

I'll have to keep an eye on it to see what that was about.

Changes are comin'
That 6 month mark is about the time you often get a little itchy and want to make some changes. For me, I need to trim back some of the algae that's grown really wild (Gracilaria and Ochtodes in particular) and give away or sell bits. I also plan to add a Fiji leather once I get hold of one. I'd like to make some structural changes too but I'm not sure yet what would look like. Suggestions are welcome.

Once I have sorted out a proper lid, I'd also like to entertain the idea of a blenny, maybe a tailspot. I don't want a repeat of last time. 🙃

All in all, the tank is doing really well.

 

[X3NiTH]

The DD auto top up that I'm using is great for obvious reasons but was also getting tripped by my astrea snails and nearly caused a flood several times

Get a DD skimmer guardian and plug the auto top off into that, place the guardian sensor slightly higher than the top off sensor so if that happens again you won’t crash your salinity or flood the tank. I use a skimmer guardian in one of my tanks with the main circulation pump plugged in so if my overflow gets blocked it prevents a flood (Radagast my Tuxedo urchin likes to chomp on the outlet and block it occasionally and there’s no emergency overflow on this tank so guaranteed flood).

A Tailspot Blenny would love this tank, won’t eat the Macroalgae but will like to do the occasional spot of gardening (or give you prompts to trim!) if it’s perching spot gets encroached upon.

 

[Courtneybst]

Get a DD skimmer guardian and plug the auto top off into that, place the guardian sensor slightly higher than the top off sensor so if that happens again you won’t crash your salinity or flood the tank. I use a skimmer guardian in one of my tanks with the main circulation pump plugged in so if my overflow gets blocked it prevents a flood (Radagast my Tuxedo urchin likes to chomp on the outlet and block it occasionally and there’s no emergency overflow on this tank so guaranteed flood).

A Tailspot Blenny would love this tank, won’t eat the Macroalgae but will like to do the occasional spot of gardening (or give you prompts to trim!) if it’s perching spot gets encroached upon.

Ok so the guardian basically acts as a failsafe?

 

[X3NiTH]

Yes been using it successfully as a fail safe for about year.