Silver97's Official tank chronicle

[silver97]

My order arrived today, and I was somewhat pleased
I was home when it arrived, and I'm happy I got home when I did, it was pretty hot today and I didn't want it baking out in the sun for an extra hour. I ordered a fuzzy green mushroom coral, a Green star polyp frag, and 20 nassassarius snails. I was playing a game on my ipad, and had one more level left, so I just set it on my couch while i finished. Then my dog started to sniff it intensely, and I got curious. He usually sniffs the mail, but not like this. And the other time I ordered the coral off this website he didn't react like that when he sniffed it. Worried, i opened the package right away.As soon as I opened it I knew what my dog was smelling!
The mushroom had been fine, came with a bonus mushroom right next to it on the frag, 2 for 1 wahoo!
The GSP was fine, looked like a piece of purple leather with tubes on the top, other than that it looked fine and was bigger than expected.
Then I got to the snails, and it was so bad I laughed. Here in this box there were no leaks. The bag must have been intentionally filled only about 3/4 of an inch. And the water was brown with a load of empty shells at the bottom. No pun intended.
I was shocked, They take WAY better care usually, but I guess whoever packed it didn't care that much. I poured them into a spare fish bowl and threw some clean tank water in to see if any survivors would be revived. After 20 minutes, I fished out the shells and manually inspected them for signs of life, of which I found none. The worst part was that the shells weren't even big enough for me to give to my hermits.
I just temperature acclimated my corals, I had to run out so I wouldn't have time to drip acclimate anyway. Then I stuck them to their spots and they seem fine! Neither has opened up yet, but I'm going to give it a week or so, my zoas wouldn't open up until then either...
And yes, I do have pics of how ridiculous the bag of snails looked... Still cant get the smell out of my room! Pics in a minute

 

[silver97]

The good frags, first one is the shroom, second is the GSP

This, if you didn't guess already, was the bag of 20 dead nassassarius snails. I swear there were no leaks in the box, you can see the bag is still stuffed with air.

Those are the 20 shells. Some of these were a rip off anyway, they were extremely small.

This is their new spots in the tank, Im starting them out low and they are probably going to stay there considering mushrooms like low light, can't really move the GSP either. The mushroom is on its own small piece of live rock I can easily move around if I need to.

 

[silver97]

Quick update
The corals are doing great. The GSP are opening more and more polyps every day, this morning I think there were 10 open. The mushrooms still haven't opened yet and it's making me a bit anxious. I just want at least one sign that the 2 are ok and alive, but I figure they should open up later this week. The good sign is that I don't see any outside deterioration.
The company did refund me on my snails, thankfully. Still can't get over how bad they were. The smell IS out of my room now. It stayed for about a day.
On one of my zoa frags I saw another cluster of bubble algae. It's just popping up randomly now. That frag had been looking like it was degenerating and I think that's what is causing it. As much as I'd like to get it all off now, It's too small for me to effectively get it off and it's in an awkward place for me to reach in my tank, so I will have to wait either until it gets bigger or until my next water change, which will probably be this week whenever I get a free day.

 

[silver97]

Small update, just some general info
Tank is progressing well! My clown and blenny have both gotten noticeably larger over the past few weeks, I think that is due to the fact that I started feeding the frozen food and putting the vitamins on all the food I give them. They seem to go after it more voraciously also, in a good way.
What I thought was a brittle worm living in my live rock is now definitely not one, I am 95% positive it is a brittle star. Which I'm happy about. It is seeming to get a little more bold and I have seen his tentacle out twice in 4 days. This is an improvement of seeing him never.
Coral wise, all my corals are finally getting situated (it's about time!). My blue eyed monster zoas are more numerous, I started with around 15-20 polyps and they have increased to about 25 now, I can see the mat growing onto the rock its on and I'm really happy with them. My radioactive dragon eyed zoas are also expanding, they had around 10 polyps when I got them but now they number around 20. They are my favorite to look at with the actinics on. My gorgonian seems to be growing slowly, haven't compared it to previous pics yet but I might start to soon. My eyes of rah zoas are worrying me though because there is bubble algae growing all over their frag rock. They seem to be bland compared to what they looked like when I got them. If they don''t survive I wont be that mad, but next water change I'm going to take all the bubble algae out of the tank that I can, I'm seeing little bubbles every day. The GSP has opened up all of its polyps except for 3, so I'd say its pretty happy. I may try and move the rocks around so I can get its rock in an area with more flow, It's kind of medium-low flow where it is right now, but I'll see how it does for a few weeks in its current spot. The problem I have with my mushrooms is that I don't know if they are happy or not. I moved them from the area in the picture above to under an overhang near the front of my tank, just to see if it needed less light. Now in its spot it is kind of turning its sides up along with the little one next to it. Any idea's on if it needs more light or less light? My clown hasn't even looked to hosting it yet, but I think it needs to grow bigger before it's sizeable enough for him.
The algae problem in my sandbed has seemingly gone, its still pretty brown in some parts but it's better than it was a week ago. The 2 big ceriths have been working overtime and decided to become un-lazy. I might get a few more to help just because. A few of the other nassassarius I got have randomly died off, i think 3 of them did because now I only see 3 out anymore. 2 hermit crabs have also died in the past 2 weeks, so I dont know if they just aren't getting enough food or if something is going through the tank. Probably the first, since I am controlling my feeding schedule more.
Just a thought, I have tons of algae on my glass and rocks that I know my blenny goes after, and I also have red dragon's breath algae that he doesn't touch. He is constantly picking at the rocks, but I don't know if he is getting enough. Should I supplement some nori or other seaweed sheet? He eats fine, but if he needs more I'll get it.
Other than that everything is good for my small reef! I'll post a few pics of the corals in a little, please look at the mushroom and tell me what you think it needs.

 

[silver97]

Sorry if all the pics look a bit blurred, I need to clean the film algae of my glass soon.
You can see the curling a bit more pronounced in the first pic, and you can also see it in the second one too. More or less light? Is it just trying to stretch itself to catch more light?

Blue eyed monster zoas....seriously cool colors, a purple/burgundy on the outside, a thin neon green ring and if you couldn't guess from the name a blue 'eye' in the middle

Can't get the best shot of the growing side, but these radioactive dragon eye zoas are numerous on the other side of the rock. My favorite under actinics

 

[spiraling]

Looking great!
I wouldn't worry too much about the mushroom. If they don't like where they are they can detach and move somewhere else.

 

[silver97]

Thanks!
Yeah with the shroom I figured I'd leave it in it's new spot for a week or 2 and see how it looks, I'm really hoping to move it to the rock next to it, but if it goes there on its own thats even better.
I think the only coral that I would like to have now are some xenia's, but I cant find cheap frags of it around here which is surprising to me considering how easy everyone says it is to grow and frag.
Either that or some cool red or blue mushrooms, I'm quickly becoming a fan of how the shroom looks under actinics and even though blue and red doesn't necessarily pop well under blue light, during the day it would look beautiful.

 

[silver97]

So I finally cleaned my tank yesterday, found out a couple of things.
1 of those things is that I need to clean my tank more...
I started by scarping all the film algae and coraline algae off the walls of my tank with a paint scraper. It was so thick I needed to use one. I saw my clown go into a little pseudo-cave I have and he wedged himself under a rock and stopped moving. I was extremely scared, I rinsed the paint scraper off before using it and it hadn't even been used for paint before...but i thought maybe something on it came off in the water and killed him...
But then 3 minutes after stopping he came back out and was his old self... I guess the noise just scared him
I tried to clean the various other types of algae in my tank also...
Hair algae is really hard to pull of with just your hands, I'm going to start doing weekly water changes instead of one water change every 2 weeks to try and get it down.
That 'little' bit of bubble algae I had on my zoa frag was a bit more than what I thought. I pulled off at least 30 bubbles from just that frag alone. This frag is no bigger than an inch and a half tall and wide. I was surprised to say the least.
I feel like my snails aren't happy that I cleaned the glass, they are frantically searching for spaces that I missed and are finally starting to clean the rocks....YAY!
Other than that I checked the levels, they were all good, everything seems to be sailing smoothly for the tank. I still haven't gotten a call from the LFS saying if they got their black oscellaris in yet... I might just go to a Petco around here and save one from it's certain doom....
I plan on getting an emerald crab or something similar next time I'm out too... maybe a sally lightfoot because I love how those look. I'll pick up a few ceriths and some nerite snails to reinforce the cleaning in the tank, I'm never letting it get that dirty again.

 

[Oxylebius]

If you get a sally lightfoot, I'd recommend spot feeding it weekly

 

[silver97]

After doing a bit of research on sally lighfoots, I don't think I will get one due to how many times I have read that they will go after small fish, so I am scared for my clown and don't want to risk it. Maybe when I have my tank fully stocked and my fish are a good size, but for the foreseeable future I may just get an emerald crab.
UPDATE ON THE CORAL(and a general tank update..)
All the corals are doing well. The zoas that had the bubble algae are slowly making a comeback, I have the sneaking suspicion I didn't get it all which is very likely, so I continue to keep a close eye on it.
Other zoas are good, seeing new polyps every now and then
GSP is good, finally every polyp is open, just waiting for it to start spreading!
The gorgonian has grown considerably when I compared it to my oldest pic of it. I am still going out on a limb and going to say it's non-photosynthetic, so the coral frenzy is turning out to be helping after all! I was really surprised to see how much it had grown. Looking at the date on the picture, I took it August 4th, but I know i bought it late July, so from July till almost October it seems to be doing good health wise. The color has stayed a constant tan/brown, and I've grown to like it's coloring. Still not sure what species, but pics to come to show progress.
The mushrooms are good too, but the bigger one seems to want to move. I don't think it can grip onto any rock near it, should I move it closer to one just in case it wants to? I also have a pic of it seemingly wanting to move, I think its just moving extremely slowly and it looks like its foot is just taking awhile to catch up with the body. Either that or its leaving that part behind to grow, which I'd also be happy with.
The coolest thing happened this week.
While watching my tank after feeding, I noticed my hermit crab digging in my sandbed, away from all my rocks. I was afraid he was digging up a snail, which he was, to take his shell. He dug up one of my big cerith snails, but it had already died for some reason. I was disappointed I couldn't watch him kill it, but also relieved he didn't kill a live one. He spent the next 3 days eating the insides of the snail! Would NOT move from his spot and just ate and ate and ate until it was all gone. He is now inspecting the shell and staying close to it so another crab doesn't come and take it. One of the coolest things to look at.
I've decided to do 10% water changes every Friday just to keep the algae down, i believe i have cyano growing on my sandbed a bit and dont want it to spread. I need to reinforce my CUC a bit too, so I might hit up Petco this weekend for some snails. Still no word if my other LFS has gotten their black oscellaris yet, I think my blenny and clown are getting a bit tired of each other just because I don't see them swimming together as much as they used to anymore. My clown has been a bit more skittish of me also ever since I scraped the algae, he reallly got scared and hides when I come near the tank. He comes out eventually, but I don't think he was happy last time. Oh well, I guess he will get used to it. Pics in a few

 

[silver97]

Gorgonian Pic taken 8/4/15

Pic taken 9/30/15; I am really happy with it's growth, its polyps are closed because my tank lights were off for a bit, and I think they are better closed for size comparison

Hermit eating cerith on day one (about 4 days ago)

And today, still in the same spot

Green fuzzy mushroom;Does it look like it wants to move or is it just splitting? Yes that is the smaller one on the left.

I just thought this was a cool pic of my red dragon's breath algae, it was a little strand when I got it. Has grown considerably well

 

[Oxylebius]

Very nice updates!

 

[silver97]

Thanks Oxy!
So I take back what I said about my hermit crab... he definitely killed the snail. He's wearing his shell right now. At least he's happy. In a double homicide this week, one of my other hermits randomly killed a smaller hermit for no good reason... They have enough food when I feed my mysis shrimp so I guess they just didn't get along...
Another thing happened that made me mad this week.
Yesterday I went out to go look for snails at a few different stores. First I went to a Petsmart and they didn't even have saltwater fish....
Then I went to the Petco that I usually go to that has a great selection of saltwater fish. I am ever surprised when I go there, the amount of rare fish is shocking for a Petco. They had a porcupine puffer, a couple yellow tangs, a dragon wrasse, a kole tang, a valentini puffer, a foxface, 4 different kinds of clowns, a flame hawkfish, hogfish and a few other rare ones. They also had a beautiful BTA, it was red with purple tips... But I figured I should let mine get better or pass before I start looking at another one. I don;t know whats up with mine right now.
Anyway with the snails, I go to the side that usually has them and in the 9 tanks that are usually stocked to the brim with live rock covered in snails are almost barren tanks. I think there may have been 3 turbo snails and a few bumble bee snails but that was it. I was mad. Of course they had fish in them,and a few ridiculously overpriced and dying corals, but no snails. So I went home snailess. I might call the other LFS I usually go to and see if they have my black oscellaris, and if they do I'm getting a reinforced cuc of ceriths and nerites.
I also have another one that is closer to me, but it's more of a 'boutique' saltwater store, in that they make their tanks look REALLY nice and have beautiful fish. But the prices are a bit more than what they usually are, if I remember correctly they had clowns for around $25, and usually (at least around me anyway) they are $19-$21, and the owner does base price off size, so the bigger it is the more expensive. I might head there if I'm desperate, but I can't remember if they had snails or not.

 

[silver97]

Update Time!
So as I got back from classes today I got a message from my LFS that they finally got their black oscellaris in! I thought they would be around $40, and I was spot on. The best part is that they are all supposedly around an inch in length so they will be the perfect size to introduce to my other clown, I'd say he is close to an inch and a half. I will hopefully be heading there by Friday, because I also need to pick up the snails.
With the snail situation, everything has seemingly stayed alive. There is just a bunch of algae in places where I would not like algae to be. The bubble algae is popping up in random places, but only single bubbles so I am not too worried, they are all in relatively easy to reach locations.
The hair algae is getting a bit worse, not noticeably but it just isnt going away. I tried removing it manually and got a good bit of it, but not nearly enough to make an impact. At least it's all staying on only 2 rocks. I heard trochus snails eat it, and the turbos are suppsed to also, but mine NEVER go on those rocks. I am tempted to pick some up and just plop them on the rocks to see what they do.
I have definite cyano growing on my sandbed. There are 2 different patches close to each other. One is the 'classic' maroon/burgundy glob varitey, and the other is a bright red circle. Very odd. I cut back the amount of time my lights were on, and it seems to have diminished quit a bit in the past 3 days.
I am also controlling my feeding more. What I decided was I was going to do 2 days of flake food, 1 day of frozen food and coral frenzy. Only feeding once a day. Doing that the past 2 weeks has seemingly decreased the overall amount of algae growing in my tank, so I guess it's working. I plan on picking up pellet food to replace my flake food once I have used it all up, but considering that won't be for at least another few months I am going to continue just adding small amounts of the flakes.
Any suggestions on a specific species of snail I should get to combat my problems? I'm going to definitely get more cerith's to help with the sandbed, and I heard nerite snails eat cyano so I might get some of them too. I really want to stop the hair algae before it gets bad, is there a different species I should get just for it? I'm not desperate enough to go buy a sea hare to eat it, but just some lawnmowers would be good. May pick up a sand sifting star if I see some at a good price.
Other than that corals are doing fine, I think the shrooms are doing well in their new spot, they seem to be fanning out the most they can. The GSP seems like it may be starting to spread a bit, its at least covered most of the putty that stuck out from placing it.
Hopefully my next big update will be of my new clown! Please help with the snail questions tho

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

I love snails for cuc - I have... Asterea, Trochus, Cerith, Nerites, Margarita, Mexican Turbos & Nassariu

 

[spiraling]

Sounds like everything is coming along nicely!

 

[silver97]

I hate disappointing updates... but it's kind of a good story...kind of
and yes @spiraling, everything is coming along quite alright! But after today I'm a bit frustrated
So this morning I attempted to go out to the LFS that was 30 minutes away, and flash floods partially flooded the roads, blocking the only way there, and the rain was heading in that direction anyway, so we had to turn the car around and go out later. It was so bad we were hydroplaning at one point. I was bored out of my mind waiting to go
Finally after dinner my dad and I went out to the store to get my snails, black oscellaris and emerald crab... 2 out of the 3 were there......the clown was the one that was absent....
NO black oscellaris clowns anywhere in the store! They had a bunch of regular oscellaris that were way too small for my guy, and anyways I have waited too long to settle for anything less at this point. Disappointed, I looked for the emerald crabs, which they had and got one. He is cool, started to eat some hair algae right away from a shell that he was dropped on.
Then onto the snails....
I saw some nerite, so I was happy there. I wanted 5. Then I also saw some zebra turbo snails, and they were only $1 per snail, and on their description it said they eat hair algae. Excited, I asked for 3 of them. In hindsight, I should have made sure the clerk got the right amount and variety, which from now on in the future I will be extremely more vigilant. Oh, and no ceriths. Just a tank full of a few fish and some empty cerith shells. Weirdest part was that there were no crabs or snail eating predators in the tank. Oh well.
So I asked the clerk about the clowns, and he said they only put them on a 48 hour hold for calls, and then they open to the public. He also thought it was weird because he knew they were in at least on Saturday of last week, and they called me Tuesday of this week. I can understand getting them on Saturday, acclimating them and letting them adjust for a day, but they should have called as soon as they got them in my opinion. He said the last one was sold on the 3rd, and he thinks the rest may have gone into a separate quarantine room for having something. Regardless, I was furious that I wasted my whole day looking forward to getting this clown only to come home with 8 snails and a crab.
I also got a xenia frag, but I can't decide on a good placement for it. I put it on a rock right near my powerhead, and I dont necessarily like it their for 2 reasons:
1. It seems to be getting way to buffered by the current, and
2. If it spreads like I hear it does, It will spread to 3 other rocks.
So I may introduce a new piece of dead rock tomorrow that I can put it on to separate it and get it out of direct flow. I had the rock in my tank when I started up, but decided i didn't need it. Glad I kept it. Any foreseeable problems with adding that?
Oh right, back to the snails. So I am definitely going to be more vigilant with what the guys put in the bag. I got home and had 1 nerite snail, and 7 zebra turbo snails! I guess he wasn't paying attention when grabbing the nerites, because they were all grouped together, but zebras were also in that tank. And he picked up the other zebras from another tank. Talk about redundant!
I am going to try another LFS that's a bit closer for my black clown tomorrow, hopefully I will find one. And some more nerites.... I don't think one will be able to devour all that cyano
And some ceriths to help with the cyano....
This is definitely a love-hate relationship with this hobby haha

 

[Oxylebius]

I wouldn't put any corals in direct flow of powerheads. What you want is random flow.

The Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab (Paguristes cadenati) has been known to eat cyano, check out liveaquaria's write-up on them.

 

[rostervandross]

I'd say relax and go with the flow.. I tend to make hasty mistakes when I get impatient. It's not really the hobby.. You'll find a nice fish.

 

[silver97]

@Oxylebius I will look into those, I have a red hermit crab that doesn't touch algae... not sure if its a scarlet reef hermit or not but I need more hermits anyway
VERY HAPPY UPDATE!
I found a black oscellaris clown today! I also found an LFS that's actually local, only 20 minutes away and I can get there with relatively no traffic. I can't believe I had never heard of this store, they've been in business 23 years and have been at this location for 10, and all the things like live rock and tank starting equipment are cheaper there than the one I've been going to. Made me a bit mad, but I'm happy regardless. They also have bigger fish selections, with bigger fish . You would not believe the size of this clown trigger they had, it must have been close to 16"! And they also had lionfish that were close to that size. The henniochus butterflies were absolutely beautiful, now I want a tank big enough to get some!
Anyway, I added the clown after a 2 hour drip and he seems to be doing ok. He keeps swimming right along the side of the tank on the glass, not sure why, maybe he is still a bit nervous. My other clown saw him, and was a bit scared. He is still avoiding him a bit and vice versa. The new guy is a bit bigger than the other, so I'm hoping not much hostility will be shown.
The black one was the smallest they had in a group of black oscellaris. They were kind of in a big group in the store tank, 4 or 5 of them were clearly the big shots. They were bullying 3 others so badly that they were stuffing themselves under rocks to avoid them. It was sad, but I noticed mine didn't bother the ones under the rocks, so I'm hoping he's a bit more kindred. Still, you never know.
On the new inhabitants from last night, my zebra turbos are dumb just like my other turbos and astreas, sitting in one spot and barely moving on the rocks. I had to flip 3 over when I woke up this morning. One of them twice!
The emerald crab is doing good. I found him under one of my rock structures and he was eating a whole mess of eggs! I hadn't even noticed them, not sure if they are snail or hermit crab, but the emerald put a dent in them before leaving the majority alone. I just hope those eggs are going to hatch into something that will take care of the algae.
I did move the xenia, but it's on the same rock, just out of direct flow. I don't mind if the whole rock gets covered now, I think I'll like it more than some people do.
I also found a small magnetic algae scraper. They had bigger varieties, but at upwards of $40 I was happy buying the smaller one. I does a better job than me with the paint scrapers.
At the end of writing this, my other clowns seems to be doing the same thing as the new one, swimming up along the side of the glass. Maybe this is how they will establish dominance? I don't think so haha, but as long as they don't fight I am happy. Pics in a few