Sammy

Howdy All, Seems like every day something new comes crawling out from the rocks, Today I seen this long fella out and about when I got home. Any ideas on what type of worm this is? I seen ones that looked like this on the net but they were much thicker and meaner looking. I see other worms in the tank at night Anchor worm(bonellid echiuran worm) and bristle worms but this dont look like either. he is a good 10-12" from what I could see of him. Thanks, Sammy

Howdy, I havent caught or seen a mantis in the tank yet. I have seen what looked like a little .5cm moult from one floating around in the tank a few times. I still hear a snapping/clicking sound every so often thats different from the hermits shells hitting the glass. SAmmy

Howdy, I do totally agree that the dbs can and will cause more problems in the long run especially on on a tank my size. I just cant get use the the BB look. Maybe I will once this mini reef gets mature next summer and I look for alittle more diversity in a larger tank. This tank will eventually be upgraded in the next year or so. I still would like a sandy bottom look with out the deep sand bed like Alberta was talking about just enough for looks. Anyone every use GARF Grunge? for seeding your dbs/system. Thanks for the feedback. Sammy

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I found the info I was looking for and it makes more sense then just saying that the Benifical Bac from a freshwater tank works on a saltwater. Saltwater systems have other bacteria involved, besides Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter. Namely Nitrosococcus mobilis, N. oceanus, and Nitrospira spp. I would think that if you started off with a seeded FW filter, you would have an imbalance of too much of the Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter and not enough of the others. Sammy

Good Day, As for the filter its a peguin 150 which I added a new media pad and kept only the original bio-wheel from it. My very first aquarium setups were 2 75gal FOWLR saltwater systems and that was abut 12-15 years ago. AS for the sandbed... Im not jumping on the No sand bandwagon that seems to be lingering around some other forums. Sand beds have worked for many people for many years and I intend to make it work here. Im pretty serious about my tanks/fish and not into the easy set and forget attitude, Anyone that has seem my fish room knows what Im talking about so Im not worried about alittle extra work to keep my sandbed in check.The new powerheads are Zoo med Powersweep 212 x 2. I have witnessed several new saltwater setups that never went through a cycle when done properly. I guess i wanted to cover all angles before lighting up a fatty. Granted that the bac that was living on the bio-wheel has died off but is there any problems I should watch for down the road by using that media? There was virtually no build up on the bio-wheel at all. The HOB is really just for extra flow and I intend on moding at later date. Currently I am using a setup method that is very popular in the UK... Seems to me they are light years ahead of north america whe it comes to thier salt/reef setups. Thanks again for the feed back, Sammy

Good Morning, Thank you all for the quick reply. The reason I am curious is yesterday was day 8 of my mini reef being setup and all my readings are were they should be and I havent went through any ammon spikes at all. The setup is a 20gal seamless currently with about 7lbs of cultured Vanuato and 7lbs of cured Jakarta live rock (6 weeks curing). I added 2 new powerheads and Pengiun 150 that was running on a freshwater tank for about 2 months(New filter pad original bio wheel). Also added about 2lbs of seeded live sand from 2 different source to my 20lbs of new Marine/Agragonite.. Now I have read with using cultured/cured rock I may not go through a spike at all and I also read that freshwater bacteria is still usefull in a saltwater tank to some degree. I ask here cause this is like home for me when it comes to my aquatic adventures and I value your input alittle more then other forums. Here is one of the links talking breifly about converting from fresh to saltwater. http://www.algone.com/fresh_to_saltwater.htm I will keep you posted with my progress. Thanks again for the help, Sammy

Still no sign of a mantis but I did discover 2 small crabs that look like emerald crabs. I will try and post a picture in the next few days once they come out again. Im hooked on salt now forsure. Mike

Howdy, I have been reading quite a few reports on the net lately that The beneficial bacteria from the freshwater filter will do the same job on a saltwater tank if transfered over. I was under the impression that it would not work on a reef tank once seeded by a fresh water tank? Anythoughts? Cheers, Mike

Thanks for the tips. I still havent seen the mantis or the hermit crab. I found a simple design for a trap here. DIY trap The pop bottle trap would do the same sorta thing however I dont have alot of room for even a small soda bottle/plastic bottle. mY present tank is only 20gals. Thanks again, Mike

Howdy all, Last week I took the plunge into saltwater and have had no problems with anything untill the last couple nights, not long after the lights go out I hear snapping/clicking going on. I suspect it was a mantis shrimp but could not see him and today I noticed 1 of the 2 blue legged hermit crabs was missing and I seen what I thought to be the remains of the hermit just moments ago. Now I under stand that this may be the hermit crab molting but dont want to take any chances. So I need some advice on how to remove or trap this little bugger if in fact thats what I have. I tried looking for a him lastnight after dark but had no luck. No LFS seems to carry a trap for these crtitters and I do not wish to keep a mantis at this point. LOL. Any tips/tricks to remove him would be greatly appricated. I also dont want to disturb the tank and have to move any LR. Thanks in advance, Mike

The best pictures Ive seen on the net. Nice work. :beer: Sammy

Howdy all, I dont know if there is a secret ingredient in this brand of food (like crack) but I have not seen a fish from angles and rainbows to africans from all 3 major lakes turn away NLS. Infact i dont think i can remember a fish that didnt eat this stuff within the first 24hours. Ive even had fish eat this stuff immediatly. I do start slow at first when introducing new fish to the food. Ive been using NLS for over a 1 year and feed nothing but to all my fish. I have also noticed that my fillters are alot cleaning since using this food. Great stuff! Cheers, Mike

Hi, I was looking alittle more on the net after work and am convinced it is a ethelwynnae. Thanks African_fever, Gina, Hanner944. I am waiting for an email from the seller to see if it can be confirmed. Mike

I bought these from the auction and they were marked as Aulonocara hueseri. At the auction I notice the body structure look very similar to the Hueseri and I over looked the colors due to the stress factor from being mauled all day in a bag. Now that I have had then a couple weeks and they have been on their own for over a week I noticed that they look very close to the Aulonocara ethelwynnae. Any thoughts on this? anyone ever keep these Aulonocara ethelwynnae? or Midnight "huerseri? here are some recent pictures I hope they were just labeled wrong and not some hybrid cause i kinda like em now. Any feedback would be appreicated. Mike

Looking good Gina, Amy loves your 55 planted. I like the 90 Hap/Peacock. How is the Electric blue comming along? Sammy

Very nice, something about a simple but natural tank with big fish I really think looks cool. Sammy

Howdy, Hanner944, The camera I am using is a Olympus C-8080WZ 8mp camera. The settings for those last cichlid photos were... Full time focus Macro setting, Auto ISO, Autoflash,F2.4.This camera is pretty amazing at auto adjusting itself to its surroundings. Thanks for the comments. Uwish, I too was under the impression that they were alittle harder to breed then my africans. heh Apparently not. I have read alot of info from the net and have learned to believe very little of it. I also have noticed that alot of the same info you find on tropicals/SA/CA/African's is usually quite old. Anyways my water parameters are as follows (these are from the Mardel 5 in 1 test kits, I have 3 just to confirm) Nitrate 20-40ppm Nitrite 0ppm Total Hardness 220-240ppm Alkalinity 200-220ppm PH 8.0 Temp in the tank is about 77 The tank is mostly bare bottom with alittle natural gravel mix about 2mm in size. I have 1 clay pot, 1 piece of red slate and 1 plastic hollow decorative tree log. Sammy

Update. These pictures are from this morning, Oct 29/05 Sammy

Sammy

Some new ones from tonight. These little wigglers are developing pretty quick. More to come. Also took a few pictures using some different settings from the main tank tonight.

Good evening, Thanks for the intrest. I have a group together right now and was planning on breeding them, just didnt think they would breed so fast for me. I have had them for over a month now and just added some new caves 2 weeks ago. Apparently this group will breed all the time. Right now I have 2 adult males and about 7 females in a 40gal breeder tank. Sammy

Howdy, Last week I found some bristlenose pleco eggs in one of the new caves and decided to take pictures of their progress, so here they are. Day 1. Oct 22/05 still working on getting better pictures from such a small object :/. Day 2, Oct 23/05 If you look close you can see little grey bodies starting to form. This one was shot first thing in the morning of the 23rd Day 3, Oct 24/05 This one was shot in the evening of the 24th Day 4, Oct 25/05 Day 5, Oct 26/05 Tonight after supper. Today they have some black markings around the head and back. Will post more soon. Sammy

I did grab a bag from Gio of supposed females at the auction, turns out they we all hybrids so they got shipped back to the orginal lfs they came from (big al's). So my dreams of breeding these pheno's will have to wait. Your little pheno's are getting bigger and looking good. Sammy

Nice looking fish Degrassi. Those little labs are real nice. Any chance you will be parting with any fry? Id be intrested in about 6 or so. Sammy