Pier Pressure

Hi, there. I would like to change my user name so that I am using the same thing on all the forums. How would I go about doing this? I want to make sure my post count transfers as I do not want to be a junior member again! Thanks for the info! Karen

That totally bites. My sympathy. I recently lost five fish and three shrimp in one night (see "Everything died - can't find nemo") for no apparent reason so I know what you are going through. Saltwater is a lot more expensive and there is a lot more that can go wrong. However, I also had a 150 gallon freshwater tank blow out on me in November where we managed to save the fishes. Things can go wrong in all aspects of this hobby, and I just hope you decide not to give it up. I know exactly how you are feeling. When both experiences happened to me, I wanted to haul all the aquariums out onto the front lawn and give them away to whoever drove by! Luckily the boyfriend is not so emotional so he talked me out of it. By the way - we never did find nemo. No body and he never did appear alive and kicking like the firefish did. Still have that firefish and will always wonder what the heck happened to Nemo #1.

Welcome home and thank you for your contribution. I am another who really appreciates what our soldiers are doing "over there". You guys are doing a fantastic job!

They are so very cool! I love discus but they would not get along with my africans. You could make some serious $$$ if you can get these to breed and produce more babies. Baby fish are so cute!

Sweet. If I ever decide to get out of Africans, I am definitely doing a Discus tank! Your tank looks awesome!

Renovation season is upon us, fishytime, so the camera thing will be on hold now until we get a rainy day. We are in touch with Apple over some technical issues right now, too. You may just have to stop by and take a look at the tank! We were not smart like you. We have too much going on in our aquarium and as things grow we are going to have to start getting rid of some stuff. However, I want ricordia! If/when you want to sell the little piece of rock with three ricordia mushrooms on it let me know. I would take that off your hands.

So where did you score the ricordia? What color? I would love to get my hands on one or two of those!

I have to say that Greg's tank is STUPENDOUS! His refugium is nicer than my entire saltwater aquarium. Looking good on the pictures there, fishytime. Another six months and you will not recognize that tank. That is what I keep telling myself so that I avoid buying anymore critters. I am used to stocking a 150 gallon freshwater setup - the 28 gallons worth of salt is just so small in comparison. Plus you can get so many more different saltwater critters.

I have never had an Oscar but I have heard that guppies make good roommates for them. And the good news is the roommates seem to diappear so you never have to worry about feeding them. Just kidding, of course!

Hey, fishytime, I got some of that birdsnest coral from the same guy and ours is starting to branch out like that, too. It started about three days after we put it in the tank. I bet those babies do not take very long to become colonies! Love your tank. Lots of action.

Update: Well we did not find any hitchhikers big enough to kill all that livestock. I am starting to think the few little frags I put in that Friday put me over the top for livestock and maybe they ran out of oxygen. The firefish came out of his rock so he is still alive and well. We are not going to restock for a while. Just watch the corals grow and see how everything does. Thank you for all the replies and support. This is my favourite forum!

Well going from this thread I am not going to worry about the two inch bristle worm I found in my saltwater set up. I also found a turquoise coloured slug thingy and he is super small, too. When I googled the bristleworms, of course all the bad stuff comes up first! No way did any of that kill my livestock. I think I may have just gotten carried away and overstocked the tank.

:smokey: Hey, guys, I thought this was quite a coincidence. I did some research on bristle worms and they are bad news. Can grow to be 24" long, attack corals and stuff, breed rapidly and take right over. That is why they sell those bristle worm traps. I also read a thread (sorry I do not have a link) where if a fish startles them they release those "bristles" into the fish and you have to remove them. I actually think that happened to somebody on canreef. Sorry I cannot be more specific with reference - I go into a bunch of different sites to get a general idea and can never remember where I got the info. Google bristle worms and a bunch of stuff will come up. No way did that little thing I saw kill all my livestock, though. Going hunting with a bottle trap just to see what happens. It would be nice to rule something out! Karen

EEEEWWWW. I will definitely keep that in mind. Going to try bottle traps this weekend and see what we come up with.

I think it is illegal to remove wildlife from the ocean, just like it would be illegal to grab a coyote puppy out of the wild and keep it as a pet. I am not sure but I would definitely be doing some research. I think the fish cops in BC would be all over that.

Quick Update: I did not see the firefish last night at all. I am not panicking yet but since he came out of hiding that is the first day I have not seen him. Found what I think must be one of those disgusting bristle worm things. About two inches long, red, kinda looks like a centipede. Eeeewwww. I am going to buy a bristle worm trap this weekend and also try the bottle trap to see what else I can come up with. Too busy until the weekend to concentrate on it. I will keep you posted. Thanks for the replies!

Hi, Connie! You had warned me about crabs and that is exactly why my suspicions have been aroused. So the crabs just kill for fun? Kind of strange that they did not try to eat the bodies or ravage them in any way. Man, we have like 30 pounds of live rock in there. I hope it is only ONE of them. What does a person do if there are lots? Any bad @$$ crab traps on the market? Any tips or tricks?

If I ever figure out (a) our new camera and ( how to post the pictures on here, Gr8Blade, you are more than welcome to use them to teach your hermits a few tricks. Thing is I only had a bit of hair algae on a frag I bought so maybe they just liked it because it was a change of diet! I totally agree - mine just love NLS pellets, too!

I have two sea apples and two anemones (white sebae and green bubble tip) that survived the crash and seem to be doing fine. Not missing any of them and they are feeding, etc. so I cannot see it being that. I think the aquarium is actually 28 gallons not that that makes much of a difference. I know I was stocked pretty heavy but water changes are 20% once a week and the tests all come in well within range. The tank has been up and running for over five months now, and I bought it from a fellow reefer here who had it up and running for about three months prior. There was minimal live rock in the tank when I bought it and we did not spike or cycle when we set the aquarium back up after moving it. See the thing is - because the firefish lived - I cannot see it as being a water quality issue. Firefish are not known for being hardy through any type of cycle and damsels are - and yet the damsel died and the firefish is fine. That is why I am starting to think hitchhiker. As I am pretty new to salt I have no idea what it could be but I am thinking evil hairy crab or something. I noticed last night that the firefish seems to be coming out of his rock a lot more but he was jumpy for a week and barely came out of the rocks at all. Enzyme theory still rocks - but what about the firefish living through it along with the anemones, sea apples, etc.? I am not going to restock for quite some time if at all. Might just watch the corals grow. It is hard to decide how much stock is too much in a saltwater setup because I do not know how much the inverts count per gallon of water, etc. Right now I am spending a lot of time researching - but this was a pretty specific event and I cannot find anything like it on any of the forums. Any light you guys can shed, or theories you can share, are all appreciated.

Update: water quality is remaining good, crabs, corals, etc. are all looking good. New thought - does anyone think I might have some kind of a bad-@$$ hitchhiker who killed five of the fish and three of the shrimp in one night? Do bad-@$$ hitchhikers eat what they kill or just kill for fun? We did find the bodies and they were not ravaged. The reason I am asking is that the firefish is still alive and doing well but he seems very skittish and only comes out of his rock when I get home from work for an hour or so at feeding time. He used to be out a lot more than that and now I am thinking he might be hiding from something? I am having a hard time buying that the ammonia spiked high enough to kill overnight when the nitrite/nitrate readings were only 0.3 the next day. On my kits (and I used two of them) that is just above trace. The enzyme theory makes sense but it is impossible to be sure. I do not want to restock this tank until I am more sure of what happened. And if I do have some sort of devilish hitchhiker - how do I find him, catch him and kill him?

If you are experiencing problems with bubble algae, I can note that my emerald crab does a good job of eating it away before it gets out of hand. I have also discovered that blue leg hermit crabs like hair algae.

I bought mine at Wai's. They also stock it! Karen

Welcome, fishytime. Glad to see you found your way to this site. I knew you would love it! I really like what you have done with your 20 gallon. Now you just need to wait for stuff to grow in. That is kind of the state of our 28 gallon. Lots of frags and waiting for growth!

When we had a problem with this one fish that liked to jump out - I started mixing the food in a shot glass with water and then using a pipette out of a test kit to suck it up and squirt it into the tank. That way you only need to have the lid open only about one inch and if they jump they will hit the lid. That might seem a bit extreme but with three cats around the tank it seemed safest!

Did that happen on Friday, Christian? We had a "Black Friday" in our saltwater tank. Lost all of the shrimp and most of the fish in less than ten hours overnight. It sucks - I can totally relate. Sorry to hear about your loss.