Mr. Winters
New member
that hitchiker looks tasty! mmmmm craaaaaab.
ive never seen one like that. what do the tips of the pinchers look like?
ive never seen one like that. what do the tips of the pinchers look like?
210g build in TX
- Thread starter afgun
- Start date
liverock
RC Sponsor
Crab rule..
Crab rule..
Best crab rule is...remove any gorilla crabs....any other suspect crabs...if they have a 'crusher' and a 'feeder' claw, most likely not good....
and your crab...notice the small identical claws...are meant for picking algae...but that does not mean they will not munch on something you like....he does have some red spots he has put on himself.... means some sort of decorator..
sooo...
if you see him doing something you do not like...off to the sump....
is the way I approach it....
look here for crab pics..
http://tbsaltwater.com/thepackage/organisms.html
sea ya
Richard TBS:spin1::spin1::spin1:
Crab rule..
Found us another hitchhiker... we hadn't discarded the bucket of water that I used to clean the rock in, and look what was hiding in the gunk at the bottom!
It's hairy, which we think means bad, so he's living in the sump right now. Ideas on what he might be?
Best crab rule is...remove any gorilla crabs....any other suspect crabs...if they have a 'crusher' and a 'feeder' claw, most likely not good....
and your crab...notice the small identical claws...are meant for picking algae...but that does not mean they will not munch on something you like....he does have some red spots he has put on himself.... means some sort of decorator..
sooo...
if you see him doing something you do not like...off to the sump....
is the way I approach it....
look here for crab pics..
http://tbsaltwater.com/thepackage/organisms.html
sea ya
Richard TBS:spin1::spin1::spin1:
SushiGirl
Premium Member
When that one spreads its front claws, look for red in the "elbows" -- if it has red spots inside the joint then its likely a Mithrax. They have hairy legs like that too, just not a hairy body.
Any crab is opportunistic, so even if they are algae eaters they'll also eat any meaty scraps they can get (especially as they get bigger)...and if they don't get enough to eat, they might start eating stuff you don't want them to. That goes for emeralds (mithrax) and hermits or any other algae eating crabs too.
That particular one looks a lot like a mithrax, but it's hard to tell with only the one angle.
Any crab is opportunistic, so even if they are algae eaters they'll also eat any meaty scraps they can get (especially as they get bigger)...and if they don't get enough to eat, they might start eating stuff you don't want them to. That goes for emeralds (mithrax) and hermits or any other algae eating crabs too.
That particular one looks a lot like a mithrax, but it's hard to tell with only the one angle.
Thanks, SushiGirl. We now believe that it's a red mithrax, and we (I) took a chance and put him in the tank today. He's still displeased about the whole thing, but appears to be happier so far.
Our NO2 hit zero today, indicating hopefully that our second bacterial colony is fully established. NO3 has been in the 20-40 range for almost 3 days (we controlled it before then with some water changes) and it's solidly at 20 now, so hopefully the third bacterial colony is on its way to taking hold as well.
We rockscaped a couple of days ago too. Here's the results:
Unfortunately, a large portion of the sponges that were on the rock have died off; we understand that's fairly normal, but we're still sad about it. So we're looking forward to the second half of the rock and cleanup crew to arrive now.
The auto-topoff is working perfectly, and the semi-automated water change (hey, at least no buckets!) enabled a couple days of 50+ gallon changes as nitrates spiked. Time to fire up the skimmer, I think...
Our NO2 hit zero today, indicating hopefully that our second bacterial colony is fully established. NO3 has been in the 20-40 range for almost 3 days (we controlled it before then with some water changes) and it's solidly at 20 now, so hopefully the third bacterial colony is on its way to taking hold as well.
We rockscaped a couple of days ago too. Here's the results:
Unfortunately, a large portion of the sponges that were on the rock have died off; we understand that's fairly normal, but we're still sad about it. So we're looking forward to the second half of the rock and cleanup crew to arrive now.
The auto-topoff is working perfectly, and the semi-automated water change (hey, at least no buckets!) enabled a couple days of 50+ gallon changes as nitrates spiked. Time to fire up the skimmer, I think...
Sure! Actually I plan on it being a four-zone (yes, I'm ambitious) once I get a light set up and some macro algae in it.
Here's how it looks today:
The bottom 6" or so is sugar fine sand, and will be my remote sand bed (possibly a bad idea, since it will be extremely difficult for me to take it offline / change). The next 6" is filled with eggcrate and open space; it is to be a benthic zone. I took my inspiration for that from this thread. I hope that in the extremely low flow, low-light zone that we'll get a growth of sponges and tunicates (especially given how the sponges on the LR from TBS have been dying
). The next 6" is live rock rubble. This will serve as extra home for nitrifying bacteria and a safe breeding ground for copepods. Right now the top 6" of the refugium is occupied by some dry rock that I'm turning into live rock, but I will be putting that into the display tank today. We will get some macro algae to put in that area, and I'm setting up some lights to grow it. This will be nutrient export along with additional copepod habitat.I found additional inspiration for this design by reading this archived article at Practical Fishkeeping magazine
So, my complex (bad?) idea in a nutshell.
redneckgearhead
Active member
Why would you ever want to change the DSB?
Some people have referenced DSB crashes in their discussions, and mentioned that the 5 gallon bucket being plumbed into the system makes it easy to take offline. I guess I am not too worried about it, given the way that I plumbed mine in...
Quick update as I'm still beat from a late night... but the second part of our TBS "package" arrived yesterday evening, and we worked for 3 1/2 hours to clean the rock and get everything situated. We did a rough placement of where we want the rocks, but we haven't aquascaped everything yet. Anyways, here's a FTS from last night:
And L/M/R closeups:
And L/M/R closeups:
Nola
New member
Hello ! This is Afgun's wife. TBS sent us an amazing variety of life for our new aquarium. It's all acclimating, trying to figure out what to place where for best quality of life. Gorgonians seem to like high water flow and high light. Sponges seem to like low flow and low light. Anybody know anything different? Here are a few pics of what we got. These were all in our "package" from TBS.
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Nola
New member
Here's two more pics. We spent a little time rearranging things today and also found our decorator crab. He has a lovely hat.
Full Tank Shot..
Nice hat !
It's easy to see why you should order the package from Tampa Bay Saltwater. Everything you see came in our base package. We didn't order anything extra.
Richard is amazing!!
It's easy to see why you should order the package from Tampa Bay Saltwater. Everything you see came in our base package. We didn't order anything extra.
Richard is amazing!!
d3hree
New member
Assuming that the gorgonians are non-photosynthetic ( and tbh i am not the best to determine that for you) then higher flow will be of greater importance over high light. Also they would do better with the larger surface facing the direction of flow so they can remove foods from the water column easily. Sponges the same really, they are filter feeders and dont need light.
I recently read a thread on here where the reefer refered to "packages", it was a cube tank with a really nice stand in a stunning house. He also had a automatic water change system using a litemeter....anyway I think he may have used the same LFS to get "packages"..are they harvested from the gulf or something?...awesome stuff. We dont have anything like that here...and we wouldnt want it even if it was offered!
This is looking like it will be an awesome tank!
I recently read a thread on here where the reefer refered to "packages", it was a cube tank with a really nice stand in a stunning house. He also had a automatic water change system using a litemeter....anyway I think he may have used the same LFS to get "packages"..are they harvested from the gulf or something?...awesome stuff. We dont have anything like that here...and we wouldnt want it even if it was offered!
This is looking like it will be an awesome tank!
liverock
RC Sponsor
special guy....
special guy....
That type of deco crab is very special.....as I only find them in big barrel sponges, down inside....is the ONLY place they live...and that type always has an anemone "hat" on, very cool critter!
sea ya
Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com
special guy....
Here's two more pics. We spent a little time rearranging things today and also found our decorator crab. He has a lovely hat.Full Tank Shot..
Nice hat !
It's easy to see why you should order the package from Tampa Bay Saltwater. Everything you see came in our base package. We didn't order anything extra.
Richard is amazing!!
That type of deco crab is very special.....as I only find them in big barrel sponges, down inside....is the ONLY place they live...and that type always has an anemone "hat" on, very cool critter!
sea ya
Richard TBS
www.tbsaltwater.com
Update time... the longer tentacled anemones appear to be condis, and the 4 flat ones appear to be flower anemones.
I bought some CFL floods and hooked them up over the refugium. We tossed in some halimeda and chaeto that we got from our LFS and a couple of bottles of tigger pods. The fuge is currently home to a couple of gorilla crabs that we found (unfortunately the rest are playing hard-to-get). Several snails have made the trip down the overflow and are also in the fuge now. Ones I find in the sump get forcibly relocated back to the tank but I leave anything in the fuge.
A couple of days ago we found THIS bugger (he's an inch and a half to two inches across!) had hitchhiked in with the rock somewhere:
Our attempts to corral him have not gone the way we hoped. At least his claws appear to be blunt...
Things have started to settle in nicely, and we even have what appears to be a lot of snail eggs recently laid.
Unfortunately, the condis for the most part haven't really found a place that they like yet, and have been quite mobile. One got sucked into the closed loop intake the other day. I thought that the multitude of small (1/4") holes would prevent that, but it seems that the suction was enough that it got pulled in. I also pulled several small hermit crabs from the holes. Not sure if they were happy to be removed or not, but at least they're free.
Water parameters have been pretty stable; ammonia is at 0, nitrites are at 0 and nitrates slowly creep up until we do a water change when it hits 80 or so. Since things seem to have settled down, we picked up a few fish and some frags yesterday:
That's a bar goby, and 3 of our 7 blue chromis. We also bought a coral beauty, but it is quite shy and it darts back into the rockwork when I am aiming the camera towards the tank.
We're still aquascaping, so no recent FTS, but we finally have our reef!
I bought some CFL floods and hooked them up over the refugium. We tossed in some halimeda and chaeto that we got from our LFS and a couple of bottles of tigger pods. The fuge is currently home to a couple of gorilla crabs that we found (unfortunately the rest are playing hard-to-get). Several snails have made the trip down the overflow and are also in the fuge now. Ones I find in the sump get forcibly relocated back to the tank but I leave anything in the fuge.
A couple of days ago we found THIS bugger (he's an inch and a half to two inches across!) had hitchhiked in with the rock somewhere:
Our attempts to corral him have not gone the way we hoped. At least his claws appear to be blunt...
Things have started to settle in nicely, and we even have what appears to be a lot of snail eggs recently laid.
Unfortunately, the condis for the most part haven't really found a place that they like yet, and have been quite mobile. One got sucked into the closed loop intake the other day. I thought that the multitude of small (1/4") holes would prevent that, but it seems that the suction was enough that it got pulled in. I also pulled several small hermit crabs from the holes. Not sure if they were happy to be removed or not, but at least they're free.
Water parameters have been pretty stable; ammonia is at 0, nitrites are at 0 and nitrates slowly creep up until we do a water change when it hits 80 or so. Since things seem to have settled down, we picked up a few fish and some frags yesterday:
That's a bar goby, and 3 of our 7 blue chromis. We also bought a coral beauty, but it is quite shy and it darts back into the rockwork when I am aiming the camera towards the tank.
We're still aquascaping, so no recent FTS, but we finally have our reef!
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