adding TBS to established reef?

H2OLUVSME

H2OLUVSME

Premium Member
is this a stupid idea? has anyone tried this?

i was in the process of buying materials to upgrade to a 75 gallon reef, from my 29. well i sprung a leak in the 29 and had to change over to the 75 a week ago. my plan was to cycle the new tank with the TBS and slowly change over my livestock and rock. now with the leaky tank, i had to change every thing over. well i dont want to deprive myself of TBS rock, but am i risking the rest of my animals with the potential die-off and predators that come with the TBS?

all i have for corals is shrooms with a few zoos and candy canes. my fish include royal gramma, yellow watchman goby, 6-line wrasse, and a newly added engineer goby. i do have a plethera of crabs, shrimp, and snails that i dont want to loose.

thanks for any insight.

landon
 
From what you say you have in your tank already being on the "hardy" side, I would think you would be Ok adding the TBS rock as long as you were diligent in changing out some water if you got any spikes in the ammonia levels etc.
 
thanks frank,
i asked about it in a different thread, where a guy added a package to his newly established tank. he cycled with sand and 20 lbs of figi rock, then added a package afterwards. he stated that his amm. never got above the .35 area. if this is the case i should not have a problem adding 20-25 pounds at a time to my 80 lbs.

ill see what every one else has to say though.

landon
 
Howdy,

I never got any insane spikes on my rock and it was out for along time. With an established tank like that though you will want to take extra precautions to kill the gorilla crabs and mantis shrimp though! I don't think this i recommended by TBS but it has worked GREAT for me. Take some seltzer water (no sugar, just carbonated water - for that mater you could probably carbonate RO-DI water if you wanted to) and get a turkey baster. peek in each hole and look for hairy legs or dark pointy claws. Squit said holes with regular salt water to see where the holes come out (you want to minimize the things hit with seltzer). I then turned the rock to keep the seltzer in the hole and squirted. mantis litterally jump out of the holes and crabs die in like 10 seconds. I have had one mantis refuse to die or come out because the hole went back up into the rock and I couldn't fill it, but it was a great way to find him. I put in the seltzer and he started BANG BANG BANG BANGing. Another tool that I use is a length of 1/4" inch stainless steel rod. I have about 1" of it sharpened to a needle point and I spear a piece of fish on the end. Then I wiggle it around slowly like food in a current by their caves. Once they get underneath it WHAM, crab kebob.
 
Casey,
Thanks for the input. i was worried about the hitchhikers, but thats why i want TBS all at the same time. i have a pistol shrimp/goby combo that has stolen the hearts of my wife and i. i would be devistated if i lost him. as far as everything else goes....id like to keep losses to a minimum. i like the crab kabob trick, ill have to use that. TBS reccomended that i just let the rock sit out for about 1/2 hour before placing it in the tank. they said that would be enough to get the crabs and shrimp off of the rock, and shouldnt hurt the other stuff too much. i guess ill have some seltzer on hand and just try and find those suckers before i put them in.
 
Yeah, I did the set it out for 1/2 hour trick. All that crawled off was a couple little gorillas (I think they fell) and an octopus (yes, an octopus, I wish I had my quarantine setup at that time :( ). Another couple tricks are to probe the holes with a straw or something similar. If a mantis is in there you will feel it through the straw SNAP SNAP. Frag the hole if you know what I mean. You will receive a gajillion porcelain crabs and red mithrax crabs. It is important to know the difference so that you don't accientally kill them. The porcelain crabs are pink with an odd pentagon shaped shell. They have two filter feeding arms. The red mithrax crabs are bright red and have curved claws that come together like tongs. The gorilla crabs are easy to recognize. Look for hairy legs (although the red mithrax can look hairy too). Also look for black tips on their claws (which come to a nasty point). If you see anything with black pointy claws, kill it.

My guess is that you won't have the same difficulty as me. I have 300 lbs of TBS and one of the pieces is a good 75 - 100 lbs. My lightest piece is probably 15, so I can't take any of them out of the tank to clean. With little pieces it shouldn't be that much of a problem to pull a piece later and exterminate the crabs.

Casey
 
id love to see pics of your tank!! i cant imagine what 300 lbs of TBS looks like.

thanks for the tips on the id of the crabs. i think i have a handle on that, considering i have a few of the porcelins and mithrax in my reef now. i even have a gorilla crab that i collected from some one, from LR they got off the web. he is in the 10 waiting for a predator to come eat him. i have a 10 gallon set up for mantis (or temp for octo) if i get one. im looking forward to the treats, to say the least. thanks again for your help.

i called TBS today and should get a call from Mary tommorow to solidify my order. i think im going to just get the 25 gallon package, and see how far 50lbs will go. with it being for a 25, the pieces should be pretty small (compared to yours :D) and managable. im going to think really hard tonight about a 40-50 gallon package. i could always put the extra rock (from the current display im sure ;))in my sump.

landon
 
if you are looking for an octopus, i have one. just came in from TBS tuesday. he is all beige(no blue dots) and can change colors on the spot. it was rather fun to play with different back grounds with him. i can trade for a titanium heater...
 
ill see if i end up with one. Mary said that if they get out a few times they should be able to ship my rock pretty soon. id hate to get you to ship it to me acroos the country, just to get one my self.

ill keep that in mind if i get both of my shimpents and no octo.

landon
 
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