Dave's 150G Starphire Zeo Reef~

[Dave's Reef]

Here is some excellent info on thawing Mysis. Granted, it is tailored for seahorses.. but none the less it is useful info. I thaw all frozen reef food in the manner he describes (with cold tank water) and then decant the solids with a baster after thawing/enrichment.

http://www.seahorse.com/index.php?o...Itemid=218&func=view&id=739&view=flat&catid=2

"Nor should you thaw it in tap water, distilled water, or any other source of freshwater. You want to thaw the shrimp in water that is about as salty as their own bodily fluids so there is little or no difference in osmotic pressure. Freshwater will tend to move into the mysids as they thaw and can break down their integument and rupture cell walls as they swell; excessively salty water will tend to draw water out of the Mysis as they thaw, desiccating them in the process. Normal strength seawater is just right for thawing."

As he explains, this will not only preserve the nutrition of the mysis, it will also reduce the excess oils that end up in your tank's water column.

EXCELLENT read, thank you very much for sharing!~ :thumbsup:

I've been using a similar method as described in the article but will adopt the method described as it sounds much more beneficial.

Thank you very much!~

 

[Dave's Reef]

I stand corrected!! :lol: (I am same way, drives people nuts)

This is a very technical hobby, yesterday I was 100% worried about too much NO3 and PO4. This am I noticed some corals lighting up and others looking "hungry". I may have reduced nutrients too fast after the big tank rebuild of 2010!
Are you 100% ZEO? DO you have many fish? I am to point where I am wondering if my Tangs and Tigger are too much for zeo system alone. I can't stand starving them, I damn near killed them three years ago by undrfeeding.

You're too funny Tony, yeah I guess we both show a little OCD here and there. I drive my wife nuts with stuff like this, lol!~ :lol:

I'm 100% Zeovit and have about 20 fish give or take with recent escapee's. I think with effective wet skimming and running Zeo by the numbers you should be ok. However, there is a point where too much is just too much. It all depends on your system and equipment that your using. Still a balancing act no matter what methodology you're using as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Reefer577]

You should get a bali monster sea hare for your hair algae. They love it and do an amazing job getting rid of it. They are 100% reef safe, even if they ink which is very unlikely.


http://www.bluezooaquatics.com/productDetail.asp?cid=83&pid=1166&did=2

 

[Dave's Reef]

You should get a bali monster sea hare for your hair algae. They love it and do an amazing job getting rid of it. They are 100% reef safe, even if they ink which is very unlikely.


http://www.bluezooaquatics.com/productDetail.asp?cid=83&pid=1166&did=2

I got a Hawaiian Blue Spot sea hare a couple months ago. He ate one patch of the hair algae and that was it. The remainder of his days were spent with him cruising the glass in the tank and me putting him back on the rocks to do his job. Then fatefully, he found his way into my 6105 and that was all she wrote.

I've been thinking of adding another but not sure? Next month I'm adding an Orange Spot Rabbitfish and in June I'll get another Blonde Naso. The rabbitfish are supposed to be good hair and bubble algae eaters and my last Blonde Naso did well with bubble algae too.

Thanks for the heads up though!~

 

[Reefer577]

Blue spots hares don't eat hare algae, I've gotten those in the past and they don't do a thing. They have to be like the one in the picture, that kind loves hair algae. I would ask when you order to be sure they don't send you the wrong thing.

 

[klepto]

EXCELLENT read, thank you very much for sharing!~ :thumbsup:

I've been using a similar method as described in the article but will adopt the method described as it sounds much more beneficial.

Thank you very much!~

Im glad you found it useful! :thumbsup:
I try to explain this method to friends, but they all think I'm just insane. :worried: Once I gave it a try, there was no turning back. Mysis/brine look WAY more lifelike. A little shortcut I came up with is to freeze a clean, empty mason jar. That way I can just put a small amount of water directly from the tank and I don't have to keep tank water in the fridge. (of course it works better to have refrigerated water- shortcuts are only so good)

I have tested this on larger pieces of deep frozen seafood with great results. (whole squid, clam)

 

[Dave's Reef]

Blue spots hares don't eat hare algae, I've gotten those in the past and they don't do a thing. They have to be like the one in the picture, that kind loves hair algae. I would ask when you order to be sure they don't send you the wrong thing.

Will do, I've got a LFS that's supposed to carry them pretty regularly but they're out right now. The LFS says they usually get a half dozen in at a time and they're all sold out in only a couple days?!?!? There must be a lot of people with hair algae in the Phoenix area, lol!~ Oh, he also said he believes they're coming from Indonesia which is where Bali is I believe?

Thanks for the info!~

 

[Reefer577]

My pleasure. When you get one be sure to acclimate it for a little while too as they can be sensitive to differences in temperature and ph.

 

[Dave's Reef]

Im glad you found it useful! :thumbsup:
I try to explain this method to friends, but they all think I'm just insane. :worried: Once I gave it a try, there was no turning back. Mysis/brine look WAY more lifelike. A little shortcut I came up with is to freeze a clean, empty mason jar. That way I can just put a small amount of water directly from the tank and I don't have to keep tank water in the fridge. (of course it works better to have refrigerated water- shortcuts are only so good)

I have tested this on larger pieces of deep frozen seafood with great results. (whole squid, clam)

Yep, definitely useful information for sure. I've already started some tank water in the fridge to have on hand!~ After reading the information in the link I realized I was rinsing a bit harshly and will adjust this as well. Every little thing helps.

What are you using for enrichment? I've only got Selco and some vitamins but they mention some type of powdered supplement in the link you provided? Be curious to know what you're using....

Thanks

 

[Joel A]

Did you ever get any rhomboid wrasses? I saw in the earlier pages someone recommended against them.. i just picked one up today =). A female, with hopes that she'll change eventually, hopefully i have good luck with her.

Your tank is really coming along, i LOVE the goldflake angel.. hopefully it stays a model citizen..

 

[Dave's Reef]

Did you ever get any rhomboid wrasses? I saw in the earlier pages someone recommended against them.. i just picked one up today =). A female, with hopes that she'll change eventually, hopefully i have good luck with her.

Your tank is really coming along, i LOVE the goldflake angel.. hopefully it stays a model citizen..

Thanks for the kind words Joel and welcome to the thread!~

I never did get the Rhomboid's, I still would like to but after my Labouti jumped ship I won't be adding anymore wrasses until I get something to prevent further escapes. I was really bumbed to find him dried up behind my tank on the carpet, the "only" place I didn't have a panel to keep surfers off the carpet.

Ah, the joys of being a reefer!~ :fun2:

 

[Tony Romano]

GHA removal

GHA removal

I had very good results with a blue star.

"The Blue Starfish, also known as the Comet Sea Star, Blue Sea Star, or Blue Linckia Sea Star, is found in the sunny areas of the reef and reef fringe, constantly foraging for food. It has a bright blue body, sometimes with red or purplish spots."

Are any of the 20 fish you have Tangs? They are good as long as GHA is not very long.

OCD, ADD, on it goes! :bounce3:

 

[Dave's Reef]

I had very good results with a blue star.

"The Blue Starfish, also known as the Comet Sea Star, Blue Sea Star, or Blue Linckia Sea Star, is found in the sunny areas of the reef and reef fringe, constantly foraging for food. It has a bright blue body, sometimes with red or purplish spots."

Are any of the 20 fish you have Tangs? They are good as long as GHA is not very long.

OCD, ADD, on it goes! :bounce3:

Hmm, Blue Linkia huh? One of my very favorite inverts by far!~ I had one for about 3-4 months and it ended up deteriorating. Unfortunately this seems to be par for the course with me and Linkia's over the years. I didn't realize they like GHA? Well, if that's the case I should have more than enough food to keep it busy for some time, lol!~

Tangs... I have a Blochi tang but the GHA is pretty long though. I plan on getting another Blonde Naso in June to replace the one that was bludgeoned to death by my Vlamingi. The Vlamingi was taken out after he bullied the Naso to death. I saw the whole thing take place before my eyes, very disturbing. Not at all like what I had heard about typical Vlamingi behavior.

I'll be adding an Orange Spot Rabbitfish the first week of May or so as well. I've heard good things about them and algae control... I guess I'll see what happens?

OCD... ADD, I don't know what you're talking about, lol!~ :lol:

 

[Dave's Reef]

My pleasure. When you get one be sure to acclimate it for a little while too as they can be sensitive to differences in temperature and ph.

I'll give him a little extra acclimating time when I get one. I drip acclimate everything and am pretty OCD about it if you've been following mine and Tony's comments, lol!~

I'll post up about the results/progress once I get further along in the battle....

 

[Reefer08]

Hi Dave, how many times do you feed your fish each day and how much do you feed? I just noticed you mentioned you have around 20 fish so im curious how much you feed.

 

[j-dizzle]

amazing reef dave! envious to say the least. awesome build read it front to back sorry i missed all the fun parts!

 

[Tony Romano]

GHA removal

GHA removal

Blue Star - I had one, it went south in 6 months, the GHA was gone by then.

I was doing other things during the great GHA war! (I made huge mistake and bought use rock) Over a year, maybe even 2 before it was 100% in control. Towards the end, when I figured the rock had to be just about done leaching. I started buying little blue legged crabs my lots of 50. As well as anything else that seemed reef safe and was under $20 bucks or so. Seems odd that you have GHA running ZEO.

 

[vanillagorila]

Next month I'm adding an Orange Spot Rabbitfish and in June I'll get another Blonde Naso. The rabbitfish are supposed to be good hair and bubble algae eaters

Dave,

I have a orangespot rabbitfish, I got him when he was really small from Aquatouch, I got him around the same time I got my Regal angel and after adding the two of them I lost almost all my zoo's, I had to move the remaining zoo's to my nano. I thought it was the angel eating them more that the rabbitfish, but since then I've seen (many times) the rabbitfish eating some button polyps. I also put a tiny brittle star in my tank last night and the rabbitfish was trying to eat its legs off.

 

[Dave's Reef]

Hi Dave, how many times do you feed your fish each day and how much do you feed? I just noticed you mentioned you have around 20 fish so im curious how much you feed.

Hey Ramzy,

I was feeding improperly & entirely too much twice a day. Since learning of my error I still feed twice a day but much more sparingly. I guess I thought that because I have a huge skimmer (Alpha 250) and that cause I'm running full Zeovit that I could get away with it, boy was I wrong...

I've determined that no matter what methodology you're using there's still a fine line that we all tread. It took over 6 almost 8 months before there were algae problems in my tank and they came on in full force and only recently look as though they've slowed some. Not gone, but slowing enough that I can tell.

amazing reef dave! envious to say the least. awesome build read it front to back sorry i missed all the fun parts!

Thanks dizzle and welcome, please feel free to tag along and enjoy the ride. Ask questions too if you like, there's a lot of mistakes to learn from here, lol!~ :jester:

 

[Dave's Reef]

Blue Star - I had one, it went south in 6 months, the GHA was gone by then.

I was doing other things during the great GHA war! (I made huge mistake and bought use rock) Over a year, maybe even 2 before it was 100% in control. Towards the end, when I figured the rock had to be just about done leaching. I started buying little blue legged crabs my lots of 50. As well as anything else that seemed reef safe and was under $20 bucks or so. Seems odd that you have GHA running ZEO.

A YEAR, wow I hope that's not what I'm looking at? :eek1:

Well, I'll just keep in the battle and throw everything I can at this fun little trial of my patience, lol!~ I may give the Linkia thing a try too at this rate. I've got lots of janitors in the tank but there's just too much of the stuff for em to keep up with at this point. I hope now that it appears to have slowed in reproduction that with continued manual removal I can lick this problem a little faster now!~

Dave,

I have a orangespot rabbitfish, I got him when he was really small from Aquatouch, I got him around the same time I got my Regal angel and after adding the two of them I lost almost all my zoo's, I had to move the remaining zoo's to my nano. I thought it was the angel eating them more that the rabbitfish, but since then I've seen (many times) the rabbitfish eating some button polyps. I also put a tiny brittle star in my tank last night and the rabbitfish was trying to eat its legs off.

Hmm, an orangespot that likes zoo's??? Well, I'll have to keep a close eye on the little bugger once I drop him in. I'm pretty desperate at this point and am willing to sacrifice a small number of zoo's if need be for the greater good. I'll just have to keep a close eye on my Tubb's blues and watermelons... I've got a ton of the other ones.

How much are you feeding your fish John? I've not heard of a fish going after a brittle or any other star before??? I'll definitely keep my eye out for the new guy come next week!~

Thanks for the heads up!~