Ms. Peacock

[Islandoftiki]

Yeah, I was kinda thinking skimmer. I'm also preparing some sand. I had some sand from an old tank that I thoroughly washed out today and put in a bucket with some fresh saltwater, Macrobacter 7, a scoop of sand from the 25 gallon tank, a chunk of live rock from the pest crab tank, a power head and a heater. I'll let that run for a couple weeks until it's pretty well gone live, then I'll add it to the tank when I'm sure it's fully cured.

I'll get a skimmer up and running this weekend. Probably my Gnome Glass skimmer from the 10 gallon tank that no longer needs it. If I can swing it, I'll get something fancier, but honestly, the Gnome Glass skimmer works pretty darn well when it's all dialed in.

 

[sklego]

Yeah, I was kinda thinking skimmer. I'm also preparing some sand. I had some sand from an old tank that I thoroughly washed out today and put in a bucket with some fresh saltwater, Macrobacter 7, a scoop of sand from the 25 gallon tank, a chunk of live rock from the pest crab tank, a power head and a heater. I'll let that run for a couple weeks until it's pretty well gone live, then I'll add it to the tank when I'm sure it's fully cured.

I'll get a skimmer up and running this weekend. Probably my Gnome Glass skimmer from the 10 gallon tank that no longer needs it. If I can swing it, I'll get something fancier, but honestly, the Gnome Glass skimmer works pretty darn well when it's all dialed in.

Thanks guys!

 

[Islandoftiki]

I've just remove 5 bioballs and 2 layers of wool (had 3 stacked on each other), are these known to hold nitrates? Thus removing them helps?
Thanks!

Bioballs are known to cause nitrate issues if they aren't regularly rinsed in clean salt water to remove excess detritus. And as you seem to know already, if you take the bioballs out, do it a few every week and make sure the tank has enough live rock.

Filter floss/wool should be changed once or twice a week. Ideally twice a week. Once it gets dirty, it the trapped gunk starts to produce nitrates.

Also, chaeto should be rinsed out good regularly. I usually rinse it in the old tank water as I do a water change.

Anything that traps uneaten food, fish poop, and other organics will lead to nitrates. Ideally we want to get those things out of the tank with the filtration system.

 

[Fartin'Gary]

I have a bunch of micro brittle stars and amphipods living in the micro algae so I don't rinse it. I feel too bad killing them lol

 

[Islandoftiki]

I have a bunch of micro brittle stars and amphipods living in the micro algae so I don't rinse it. I feel too bad killing them lol

Haha, I hear ya. When I was treating some rocks from another tank with hydrogen peroxide, I made sure to rescue all of the micro brittle stars that came out of the rocks.

Actually, I'm planning to try to get a handful of them to go into the mantis tank. I don't think she'll eat them. Oddly, the unlit peacock tank doesn't have many pods in it even though I've seeded it with pods. It does have an impressive colonista snail population though. They're small enough that she doesn't bother with them. I should try some dwarf cerith snails in there. They might be too small to bother with; either that or tasty snacks.

 

[Islandoftiki]

So, this is what you can expect just about all of the time... except late at night when she's going to bed.

Watch as I sneak up on her doing her daily mantis things. The second she sees me, she rushes over to the front of the tank to visit with me, but alas, there is glass in the way. Darn that glass!



This little girl will steal your heart.

 

[Fartin'Gary]

Meh mine died. It went into it's burrow to molt and never came out. The water turned cloudy thats how I knew. She was fully grown. Both peacocks I have had were near fully grown when I got them. I would have liked to have had one that was a couple inches long instead. I managed to save the rest of the inhabitants though so it wasn't a total loss.

 

[Islandoftiki]

That's a total bummer. I always get a little nervous around molt time. Especially for my G. Ternatensis, he has to be fairly old now.

 

[Fartin'Gary]

Yea she was a very large smasher and full grown. Exhibited no sign of distress, just sealed up the cave and never came out. I looked at the body an it looks like she ripped her belly open molting if that is possible. I am just turning the tank into a coral tank now. Next stomatopod I will have will be the easily found plentiful ones. Usually the smaller type. Peacocks are becoming more popular and I have read that it's harder to find a male these days. I would rather not participate in that race. I'll just get some small tanks. You have some others that look great. Very inspirational.

Although it is a bummer we must push on. I was much more fond of my first one. Probably because she was the first but her personality was great. She was older though and I think more time in the wild may have helped that. Peepers was great though. Not quite as aggressive but it was fun to watch her seal flake food from the stupid damsel lol.

 

[eel guy]

wow nice mising my mantis

 

[Islandoftiki]

I fed Betty by hand today. Now, before you all get really excited, she was swimming upside down at the surface of the water and I just kinda dropped the krill down into her maxillipeds from 1/4" above the surface of the water. I'll take a video when I feed her tomorrow and I'll be a little more brave and let her touch me. I know you want to witness me getting struck by her raps. You evil bastards.

 

[sklego]

I fed Betty by hand today. Now, before you all get really excited, she was swimming upside down at the surface of the water and I just kinda dropped the krill down into her maxillipeds from 1/4" above the surface of the water. I'll take a video when I feed her tomorrow and I'll be a little more brave and let her touch me. I know you want to witness me getting struck by her raps. You evil bastards.

Thanks guys for all the good advice on nitrate management. :twitch:

I'm going to try and diy an air stone protein skimmer to help with nitrates, although i doubt it will lower very much given that i have coral rubble.

Would brittle stars survive a peacock?

My peacock has learnt to recognise the feeder claw, which is flourescent orange in colour. It dashes out from cave everytime i bring it close to the tank, thinking it's feeding time. It moves with the claw, wondering if i can teach it some tricks like swimming in a circle. :lolspin:

 

[Islandoftiki]

Would brittle stars survive a peacock?

I would think they generally would. It really depends on the individual mantis.

 

[Islandoftiki]

Sorry guys, no blood...

 

[Islandoftiki]

Here was take one. We didn't have a wide enough camera angle, so I re-shot the video, but if you want to see the first take, here it is...

http://youtu.be/FHAmezF7JBc

I'll do it again this weekend. We'll try to get a little better angle and close-up shots. She ate twice tonight, so I probably won't feed her tomorrow. A big thank you to my fiance P-Dog for filming this. Maybe she'll do the feeding in the next video!

 

[SOCOMMike]

Beautiful specimen. Makes me want one.

 

[Islandoftiki]

I fed her by hand again today. I had to use the tripod, so I wasn't able to get as good of a video as I wanted, but here it is. As usual, I pulled my hand back when she grabbed on with her maxillipeds and some of the action was out of frame. I'll get my lovely assistant to do the camera work next time.



Again, no blood. Sorry.

 

[Islandoftiki]

I took and empty margarita snail shell that I had laying around and packed a half of a krill into it with a pair of forceps, I really jammed it in there so she would have to work for it.

Here is what's left:

Also, while doing the water change this afternoon, I sucked out about 3 cups of crushed coral and replaced it with two cups of fully cycled live sand that I've been getting ready in a bucket. I'll keep doing this with each water change until it's half crushed coral and half medium/fine aragonite.

 

[Islandoftiki]

So, I figured out what I'm going to do about a skimmer for this tank. I'm stealing the Tunze 9002 from my 25 gallon tank and upgrading that to a new nano skimmer that's easier to get in and out of the back chamber.

So, I gave the skimmer a thorough cleaning last night and popped it into Betty's tank this morning. It fits nicely in the back corner and because 3 sides of the tank are blacked out, it's very hard to see it in the tank.

Betty immediately had to check out what this odd black box was. She whacked it twice and decided that wasn't going to result in much of anything, so now she's hiding in her smaller den in the back of the tank, watching the skimmer housing suspiciously and intently to determine if it's going to try to pull any sort of shenanigans.

 

[Islandoftiki]