Newly Cycled Tank - Potential Problem

[herpchat]

OK here goes.

I am cycling a former FW tank to full SW, its now 3 weeks into its cycle and doing good.

The tank was totally infested with Malaysian Trumpet Snails (the bane of FW aquarists). I just dumped in the salt and started up my new filter and seeded it so that it can cycle to SW.

Now for the potential problem, a number of the MTS have survived going from FW to SW and appear the be thriving. This is not supposed to be possible and salt has always been listed as a way to kill them. I doublechecked the readings with a hydrometer and it is fully marine.

Now MTS are great for stirring substrate, there probably is not anything on earth better then them for that. In my FW tanks where they have totally taken over when you feed the fish all the gravel moves (looks like something out of a horror movie).

Should I be worried? Should I try to irradicate the MTS?

Gerald

 

[sadsak]

I would talk to Gary at ART and see if theirs a wrase that will eat them, or see if he has any ideas!

 

[herpchat]

Well since I would not put a wrase in there I guess that is out of the question. It might be possible that they will not be able to reproduce. But just the fact they are surviving is beyond me since we use salt to kill them.

 

[Russ Braaten]

You will have trouble but not due to the snails. You have just created a salty sewer.

It sounds like you took a full tank that was used for freshwater and then added salt in the hope to make it a salt water tank. Saltwater tanks require the cleanest of systems. Plus it requires a different system from what a freshwater tank would have. The only thing from your freshwater system that you should use in a SW system is the tank. Then if you used copper in the FW tank you shouldn't even use that.

Strip the thing down and start over, Don't be lazy. It will never work in SW systems.

 

[herpchat]

So far I have done it both ways and have not seen any difference at all. But then again I have fuges on all my systems with cheatomorpha and tons of caulerpas.

In fact the sand in my pony tank came from this tank while it was still dirty. The tank is loaded with ditritivors and so are my fuges. It has been my experience that too sterile a system creates more problems then using an established system. My pony tank has been running 7 months now and not a single problem. Am I flirting with disaster?

And yes its filled with silica sand because I like the way it looks. I have also bought the finest aragonite I could find and to me it is not as pleasing as sand.

 

[djc1026]

I think it will be an interesting journey to tag along with and may be doable if it was just the tank and substrate and no history of any kind of FW treatments. It definitely would have been better to have stripped it down, IMO.

Did you leave in the FW aquascaping or remove all of that? I agree with Russ on the FW treatments you may have administered having some detrimental residual effects.

Dave

 

[_Sooner_2]

I think all you did was give your initial cycle a big boost. When the FW critters die, their decaying corpses shouldn't be much different than cycling the tank with nasty, foul, "live" rock that's been in a dark styrofoam box for days.

Some hobbyists and LFS's prefer to use rock with tons of die off to cycle a new tank. I prefer to use cured live rock if at all possible. No one has been able to convince me that a gentle cycle isn't just as effective using cured rock as the huge spikes you get from using uncured rock.

In regards to the undying Trumpet snails, add a few large blue-leg hermits to the tank. If the snails are at all weak, the hermits will all be sporting new homes before long.

Ronnie

 

[herpchat]

OK here goes;

I don't medicate fish unless it is absolutely nessassary and then they are moved into quarintine tanks. That tank has never had a treatment in it and I do 50% water changes weekly.

I spent some time thinking about Russ' post saying I was doing it the lazy way. Truth of the mater is that it would have been lazier to totally strip the tank and sterilize it and start fresh.

Here is what I do when I convert a tank. First off the sytem gets 3 flushes of fresh water. Then I put in the salt water and put in the filtration. Then I totally stir the substrate up and get everything I can suspended. I seed the filter with established media and wait a few days and stir the substrate again. I stir every two days. After a week I test and add caulerpa and cheatomorpha. After a week I test and add isopods, gammarus the sandsifting snail, and microstarfish. I then test the next week and stir the substrate again. Now I add some live rock and just sit back and monitor the tank.

Does not sound that lazy to me. And Yes I created the sewer and am relaying on the biological activity to clean the tank and establish itself. So far this method has worked fantastically.

 

[djc1026]

I don't think there will be a problem if that's how you did it and the crabs are a good idea for any surviving trumpets

Dave

 

[herpchat]

Yeah but wont the crabs get the sand sifting snails and my microstars?

 

[_Sooner_2]

My experience with blue-legs is that they go for anything that is weakened. If you've already put the sand-sifters and micros in the tank, they might go for them. If you haven't, try the crabs on the trumpets, then remove the crabs after the trumpets are toast (if it works).

 

[herpchat]

I purposely stayed away from crabs, I have never had them and hope to never get them, however I do use camel shrimp and pepermint shrimp.

 

[tgwinn]

I don't think anyone ever wants to get the crabs..but it happens. I am very sorry...but I just couldn't let that one go! OK..back to your regularly scheduled programming and I will shut up again and go back to my corner.

 

[VCoo71]

what is your hydrometer reading?
and on a side note i would look in to a refractormeter....my hydrometer was off by over 4 points when i checked it aganist a refractometer

charlie

 

[herpchat]

I know, the temptation.

So what is a good Gorg cleaner?

Less then 25 posts before I get to use my avitar

 

[herpchat]

Yes I have a refractometer. I got it to read brackish tanks since a hydrometer don't do so well on them.

I will double check it tomorrow however I did check that hydrometer vs the refractometer and found them dead on. I also had one of those coralife hydrometers but those aren't worth a crap so my friend had me get the floating kind thats totally sealed. That is the one that was dead on.

 

[pwhitby]

Gerald,

Im unsure...but what do you think the camel and peppermints are going to do? Is it your expectation that they will work on the snails?

Not knowing what the MTS are like, how big are they? what do they consume? How fast do they breed.

Paul.

 

[indoreefer]

Where do you get your sandsifting snails and micro stars? I have been looking for a place to get microstars.

 

[herpchat]

This is where I get the microstars from;

http://www.aquabid.com/cgi-bin/auction/auction.cgi?swc&1153442992

Anthony is a good guy and very trustable, I also got spaghetti worms from him that I seed my fuges with.

I have actually sold and bought a bit of critters here on aquabid.

The reason I have the shrimp is not to pick on snails because I know they don't, they just go around cleaning and such. The camels do prowl for bristle worms and the peps will eat aiptasia when they show up but other then that they look for food in the caulerpa, sand and rocks, but if the environment supports them then it supports fish. I guess you can think of them as canaries but I would not toss them in unless I knew it was safe because I really do like them.

 

[captbunzo]

First, that is a great price on microstars shipped. Great plan for seeding a tank.

Second, I think you are a little nuts for converting a tank directly from FW to SW. I would ALWAYS clean out a tank, start with fresh (marine) sand, etc, when starting up a new tank. IMHO, no reason to cause yourself problems down the road with nutrient issues, etc.

Third, I think you are being a little too literal about some things in this hobby. Specifically, you talk about hermit crabs and their evilness, and about peppermints eating aiptasia.....all like they are unchangable rules. I don't think these things are that solid.

Yes, hermits are opportunistic feeders and will likely take out some snails. However, from the right sources, snails are reasonably cheap. And the addition of hermits into a system can be positive as they make the ecosystem a little more complete. Keep your tank well fed, and your hermits (red-legged, if you ask around here) will most likely behave themselves. And keep some extra, bigger shells in the tank.

I love the sight of funky little hermits crawling around...

And about peppermints. First of all, I love them and all other shrimps. However, there is NO guarantee that they will take care of aiptasia. I have a good 5-10 decent sized aiptasia in my tank that they flat out ignore. Now, they aiptasia aren't spreading, so maybe the peppermints are doing something (eating the baby aips). But there are plenty of folks that try peppermints as a solution to aiptasia with little or no success.

Anyhow, just a thought.

Also, really, please clean out that old FW tank before you have evil algae blooms to deal with that last way longer then they should.

Just my opinion...