What was your first livestock?

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Just found a brittle starfish in the tank.

Ducked away quickly once the light hit it.

Also saw a tiny copepod.

And finally a small slug - like creature. It was about the size of a cooked grain of rice, kinda looks like a Roley Poley without legs. It's a light pinkish grey, with darker spots/segments.

Live rock sure has a ton of life to it.
 
Cool!
You might enjoy looking at the tank with a red light a few hours after lights out. Inverts can't see that part of the spectrum, so you can observe their free movements. Astronomers use red flashlights because they don't make your eyes have to readjust after you turn it off, like if you want to look something up in a book while your out stargazing. I found an app for my phone that is an "astronomy flashlight." It basically just makes the phone screen glow red instead of buying a special flashlight. I found a free one but you can pay for fancier ones too. Its like a whole diff tank after hours :)
 
Wow the red spectrum was something I never thought of. Great tips so far everyone!

I don't want to derail this topic, but ODB was my favorite Bee. He made millions, and still collected food stamps to pay for groceries. Doesn't get anymore thug than that. God rest his soul.

Back to the topic, I may not get any sleep this weekend, as I will probably be up watching my tank with red light.

Spent an hour staring at it with a flashlight, kinda makes you feel drunk if you focus too much/hard.
 
leviburns89 said:
Wow the red spectrum was something I never thought of. Great tips so far everyone!

I don't want to derail this topic, but ODB was my favorite Bee. He made millions, and still collected food stamps to pay for groceries. Doesn't get anymore thug than that. God rest his soul.

Back to the topic, I may not get any sleep this weekend, as I will probably be up watching my tank with red light.

Spent an hour staring at it with a flashlight, kinda makes you feel drunk if you focus too much/hard.
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Mines been set up since October and I still find things I didn't know were in there. It definitely is mesmerizing.
 
leviburns89 said:
Wow the red spectrum was something I never thought of. Great tips so far everyone!

I don't want to derail this topic, but ODB was my favorite Bee. He made millions, and still collected food stamps to pay for groceries. Doesn't get anymore thug than that. God rest his soul.

Back to the topic, I may not get any sleep this weekend, as I will probably be up watching my tank with red light.

Spent an hour staring at it with a flashlight, kinda makes you feel drunk if you focus too much/hard.
Click to expand...

Who would have thought you could find so many Wu Tang fans in the reefkeeping community? But GZA will always be my favorite.

Enjoy the flashlight time. I always found the micro life to be just as enjoyable as the expensive fancy corals.
 
Seriously tho, an entire hour spent staring at an "empty" tank.

Wife must think I'm insane, sitting on an upside down 5g bucket, In the dark, face 2 inches from the glass.
 
leviburns89 said:
Seriously tho, an entire hour spent staring at an "empty" tank.

Wife must think I'm insane, sitting on an upside down 5g bucket, In the dark, face 2 inches from the glass.
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Try telling your wife you're going vegan, I'm pretty sure my wife would have been less surprised if I told her I was going to renounce women and join the clergy.

But I digress, there's definitely no such thing as an "empty" tank. I would love to one day start a tank with rock from TBS and all the free life on it. The micro-life is really beautiful, all the micro brittles, 'pods, asterinas, bristleworms, crabs, spaghetti worms, etc. IMO the success of a reef is tied to the diversity.
 
TimeConsumer said:
Try telling your wife you're going vegan, I'm pretty sure my wife would have been less surprised if I told her I was going to renounce women and join the clergy.

But I digress, there's definitely no such thing as an "empty" tank. I would love to one day start a tank with rock from TBS and all the free life on it. The micro-life is really beautiful, all the micro brittles, 'pods, asterinas, bristleworms, crabs, spaghetti worms, etc. IMO the success of a reef is tied to the diversity.
Click to expand...
Well it is an ecosystem we are trying to create, and not a monoculture.

Monocultures never survive in nature.

Even the smallest part of our tank (bacteria) play the biggest role in our success.

And I have been borderline vegetarian for 4 years. Vegan seems like a dream, and an expensive one.
 
TimeConsumer said:
Try telling your wife you're going vegan, I'm pretty sure my wife would have been less surprised if I told her I was going to renounce women and join the clergy.



But I digress, there's definitely no such thing as an "empty" tank. I would love to one day start a tank with rock from TBS and all the free life on it. The micro-life is really beautiful, all the micro brittles, 'pods, asterinas, bristleworms, crabs, spaghetti worms, etc. IMO the success of a reef is tied to the diversity.
Click to expand...


That's how I started my tank. So far I've found the following creatures that I didn't see when I put the rock in, that I didn't pay for. The porcelain crabs and pistols alone are probably a $100 purchase value alone:
2 adult pistol shrimp
1 baby pistol shrimp
4 baby urchins (that were probably eggs when I got the rock because they didn't show up for about 2 months). These are now about the size of small gum balls.
About 35 porcelain crabs (the kind with fans they wave around all day and lick like lollipops). These have already babied once.
More feather dusters and barnacles than you can count
All kinds of pods
Worms of varying sorts
A limpet or two
A brittle star (that got ate piece by piece by the next one)
6 gorilla crabs (that are now in crab jail)
Weird-looking tunicates
Some tiny little white crab that mostly just scurries around in the sand

That's all I can think of for now.
 
So, I did some research.

The life I've found on my 5lbs of live rock are

1 asterina starfish
1 micro brittle starfish
1 chiton (not sure the exact type)

Been staring for hours. These little critters really make use of the interior of the rock...
 
Don't clearly recall my first livestock - it was back in 1988, after all. Colt coral and yellow-stripe maroon ... I think .....
 
CStrickland said:
How ever did you all manage without an apex?!
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I know you meant that as a joke, but it's quite remarkable how far the hobby has come in terms of equipment. I bought my first HQI fixture at about the same time (a DuplaSun) and you had to use the stock Osram DE bulbs. No reef specific choices back then.
 
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