Lunch as a pet?

[hlywkar]

Here's a link I found that talks about nitrates in tanks.

Advanced Aquarist

it suggests that water changes may not be the best way to combat nitrates... R/O would solve this of course...



it also suggests other methonds such as macro algae , deep sand bed. some filters. skimming... easy enough. and other stuff...

the only ones I could see my self doing would be the R/O, which I plan on getting eventually. skimming. and the macro algae/turf algae....


anyone know how well macro algae works with nitrates? and what sort of macro algae would go with my octo/(currently)hermit tank?

 

[DWhatley]

Any macro algae is fine for your an octo tank as far as the octo goes. Most often macro for nitrate removal is kept in a sump because it breaks up and causes a mess. Some can be toublesome if it is not pruned regularly and rapidly release all the nitrate it has absorbed, causing more of a problem that if it had not been planted. I have never found macro to be as beneficial as simply keeping my substrate as clean as possible (some people prefer a bare bottom tank but my spouse insists an aquarium does not look right with a glass floor ).

The more colorful macros are usually not a problem with rereleasing the nitrates and can be used effectively for esthetics but these export little nitrate. Most green macro will be more effective with nitrates but it requires a lot of light, will either take over the tank (Chaetomorpha) or go sexual and release spores and nitrate into the tank (Caulerpa).

Deep sand beds can be tricky and take a couple of years to establish. A DSB has to remain undisturbed to be effective and for an octo tank, it should only be set up in a sump area and not in the main tank because octos often like to dig, releasing the poisonous gases that build in the bottom layers (necessary for the bed to work). This not only exposes poisons to the tank but also minimizes the effectiveness.

Skimming, again, will not remove nitrates but it will help keep them from forming by removing some of the protein before it becomes nitrate.

R/O water won't do much for nitrates UNLESS you test positive for them before you start (my water does). As the article points out, elevated nitrate comes from uneaten food. Stirring the substrate releases the decaying matter to that your filter and your water change can remove the excess.

Please look for the test strips I mentioned. They are relatively inexpensive and commonly available here. They are very helpful for doing a quick check on nitrites, nitrates and PH levels and indespensible for acclimation.

 

[DWhatley]

re: electic hair

I also noticed some weird electric hair. One of my rocks had a piece of hair coming from it about 6 mm long. It would wave with the current of the water. Also it would glow blue with electricity one and off. starting at its base, then going to the tip... I don't think it was a piece of a larger creature, as there was not hole where it was coming from. Any clue what this thing may be?

Do your electric hairs look a lot like the pictures (click to enlarge - click a second time for maximum magnification)? If you look carefully, you will see small white stripes that are food going up the tentacles. I wonder if the blue on your electric hairs could have been a lumenscent algae.

 

[bluespotocto]

I also have some of that plant like thing in my tank. What is it?

 

[DWhatley]

I forgot the name of it. It is a macro algae that does not do well in a tank though (no harm). Ken does not like it because it turns his hand green. In the wild it is seasonal and that may be the reason it does not do well in an aquarium. I have been working to keep it alive but am starting to see signs that I am loosing the battle.

Update, I asked Ken and the name is: Dasyclades vermicularis

 

[hlywkar]

well the thing I saw was much much smaller. I only saw it the one day. It wasn't there the next day.

it looked just like a hair, except blue electricity was traveling along it from the base to the tip.

 

[hlywkar]

i am seeing a new development though...

I am now getting about 50 or so tiny white swirls on one of my rocks.... this happens to be the same rock I have seen 2 bristle worms on... are those swirls baby worms?

 

[hlywkar]

Here are some pics...

a random snail.

a pile up of hermits... they tend to do this.

my two flat fiddeler type crabs...

and a close up of a hermit

 

[hlywkar]

Here's two more...

the first, is the little white swirls... you have to look close... so do the double click thing...

and the second.. I am not too sure what they are... the redish pink growths in the middle of the picture.

 

[DWhatley]

ho boy, I am not the best guesser, the close-ups are blurry and the rock is from different water than where I have familiarity but I am always game to give it a go (so long as you accept my preamble).

I am not sure what you are calling white swirls but they are not brissle worms (baby brissles are tiny pink worms usually with a dark brown line). If you are talking about all the white dots, if they consist of a tiny tube they will be either the worm with the thin hair tentacles - watch for hair to come out to feed - or small feather duster worms (you would see a pretty little flower looking top when undisturbed). There are hundreds of worms in the ocean and most of them are harmless and useful for cleanup for a fish or an octo tank. They are not, however, all good guys when it comes to growing sensative corals (I stick with softies and mostly hardy corals for the permenant members of my tanks).

The red growth rock is more interesting. If I looked at the blowup correctly just to the right of the main group of red critters but still in the same crevice, there is a pink fuzzy looking mound that might be porites coral (one of the first corals that grow on aquacultured rock or return to a recooperating reef). I've had several of these to crop up in my tanks but none lived as long as year after discovery and I suspect they need more lighting but am not sure. I had one to pop up in an established tank but it too did not live long even though it did not become visible until two years after the tank was established.

The red critters look like closed up polyps of some kind but the focus is not fine enough to be sure. Some polyps take awhile to open if they are disturbed or put in poor water quality but I don't know of polyps that are that red (there are also thousands of types of polyps). The only thing I am familiar with that would be that red are chili coral, a type of gorgonian and pipe coral and the shape is not right for any of those.

Your hermit clustering may be a battling for shells and you might put a few empty ones in the tank for them to minimize the aggression.

I asked the collector the name of the green algae and he named it Dasyclades vermicularis.

 

[hlywkar]

ya I can't say my camera is the greatest... I need a new one that has manual focus.

the swirls don't look so tube like...by that I mean, they don't look hollow.
To describe them... perfect white. about 3 mm or 4 mm long... and most of them are curved into a circle shape... not all of them, some of them are straight.

what do I do with polyps? anything?

as for the hermits.. the only time I see them get aggressive is feeding time. and only for a short while.

it's almost like they just are too lazy to go around, so they go over. that's when they pile up.. and they just sit there for a while.

I have about 6 or so extra shells in there... sometimes I see new empty shells laying around the place. So they must be trading.

I also just found something new...again...

a tentacle like arm came out of a hole... by tentacle, I mean it stretched and moved like an octopus or squid tentacle.

it's to the bottom left of them hermit crab.

Edit:... sorry, bottom RIGHT.. not left

 

[bluespotocto]

Hey maybe you got a hitch hiker in your live rock.

The polyps are photosynthetic. So you just give them a lot of light. Try and figure out what species it is because if it stings you will wont to remove it before you add your octo.

 

[DWhatley]

The red things are not likely to be a problem with your octo no matter what they are. As with most small things on LR, if the octo touches it and acts like it is hot, you should remove it. As Bluespotocto points out, most things will be photosynthetic and light will encourage it to survive.

I think your tentacle is another form of worm. I have some that look similar (I think - kind of hard to tell) but they are brown and have a feeding mouth that is darker. Watch to see if it is always in the same place (mine don't move about). Somewhere in the forums there is a discussion about the critter I am thinking of but finding it is problematic as I can't remember a key word to locate the thread.

 

[hlywkar]

This one is opaque and greyish white.

 

[hlywkar]

ok... I uploaded a video to youtube... really there isn't much to see... the focus on my camera sucks... and it's really small

I found another electric 'something' ... it's in a hole. so I can't see it. I can only see little flickering of electric charge.

here is the link. it is in the area of the block you see pop uo in the video when it starts.. you have to look carefully, but it's there.