Lunch as a pet?

[DWhatley]

Very cool. I am still guessing worm but only because there are so many kinds and I found this interesting statement on Wikipedia:

Ninety percent of deep-sea marine life is estimated to produce bioluminescence in one form or another.

 

[hlywkar]

what sort of thing am I looking for when buying a RO machine?

they have a bunch of differnt things here. I have seen some with a lot of filters up to 6 or more types of filters..

what filters are needed?
what sort of price?

should I aim for a small unit that I hook up to my tap on the sink?
or a stand alone unit? these stand alone units have cooler and heater attached.

 

[hlywkar]

http://gen.gmarket.co.kr/challenge/...cd=GE&pos_class_cd=300014386&pos_class_kind=S

if you go down you can see that this one has 5 filters... sediment, precarbon, UF membrane, post carbon, and TCR

 

[sedna]

First of all, I have to tell you that this thread is a lot of fun to follow! I should make more comments to make sure you keep it coming, but D always covers the things I'd post (great minds...).

Watch your curly white tubes for little red "eye lashes" at the opening- those are some of my favorite tube worms. I have a chunk of LR covered with worms that is way cooler than any coral frag or polyp you could want. For years I've been looking for another great worm rock and can't believe how hard it is to find! Your "tentacle" could be a worm of any of kind but could also be the arm of a brittle or serpent star which are common LR hitchhikers. Live rock can be such cool stuff, and no matter how long you have it you never know what might pop out or suddenly hatch!

Hermits can also be really entertaining but as D mentioned, make sure you have extra empty shells a few sizes larger so they can get new homes as they grow.

I love my little R/O filter that just hooks up to my tap. My suggestion is that you make sure that the replacement filters are easy to come by no matter which kind you choose. Also my LFS guys told me to be careful not to get one that will deionize the water as then you can't get the salt to dissolve!

LOVE THIS THREAD

 

[DWhatley]

Sedna,
It is fun second guessing what critters hlywkar is finding and hopefully will continue to be a thread other new marine keepers can use as a reference but I wish more people would contribute there. There is a major advantage to being a layperson - I can be off base without losing face

I will disagree about not getting a DI unit though. I am not sure why your LFS recommends against it as removing potential copper is very desirable and there is no problem dissolving the salt (which will add back any minerals that are wanted).

hlywkar,
The home water units are not ones I have ever looked into and an interesting thought. An advantage to this kind of unit would be clean drinking water and a nicely selfcontained, esthetic setup and I would love to have one for the human consumption side here. Another advantage of the unit is the heated water ability as it would allow for faster mixing of the salt (it would have to cool to room temp but it should mix for a day anyway). I recall Thales recommending adding heat to his mixing bucket to help the salt dissolve more quickly. One of the major things you will need to consider is how much water the storage tank holds vs how much you will need to top off your tank and create new saltwater for water changes. My unit has a 3 gallon tank but in reality the pressure bladder uses the space for a gallon so it stores 2 gallons (about the amount of top off water I need for one tank each day). It also does not include a DI (deionizing cartridge) which is highly recommended. I also worry about how frustrated you might get waiting on a couple of gallons of water to come out of a spigott that is designed for delivering a cup of water.

Neal built a space in the garage for me so I can keep my unit set-up and filling large buckets (I have 8 tanks to top off daily and water change weekly) 24/7 without compromising my kitchen sink but not everyone has this kind of space available. Depending upon your water pressure, it takes about an hour to make a gallon of RO water and you will have 2 to 4 gallons of waste water for each gallon (notice that they say plumbing required - that is not just for the input, the waste water must go to a drain).

One of our members had a disassembled unit sometime ago and needed help on how to put it back together in a new house so I tried to take a photo and label the parts. I am not sure it is helpful here but you can get a general idea of what is typical here.

 

[hlywkar]

So, DI good. what other filters should I get?

Also I think most of these house-hold set ups have some sort of reservoir built into it so they can store water. But... by the looks of it, some of them may also have some copper in machine. I'll have to look at them closer

 

[DWhatley]

The typical set up and water flow is:
(1) particulate prefilter (usually made of paper but I have had some of a polyester string design)
(2) more carbon filters
-- The above three filters protect your RO membrane
(1) RO membrane
-- roughly 3/4 to 4/5 of the incoming water will go to the drain as waste - is should not be used for your saltwater fish but can be used for most anything else. Higher input pressure will decrease the amount of waste water and speed up creating the usable gallonage.
-- if there is a holding tank, the water is stored at this phase and then run through the next stages as you extract it.

(1) post RO carbon (this is more for stored water and the least important).
-- drinking water is drawn at this stage and is where the faucet is shown on my unit. The water still contains minerals and is good for drinking.
(1) DI sand filter - removes minerals and metals

I recommend getting a clear canister for the first stage as it helps to see if there is a lot of particulate build up (it does not help to look at the carbon filters, you can't tell anything visually).

Another useful item is a TDS (Total Desolved Solids) meter. This will tell you that you are in need of a new filter. The RO membrane is the most expensive and keeping the prefilters changed will help extend its life.

 

[robind]

I am currently filling my tank with ro/di water. I have my system setup like the diagram on the right in the attached picture. It fills a 5g bucket, which I empty into the tank as it fills. It's also been really nice to have the RO drinking water. I've found that the DI filter isn't doing anything to my TDS. Coming out of the RO it's 2, and coming out of the DI it's 2. Just my $.02

I think the check valve between the pressure tank and the DI is really necessary...the tds coming out of the pressure tank is consistently higher than when it goes in. It's also nice to have that valve on top of the pressure tank so you can depressurize the system to troubleshoot.

Note that the 6th stage is the 'carbon postfilter' D referred to. It's there to remove the taste from sitting in the pressure tank.

 

[hlywkar]

TDS?

 

[robind]

"Total Dissolved Solids", usually given in parts per million (ppm) or mg/L. A measure of how much stuff is in the water, though it only takes 1ppm (ppb?) of copper to kill your ceph. The point of measuring TDS is to know when your filter is failing, so you know when to replace it. I think for our purposes a TDS of

 

[hlywkar]

picked up a leather coral and a itty bitty button polyp... the polyps was free. also got 2 tiny fish. I figure they can be food later, but entertainment now. not sure what they are... one is all black with a white spot on the head and two white spots on either side of it... the other is striped black and white.

it took me about 2 hrs from the shop though... so I am a little worried.
floated all of them 15 mins. then every 10 mins added a cup of water from the tank... did that till it was full. tossed half the bag of water. repeated. then separated each into the tank and tossed the water.

that being said.. the polp is closed... which I'd expect.. but my previous green leather (I think leather) coral is now purple in color... is this normal? just a closed shocked stage?

as an addition note... how well do these types spread?

The guy at the store said the button polpys are next to impossiple to spread... that being said... I also noticed that he had them growing on the GLASS of his tank... and I also looked it up on the net about 3 mins ago and the page I found said they were probably the easiest soft coral to maintain and reproduce.

with the leather coral. I read something about adding vitamin c to 2.5 ppm, then 5 ppm... then cut with a sharp knife and it they will grow again from the cuttings.

any1 have any experience with these two?

thanks in advance. ]

PS. dwhatley. you recommened only food containing meat for my tank... does that still stand with my fish being in there as well? case I have tropical food that does contain some veggies.

 

[cuttlegirl]

Does one of your fish look like this? If so, it can get territorial and might harm your cephalopod.

Weiterleitungshinweis

 

[DWhatley]

The fish sound like damsels, the spotted one a domino. Fish can be problematic with octos and are not recommended. Fish will naturally hang around a feeding octo looking for scraps. Sometimes they pick on the octopus and either end up as dinner or nip the octopus. Now that you have them, it is unlikely you will be able to remove them without tearing up the tank though. Wish you had stayed with the inverts.

Nutritionally, feeding saltwater food to saltwater critters is a stong rule of thumb with only some crustaceans being the exception. The damsels are likely to be meat eaters but dried seaweed is a good source of food to satisfy both herbivores and omnivores (my clown fish eat it). The seaweed generally comes in large folded sheets that you tear off pieces from and place in clip attached to the side of the tank. My clip is at the bottom and back of a skinny 4 foot tall tank so for now I just let it float and dissolve.

The polyps you saw "growing on the glass", were they pinkish and semi-opaque? Hopefully the ones you brought home were not as these are aiptasia, will sting and are a major pain to eliminate.

zoanthids or what we commonly call polyps are in a different family and there are many factors involved, including the individual species, as to how much they spread. I have found that the common brown or cinnamon zoas from the Caribbean will spread faster and thicker than I want in my Caribbean tanks. They are will make an octo react so are not part of my octopus tank livestock. Generally speaking, the longer the tentacles, the greater the sting but you do have to watch for night feeders that send additional tentacles out to feed at night.

The change in color of your leather (pictures please) is likely due to two things. One, it has to fully acclimate before it will start feeding nad fully expand. This can take up to two weeks (true for polyps as well - two days to a week is most common). Two, the tank lighting in the aquarium store vs the lights in your aquarium make a huge difference in what color you will see. Many browns will turn blue or purple under actinic light and metal halide will dramatically change some colors. I recommend 50/50 actinic/white in a marine aquarium because of the richer colors it brings out.

 

[hlywkar]

yes that black fish is the one... domino. the other a reef zebra damsel...

mine are button polyps. not aiptasia.

I tried my version of frozen shrimp with the fishies... don't think they liked it that much...

If they get to be an issue Ill just get a cheap 10 gallon or something and put them in it.

I saw at the aqaurium they had some cheap tiny hoses, like the size of my air hose. and they were using it to cycle water between tanks.

 

[hlywkar]

in terms of territorial fish, I have used a breeding float box before to separate them fighters, then re introduce them to the tank. that sometimes works... I was thinking of getting on for the octo at first so the hermits wouldn't bother him.