Jestersix

EnderTurtle's 40 gallon breeder LPS

Enderturtle

Enderturtle

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Introduction

Ok so apologies but this is a tank journal that starts halfway through the journey but I'll give you a little history.

I have been reefing since January 2014. After spending about 1 week learning about saltwater reef tanks, I purchased a 40 gallon breeder acrylic set up that had been badly infested with almost all the pest species. Heres a list of what infested the tank:

Hair Algae, Bryopsis, green bubble algae, red bubble algae, aiptasia, ich. The guy's tank crashed and was selling his tank, sump, stand, and corals for 200$ I just had to drive 3 hours north to break it down and take it away.

Came with a 30 head frogspawn, armor of god palys, and a 30 head candy cane. Sold all corals for 140$ store credit.

This is what the craigslist ad picture looked like.

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Long story short I bleached the tank and live rock and cured for 2 months. Rocks were also cured using Phosfree. A phosphate binder. Having a heater and powerhead really sped up the process.

Full Tank Shot (10/24/2015
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Left Side of Tank (10/22/2015)
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Right Side of Tank (10/22/2015)
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Overview Picture (6/24/2014)

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Left Side of Tank (6/24/2014)

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Right Side of Tank (6/24/2014)
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Equipment:
  • Two Kessil 360WE LED Lights
  • Two Jebao WP-10 Wavemakers (One on Else Mode and One on Wave Mode)
  • Herbie Style Overflow
  • 20 Gallon Tall Glass Tank Sump
  • Reef Octopus NWB 110 Protein Skimmer
  • Refugium with Chaeto and 2lb Rock
  • JBJ ATO
  • Currently Dosing 2-Part and Tech M Magnesium
Clean Up Crew
  • 3 Blackfoot Trochus Snails
  • 1 Astrea Snail
  • 3 Mexican Turbo Snail
  • ~16 Blue-legged Hermit Crabs
  • 2 Stomatella Snails
  • 1 Fighting Conch
  • 2 Nassarius Snails Big
  • 2 Nassarius Snails Small (MIA for a while)
Fish
  • 2 Juvenile Oscellaris Clownfish (1 ORA 1 Wild from Bali)
  • 1 Unidentified Leopard Wrasse
  • 1 Juvenile Blue Tang
  • 1 Six-line Wrasse (In frag tank)
 

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That is a lot of balls to take on all that nasty as a noob! Your setup looks really clean now!

I can't wait to see it packed with color!
 
Get ready to be bombarded by pictures. I've convinced myself to update my journal and I am having fun taking pictures of my corals. :)


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  • Emeralds on Fire Zoas & Whammin Watermelon Zoas.



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  • Tricolor Acropora from Neptunes. Anyone know how to positively ID it?

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  • Rainbow Micromussa from Neptunes. Got it for 15$ at the Silent Auction :D


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  • Pink Orange and Blue Ricordea Florida from Gimmito. One of my favorites!
 

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You remember the "x-mas micromussa" during the BAR frag swap?

This was the x-mas one, but to me it's more of a rainbow. Neptunes donated it for the silent auction.
 
I got the same piece of the acro from neptunes also. Some of my buddies say its a garf bonsai but I'm still unsure until it grows a bit more either way its one of my favorites.
 
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Reactions: Nav
I always light acclimate them. Had some bad experiences with just placing some in a similar lighted location so now I move everything up slowly and have much better lick
 
No full tank shots tonight homie.

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  • Rose bubble-tipped anemone from Steve in Daily City.
    • I've had it for about 1 month now and he hasn't moved :)


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  • Red Montipora capricornus with Green Clown Goby.
    • My Green Clown Goby loves to perch on corals.
      • He doesn't move much which is why I was able to take his pictures.
      • Also my Clown Goby is not green, he's blue most of the time. I think due to the blue lighting.


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  • Side view of my Green Clown Goby doing what a clown goby does.

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  • Ring of Fire Zoas.
    • They do awesome in high light. Will be selling these soon.

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  • Ultra Orange Fungia. This thing glows orange like a muh fuh guh.
    • Also eats like a pig. I've stopped feeding it because I don't want it to grow too big. It's 3.5 inches when inflated
    • It has moved once since I put it in. Yeah Fungias can MOVE. He only moved like 3 inches but it was significant to me since their sting is REALLY strong. I've heard of euphyllias being killed by these.
 
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Nice picture of the anemone babe!!!! Also love the clown goby but you should try to get a shot of when he's sitting on the Dunkin and it starts trying to eat him and he doesn't move... Definitely not the brightest fish but hilarious to watch xD
 
Well I have semi-horrible news.

I've got DIGITATE HYDROIDS. What are digitate hydroids you ask? They're a type of cnidarian like our corals, except they look like a clear worm with little bubbles on the end. During the day they will swing their arm around to filter feed and catch copepods. At night they really go crazy and all of them will extend and sway around, trying to catch prey. Not to be confused with colonial hydroids. Those will kill your tank for sure.

This is what a digitate hydroid look like. And a video of how they look and move.

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How bad are they?

Well there are mixed reviews. Some people have taken down their entire tank, and acid bathed all of their equipment trying to control these. It's also believed that they will kill sps corals, zoanthids, and small benthic fish. I've read that Freshwater Dips and Coral Dips like Revive do not kill digitate hydroids.

Other people say they are harmless and will not affect corals and will go away. Some people who have followed this idea have let the population of digitate hydroids in their tanks explode.

While some people have noticed that their 20 or 30 digitate hydroids disappeared completely the next day.

I first noticed ONE of these in my tank. It came with a ball of Chaeto algae that I so gratefully got from a person on reefcentral. I left the chaeto in my sump refugium. I should have crushed this thing with an iron fist that day. But since I wasn't able to find any clues to identify this thing when I googled "white stringy worm in reef tank", I LEFT IT ALONE.

Then a month later there was one more digitate hydroid but in my display tank. I thought oh well there's just one. Now 6 months later there are probably 20 in my display tank. Swaying around. I dont know if I should attack this thing. It doesn't appear to prefer light and does just fine in the dark. That being said, it's probably behind and under my rockwork now. Making me feel that attacking it is pointless now. I should have dropped a nuclear bomb on this thing when there was just one. If you see one or a few, I would control it now. Save you the hassel of worrying.

The population boom occurred about the same time as my 3rd week without water changes (yeah I'm slacking! but I'll do more water changes now). I'll do some nitrate and phosphate tests now.

I don't see any damages to corals but hopefully this doesn't overrun my tank and kill my corals. I might quit reefing for a while if it does start bothering my reef.
 
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Ouch, didn't know there's such thing that could kill a tank!!! So sorry dude... Hope u can get it out/under control.

No medication or something that eats these hydroids?
 
Navdeep there are a lot of things that can overrun a tank to the point where you want to start over or give up. Bryopsis (very common), colonial hydroids, aptasia (very common), majano, cyano, dinoflaggelates, fire worms, flatworms, zoa pox, brown jelly disease, to name a few. Gotta educate ourselves to avoid things like this.

I read up on most of these things, digitate hydroids were just one species that escaped my research.

There are several effective ways to kill digitate hydroids examples being boiling hotwater, pulling with tweezers, kalkwasser paste. Even copper banded butterflies have eaten them. The problem is they exist in areas that I can't get to. There are too many places for them to hide in my live rock, e.g., in the back, underneath, and in the holes. I can spend days trying to hunt each one down but if there is just one left alive, they would all come back.

My plan is to ride it out and see what happens. They don't bother my corals or fish at the moment. If things get horrible, I'll throw a copper banded butterfly in and see what happens. And if that don't work i'd probably tear down my tank and store it away for a couple months until I want to start up.


~ MORE POSTS ON PAGE 2 ~
 
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