Reef nutrition

Reef STDs from swap ;)

Darcy Vasudev

Darcy Vasudev

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Hey everyone! I got some really amazing frags today, thank you all so much for your generosity. However, I got two containers that did not have a giver's name on them and lo and behold those were the two containers that appeared to have pests. :( :( :(

On the freebie table: the green polyped toadstool "beginner pack" - planaria, aiptasia and bubble algae . I'm doing an extra long dip and and going to manually remove the aiptasia.

And an unidentified chalice coral seems to possibly have bryopsis algae. I'm considering just refragging it and throwing away the base. Really can not afford to deal with bryopsis again.

I don't want to seem ungrateful, but an outbreak of any of these things in my small tank could be an absolute disaster. It would also be a total mess for a beginner, and do we really want any of these things coming back to haunt us later on? "The gift that keeps on giving".

Anyway, pleaaaaase, if you have pests, label it as a known issue! Unfortunately, dips do nothing for aiptasia or invasive alga.

Will update with the rest of my loot later. Thanks again ya'll! xoxo
 
When in doubt, throw it out. With that combination of nasty pests. I would toss it unless you can get everything off. Dip and inspect your corals everyone!

:) that being said, I got some really nice stuff too! I'm gonna post some of my loot soon.

I hope everyone's happy with their raffles/silent auctions. We'll make the quality even better at the next swap! More prizes too! Will work on it. Promise! :D
 
Yep, there's definitely the assumption that you have to make when frag swapping... Nothing is safe/clean.

With that said, be careful when choosing your coral! Also, we'll see what we can do to improve on this.


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I would suggest that if people can't have the b@lls to put their name on their frags, they should not be able to put them in the swap. At least there can be some accountability with a name and a pest disclosure.
 
Hmmm. All frags entering the actual frag swap area must have their username on the frag cup.

The free stuff section has been unregulated for a while. We are using our volunteers to cruise the frag swap area. If we have extra volunteers we could have them watch the freebie area but you're usually not gonna find anything amazing in that area. I usually don't grab anything but dry goods in that area.

For anyone else reading this, treat every frag from any frag swap,, from any person, from any store as if it's covered with aiptasia, bubble algae, flatworms etc.

We will try to improve on this.
 
The un ID'd chalice was in the regular swap area. :( What I did was fragged it again, and dipped it and threw out the remainder of the frag and base. The freebie section had some green-polyped toadstools and of course the regular GSP, xenia, Capnella. I think it's worth monitoring the freebie section. I will be happy to volunteer next time to manage that section. Would really hate for a beginner, or someone re-entering the hobby after a hiatus (such as myself) to end up with a whole tank full of pests.
 
:) That sounds awesome Darcy we would love to have you volunteer.

Honestly this club survives off of volunteers. The hours that we put into preparing for the club, picking up pizza, putting out signs, contacting sponsors, getting people registered, getting the room ready, posting threads, etc are all voluntary. The Board of Directors and BAR's Volunteers don't get paid anything to do this. And we do it for BAR so that y'all can have a good time and promote our clubs mission statement.
 
I always set up my 5 gallon tank for any coral swap, and frankly, anything that I buy from anywhere. New arrivals get dipped and then go into invert quarantine tank for observation and usually repeated dips to make sure that I don't miss any eggs (since all the dips don't usually kill any eggs).
 
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my bad on the freebee stuff. I didn't realize there was an aiptasia in it, I was just tossing stuff in there from the refugium and what not. Planaria is easy enough to deal with though, Flatworm eXit kills it, is tank safe, but of course treat everything like it's infected. Bubble algae, flick it off, it happens, algae is hardly a "pest" though.

That said, sorry for potentially infecting newbies. I'll make sure to not to put anything on the freebee table unless I go over it with a fine toothed comb.
 
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On a somewhat related note, I would like to point out that many of the "freebee" corals that go on those tables very easily can be just as weedy/invasive if not more than any pest in our tank.

And sure while one might argue that they are making a choice to pick that coral, more often than not they don't know any better.
 
I forgive you @sfsuphysics ;)
I have had serious issues with bubble algae and bryopsis in the past, and I can safely say that I've never had xenia or capnella be as much as a problem as those alga, so I'd respectfully have to disagree on that one. In fact I had to dismantle an entire tank because of bryopsis. Really my point was simply that disclosure should simply be mandatory in the reef swingers club. ;) Anyway, I'm happy to be back in the club and looking forward to volunteering again as I think it has been nearly 10 years since I was in the club!
 
Oh, and one more thing, whomever the incognito donor who put the bryposis infested "chalice" into the main swap, that is not a chalice, it's some kind of montipora. I would love more info, such as a common name, and since I have fragged it and gotten rid of the algae part, I have also forgiven you. ;) For the sake of the log-book, any info on species ID, common name, lighting would be appreciated. It is light in color with a pinkish edging.
 
I don't know, I was floating around in the BARE days, was never officially a part of the club, just participated at the reef central forum they had, something about it made me a bit queezy about joining, seemed like lots of friction. Then when BAR emerged like a butterfly from a chrysalis is when I hopped on. I still remember that first frag swap outside of Tropical Paradise, where they had troughs with water, and they fragged stuff on the spot.
 
Well doing some internet detective work, I found one of my old build threads on my personal SFSU webpage still. Shows my first "BIG tank was January 2004, and I think my little 10g tank I started with was a couple months before that... man that was more than 10 years ago, where'd my walker go!

tank072104.jpg

Good times! Seio power heads, rockwall style of construction, super DUPER tiny HOB overflow box (which flooded more than once which is why my tanks are not upstairs on the, used to be, nice wood floors), think I had 4 power compact bulbs over it, caulerpa in there, green star polyps, brown palythoas, colt coral, kenya tree, and Fred the leather toadstool. All on the not eligible list for frag swaps now :D

Damn wish I had a larger/higher resolution version of that picture, I think I see a teeny tiny foxface right in the center, it's about as big as one of the chromis! (he wasn't tiny for too long)
 
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