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| Build a Nano Reef Day 99-127 |
| 08/19/04 Day 99 20:19 The usefullness of the turkey baster The turkey baster is one of the most useful and inexpensive tool that a marine aquarist may need. For about three dollars or less, you can purchase one at your local grocery store. With a turkey baster you can blast up detritus off the rocks. This will help supend the particles in the water just long enough for the mechanical filter to pick up (if you still have a sponge in the filter), keeping the rocks clean for coraline growth, and keep some of the nutrients required for algae growth away. You can also use it to suck up, detritus, shrimp molts, foreign particles, uneatten food, anenome feces, and many other stuff you don't want in the water that may very well end up polluting the water all too soon. Using a turkey baster religiously will keep your nano tank nitrate levels low, prevent algae growth on rocks, and most of all, it just makes you feel great inside that you care about keeping your Jbj nano cube inhabitants healthy : ) |
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| 08/22/04 Day 102 13:54 The Montipora Capricornis Nudibranch eatter What what what is this?! A Monti Cap eatting nudi?! Because of these pesty little buggers, half of my Monti cap is dying. Holy crap.....well I am going to try the Oomed reef coral dip method as suggested by Tracey Gray at Reef Farmers. 19:12 Since Oomed was not available, I tried Kent Marine Tech D instead. Hopefully things will work out. Countinued on 09/16/04 At first Tech D seem to have some success after as many as 3 dips of overdosed water with Tech D. As of now, the cuprit has returned to do further damage. I am assuming that a batch of eggs survived the dip, and has recently hatched. The damage continues, and my green montipora will soon be nothing more that a unique calcium skeleton structure. Yesturday, I did another dip of Tech D. About two caps were used from the 16 ounce bottle, and the dip time period was about 10 minutes. As I watched carefully at the Nudibranches in the Tech D diluted saltwater, they don't seem even shrivel in the solution, instead they crawl about the container for as long as 30 minutes before they seems to have curled up and became inactive. At this point I think that the Nudibranch is deador very ill. I have also noticed that big anthropods are able to survive the soulution for as long as 20-30 minutes. If this damge continues any further to the monti cap, I will have to obtain the Oomed somewhere fast. Tech D is not used to kill parisites, but I wanted to test it to see if It would. For now, the best thing to do in this situation is to remove as many Nudibranches as possible, manually with a small pipette. |
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| 09/16/04 Day 127 14:05 My Bi-color Blenny is territorial My Blenny is territorial, and will attack hermits and snails that get too close to his home which is on the the highest rock. bigger hermits such as the electric blue or a halloween hermit are sometimes cabable of hanging on to the rock as my blenny tries to head butt them off the rock, but other creatures such as small Margarita or Astrea snails will get knocked off the rock easily. In most cases, the snails will be on their back, and without any attention, they will get eatten by a large hermit. However, hermits that get knocked off the rocks are able to right them self back up on the substrate. Okay, to wrap things up, I just want to say that a snial or two wiill probably die in your Jbj nano cube every once in a while, so expect to get them replaced! |