i ordered 30lbs of liverock from liverocks.com

[tim_coville_]

well, i ordred 30lbs of liverock from liverocks.com. well when i opened the box, was impressed with the colors/sponges, i even got a good sized seprent star.

with that said, good comes with the bad... i found a good amount of dead snails at the bottom (i know it cant be garentee'd, but still dissapointing :() but, i have discovered on my rock, 4 aiptasia, all on diff rocks.

also, my serpent star after about 2 hours of moving, got on a rock and released all this brown pellets into the water...waht was it doing?

i also have a red sea squirt which is cool.

overall, i like the product, but am dissapointed i now have a aiptasia problem. maybe when my ammonia/nitrite levels hit zero ill get some pepperment shrimp..

well, ill try to get a pic going, but if anyone has any comments.

i figure i got to wait a couple days to observe all the hitchhikers on the rock, but i hant seen any crabs/shrimp yet, hopefully i got some because that would be nice you know.


ALSO since i put my liverock in, a lot of air is going into my overflow tube causing large bubble pops in my sump every 10 seconds, anyway to fix that? its probably just my set up or displacement, but is there anyways to fix this?

[FishinInTheDark]

Tim,

My experience has been the most snail and crab hitchhikers are bad. It's better to pick and choose what goes in your tank.

The starfish is probably just releasing waste.

I'm not sure about the overflow issue. Maybe lower the water level?

Congrats on new rock!

[tim_coville_]

Yeah, I fixed the overflow problem, I just drilled another whole throw my intake cap to help release air...works great, and lower sound too!

My biggest problem with the rock is getting aiptasia, I mean, I put it in and started to go back and fourth and got all excited you know :) than I found a couple more and than remembered a rock anenome that was bad for your tank, what do you know, I look it up and it's exactly what I have.

I recieved 5 good sized peices, and about 3-4 smaller ones that work well as ascent peices, but 3 of the 4 aiptasia are on 3 of the bigger including a rock with about 3-4 diff colored sponges on it...

Kind of bummed be out, but this rock def finished off the aquascaping job and really filled out the tnak, now I have about 160-170lbs of liverock in my 90gallon with a 29 gallon refugium/sump...

Now all I need is cheato...I need to talk to condiman.

Any other adivce on removing the aiptasia? I heard peppermint shrimp are natural predator...

[DKWICK]

Do you have some pics of all this items your talking about? It would be great to see pics of what came on your rock.

DKWICK

[tim_coville_]

yeah ive been tyring to hunt down my camera, no luck yet...

[FishinInTheDark]

Sometimes, peps eat aiptasia. I've heard lots of people say they don't, too. I have had good luck using them. I have also heard great reviews about Joes's Juice for aiptasia. (The nice thing about that, if it works, is that you won't have hungry shrimp picking at other polyps in your tank after the aiptasia is gone. I once found my rhodactis digesting a peppermint shrimp, and I bet it was trying to steal food from the mushroom and got caught.) You can also shoot hot kalk or hot lemon juice into aiptasia to kill them. Just get a diabetic's hypodermic needle from a pharmacy to administer those.

[tim_coville_]

hmm, i didnt know peppermints aint corals/polyps.....

i would really prefer the more natural way of handling it....from my other experiences with chems...

i had no clue peppermints ate corals haha, interesting..

[FishinInTheDark]

Well, they don't eat all corals. They definitely eat yellow dancers and other polyps that resemble aiptasia. Besides that, they steal food from the mouths of other corals. I had some for quite a while, and they eradicated my aiptasia. I didn't have any yellow dancers then. Now that I have new rock, and new aiptasia, I don't think I'll get peps. I think I'll lemon juice them.

[tim_coville_]

hmm, maybe i can get the peppermints than add some coral banded to take care of them :P

[tim_coville_]

found 2 new polyps of aiptasia.... dang, tomorrow im going to figure out how to fix this...its annoying me..and to top if off, 1 of them moved to the biggest rock in my tank which is on the bottom, no way of geting that out.

the little bugger. im going to have to go to war...

[tim_coville_]

holy crap, i look closer on my rock and it seems to be on almost every peice. what kind of rock is this. im sorry, but, i just cant see why there are so many of these things on aquacultured rock :(

[DKWICK]

Got to find a pic for us to see it. :)

[Sugar Magnolia]

I've had good luck with peps. After my aiptasia was gone, I fed the pep and my cleaner shrimp sinking pellets a couple of times a week. I guess keeping it well fed kept mine from munching on any of my polps, but then again I didn't have any yellow polyps in the tank. I think since your tank is so new and so full of aiptasia, it might not hurt to put one in and let him take a stab at eating the aiptasia. If it doesn't, they're easy enough to catch and you could take it back to the LFS for credit.

[FishinInTheDark]

Tim,

Why do you think that aquacultured live rock should not have aiptasia? It was in the ocean. You just never know what you're going to get, but I have never seen rock fresh from the ocean without aiptasia. It's just part of the game!

[Doctor_Reef]

Ditto's with Conni.....All of us that have LR in our tanks have had to deal with the unwanted critters as well as the wanted...that is the trade off...Just keep on top of it and you can manage it....

[DKWICK]

"The ocean's like a box of chocolates, you never know what your gonna get!"
:)

[Doctor_Reef]

How funny...and how true!!!! :)

[tim_coville_]

Tim,

Why do you think that aquacultured live rock should not have aiptasia? It was in the ocean. You just never know what you're going to get, but I have never seen rock fresh from the ocean without aiptasia. It's just part of the game!

Yeah I guess, I was just a little panicky haha.

Last night I took some of that stuff in the bottle, Lemon Juice. Heated it up and squirted it on all the polyps I saw and repeated till they stopped coming out, then I squirted it In there hiding holes.

PLus the one that moved to a bigger rock didn't have a hole, so I reached in and just ripped him out.

Hopefully that will do me, I might buy 1 peppermint shrimp to take care of any new ones that pop up in hiddin places on the rock I can't get to, I will work around him eating other corals...

[Doctor_Reef]

I have had several peps in my system, have three now and they are great at getting the aptasia and leave all the other coral alone...So not all will bother your coral...
If you buy them from reeftopia...they come form waters that they are used to eating aptasia and will generally eat it in your tank...I have had good success with reeftopia peps....

[Zack]

The best way to rid these is to mix kalk powder with a small amount water making it very milky looking. After that, take a turkey baster and shoot a small amount at the rock anemone and bag it is gone. Has worked for me 20+ times.

[Doctor_Reef]

Zack is right on with the kalk mix, works great...hot water in a feeding syringe works also....I have had good luck with that too...there are lots of alternatives that people use...the point being is that this is a manageable problem...

[tim_coville_]

the lemon juice seems to be doing the trick...thansk for your help.

im going to keep hitting them lemon juice evertime i see a new one or existing ones, but its working.

when my levels balance im going to get a pepperminut shrimp to take care of any little ones on the orck...

[Doctor_Reef]

Just keep after them and you will get em...

[bigfoot]

you should try to save them i would put some in you fuge they eat ick good little defense mechanism and nature would not have em around unless they did something :)