great advice from reef cleaners

R

rschneid

New member
So I felt I should pass this on. I am setting up a new 75g tank with refugium. I really wanted to but a bunch of algae and critters to seed the refugium, but John Maloney at reef cleaners steered me away from that, twice. Basically he said just get one thing and wait for everything to cycle. He could have sold me a much bigger pile of stuff (especially since thats what I wanted to do). Anyway they have my business going forward. PATIENCE.... very important in this activity.

For the record, beauty is clearly in the eye of the beholder. My tank has a sand bed. A pile of water. 1 pc of live rock. Thats it. Despite this apparent dead zone, my daughter and my wife are spending a ridiculous amount of time staring into the tank. There was a hitchhiker of some kind in the rock (I don't know what it is, but it looks like a 3 legged starfish the size of penny or something, or maybe a ball of lint. Its name is "The Dude". It is sort of hypnotizing...About once every 5 minutes it waves a tentacle. [pitiful really]
Possibly in the far future when there are (hopefully) actual corals in there to look at, my whole family will become immobilized and incapable of carrying on their normal functions?

Rich S.
 
Hi Rich. Thanks for sharing. I've always had good experiences with reefcleaners/John. And I second his recommendation to you; no need for livestock until after your tank cycles. Your patience will pay off. ☺
 
please remember that there is really almost nothing at all in this tank. So only the heaviest of scrutiny ever would have detected the 3 armed dude. For a while we were not sure if it was alive. Or for that matter if it was even marine. We had a lively debate as whether or not it was fluff ball.. Finally it clearly did move across the sand against the current. But its really really small and the three arms are even tinier. I did look at the google site and I could not see anything that matched it. PLEASE remember I am a super nOObie. I make to claims as to what I saw other than it was something.
 
No probs.. I am a noob my self and learning something everyday. Patience is all it takes, and lots of reading on the sites.. Without this site I would prob fail..
 
Most likely one of thosr star fish people buy harlequin shrimp ti eat cause they eat coraline and irritate zoas they spread quick realeasing arms that regenerate into other stars . I forget name but some body will kniw ehat im taking about
 
madjoe said:
Most likely one of thosr star fish people buy harlequin shrimp ti eat cause they eat coraline and irritate zoas they spread quick realeasing arms that regenerate into other stars . I forget name but some body will kniw ehat im taking about
Click to expand...

Asterina stars. I have plenty of them in my tank but their population has stayed stable. I've also never really had coralline on my glass.

Looking at stuff on live rock can be pretty interesting. Years ago, I noticed a black spiny thing about half the size of a dime. About a year after that, it was a large long spine urchin! Really cool.
 
Ok so using my iphone i took a movie of IT. its dead center in this movie. The single arm, which is coming out of a hole in the rock is about 3/4 of an inch long. This is presumably a bigger version of "The Dude" who is now MIA.
So coincidentally the arm appears to be "getting" something at the exact time I shot the video ... lucky me... So everyone what is it?
Again I think this probably is a lot of overkill for pretty empty tank.

[video=youtube;3CWAr9mRkY4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CWAr9mRkY4&feature=youtu.be[/video]

Rich S.
 
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Thanks Mad Joe! I looked it up and its definitely a banded tiger serpent star! My first marine acquisition. Not sure how many legs there are as this guy seems to be stuck in a hole and all I have seen is one arm and he is very small!
Thanks!
 
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