Cindy
July 26th 04, 03:54 AM
Newbie here, been lurking around reading today and decided I would ask some
questions. I kept a couple large (a 50 and a 150) marine tanks with UG
filters with great success years ago, but moved about the time reef-keeping
was getting popular and haven't set them back up.
Now I have a mini-reef in an 8-gal. hex with 1 1/2-2" of sand (started with
live sand from Petco, don't hit me) maybe 10 lbs. of live rock, a Whisper
Jr. filter and one airstone. It's been set up for maybe 6 months. All I
have in there is the rock, its inhabitants, some Aptasia anemones and a few
unidentified small anemones, a bunch of hermit crabs, a turbo snail and some
kind of clear shrimp.
*When I move the rock around and/or rinse the filter pad, I get little
glasslike spines in my hands, kind of like the teeny hair spines on prickly
pear cacti. This just started in the past month after I added some new rock
and the filter. What would these be from? (I rinsed the filter very well
before I used it and got no spines then, so I don't think they came from it,
but could be wrong.)
*There are a lot of brown tube-worm looking things and one brown/white
striped one that stretch out sometimes almost an inch from holes in the rock
and eat stuff.
*There are little white bug things and little brown beetley-looking bugs.
Little teeny. And tiny whitish opaque slug-looking things. Are they good?
*I did have a bunch of teeny feather dusters and some tube-like algae
growing, but to my shame I let the tank get dirty and lost the algae and
most of the dusters. Will they come back?
*What are the ethics of collecting your own hermit crabs, gobies, anemones,
rock and such? We go to the beach occasionally (Gulf Coast) and there are a
few man-made rocky areas/tide pools along the shore where they dumped brick,
concrete, etc., to hold the shoreline. Is it okay to pick up critters?
Cindy
questions. I kept a couple large (a 50 and a 150) marine tanks with UG
filters with great success years ago, but moved about the time reef-keeping
was getting popular and haven't set them back up.
Now I have a mini-reef in an 8-gal. hex with 1 1/2-2" of sand (started with
live sand from Petco, don't hit me) maybe 10 lbs. of live rock, a Whisper
Jr. filter and one airstone. It's been set up for maybe 6 months. All I
have in there is the rock, its inhabitants, some Aptasia anemones and a few
unidentified small anemones, a bunch of hermit crabs, a turbo snail and some
kind of clear shrimp.
*When I move the rock around and/or rinse the filter pad, I get little
glasslike spines in my hands, kind of like the teeny hair spines on prickly
pear cacti. This just started in the past month after I added some new rock
and the filter. What would these be from? (I rinsed the filter very well
before I used it and got no spines then, so I don't think they came from it,
but could be wrong.)
*There are a lot of brown tube-worm looking things and one brown/white
striped one that stretch out sometimes almost an inch from holes in the rock
and eat stuff.
*There are little white bug things and little brown beetley-looking bugs.
Little teeny. And tiny whitish opaque slug-looking things. Are they good?
*I did have a bunch of teeny feather dusters and some tube-like algae
growing, but to my shame I let the tank get dirty and lost the algae and
most of the dusters. Will they come back?
*What are the ethics of collecting your own hermit crabs, gobies, anemones,
rock and such? We go to the beach occasionally (Gulf Coast) and there are a
few man-made rocky areas/tide pools along the shore where they dumped brick,
concrete, etc., to hold the shoreline. Is it okay to pick up critters?
Cindy