Seahorse Club
Aquarium & Livestock

Feed Ezy Frozen Mysis

Seahorse Club
Aquarium & Livestock

Feed Ezy Frozen Mysis

Seahorse Club
Aquarium & Livestock

Feed Ezy Frozen Mysis

Seahorse Club
Aquarium & Livestock

Feed Ezy Frozen Mysis

Seahorse Club
Aquarium & Livestock

Feed Ezy Frozen Mysis

Seahorse Club
Aquarium & Livestock

Feed Ezy Frozen Mysis

Silt problem

Viewing 3 posts - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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  • #777
    curio06
    Member

    When I was at the LFS buying supplies to set up my old tank, I remembered reading something about how dark colored gravel worked better to show off seahorses colors. So I put my argonite sand back on the shelf and picked up this gray-black sand that was for sale. It looks great but is incredibly dusty. I thought I had rinsed it well enough but I was wrong. I have ridiculous amounts of dust/silt in my tank now. I just bought new filter cartridges and have siphoned out about 5 gallons worth of gray cloudy water. Does anyone have any advise for me on how to get rid of the silt that is clouding up my tank? Will the filter take care of it if I keep stirring it up? Should I add some argonite sand/gravel to it? Should I just admit defeat and dump out the tank and start again with a different type of substrate?
    Thank you!
    Curio06

    #2374
    curio06
    Guest

    I think the new filter cartridge is doing the trick! The old one must’ve just gotten too clogged up with silt.
    I was planning on buying some live sand/rock this Thursday to help my tank cycle. Should I go ahead and buy a few "clean up crew" members such as hermit crabs and snails or should I wait and let my tank cycle with the new live rock first?
    Thanks!
    Curio06

    #2378
    Pete Giwojna
    Guest

    Dear Curio:

    I’m glad to hear you’ve resolved that problem with the silty substrate. Fine particles will clog up filter cartridges relatively quickly, so just keep cleaning and replacing your filter cartridge until the water is crystal clear and you should be good to go.

    Yes, it’s a good idea to cycle the aquarium first before you install the cleanup crew. Otherwise the high ammonia and nitrite levels that occur during the cycling process can be deadly to your aquarium janitors. But once the aquarium has cycled, and the ammonia and nitrite levels have dropped to zero, it’s a good idea to introduce your sanitation engineers before anything else.

    I prefer a cleanup crew consisting of a mixture of assorted snails and micro hermits (heavy on the snails but light on hermits) at a density of up to 1-2 janitors per gallon. The snail assortment may include bumble bee snails, trocha snails, margaritas, Astrea and Cerith snails, red foot Moon snails, etc., but especially Nassarius snails.

    Nassarius snails are terrific detritivores and amazingly active for snails. They’ll bury themselves until they detect the scent of something edible, and then erupt from the sand and charge out to clean it up.

    For best results, Astrea sp. snails should go in the tank as soon as the ammonia and nitrite levels are down to zero in order to keep nuisance algae from gaining a foothold in your tank. Introduced as soon as possible to a new aquarium, that has reached this cycling phase, Astrea snails effectively limit the development of all microalgae. In other words, they are good at eating diatoms, but will consume red slime and green algae as well.

    For hermits, I like a combination of Dwarf Blue-leg (Clibanarius tricolor), Left-handed (Calcinus laevimanus), Mexican Red Legged Hermits (Clibanarius digueti) and above all, Scarlet Reef hermit crabs (Paguristes cadenati), which are my personal favorites.

    The Scarlet Reef Hermit Crab (Paguristes cadenati) is a colorful micro-hermit that’s a harmless herbivore. So cannibalism isn’t a concern at all for these fellows, nor are they likely to develop a taste for escargot. As hermits go, most of the time the Scarlet Reefs are perfect little gentleman and attractive to boot. I even use them in my dwarf seahorse tanks. Best of all, they eat all kinds of algae, including nuisance algae such as red, green and brown slimes, as well as green hair algae.

    Stick with hermits like the above, which are known as micro hermits because they start out tiny and stay small. Avoid Anomura species of hermit crabs no matter how small they are, however, because they will kill Astraea snails to obtain their shells.

    A mixture of the snails and micro hermits listed above provides a very good balance of herbivores, omnivores, and detritivores that are all active scavengers and completely compatible with seahorses. They will clean up meatier leftovers such as frozen Mysis as well as helping to control nuisance algae.

    After the tank has been up and running for several months, you can add a few large Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) and/or Scarlet Cleaner Shrimp or Skunk Cleaner Shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis) to complete your cleanup crew and add a touch of color and activity to the tank.

    Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) are a favorite with seahorse keepers because they eat Aiptasia rock anemones, and both the peppermints and Scarlet cleaner shrimp (Lysmata amboinensis) will perform another useful service by grooming the seahorses and cleaning them of ectoparasites. As an added bonus, they reproduce regularly in the aquarium, producing swarms of larval nauplii that the seahorses love to eat.

    Just remember, it is important to select the largest possible cleaner shrimp for your seahorse tank(s). Seahorses will actively hunt small cleaner shrimp and they are quite capable of killing shrimp that are far too big to swallow whole, so the cleaners need to be large enough that they are not regarded as potential prey.

    Another thing to keep in mind when introducing cleaner shrimp to your aquarium is that they are more sensitive to water quality and rapid changes in pH, temperature, or salinity than fishes are, meaning the shrimp need to be acclimated more carefully and gradually. Whereas drip acclimation should be avoided for seahorses that have been on the shipping bag for 24 hours or more, it is the perfect way to acclimate delicate shrimp from your LFS. They will do best it drip acclimated to the new aquarium over a period of several hours to allow them to adjust to any differences in the water parameters very gradually.

    Shrimp that are introduced to a new aquarium too abruptly will not flourish and are liable to die within a day or two from the stress of acclimation, unable to adjust to any significant differences in pH or salinity, or they simply fail to thrive and expire a week or two later for no apparent reason. If the shock is too great, they will autotomize, dropping legs, claws and/or antennae immediately upon being introduced to the new aquarium conditions.

    Best of luck with your new seahorse setup, Curio!

    Happy Trails!
    Pete Giwojna

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