Live rock with surprises!

[newkidfish]

Hi, my daughter & I have been setting up her first marine tank, see below for setup details.
Levels:SG 1.0215, Alkalinity Normal, PH 8.2, Ammonia 0.00145ppml.

Our aquarium shop suggested that we needed to now add live rock to begin the cycling of the tank. We purchased 5kg of live rock last night, 2 bits from figi with some coraline growth and one from Tonga. The tonga piece has some polips, some pinkish red coraline growth and some orange lumpy bits (which have today got some thin white and red strippy strands extruding from them) We have also seen crawling over the coral a very small object (aprox 0.5cm diameter)that looks a bit like a staf fish greyish in colour and fatish in shape. It came from a retailers tank with star fish in, could this be a baby star fish and if so can you recommend a site for identification of it and what should I feed it or do to care for it?

I will try and get a phot to post, but it has crawled out of site!!!typical

Jewel RIO 180 with internal heater & filter, Fluval 306 filter, red sea berlin skimmer, 1 marine glow 30w antinic & one power glow 30w for lighting. RO water & red sea salt mix. coral sand base (we have gone over with magnet rinsed in tap water & ro water). KH + pH buffer (salifert) added to try & raise PH. Red sea NitroBac bio starter added.

 

[buleetu]

hi there,
i have the same tank as u and ur daughter,with a few little exceptions,i would love to see a picture of it,take a look at mine,u have a lot of red sea equipment,they must have loads of it in ur lfs,hows ur cycle going?my tank just finished cycling today,im going to let it settle for a few days before i do a major water change,why did u run a magnet over ur sand?was it to take out any metal?
ok ill talk to u both later,good luck

 

[newkidfish]

Sorry couldn't see ur picture! We have only had tank up and running 2 weeks so at start of cycle, live rock is our first addition, have managed to take a few pics, hopefully they are now attached, one of unidentified sea slug (very small will need to zoom to find) and one of orange stuff!!

 

[newkidfish]

sorry don't know how to add more than one pic at a time so heres the orange stuff.

 

[Anonymous]

The orange stuff is a sponge. Noting to worry about. I can not see the seaslug in that pic.

 

[newkidfish]

slug is by polyp, below orange sponge very small spiky with yellow ish tips, (sadly it had slid of the glass before I could get my camera to photo it) its about .5cm above blue arrow head.
Can u see it now?

 

[Anonymous]

I can see where you are explaining, but can not make out any details.

 

[newkidfish]

Sorry I only have a little digital camera, I have tried to copy & enlarge a couple of images see attached...they are a bit blurred Im afraid

 

[Anonymous]

It is not somthing I can ID.

 

[SnowManSnow]

It's some sort of nudibranch I think. I'm at the office, so I can't look it up for you. You'll want to make sure it doesn't munch on your zoas. If you see it eating on them you'll want to pick it off and return it to the LFS.

Have your zoos opened yet?

Looking good!

Congrats on your first tank!

B

 

[newkidfish]

Thanks everyone for the comments and info. I am not sure if the slug is eating the Zoa it's hard to tell at moment, have also spotted another smaller snail of similar colouring..I hope they don't take over the tank!

Some of the zoa has opened - see photo, but I am a little worried that it may die off as I anticipate the ammonia and nitrite levels to spike as this is the first living organisms put in the tank.

The little grey star shaped crustations seem to be eating the red coraline algae, once they have moved off a bit it is bleached white. I have spotted about five of these tiny things so far, but they are proving hard to photo.

 

[Meloco14]

Wow thats the nicest live rock I've ever seen that's just come out of the store.

 

[waymack97]

asterina starfish. maybe. i had some zoos live through my cycle. maybe your will.
_________________
roll a joint

 

[WRASSER]

it looks like a tube anenome or something along that line, did you order the rock or buy it at a lfs

 

[newkidfish]

Hi all, thanks for all comments & support, will try and answer all questions asked...
1) magnet used on sand to remove ferrous metal particals - we found several bits surprisingly.
2)Live rock came from lfs, It was part of an old batch that had been in one of the fish display tanks, my daughter took a fancy to it and the shop guy sold it to us as live rock although strictly speaking I don't think he should have - it must have been my daughters charm that made him do it! :wink:
3) I've caught the slug this morning and 2 star fish & removed from tank as worried about the impact they are having on coraline algae and zoas. hope lfs want them back as don't have heart to dispose of them!!

 

[newkidfish]

Thanks waymack97 for the possible star fish name, I've checked the web and It is the same as those documented....I am now arming myself with tweezers as it appears they can have population explosions and eat corel
I just hope I don't break any bits off as don't want them to multiply that way.

 

[buleetu]

that live rock is lovely,i think u done really well to get that,what u should do is ask the lfs to take back that stuff until ur tank is cycled and then stick them back in,what are u going to use for amm for the cycle?

 

[SnowManSnow]

seems to reason out that if the rock was in a healthy reef tank at the LFS then there shouldn't be anything on it to harm whats there. Your spikes will probably knock off the stars and slugs..

make sure you're running your skimmer 24-7 while you cycle.

b

 

[newkidfish]

Hi all, have tweezered off 7 starfish and 2 sea slugs - I missed one at first and you should see what it did to my zoa :x
I had no mercy with him and sqished him between my tweezers!
Have gone back to LFS and bought more live rock, with lots of microscopic bits in to try and start cycle - ammonia has risen a little but is not off scale yet..
I have even aquired a brittle star fish, that was hiding in one of the holes in the rock (when I saw it's leg initially I thought it was a bristle worm) and sadly a flatwork found on the glass - this I removed immediately . from readings so far I think it is safe for the tank, would welcome any comments to the contrary. Its only about 3cm diameter white with central flat disk and spiky legs, I will try and ID from internet sites and hopefully find out more.

 

[Meloco14]

Most brittle stars are safe. Whether he will survive the cycle or not is a different story. They are quite sensitive to water quality. Serpent stars, the ones that are smooth, can sometimes get large enough to eat fish. But yours with spiky legs should be safe, AFAIK.