NPS Dedicated Tank - Take 2

@xtreme Please do not keep live gorgonians with sea horses. Even though it is a natural thing in the ocean, you must remeber that our tanks cannot be compared to it. In short, what happens is that the seahorse will curl it's tail around the gorgonian to anchor. This causes the gorgonian polyps to close - hense they do not feed. Also, seahorses sometimes does the "fireman pole" thing to a gorgonian, where they basically "slide" up and down the branches, and this leads to polyp stripping and death to the gorgonian. I would really never keep seahorses with live gorgs, rather ask the LFS if they have dead gorgonians and use them... ;)

@Dane Thank you so much for the compliment!!! Not a god yet though... hehehehe

@butcherman So wanna come over to the dark side do you? Well then we will need to meet up as my fingers will never be able to type as fast as my brain can think so I would be able to tell you what and why and how...

With regards to more info; I am also part of azoox.org, but in all honesy there is not much on it. Guys basically just post what they have, and to ask a questions can take days to be answered, not like here on MASA. All the knowledge I have gained is from combining many read ups on many aspects on reef keeping. NPS keeping is not difficult, what is difficult is understanding flow, filtration, food etc. Most NPS write ups will tell you "only expert reefers" and "low light" and "perfect water params" but nothing really elaborates further than that. Only but a few sites realy delve deep into taxonomy etc.

Then the other issue is that info is quite limited, as NPS keeping is fairly new. I have also not seen a denominator in the "perfect way to keep NPS"... It really is as with other system a core concept, and you put the flesh around it to suite your needs.

NPS tanks can also not really be shown off to your buddies during the day. Even if you feed them withing daylight time, they still only really show their true form at night. So if you have a dayjob that is all nice, but some people work at night, so they will never really see the tank in it's full splendour!!!!

But I am more than keen on helping you set up - really. Would love to have a padawan, then I can teach the power of the dark side... :biggrin:
 
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I think to convert you 100%, you should swing around after work soon, then I can show you the whole works, how I feed and then you can decide whether or not you are up for the challenge.

Remember, it is a daily thing. You cannot go on holiday 7 times a year for three weeks in a row... hehehehehe... The dark side REALLY clouds your life...

Lemme know when you wanna pop around.
 
butcherman said:
So how often and how long do you go on holiday Jaco?
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Was on holiday in December for a week and a half. That was the first time in 5years no joke!!!

My idea of holiday is staring at my tank with a drink in the hand, and the wife and the kids gone to the shops... :lol: Thank God my wife does not come onto MASA...:whistling:
 
Ja listen, I mean one can go on holiday but you will need someone to feed the tank and make sure all is well - daily or at least every second day. i was lucky as RobertKukla stays 400m from me. I would never let a non reefer look after my NPS though...:eek:

But once you need to go on holiday you make a plan. Robert did what he was told, and stuck by the rules, so my tank did 100% fine.
 
butcherman said:
Jaco what CUC do you have in this tank, if any?
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No real CUC... I have a two hermet crabs, but most food is consumed by the NPS coral. I have many many pods and stuff though, as nothing is really hunting them.

I have kept firefish that are excellent in helping eat excess food in that drifts past, but I have lost all three to stingin from aiptasia...

I have a huge aiptasia problem at the moment. All my energy is going into getting it under control. I have introduced a CBB over the weekend and it did a good job taking out all the tube worms, but no aips yet...

I have ordered peppermint shrimp too.

Pretty much that is all the CUC I use. No snails as there is no algae, and becuase I only feed live food, they swim untill eaten, so no frozen stuff getting "vrot"...
 
Update time...

I have been battling with the tank over the last few weeks... The coral are all doing incredibly well and I have about 2cm growth on the Whip Coral which is INSANE... I will post some pics later about that...

My struggle as some may know came in the form of Aiptasia... It grew rapidly due to heavy feeding of live brine nauplii, and to such an extent that drastic counter measures had to be taken.

I got in a Copperband Butterfly but it decided that the tubeworms are a better passtime, and has since not taken out any aiptasia. I bought Tropic Marin's Elemi Aiptasia which I found was very ineffective - however I have gotten the hang of it now, and have a greater succes rate at killing the aiptasia than a few weeks back...

In the course of the last few weeks I lost one Treadfin Cardinal and all three Fire Gobies, the High Fin Perchlet and the Yasher Goby... All casualties are thought to be from aiptasia... I took out four or five rocks that where overgrown with aiptasia, and I fragged the baby suncorals off them, and chucked them in the cooking pot... They are clean now, but needless to say all sponge life etc is gone too...:p

Then I got a small Falcula Butterfly. It immediately took out some aiptasia when introduced and I was getting so exited... This morning however, I saw it behaving strange... I noticed a red wound on the side of it's stomach. I noticed it was semi paralized and then it dwelled upon me - the TUBE NENNIES...

I noticed the fish swim and then it gets hammered by the Tube Nennies. The flow then washes it for a lap around the tank right back into the Tube Nennies tentacles which again nails it. I caught it out and sumped it hoping it would survive the paralyses but it did not make it...

I have no proof that it was in fact the Tube Nennies, but now the behavior of the other fish just before death all seemed to add up. The aiptasia is not that big anymore, as most large ones are nailed chemically, so I doubt it was them...

I recon that the Tube Anemones are in such great shape, that their stinging cells are potent enough just to numb or paralize a fish a but, and then when the fish come around again and again, it eventually suffocates as the resparitory system shuts down from paralyses...

I am taking the tube nennies to my father who has a 1.8m tank. I think my tank has become too crowded to keep small fish and three large Tube Nennies.

Again, I have never had any losses from Tube Nennies, so this is all speculation. If you have any input please share your thoughts...

Other than that, the NPS system really is still going strong, it is just this aiptasia issue that is getting resolved now...
 
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Shame man Jaco, hope u win the battle against the aiptaisia...why would the live brine cause the outbreak do u think?

Good luck with clearing the rest and sad to hear about the fish loses...those Yasha gobies are awesome :(
 
@Kunhardt - I have read that live food i.e. brine, mysis, phyto etc. is like viagra for the aiptasia, but especially brine nauplii. The second issue I have is the low lighting. All Aiptasia are photosynthetic and require quite a bit of light. My aips are all bleached and transparant. When this happens the aiptasia goes into "survival" mode so it spawns frequently, and constantly excrete spores... This is the reason why my aiptasia remain quite small, but they are so many. If I had light, I might have had less but larger aiptasia fully coloured up.

If you have aiptasia that sits in 'n overflow pipe etc the same would happen. The aip would spawn to ensure survival. I knew all this, and saw some aiptasia but never thought it would go pearshaped so quick....

I can report that I am winning the battle now, quite easily in fact. Alot of chemical warfare, but I am winning...
 
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sorry to hear about the losses and aiptasia outbreak man. Have you tried adding a few peppermint shrimps? I know they very hit and miss but ive had a 100% record with them, even though Ive only bought one;) But he sorts out aiptasia like anything. If I get a rock or coral with aiptasia on it, I put it in my nano( where he is) for a day or two, he sorts out the aiptasia and then I add it to my DT.
Re the tube nennies.. Ive read articles that say their aggressive and potent rep is total myth-some say that aiptasia have a stronger sting than them. I know ive never seen any damage to fish or anything else from my tube nennie..
 
Jaco Schoeman said:
@Kunhardt - I have read that live food i.e. brine, mysis, phyto etc. is like viagra for the aiptasia, but especially brine nauplii. The second issue I have is the low lighting. All Aiptasia are photosynthetic and require quite a bit of light. My aips are all bleached and transparant. When this happens the aiptasia goes into "survival" mode so it spawns frequently, and constantly excrete spores... This is the reason why my aiptasia remain quite small, but they are so many. If I had light, I might have had less but larger aiptasia fully coloured up.

If you have aiptasia that sits in 'n overflow pipe etc the same would happen. The aip would spawn to ensure survival. I knew all this, and saw some aiptasia but never thought it would go pearshaped so quick....

I can report that I am winning the battle now, quite easily in fact. Alot of chemical warfare, but I am winning...
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Thanks for this Jaco, reason I was asking was I seem to have an over population of it in my skimmer chamber in my sump...nowhere else just there. I guess the two reasons you mentioned above are the cause of this...1) there is not much light over that side of the sump and 2) stuff spawns a lot in my tank and it generally all lands up in the skimmer chamber and doesnt get past there...food for the aiptaisia it seems :(
 
student said:
Have you tried adding a few peppermint shrimps?
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This is the idea yes... But to get some is the problem... :p

student said:
never seen any damage to fish or anything else from my tube nennie..
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Me neither... But I had this talk with my dad today. We have kept tube nennies for about 2 years now. When a fish gets too close for comfort, you can clearly see it being stung. It flicks away with haste and sometimes then rubs against the rock or sand... This is clear that the fish does get stung. I recon though, that due to the close corters of the small tank, the stinging is too frequent and the fish becomes paralized. Shock yourself with a light socket just a bit and wait a few minutes, then do it again and again and again, and eventually you will start getting a bit dizzy... The same thing I think happens here...

That tube nennies will IMO not catch / grasp onto a healthy large fish is a fact, but I think it just numbs them, and then flow pushes it in for more and more and more, and eventually the fish dies from it. So not really the nennie "hunting" it, but rather the fish just not being able to take all the stinging all the time.

Tube nennies are with my dad now though...

student said:
some say that aiptasia have a stronger sting than them
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I have proven this to be wrong... I have placed a small rock with medium sized aiptasia next to my tube anemone, and watched the battle. It really is amazing to see it, and I wish I filmed it... long story short, within minutes the aiptasia was completely killed off - no real contest. Tried with another rock, and the same...

Maybe different species of aiptasia have different stinging ability - not sure...
 
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