Underwater World Reef Tank

[Caesar]

Has anyone seen the reef tank at Underwater World (Mall of America) lately? I was there last night and their reef tank looked horrible. Half of the tank is overrun with Anemonia majano. Its killed several coral and will probably over take the other half of the tank soon.

Its really a shame. I think they dont' do anything because to the untrained eye it looks like a coral and sways in the current and looks pretty.

Its embarssing for a company with so many resources to keep such a bad tank on public display. For not too much effort, they could make it look very nice.

[Brooke]

Doesn't the tank have a sticker on it of a local company that is actually doing the maintenance on the tank? It's been a couple of years since I've seen the tank, but I'm sure there was someone else taking care of it. Sure is a shame .

I could always loan them my copperband

[Caesar]

I saw no sticker. Given the problems they had a few years back, I bet they brought it in house. I think they have more experience with fish than they do with coral and other inverts. (Although they do seem to keep jellyfish ok)

Has ther been any discussion about the TCMAS adopting or helping public reef tanks at say the MN Zoo or at Underwater World? Donating frags, cleaning, etc? I know that many people who read this have tanks in their house which are far more impressive than the public tanks I've seen on display in MN.

It might be an excellent way for the organization to promote itself and to put the hobby in a good light. None of the public tanks I've seen have SPS, or even LPS for that matter. Just softies. No clams or other inverts the public might be interested in such as shrimp, cucumbers, or sea stars.

The Zoo reef tank isn't in bad shape, I just think they could do more with it than mushrooms and leathers.

If the society ever wants to expand beyond frag trading, I think this would be a great place to start.

[Gary S]

Hey, I like that idea. There was a guy from the zoo that was coming to our meetings, but I haven't seen him for awhile. I think a few people already gave them some fags.

[roon21]

sweet idea and there tank does look horrid

[Caesar]

Would anyone else be interested in approaching the Zoo or Underwater World as a group to volunteer on their reef tanks?

Underwater World's tank needs it more, but the Zoo might be more open as they have a volunteer program already.

[roon21]

all in who is in charge here

if someone was leading the way i would love to join them in cleaning up that tank. it does look awful.

[Caesar]

I don't know if it needs to be an official thing by the TCMAS. I'd be glad to contact Underwater World and tell them of the problem with their tank. I'm at the MoA quite often for work so I could certainly stop in to work on it.

We'd just need a plan of attack because the outbreak has become so bad. I had some of these in my tank, but nothing nearly so bad. I injected them with Kalkwasser and they shrivled up and died. I don't think that approach would work here as the entire tank would end up being Kalkwasser. I know a Copperband Butterfly has been mentioned also, but I don't have any experience with that.

[roon21]

orbiculate bat works good just so **** ugly

[Gary S]

My tank has quite a bit of the devil Anemonia majano too. I have a small Copperband that eats aptaisia but not Anemonia majano. There are peppermint shrimps in there too, and they don't touch it either. I tried Kalk injections and ended up with more of the stuff. It caused it to split. I tried hot water and this seemed to work at the time, but the next week it was all back. I have never heard of using a bat fish. If that actually might work I would be the first guy in line at Something Fishy. Anybody have more ideas or experienc on how to get rid of the stuff?

[Caesar]

I had some and used Kalkwasser and it seemed to work. I still have some in my tank, but its only becuase I didn't get them all.

[Alice]

I had occasion as of late to tear my nano apart and flush all the rocks with clean SW. Some of them were out of the water maybe a half hour and I noticed that the nasty little majano on those rocks loosened their foot and I could just pop em right off the rock! It took awhile but I sure made a dent in the population.

Alice

[roon21]

when I lived In washington there was a community bat he would go from tank to tank eating up all the little *******s

[Gary S]

OK, I think that I will give this a try. If it works I'll post up the good news. I plan to do a little bit more research on the fish first to see if he could be potential problems for other stuff. I remember reading a post once about a bat fish that came in with ick and it ended up killing all the other fish in the guys tank. I don't have a quaranteen setup right now so I might have to trust Something Fishy on this one. If it works we could do the same thing sharing him amongst our group.