Hey folks! I just finished typing up a discription of my 180 gallon reef in the "tank specs" forum, if you are interested.
I had a few questions and wanted to share a few things to see what you guys think.
Just a recap, the tank is a 180 that i drilled three holes in the end so that the tank sticks out of the wall and can be viewed from three sides (four if you are in the back room). I built an internal baffle, so the water is skimmed off the top and drains directly into the 40gal sump. The water is then skimmed and pumped to the refugium (29g) and the surge bucket(5g). The refugium drains back to the tank via gravity.
The tank is located in the basement with the display and refugium in the "playroom" and the mechanical stuff in a separate room behind the tank. I have been very fortunate in that my wife has basically let me do what I want. I got some wierd looks when I set up the surge bucket, but we have both gotten used to the sounds (our mainfloor is all open, including our bedroom, so you hear trickle, trickle, blblblblblboooop all night/day long). She did ask if the surge was going to go on a timer
When I first got the tank it hadn't had any light on it for who knows how long and it looked pretty sterile. I put the light back on it and things started growing. First the hair algae, then a cyano. outbreak that seemed to stay in the refugium (maybe because of the new
crushed coral that I mixed with the 20lbs or so she had in the tank; I did take all but 20 gallons of her water as well). My ultimate dream was to have a complete ecosystem (who doesn't want that right?) including a healthy copepod and amphipod population. At first I didn't notice any bugs, as i was looking for something bigger.
Then, I got an eye for them. Since then, their population has exploded.
My first question is what are the differences between copepods and amphipods? I have at least several different things, but i'm not sure what they are. I figure that to really find out, I would need to do some microscope work? In my refugium, I've noticed tons of things crawling around on the glass and any surface. Some look like scorpions and seem to pray on the littler ones. I've seen some mating (at least that is what it looks like to me), and it always seems to be a larger one riding a smaller green colored one! There is always a dozen or so exoskeletons floating around the system at all times. My guess would be 20 per square inch when they are in full force. You can imagine the surface area of 200lbs of live rock! I think I remember her saying that she got some GARF grunge? If so, that stuff really, really works (no, I have no affiliation with them).
Then, there are these things that only come out at night. they look like little shrimp that crawl around on there sides. They look kind of weird when they scury away. The guy at the local fish store says that they are some type of shrimp. They are curled up like shrimp and are striped. At night, I'll shine a flashlight in the tank a few hours after the lights go out and they are everywhere.
An observation that I made is when the cyanobacteria bloomed, so did their population. A turbo snail that I have (mostly stays on the one rock directly underneath the 400w mh) was covered in cyano, and to my surprise last night when I shown the light in he was crawling with these shrimp. The next day there wasn't a single spot of red slime on him!!
These things seem to go everywhere. Only a day after setting up the surge device (Borneman model), I found at least a half dozen living in the bottom.
One of my wifes friend gave us their
maroon clown (named nemo, no less) so my brother thought he would surprise us and get an anemone. He came over with what seemed to be a white sebae anemone that he "rescued" from Petco. After doing some research, white isn't a good sign for it so we tried to target feed it. It wouldn't eat a thing, but did seem to be browning up a bit on the side closest to the 400w. I speculated that it might be catching these crustaceans at night and that was why it wouldn't take anything I gave it (actually, the first time we tried to target feed it I placed a little piece of shrimp in it and turned back around to see something grabbing it from the anemone and pulling back into a whole next to it!). Well, last night I actually saw a good sized one stuck in the middle of the anemone! The base of the anemone has at least three to four of the smaller things (not the shrimp things, but the ones that are about the size of a flea) on its foot at all times. Could these be harming it?
The thing that I don't understand is why the clown doesn't host in the anemone? It certainly doesn't look good compared to healthy pics that I've seen. Once/if my heteractis comes back around, will the clown host in it? Should I try a bta? The clown did live in a small tank by itself for about two years.
Sorry for the long rant, just excited if you can't tell
I guess the last thing that I wanted to share is the surge device that I added a few weeks ago. Man does it create some excellent currents. I have it shooting right where I have a few dead spots, and it does a real nice job of keeping things suspended. I originally wanted to go bare bottom, but the detritus build up wasn't appealing so I placed a thin layer of crushed coral in the front of the tank. I do siphon once a week in the dead spots.
Anyhow, if you can deal with the bubbling sound of the device "flushing" and have room in the display for the water displacement, they really are awsome. I have mine setup so the water level fluctuation is in the sump. When I built the internal overflow I made the top of it at the bottom of the top bracing so that I have at least another inch above the overflow for displacement. So far the 5 gal surge only makes the system sound like a water fall for a few seconds as the influx of water flows over the edge into the sump. The biggest problem is the salt creep. My 400w bulb is only about 3-4" above the surface, so I made the surge point away from the bulb so the spray doesn't directly hit it.
So far I only have a yellow tang (came with), a coral beauty, a cleaner shrimp, and a maroon clown.
Other than fish that eat these little crustaceans, are their any other corals that will benefit from them?
Should I worry about their populations crashing?
The local fish store owner has asked me to catch him some. Any ideas on how to do that? I know that placing a rock in there with lots of holes will definitely get them. I told him to give me a few rocks to seed, but I don't think he thinks I'm serious.
Anyone else have out of control amphipods/copepods? Are there any unforseen drawbacks/benefits of a system full of them?
Again, sorry for the long post, but had some time on this friday evening to burn!
Love this site! By the way, I used to follow Reef Central back when Gregt was starting his three sided tank build, but then saw that the thread moved here. Been here ever since, even though i've been lurking
Thanks for the time everyone puts forth to make this possible!
peace........jason s
LOL!
