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utahsaltreefer

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I have a realtively new setup. Its 6 weeks old, and will become a 55 gallon FOWLR. I added 60 lbs of base rock from www.hirocks.com (excellent rock BTW). I also added 30 lbs of base rock I already had. I then purchased 10 lbs of live rock from a LFS to seed the tank. The first 3 weeks I just let the tank get started. 3 macro algaes starting growing out of the live rock (2 halemedia, and one unknown), 6-half inch feather dusters were on the rock, and 1-half inch green sponge. The rocks had quite a bit of red and purple coralline on them. Since the LR intro there are also a boatload of amphipods, 2 serpent stars (1 inch and 1.5 inches), lots of bristle worms, spaghetti worms, etc.

So thigns seemed to be going great. I got a diatom bloom and so bought some snails. 3 turbo snails and 5 bumble bee snails. The corraline had become a nice deep red and purple and had grown almost an inch from where it was originally on the live rock. Now 3 weeks later all that corraline is gone and the part that was established on the LR when I bought it is starting to dissappear as well.

Since the tank is going to be a FOWLR it just uses NO lighting for 12 hours a day. Are the snails eating the coralline? I didn't think they did that. Everything else in the tank is positively thriving. The dusters have doubled in size, the sponge has quadrupled in size, the amphipods are like ants in the tank at night, and there are some sort of 1/4 inch starfish looking things on the glass by the hundreds.
 

liquid

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Snails don't eat coralline. Certain urchins will, but snails won't. How do your calcium and alkalinity levels look? You need to maintain those two values at reasonable levels for your coralline to do well.

Shane
 

utahsaltreefer

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I don't have the test kits. I didn't buy them since my understanding is that for a FOWLR tank alk and calcium aren't super critical. I replace about a gallon of water a day that evaporates and use kalk to replace about a gallon a week of evap. I also do small 5 gallon water changes each week.
 

Kevin1000

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I never heard of coralline growing inches in that short of a time period. Are you sure it was corraline?
 

utahsaltreefer

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Yeah, I was quite surprised also. to be more realistic, it was about 3/4 of an inch and looked identical to the corraline that came on the rock. It was a nice deep red color and hard to the touch. If it wasn't coralline, I wonder what it was? It was very pretty. I looked through the books I own and the only red "algae" was cyano and it was definitely not that.
 

ricky1414

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I thought the fan worms that came in as hitchhikers were the micro variety, and don't really grow much at all? :?
 

utahsaltreefer

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I dunno, the ones that I had have extended the white tubes attached to the rocks by a little over a quarter inch and the crown has extended from about a half inch to a bit over an inch it looks like. I'll include some pics. Maybe I'm calling them the wrong name.
 

utahsaltreefer

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Here's a picture of the feather dusters. They really expand more after the lights are off also.
 

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utahsaltreefer

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Sorry about the glare from the window in the previous pic. Here's the rock I was talking about before. The algae on it look to be only corraline. But it used to cover a significantly larger portion of the rock the day before the snails were added.
 

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ricky1414

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I dont think they will get much bigger utah. I have countless of the same ones, and they aren't getting any larger than those that you have. Clear pics and good corraline growth.
 

utahsaltreefer

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Thanks. Yeah, I didn't think they'd get much bigger. I just thought it was a good sign that the tank was getting closer to being ready. I still struggle with the camera. I'm manual focus chanllenged :roll:
 

Baianotang

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"turbo snails and 5 bumble bee snails"
The snails are not eating the coraline (check the calcium level) but you do have 5 bumble bee snail a.k.a Killer Bees
They are predatory (whelks) and can attack in group like a pack of hyenas. Wach out for them, more so when you get your favorite "livestock" like an expencive ($100) clam.
 

Fl_Seagull

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I have a similar problem.

It turned out I had several rock boring sea urchins. When they are small you don't notice them since they come out at night. But, as they grow the rocks can get stripped relatively quickly. They are coraline eating machines.

I still have several small one in my tank. But, I have several other more pressing issues (flood of new livestock, mantis shrimp, majano anemonia).
 

utahsaltreefer

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Thanks all for the great response. I'll watch tonight to see if there are any urchins crawling around. Should I adios the bumble bee snails if this is going to be a FOWLR tank? At the most I'll add some mushrooms.
 

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