Ordering Inverts

[Guy W]

Where do you guys like to order inverts from? I remember someone mentioning a site called something like ispf.com (that isn't it but it was something like that). any ideas?

Guy

[mogurnda]

You were close. There are several I have had good luck with. ipsf (http://www.ipsf.com) has a unique selection, inland aquatics (http://www.inlandaquatics.com) has a lot of good captive-reared livestock, and premium aquatics (http://www.premiumaquatics.com) generally has a good selection of the standard snails, crabs and shrimp, and has the absolute best customer service of any company I have done business with.

[Guy W]

cool thanks for the links. I was asking because I've been battling a up hill fight against green hair algea for ever and I've done everything I can think of besides any inverts to any major degree.

I use RO/DI... Photo period is less than 8 hours a day (more like 5 to 6 lately)... Bulbs less than 3 months old... water quality is ok (nitrates between 20 and 40, no phosphates)... Up'ed the circulation by adding another powerhead at 600gph (total now has to be around 1500 in my 125g tank)... Feeding is light generally ever other day... bio load is 4 small fish... Protein skimmer is undersized a little but it runs... sand bed is not DSB, I'm around 3 inches...

I don't know what else to try besides maybe getting rid of the Bio Balls on my wet dry and uping the sand bed or getting some inverts as I have been thinking. Problem is the hair grows mostly on the back glass, where I can't get and clean it easily. But after a month my back glass looks like a bad wig... 2 to 3 inch green hair everywhere, not an open spot to speak of. The rocks get a little on them as well, but not too bad.

Running out of ideas.

Guy

[kreblak]

Try getting a broad assortment of snails. My hair algae is much like yours. It likes the warm currents in the tank, and mine grows really thick around the heater and on the back glass where the current takes the water past the heater.

I have a combination of cerith, astrea, nerite, and mexican turbo snails. They do an excellent job on the glass. I also have a sea urchin, who is in hog heaven. He hasn't left the waving fields of green since his introduction a month ago, leaving only clean glass in his wake. my cleaner shrimp even gets in on the act, occasionally climbing up on the hairy parts and enjoying a snack. For my live rock, I got some blue legged hermits and an emerald crab. The blue legged hermits are growing at an astounding pace, and the live rock is starting to look hairless for the first time in a while!

[mogurnda]

I think astreas will take care of the glass. Of the snails I have, they spend the most time on the glass. They leave no hair on the glass, just hard little green dots that I have to scrape by hand every few weeks. There are a few small patches of hair on the rocks that the hermits seem to keep at bay.

Like Kreblak, I have a combination of critters (astreas, ceriths, strombus, scarlet and blueleg hermits, serpent star) that seems to cover the bases. I would avoid nerites. They are good grazers, but tend to leave the tank to explore the carpet(regradless of what IPSF says).

Your nitrate is definitely a bit high. Mine hung up there for several months (peaked about 80 for a little while), and then dropped to about 10. It has ranged from 10-15 for the past year. My NO3 would probably drop a little more if the sand was deeper. Anyway, the astreas and hermits are probably why the NO3 never caused hair algae problems.

You might try getting rid of the bioballs also. Although people don't say it as often anymore bioballs have a reputation as "nitrate factories." A year ago, people would scream to get rid of them, now it doesn't seem so certain. Another possibility is using macroalgae like caulerpa or chaetomorpha to export nutrients. I can't remember whether you have a sump or fuge to grow macros in.

I am probably not telling you anything you don't already know, but some days I can't stop typing.

[kreblak]

My nerites have yet to leave the tank, but I often see them exploring the underside of the tank cover. How long can they survive out of water?

[Guy W]

Thanks for the posts guys. I picked up a dozen astea and half a dozen mexician turbo's yesterday. Over the weekend I did two 25 gallon water changes, 1 on saturday and 1 on sunday. I'm planning on doing another one in the next couple days. Then I'm going to test my Nitrates again and see where they are at. I also cleaned the whole tank so right now there is very little algea around, I'm going to keep the snail population low and see if starts to grow back and if so I'll add some more snails. I'll probably pick up a dozen scarlet hermits as well to help out on the rocks.

As for my bio ball situation. Ya I remember when everyone was talking about the wet dry as a nitrate factory, and I understand the reasons behind it, but I still find it a bit sketchy in my situation. problem is, while I do have well over 150lbs of rock I'm not real keen on the idea of pulling the blue balls. Even if I do it slowly, I don't feel confident. I have not lost a fish in the 2 years I've had a tank, except of a yellow coris that wouldn't feed at died in 3 days of my getting him, which makes me believe there was something wrong with it from the onset. So aside from my algea problems the tank has been very succesful and I'd hate to pull the bio balls and have a disaster.

So I think I'm giong to go with some inverts and doing more regular water changes and see how that goes for a while.

My long term plan is to get a 180 or 210 gal. tank and start over anyway, so spending a lot of time, effort, and money on this tank is somewhat futile anyway. The 125 I have now was a major budget setup, and I have never been really happy with much about it. Poor filtration, lighting, skimmer, not drilled, over all not a great investment but it was my "starter" tank.

I don't have a fuge, thats something I'm thinking about for the next tank. I know a lot of people use a fuge without skimming, I don't know how I feel about that. Maybe I'll put a skimmer in there somewhere anyway... I don't know.

Thanks again,
Guy

[widdledink]

I remember when everyone was talking about the wet dry as a nitrate factory

I missed that string. How does an wet/dry become a nitrate factory? I have a one and am still suffering from high NO3's.

Grady

[OrionGirl]

Anything that captures solid particles away from the cleaners can become a nitrate factory. The reasoning is thus: the cleaners (shrimp, snails, stars, worms etc.) can not get to the solid particles trapped within the bio balls. So, rather than being eaten and locked up as more shrimp/snail/starfish/worm, it is eaten by bacteria, producing more ammonia and nitrite. The bacteria population for these has lots of places to colonize with bio balls, so never becomes a problem. The nitrate eaters, however, can only thrive in low flow, low oxygen areas, and are limited to live rock and live sand. So, the nitrates are not eaten as fast as they are produced.

We removed all the bio-balls when we rebuilt the sump about 6 weeks ago. We didn't have high nitrates before; the previous plumbing just wasn't working very efficiently. So, we re-did all the plumbing, removed the W/D, added a large sump, and never looked back. Much happier with it overall--occassionally the bioballs would stink a bit, but that's not a problem anymore. And, we planted tons of life in the sump, so it's a writhing mass of star fish and pods now.