Setting up a 30g long

flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Okay, I'm planning to move my pair of Kuda seahorses into a 30g long. It's no where near tall enough for these big horses...it's just a temporary home until I can rid the 56g of bristle worms. I also have a blue strip pipefish, and my snails along with 5 peppermint shrimps.


I don't want to transfer bristle worms to the 30g long, but at the same time, I need to keep parameters stable.

I have 2 large sponges saturated with good bacteria in the 90g that I can use.

I have macroalgae, but I only want to use the stuff I can clearly tell if it has any worms in it. The sand and rock are super infested. I'm thinking I can remove the sand a scoop at a time, and lay it out thin to be sure I'm not transferring any worms...I have (a root branch looking thing) fake décor in the garage. it won't look natural, but at least it will give some surface for the good bacteria to build on, and the horses can hitch on it.

Questions:
  • Do I still need to try and cycle the 30g before transferring the horses? Every day they remain in the 56g is dangerous for them. I just lost my oldest female to a sting, and I don't want a repeat.
  • transferring Bristle worm eggs... is that a concern? How can I prevent that?
  • I have rock that is infested, but has mushroom corals on them....what can I do? I have coral dip...will that help at all to get the worms to get out of the rock??? I can't dry out those rocks, at least they are small.
 
cav414

cav414

Member
Hey flower,
If you use water from your DT I don't think you would have to cycle it. Just watch your chem levels until you get some bacteria established.

As far as the other two questions I don't know because I haven't delt with this problem (yet). But I would think that eggs would be a concern if they are spreading quickly in your DT.

Maybe this helps and I don't sound like a dummy lol.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
cav414 said:
Hey flower,
If you use water from your DT I don't think you would have to cycle it. Just watch your chem levels until you get some bacteria established.

As far as the other two questions I don't know because I haven't delt with this problem (yet). But I would think that eggs would be a concern if they are spreading quickly in your DT.

Maybe this helps and I don't sound like a dummy lol.
Click to expand...
Hi,

LOL... You don't sound like a dummy... Thank you for your response. I don't trust the water from the display, I have some information that says the bristle worms spawn into the water column.

Call me NUTS, I THINK I might just set up the 30g long and keep it for the two horses, and put regular fish in the 56g along with a six line wrasse to eat some bristle worms. I really don't think I can transfer anything from one tank to the other without contaminating it unless I get rid of the mushroom corals completely, and totally break down the tank....which I still just might do. It kind of all depends on how well the horses do in the 30g long, it isn't tall enough for seahorses.
 
cav414

cav414

Member
Sucks you have to do that but hopefully they will do good. And isn't there a water you can get online that garuntees a 7 day cycle? I'll see if I can find a link.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
UPDATE:

The tank is set up with some large shells, plastic resin décor and dry aragonite sand. I'm using two bubble lines for water flow to break up the surface water, and a HOB filter. I will add some macroalgae (prolifera) as soon as I can get some lighting in there, it looks like turtle grass, and it will be easy to see if there are any bristle worms in it, and the ammonia will kill any floating eggs if there are any...I think I will also run it real quick under fresh water, just to be sure. I poured a half cup of pure ammonia in there, and used two sponges loaded with good bacteria from the 90g, that has no bristle worms. Now the wait...I tried to post a picture but no matter how much I crop it... this system says it's too big, and I don't know how to fix it so it will load.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Update:

Ammonia went from 3.5 to .5 this morning when I tested it, that's quite a drop in 4 days, so I'm really pleased. Adding those loaded sponges really made a difference. The good thing about adding pure ammonia is that I don't have to wait for it to climb to a certain point, then wait for it to go back to 0, it's instantly there... BAM. I would add some macroalgea to help it along, but I don't have a spare light. I can't purchase a light until my annuity comes in...maybe tomorrow, I had hoped it would be today because of the holiday creating a long weekend. I'm going to put an LED light system, a cheap one, Basically it's just a grow light for the macros. I need 6500K. My Kuda seahorses don't have the pretty colors fish do, so a better light won't make it any real difference.
 
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