Adding Barnacles to a New Tank

[Streetdoc77]

They really do add habitat to the tank my royal grammas loves them .

 

[CheckeredPants]

NW Wholesaler Natural Large Purple Barnacles - Pack of 3 Barnacles - 4-7 Inches Each - for Ocean or Beach Décor, Aquariums, Terrariums, Air Plants and Arts & Crafts Projects

Thank you!!

 

[katonge]

Would it be ok if I I used marine safe epoxy to attach some smaller pieces together?

 

[Streetdoc77]

Maybe? Superglue would be my choice though .

 

[saltyhog]

I used JB Weld to glue mine together.

 

[VKP01]

Here’s some pics from my barnacle blenny setup! The barnacles are from a local beach, I let them dry out completely, scrubbed them with a tooth brush and hot water, then boiled them. Didn’t damage the barnacles at all, they’re pretty sturdy. They’re secured to the rocks with aquarium safe silicone. They’ve held up really good and the barnacle blennies love them! They seem to prefer the smaller ones

 

[katonge]

Nice! I like the way you attached them to the rocks.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

I would never boil anything that has been in the ocean. Doing so could aerosolize any organics on it (including toxins) which could be dangerous. I would also worry about it damaging barnacles as they are fairly fragile.

Barnacle blennies spend almost their entire lives perched in their barnacle or hole in the rock looking out at the world. They dart out to grab food and back in a flash! I call them the fastest fish in the ocean for 1 foot. They have amazing personalities and are a delight to keep. I have two panamic barnacle blennies in my nano and 2 eyebrow barnacle blennies in my 72x24 DT. Here's a short video of my panamics at feeding time. Hard to see the barnacles well from this angle due to the zoas over running them.

Agreed. I'd be concerned about boiling anything that's been in the ocean

 

[stezlaki]

Agreed. I'd be concerned about boiling anything that's been in the ocean

Boiled shrimp? But yeah, point taken!

In a past tank we had a cluster of barnacles and our Lunar Wrasse would go in and out of one of the barnacles - HOW he fit, I have no idea, because it didn't look possible - he looked WAY too big. I kept thinking he'd wedge himself in there somehow and get stuck folded in half or something, but he never did. Was pretty entertaining to watch him go in/out, though.....

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

I actually have a few live barnacles on the shells of a few hermit crabs that I collected from the Gulf recently. Pretty cool to watch them fan the water for food.

 

[Ms. Joanne]

I did not. I made a list of places that sold them that I was gonna call to see who had the biggest cluster available. My plan was to just rinse/soak and shake them in RO for a day or two. I thought about adding a little bleach, but thought that might strip the color off the barnacles.

All this talk of barnacles has me wanting to make room for some in my tank. Wish I didn’t scrap the list I had. Where did you end up getting yours from?

You can get barnacles from amazon; they are natural and the give you a choice of clusters.