Identify Please, unknowns on my Live Rock

[GibsonGuitars]

Hello, first saltwater tank, going through my cycle on an Evo 13.5. It’s Day one, so I added live rock , dry sand, water. Dr Tim’s reef all in one. I turned my lights on, and what looked liked slimey blobs on my rock (I almost scraped them off) suddenly took shape once the water was added. Can anyone identify? Total Noob, but looks like one of those red bulb Enemies and maybe some type of Zoas? Also, what should I feed these to keep them alive? I wasn’t planing on adding anything alive for some time. Thanks!

 

[Fishy212]

Hello! Welcome to R2R!

You got a nice little score there! Always a great addition when you discover things after you added them.

Looks like some kind of Ricordia mushroom and a pack of zoas. They will usually only use the light for energy but don’t mind some target feeding of reef roids / mysis. You do not need to worry about feeding them until later on, probably after you get some fish.

 

[GibsonGuitars]

Thank you! I looked up the Ricardia and it does like just like it!

 

[brandon429]

Those are anemones people pay money for, pretty neat. Any rock with attached anemones is fully cycled, pretty cool confirming organisms. cycled = shows up with the same amnt of bac it'll have after months in your own tank. these were truly skip cycle rocks. the coralline on them is an additional completed cycle verifier.

The sand is going to catch up in bacteria from simply being in the same water as the rock...plus any bottle bac added. *this is the type of aquarium you do not add ammonia to. most cycles involve dosing ammonia, not this one. its already cycled, as of right now.

this doesnt mean you have to do anything special, just a welcome into the exact nature of your cycle and how it differs from common tanks that need to cycle, wait, and add ammonia.

 

[GibsonGuitars]

That ricordia mushroom anemone (thanks for the identification fishy212) was smaller than half of a U.S. dime, it’s took shape instantly this morning when I placed the rock but was still half a dime... In a few hours it has (rehydrated?) and is now the size of a quarter... I think it’s healthy and seams hearty. I am ordering up some reef roids today just to be safe, and I assume some micro targeted feeding (down the road) would help keep them healthy until the tank is more mature.

 

[brandon429]

agreed, you are already reefing. you have what we call a skip cycle reef. this concept used to be unheard of in the hobby; and then someone successfully moved the reef to another room and BAM ha lol skip cycling/not waiting was born. moving live rocks among tanks never harms bacteria, it relocates them. I give your lfs a score of 75% though for new reefer advising; they already got you to invest in live rock, the cycling additives were fully totally not needed, but not harmful. watch out for that lfs, get your advice here lol

 

[GibsonGuitars]

that’s great news! And thanks, I was going to add the ammonium later on today. Funny that the other rocks the LFS sold me were absolutely nothing like this one... this was an oddball my wife picked out. The others seem to just have a touch of pink on them , but honestly other than that no signs of deep seeded life the way this rock is showing. My wife thinks she just saw a spider or small crab moving inside the rock... and there is also some very dark (like crimson) red coating (perhaps a hearty type of algae) that’s also igniting under the blue light like a life form.

 

[GibsonGuitars]

Ok, now I may be over thinking this but... I just plopped this rock into the tank... flattest side down. I wonder if I buried any more life in the sand when I placed the rock? Should I lift and check under the blue light!

So, no ammonia needs to added. Check. your saying the cycles basically complete... so assume I just have to wait a bit for some maturation of the sand and filter as the bacteria from my live rock seeds the tank? Do I still test for the ammonia and other stuff to cue my first water change? What’s the time frame on adding more soft corals and a couple of clowns?

 

[brandon429]

lemme see a full tank shot

Ill vote you are cycled and can begin any way you want to begin. the sandbed bacteria dont matter; in some of our work examples, we rip out sandbeds to make the tank bare bottom, all at once, because sandbed bacteria are merely extras in a tank, they're not the breakpoint between filtration/no filtration. your tank having dry sand/not caught up yet/is the same as zero sand at all, leaving the rocks to do all the work, which is ok.

when i would vote you are not cycled: the live rock portion is a thimble size, and the white rock portion is 99% plus dry sand

if your pics show a high ratio of live rock, that runs every bioload you'll ever have in the tank, and waiting longer does not add more bacteria.

**this isnt advice to rush, there are fish disease preps to consider. we're discussing the exact nature of your cycle, which I suspect is fully done.

 

[brandon429]

Hey if this helps, in spite of too much text to read here’s a twenty page thread cycling tanks in the way you have....by skipping the cycle

what you did isn’t luck, it’s how they start marine aquarium conventions on time vs everybody showing up staggered with half cycles and full cycles. If you skip cycle for 500 tanks, then 500 reef tanks are simply ready to go and the big convention with things to sell all have perfect reefs doing well.

The microbiology of reef tank cycling.

You can skip your cycle. Ive been reefing online for twenty years and have never waited one second for a tank to cycle, because I buy rocks that are already cycled and move them home. Here's two: https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/octo-high-end-sps-skip-cycle-build.713256/...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[fishguy242]

hi welcome to the reef going to love it here
open 24-7 fun/help/fun/info/fun
pics..we all love pics

 

[GibsonGuitars]

ill post a full tank pic here in about 10 mins. But Basically it’s a 13.5 gallon tank and I purchased 9 pounds of live rock. The “live” one is about 5 pounds, and the “sorta live” one (came from the same holding tank but just had a pink hue) was 4 pounds.

 

[GibsonGuitars]

I think the rock on the left isn’t anywhere near as alive as the one on the right... the spots (in the blue light) that are illuminated (glowing) on the left rock are the broken bits showing bare white rock, all of the glowing bits on the rock in the right are multi colored algae and such... dark red, multi shades of pink, and the animals...

 

[fishguy242]

i could be wrong ,but think both pcs are nice live rock too much coralline on left not to be ,did notice jets pointed down,make sure you have top water movement for oxygen ,nice score on the rocks!

 

[Madonia]

The purple algae is coralline algae- what many reefers strive for in a tank. It’s nice that you have some growing to start as a lot of people look for ways to ‘seed’ their tanks with it, whether it’s with scrapings from mature ranks, snail shells, etc.

it’s a good sign.

but I would still wait a bit to add a small clean up crew. Maybe a week or so. Regularly check the water for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate to see if you have spikes of any of those. if there aren’t any spikes, then I think it’s safe to add a small clean up crew.

i started my tank 3 months ago. I added stuff quickly. No serious deaths, but I did lose some SPS more recently because my phosphates weren’t in check.

when they say you need to make sure your tank is ‘stable’ and parameters are as ‘perfect as possible’, they mean it. This is particularly true for immature tanks (like yours). This goes for ALL the major parameters. Not just ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

no need to rush this. Slow is best. I didn’t wanna believe it. I wanted the ‘picture perfect’ high end corals very quickly. But it’s unattainable overnight!

 

[Madonia]

The purple algae is coralline algae- what many reefers strive for in a tank. It’s nice that you have some growing to start as a lot of people look for ways to ‘seed’ their tanks with it, whether it’s with scrapings from mature ranks, snail shells, etc.

it’s a good sign.

but I would still wait a bit to add a small clean up crew. Maybe a week or so. Regularly check the water for ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate to see if you have spikes of any of those. if there aren’t any spikes, then I think it’s safe to add a small clean up crew.

i started my tank 3 months ago. I added stuff quickly. No serious deaths, but I did lose some SPS more recently because my phosphates weren’t in check.

when they say you need to make sure your tank is ‘stable’ and parameters are as ‘perfect as possible’, they mean it. This is particularly true for immature tanks (like yours). This goes for ALL the major parameters. Not just ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

no need to rush this. Slow is best. I didn’t wanna believe it. I wanted the ‘picture perfect’ high end corals very quickly. But it’s unattainable overnight!

the reason I stress checking all parameters is because my thought process was ‘how bad can a little phosphate be’...my phosphate was just past The high end of normal. But that was enough to kill my SPS (approximately 250$ worth)

 

[GibsonGuitars]

Thanks very much, and for all of the welcoming/friendly folks on here. I am a naturally impatient person, but I do know much patience is required for this hobby... I decided I wanted to start a reef tank 6 weeks ago, and after seeing some giant failures on the blogs around and reading someone who said “if you want a tank, wait 6 weeks... educate to see just how much work it is and if you still want one after 6 weeks go for it.” Lol, so here I am 6 weeks and 1 day later with my tank... and so excited about it. Honestly thought I would be staring at rocks and bubbles for 3-6 weeks, so having these two hitchhikers is pure joy... I really just want to make sure they survive... but I did get a little exited when above they said my tank was already cycled!!.. I think I’ll wait awhile before adding anything just to be safe, and come here for some suggestions. I think it might be a good idea to take pics of what’s available down at my LFS of what I want to add, (and what they suggest) then post pics here to confirm what’s something I can handle and/or good for my tank and how to care for them... I already learned I can’t trust them... (my LFS that is, it’s a great shop but lots of the kids working there are dishing out bad advise)

 

[fishguy242]

two suggestions ,start a build thread,post in meet and greet ,meet the reef ,happy reefing

 

[Madonia]

Thanks very much, and for all of the welcoming/friendly folks on here. I am a naturally impatient person, but I do know much patience is required for this hobby... I decided I wanted to start a reef tank 6 weeks ago, and after seeing some giant failures on the blogs around and reading someone who said “if you want a tank, wait 6 weeks... educate to see just how much work it is and if you still want one after 6 weeks go for it.” Lol, so here I am 6 weeks and 1 day later with my tank... and so excited about it. Honestly thought I would be staring at rocks and bubbles for 3-6 weeks, so having these two hitchhikers is pure joy... I really just want to make sure they survive... but I did get a little exited when above they said my tank was already cycled!!.. I think I’ll wait awhile before adding anything just to be safe, and come here for some suggestions. I think it might be a good idea to take pics of what’s available down at my LFS of what I want to add, (and what they suggest) then post pics here to confirm what’s something I can handle and/or good for my tank and how to care for them... I already learned I can’t trust them...

I didn’t realize your tank was running for 6 weeks. I think you’re definitely safe to add clean up crew at this point as long as your parameters are good.

good idea on taking pics. Generally speaking SPS are hard. LPS are easier. I’d start with some zoas (so many pretty options and are fun to watch grow and to feed).

I had a great experience early on ordering coral from ‘world wide coral’ online. It was a zoas frag pack. They were all opened within 1 day, and now 2 months later- have all more than doubled in polyp number. I was skeptical at first- but truly a professional company that has good options and healthy coral. They were shipped in dead of winter, too. I live in NY.

 

[Madonia]

I didn’t realize your tank was running for 6 weeks. I think you’re definitely safe to add clean up crew at this point as long as your parameters are good.

good idea on taking pics. Generally speaking SPS are hard. LPS are easier. I’d start with some zoas (so many pretty options and are fun to watch grow and to feed).

I had a great experience early on ordering coral from ‘world wide coral’ online. It was a zoas frag pack. They were all opened within 1 day, and now 2 months later- have all more than doubled in polyp number. I was skeptical at first- but truly a professional company that has good options and healthy coral. They were shipped in dead of winter, too. I live in NY.

Other corals I’ve had good experience with so far: torch, Duncan, acan, sinularia...all of these corals are easy and all survived my phosphate problem of 0.25-0.30. Now that my phosphates are better controlled and my other parameters are stable, I’ve purchased a few frags of SPS coral again. So far, so good.