MAAST live Sand Swap, Live Sand Bank?

[adaminaustin]

Ram Puppy,
it looks like you have great ideas that I never even thought about. This could work out well if a quarantine was used correctly. At one single meeting you could get sand from tons of sources.

I know many wrasses make great flatworm predators. The downside to that is wrasses eat some of the good stuff too. As far as the canary in a mine field sps coral, Stylophoria and Pocilloporia are usually the first types affected by predatory starfish. I have no clue about the red mites favorite coral or what type it usually affects first. Hopefully someone will chime in with that answer.

[Ram_Puppy]

Hey Jim, That is a very generous offer, thank you!

no rush, I won't be in the new house until December, so start up in januray, the tank I am starting with is a 115 tall, not ideal, but it's laying around which makes it a free startup as far as the tank goes. Do you guys think perhaps a rubbermaid tub would be a better option?

[Ram_Puppy]

I think Those infected said it hit their acro's first, not sure... I only have one tri color acro and one purple millapora (acro has turned mostly brown but is still growing, while millapora is rock solid gorgeous, go figure) anyhow... I love the idea of a canary in the mine, but worried about adding a frag to the tank simply for the lighting issue (if indeed the mite canary ends up needing lots of light.) that will drive up startup and running expenses. :|

I am betting predatory starfish won't be a huge deal, and if they show up, I understand you can train harlequin shrimp to eat them, I believe I read this in Anthony calfo's new book, or maybe it was on here, can't remember... but they can definatley be trained to munch on them, so if they show up, perhaps I could remove the starfish to another tank, buy a harlequin to clean out the quarantine tank, and then culture the starfish much like instar cultures aptasia, or perhaps even offload the stars and the harlequin to someone interested in keeping them...

There are definately ways to keep our sand free of nasties.

What types of stuff do you guys have in your tanks right now? My pod population is obliterated, (**** pj cardinals)

but I know for usre I have a heavy mini-star population, both the white ones, and the black and white zebra ones. I think I may have some spaghetti womrs as well, not sure.

[GaryP]

Blue velvet nuibranchs only eat flatworms. They are hard to ship and are somewhat delicate. They also only live about 6 months. I put 2 in one of my tanks a couple of months ago. I don't know if they are still alive, but the flatworm population is way down.

I have a yellow coris wrasse in my other tank. I definitely know he eats them because I can see him picking them off the sand. He's just about got them wiped out in that tank. I had treated that tank with Flatworm Exit before putting the coris wrasse in.

Gary

[Ram_Puppy]

From what I hear, flatworm exit is a good product if you follow the instructions... if we do a 20 gallon quarantine and keep up with it, there shouldn't be a need to buy a nudi. Quarantineing new sand after the initial setup will be the key, I don't see how we can quarantine sand the first time around, just to much of it.

Again, it really all comes down to the hobbyists responsibility, each hobbyist would need to use their best judgement as far as the condition of their tanks, if they have had any problems with flat worms in the recent past, along with aptasia, mejano, mites, and so on, they simply shouldn't donate, since this does NOT keep them from making a withdrawl, there is no reason for them to risk it.

[brianK]

Have setup a message board for discussing the Live Sand Bank visit:

http://www.linuxhorizons.net/vb_ctlsb/

Have some other message forums setup also....help me by giving suggestions on other forum areas.
Thanks
Brian

[Ram_Puppy]

Brian, I appreciaet your efforts on this, but as of yet we haven't even decided to do it, and I would still like to do it in association with or as part of MAAST. I think at this point, the next step is discussing this project at a MAAST meeting and determining the best course of action as a group.

(Very nice board though.)