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How do you relocate zoo's?

JCheung

Newbish
I just bought this really nice piece of live rock from Skiptons, and apparently it already had some coral growth. But the way i'm placing the rock it's towards the bottom of the tank and not getting much light. How do i pluck them off and relocate them to the top of the tank?
On another note i also got some mushrooms, a porcelin or anenome crab, and possibly a mantis or pistol shrimp. Heard some clicking last night and couldn't find where it was coming from.
 
With a razor blade or utility knife blade, you can slowly pry off the net-like membrane that anchors the zoa colony. Then superglue (or even rubber-band) the membrane to the new location. They're pretty hardy, so don't worry about tearing the membrane. In fact, you're lucky to get more than a dozen polyps in one piece.

If they're not a showpiece of the tank, many reefers attach them to an overflow wall or a small island rock. Otherwise, they can spread to inaccessible places and be hard to weed out later.

Sorry, I have no experience with mantis shrimp.
 
If the rock is rough, you can "chip" off the zoas while keeping some rock attached. This will make it easier to re-attach the frags somewhere else. Use a flat head screwdriver and a hammer, gently tap the rock under the zoas and break it off in small chunks.

You're in Waltham, if you come to my house in Norwood, I'd be happy to show you how I do it. I'm planning on fragging some stuff anyway.
 
don't worry about it, i just put the live rock into a super hyposalinity (adding 2 cups of IO salt into an IO bucket of the tank water) treatment. I definitly killed a lot of copepods and bristle worms, and don't know what else. The mantis came shooting out, really tiny for making all that noise. I think i may have killed the crab and corals.
 
Is the mantis still alive? I'll buy him from you....
 
I think he is, he's just sitting in a Pom juice bottle now with tank water. He's like 3/4 inch from smasher to tail. It actually looks like a tiny lobster. But if he makes it, i guess i can give it to you.
 
Please keep me posted. I can pick up one night this week. I have frags for trade if interested.
 
Anything that can survive with only NO lights? On a rock that got totally salty?
 
normal output lights, the cheapo aquarium lights that you can get with standard tank setups.
 
Ahh, I got ya. Well, not really... I will give you some cash if it's a mantis. Everything in my tank requires some light.
 
Anyone think a porcelin/anenome crabs can survive the super hypersalinity? or is it guarenteed that it'll die? The mushrooms already don't look too hot.
 
I wouldn't leave 'em in too long. I'm pretty sure it will kill them off.
 
it was like a 30 second to 1 minute dip
 
I think hypersalinity is a lot tougher on most organisms that hyposalinity. I'm not sure how much would survive that. As for normal output lights, you could probably get xenia to survive, I have a little bit that's stubbornly hanging on in a 2.5G quarantine that receives almost no maintenance other than tossing in some topoff water every now and then. It's living under a 13W PC desk lamp.
 
I checked this morning and everything seems to be doing alright, hopefully they stay that way. Also found out that i have a tiny clam or other mollusk, supermarket kind not the photosynthetic one.
 
im dont think the zoas and mushrooms will do too well with just the strip light that came with the aquarium.
Also-
as a prefix
Hyper = excessive, over, above
Hypo = below, under

Hypersalinity would be an excessively salty water which is what you discribed.
 
Anything that can survive with only NO lights? On a rock that got totally salty?

I had zoas, mushrooms, xenia, a leather and tulip anemones survive just fine in a triple tube NO fixture in a 40G breeder. All of them grew too....
 
im dont think the zoas and mushrooms will do too well with just the strip light that came with the aquarium.
Also-
as a prefix
Hyper = excessive, over, above
Hypo = below, under

Hypersalinity would be an excessively salty water which is what you discribed.

Yeah i had a typo initially, i fixed it in later posts.

Oh and i just have a single strip 40W bulb in a 90 gallon, bought it for way too much also.
 
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