| Author |
 Topic Search  Topic Options
|
ljbs 
Guest
Joined: November 01 2003
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 311
|
 Post Options
 Thanks(0)
 Quote  Reply
 Topic: Mushroom question
Posted: December 19 2003 at 9:33pm |
|
I have a very nice mushroom rock in my small 30 gal. reef tank.
They are purple sroms ranging in size from tiny new ones to larger
ones. The largest is on the top of the rock. Some days it
seemed to be four inches across. They all close up at night and a
couple of days ago the big one did not open again. It is just
sort of wrinkled up looking. Is it dying or what? All the
others are still just great and so are all the water peramitors.
It's just that one srom. Can they get to large and stretch
themselves to much?
I also have another problem in my large 150 gal. tank. Lots of
aptasia. I put 8 peppermint shrimp inlast Saturday hoping
they would get rid of it. Does it take them awhile or do they not
eat larger organisms. Maybe I need to be more agressive
with the aptasia.
Edited by ljbs
|
 |
ssilcox
Guest
Joined: November 17 2003
Location: Sandy
Status: Offline
Points: 3428
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 19 2003 at 9:45pm |
I have heard with aiptasia that occasionally the peppermint will not eat the larger ones. For those you can inject a lime solution. Garf has a great page on it.
http://www.garf.org/news7p1.html
-Shane
|
|
Adam Blundell
Presidency
Joined: June 24 2002
Location: Davis County
Status: Offline
Points: 18526
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 20 2003 at 8:30am |
Jake has a presentation he gave to the club on ridding aiptasia. He had lots of methods, but I must say that peppermint shrimp do wonders for me. I added two to my 30 gal a while back and honestly in one month they had every aiptasia (big and small) taken out. Funny thing is I wasn't really trying to get rid of my aiptasia it just happened.
Adam
|
|
Come to a meeting, they’re fun!
|
|
Marcus
Guest
Joined: August 28 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 1398
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 20 2003 at 8:54am |
I would go for a combination of injections of kalkwasser and peppermints. I bought a couple syringes from RiteAid and they work great. You should have seen the look on their faces when Ryan and I went into RiteAid at 10pm on a friday night to get syringes. With my tatoos and a little stereo-typing, they were not going to sell us anything to do with syringes. After trying to explain what I was going to do with them, "Well, I am going to shoot Calcium hydroxide into these little annoying aptasia anemones because they came from some live rock that is in my salt water fish tank," the situation still hadn't changed. Luckily one of the pharmasists that was in the back room overheard what I was talking about and confirmed it because he had a tank. Thank goodness for tatoos! 
|
|
ljbs
Guest
Joined: November 01 2003
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 311
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 21 2003 at 8:30pm |
|
thanks for the advice. I think I just have to give the
peppermints some time to work on the mess. I also read on another
site that you can inject them with lemon juice and they die.
By the Way, my shriveled up mushroom came back to life and looks great
again. Maybe it just didn't like it when I moved another rock out
of the tank and replaced it with a new one.
|
|
Marcus
Guest
Joined: August 28 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 1398
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 21 2003 at 9:16pm |
|
Is Lemon Juice acidic or basic? I wonder if its got a really high pH like kalkwasser...
|
|
jfinch
Guest
Joined: March 06 2003
Location: Pleasant Grove
Status: Offline
Points: 7067
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 21 2003 at 9:25pm |
|
Low pH. Citric and ascorbic acids.
|
|
|
|
Marcus
Guest
Joined: August 28 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 1398
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 21 2003 at 9:54pm |
|
Well, there goes that hypothesis. Thank goodness there's a chemist around these parts. What would the pH of lemon juice be? 3?
|
|
jfinch
Guest
Joined: March 06 2003
Location: Pleasant Grove
Status: Offline
Points: 7067
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 21 2003 at 10:05pm |
pH=3 is probably as good a number as anything. Citric acid has multiple protons to release making it somewhat similar to carbonic acid (alkalinity) in that it'll buffer to mixtures between pH=3 - 6. More then you wanted to know...
(stick your pH probe in a lemon and find out  )
|
|
|
|
Marcus
Guest
Joined: August 28 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 1398
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 21 2003 at 10:09pm |
"(stick your pH probe in a lemon and find out )," from Jfinch Jon, that's a little exotic for this forum isn't it? Where's that PARENTAL ADVISORY notice?
|
|
leviwin
Guest
Joined: September 17 2003
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 80
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 21 2003 at 11:32pm |
My Chemistry book saids that the pH of Lemon juice should be somewhere around 2. Just a little bit more than vingar which is around 3 and less than gastric juice which is 1.
|
|
Shane H
Presidency
Joined: March 09 2003
Location: Brigham City
Status: Offline
Points: 7921
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 22 2003 at 7:46am |
nice Levi - it has been keeping me up at night wondering what my gastric juice pH is ... 
|
|
Danny Lueck
Guest
Joined: February 20 2003
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 264
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 22 2003 at 9:01pm |
Hey Marcus is it ok to share needles???
|
|
|
|
Marcus
Guest
Joined: August 28 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 1398
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 22 2003 at 10:22pm |
Danny, Danny, Danny, I know that I had a troubled youth, but why would you think I would know the answer to that question? Is it because of my tatoos? 
|
|
jfinch
Guest
Joined: March 06 2003
Location: Pleasant Grove
Status: Offline
Points: 7067
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 23 2003 at 8:34am |
It appears this thread has morphed ...
Here's a list of potential low pH "natural" additives that might work on aptaisia:
pH
-------------
Lime juice 1.8 - 2.0
Lemon juice 2.2 - 2.4
Vinegar ; 2.4 - 3.4
Coke &n bsp; 2.0 - 4.0 <--- the soft drink, Marcus 
Wine &n bsp; 2.8 - 3.8
Looks like lime juice might work better then lemon?
|
|
|
|
Marcus
Guest
Joined: August 28 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 1398
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 23 2003 at 10:36am |
|
Jon, thanks for clairifying.
|
|
Sarnack
Guest
Joined: August 20 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 324
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 23 2003 at 10:54am |
That's all to weak - go with concentrated hydrocloric (HCL) or my favorite Nitric (HNO3) or if you really want to nuke them Sulfuric (H2SO4)... pH aside - if you get these on you: HCL just tingles HNO3 burns and turns your skin a nice yellow color H2SO4 burns like a _____!
|
|
Marcus
Guest
Joined: August 28 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 1398
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 23 2003 at 11:17am |
|
Sarnack, what would that do to your tank?
When are you going to come by and check out the tank?
|
|
Sarnack
Guest
Joined: August 20 2002
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 324
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 23 2003 at 12:45pm |
|
LOL, I have no idea - just a lame attempt at humor... In small enough amounts I doubt any of those would hurt anything. The safest of those is HCL and diluted it is sold as muriatic acid for cleaning bathrooms - great at removing hard water deposits. The other 2 are way to strong and dangerous to use. To put it in perspective sulfuric is such a strong acid if you take a beaker of it and drop water into it - the acid will disasociate the molucules of the water (miniture explosion if you will) this is why you always add acid to water not the other way around.
Since most people have too low of a pH it is better to kill aiptasia with a strong base like Kalkwasser (Sodium Hydroxide)
Just let me know when works for you, I can bring my digital camera and take some pics for you too if you'd like.
|
|
jfinch
Guest
Joined: March 06 2003
Location: Pleasant Grove
Status: Offline
Points: 7067
|
Post Options
Thanks(0)
Quote Reply
Posted: December 23 2003 at 2:12pm |
Although Sarnack jests, it is something I might be apt to try. Marcus, this is what would happen to your tank, imo (probably more then you wanted to know).
kalkwasser paste, sodium hydroxide (lye or NaOH) or potassium hydroxide (KOH) are all very basic and as such will cause a localized precipition of CaCO3 from the water. If you've ever done this you'll notice a white cloud rise from the spot of injection. The precipitate will tend to lower alkalinity and calcium a little. The OH from the mixture will add to alkalinity and the Ca or Na or K ion will be lost in the other Ca, Na or K ions floating around in your water.
Organic acids such as vinegar and citric acid will not cause a precipitation to occur and should not really effect Ca or alkalinity levels. Initally, the H+ ion will consume some alkalinity (and lower pH), but the remaining organic part of the molecule (acetate or citrate ions) will be consumed by bacteria and for CO3 which will add to alkalinity (and pH). If these acids actually kill aptasia, this would be the route to go imo.
Mineral acids such as hydrochloric (HCl), Nitric (HNO3) and sulfuric (H2SO4) will not cause a precipitate to occur but the released H+ ion will consume alkalinity and lower your tank pH. The other end of the molecule; Cl, NO3 or SO4 will just be lost in the other Cl, NO3 or SO4 molecules floating around in your water. I would never use nitric acid because you'd be essentually adding nitrate to your water, something most don't want. The chloride or sulfate wouldn't really matter too much.
|
|
|
|
